Question about V4.2 models from Renderosity

spswaffordspswafford Posts: 179
edited December 1969 in New Users

I saw a couple of V4.2 models that look interesting, but are made for Poser. When I look in the description I saw this line, "This package has not been developed for Daz Studio despite working well