Is N.G.S. Anagenessis 2 the best skin shader you've found no reason to use the other ones?
iSeeThis
Posts: 559
in The Commons
I'm speechless after using it for the first day. I can't bear to see other results from any other skin shader. But may be I'm not good enough or don't see enough. Any idea? Do you have any reason, after using Anagenessis 2, to use any other skin shader? Just curious.
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I actually don't much care for the product. I've never seen what the fuss is about, although I understand people like it. My favorite shader is V3d's http://www.daz3d.com/iray-smart-converter-and-advanced-skin-managers-for-genesis-3
I've gotten some great results using NGS2 and some that required an awful lot of manual tweaking. I think it's a good product, but I also think it's got a ways to go to truly be a 1-click solution if it could ever achieve that. I'm not bashing the product. Even the PA admits it needs some tweaking depending on the textures. I also use the V3D product and like Serene Night, I really like the results I get from it. Getting great looking skin (and I've got a long way to go to achieve consistently great looking skin with any/all figures) involves more than just the skin shader. It requires proper lighting AND finessing the shader, along with great texture, bump, spec, etc. maps. The top PAs make it seem easy, and it can be a bit discouraging seeing the promo renders and thinking you'll get the same result without effort, but that's the nature of where this art is. Personally, I wish skin was easier, but there are some artists who understandably take great pride in achieving gorgeous results...and most of them aren't sharing their secrets. To be fair, I suspect they still tweak settings for each and every render (and probably enjoy doing so). For me, I'd rather spend that time on composition and storytelling. ;-p
I think one of the biggest issues with skin is the different perceptions you get from different people. One might say it looks ultra realistic, whilst the next one looking at the same render says it looks like wax. I remember one poster commenting that every skin on every render he had seen out of DS or Poser looks like wax, so I am not sure what shader could make them happy. Sometimes people just see what they want to see.
Yes - for me I love the results I'm getting, but as Havos explained different people are looking for different effects.
I delete the Top Coat map, adjust the Top Coat Weight to 2.0 and set to Topcoat Roughness to 0.6 - 0.8 according to how much the skin needs highlighting and how sharp the highlights need to be. Once you drop below 0.6 for Topcoat Roughness it starts looking more like highlights from water rather than skin and skin oil.
Sometimes it looks great, sometimes not so great depending on the textures IMVHO. I switch between it and Iray Advanced Skin Managers :)
Laurie
...agreed looks like a more comprehensive tool. Put it on the wishlist for now as a bit out of my meagre budget.
I don't think there could eve be a perfect one click solution especially for skin, However the Smart Converter seems to be a good step in the right direction compared to dealing with the parameters by hand.
Also waiting for Skin Builder Pro3.
I love it, and am amazed at how much better my renders look with it. It really brings to life the older characters when bringing them into Iray. So does V3D's product. They are both excellent.
I don't use any skin shader product. I like tinkering with it by myself and I am quite happy with my results. Now I'm trying to improve the eyes.
Is there a guide/tutorial for people who are prepared to tinker and people who can't afford $50 for a shader?
I generally like to tinker, but I've appreciated the 'skin solutions' as guideposts on things to try.
Not really; myself I've been reading the old fiddling with skin thread while it lasted and gathered most of my settings from there. The Top Coat settings from Mec4d, the absortion and scattering settings from Arnold C, the use of overlay weight from Bestman Pi and my own experimentation and research on the official documentation.
Maybe it'll go on sale again soon? I'd pay $30 to keep my sanity, because I would be pulling out my hair otherwise.
$30 is a fair price for keeping my hair and sanity intact!
Iray Smart Converter is pretty fantastic, and cheaper. Though each version it only works on one generation. One cool thing about NGS is that it works on basically all generations, so they balance out. I think the price is fair though I'd still get it on sale, which I did when it launched. As others said, both are fine products in their own right. I might favor ISC a bit more as it is very user friendly and pretty consistent. Both can do absolutely amazing things with old pre-iray figures. Your jaw will drop the first time you use one on an old V4/M4 skin.
And of course you can still tweak stuff after applying either shader. They are great starting off points, but many times I think ISC is pretty on target first try.
BTW, for ISC, if you convert a V4/M4 skin to Genesis 2, then the Genesis 2 version of ISC will be what you need to use. If you have converted all your V4/M4 skins to G2, then you do not need the ISC for Generation 4 product. You only need ISC for Genesis 2.
+1. Because if tweaking is required, V3D's has it neatly organized in sections to do so. It's actually quite fun.
For me, N.G.S. Anagenessis 2 has made it far simpler to get good-to-stunning results with skins from vendors other than Daz Core, Raiya, Virtual World, and Saiya (which look better without it to me). The V3D converters give me workable results, (and I use them for non-G3 skins from the named vendors) but they require a lot more tweaking, and I still get lackluster skin most of the time. Another thing, N.G.S. really helps lighter skins look more special, but it darkens darker skins quite a bit, and when I change the Scatter & Transmit to Scatter Only I lose a lot of the N.G.S. effect that I'm seeking.
After buying N.G.S. I returned my Genesis 2 version of Skin Converter and Manager; (the other versions were past thirty days).
I find both of them useful as well. I personally believe that there probably won't ever be just one solution to skin, there are too many variables, not just the skin itself but everything else, the lights, etc.
...I finally bailed from the thread when it started getting way too technical for my tastes. Most of what was being discussed began to go completely over my head, and I could see myself spending more time messing with settings than actually getting any scenes completed and rendered.
...to have it for all three Genesis iterations is an 80$ investment. More than a bit beyond my means as I am on a fixed income.
I half-heartedly tried to suggest to the techies that the detailed tech talk was turning off a bunch of people, they bristled at the idea, so I just stopped reading it. yeah.
I really like this too, although never used it alot; I tweak my own settings.
It's great for conversion though.
I've been tempted by it, but am in some respects am loath to look for a one-click solution. That means it just renders someone elses vision and not my own - although my own do turn into nightmares more often than I'd like. :)
@nicstt N.G.S. Anagenessis 2 isn't a one click solution. I spend more time tweaking than I ever did before when I use it.... And I loathe to tweak skin settings, so for me, it was more work than it was worth.
...the other part was when I posted render experiments, I received zero comments on them which really didn't help me much in knowing what I was doing right or wrong. Since then I've pretty much not been creating many new scenes until I can afford to pick up several utilities.
I like creating scenes with characters in them, if all I wanted to do was just pretty sceneryor "still lifes", I'd go to Carrara, Bryce, or Vue Infinite PLE.
..hear hear. I's rather create finished scenes, not spend hours and hours making minute channel adjustments and test rendering. Some adjustment is unavoidable, and actually a good thing, but the stuff they were discussing ion the "Fiddling" Thread seemed to be more "nit picky" than productive.
Is it possible to use this on say an M4 character without converting the skin to genesis?
You are talking about dropping a boatload of cash on hardware. I consider this a tool just as important as any hardware you buy. A new rig is not going to help you with your Iray configuration (though being able to practice more on a faster machine does help.) Buy these on sale and you'll thank yourself later, because they will save you a massive amount of time trying to "fiddle with Iray skin settings." I'd say the Genesis 3 one isn't all that necessary since G3 is already well optimized for Iray to start with. So that drops $30 off right there. Wait for a sale, or a "related PA sale" if they release a new product and get the other 2 for 40% off. Boom, affordable Iray goodness for less than $30. Trust me.
I think so; just convert a figure, save one surface as a shader preset, then apply it to a M4 figure and swap texture maps.
Right now with the purchase of any new release the bundle for Generation 4 and Genesis is on sale for only $7 and the one for Genesis 2 is on sale for $9
There is a manual shader include where you could sellect the appropriate surfaces, apply them one by one. sellect all, apply the manual shader; I probably could apply them to a m4 or v4 in two minutes tops. This also works with geografts, animals etc...
...well the system I mentioned about on various threads is pretty much a "dream build" which would require some form of small windfall. Yes being able to run tests and render faster than I am able to now would be a huge improvement. When I have to wait an hour or two each time just to see if the adjustments I made work, it becomes somewhat discouraging. Add HD textures and morphs in to the mix and it becomes "molasses city" on my current workstation (which is why I turn all default HD parameters off).
It would be nice to at least have a GPU capable which would speed up teh "proofing process" (like a 1060) , but even that is a fairly large investment at this time (and not likely to be discounted). My more realistic goal is to try and scrape up the funds to get the 24 GB memory kit and W7 pro OEM I need to upgrade my current system (a 3.33 GHz 6 core Xeon X5680 would also be nice step up from the 2.8 GHz i7 930 I currently have). That is about a 250$ investment right there (sans the Xeon CPU).
Yeah the converter for G3 may not be that important to a point, however when I look to add other details not available in a base skin if goes back to the tedious overly technical processes I read about in the "fiddling with skin shaders thread". Actually I am waiting on Skin Builder Pro 3 which will allow me to generate different skins without the need for buying a bunch of character packs. I have been hanging onto the remainder of a GC I have just for its release.
(gahh hate being dyslexic especially when the spell check doesn't catch typos under words with 4 characters - this must be the 6th edit so far)
Ah, I haven't noticed because this Thanksgiving sale hasn't really grabbed me, and since I own all the Smart Converters, they don't show up for me either. That is a good price, but only 5 or 6 items to choose from for the special discount is very limiting. Still, $16 for 2 Iray Smart Converter products is a almost a steal for what they do if there is a qualifying item you want. Maybe tomorrow will have a good selection. And with this sale, the 3rd would be $9 as well, that's $25 for ALL the Iray Smart Converters if bought with a qualifying item, a savings of $55. WOW.
And yeah, kyoto, I have my own dream machine dreams as well. I've been thinking lately how I don't really need two kidneys.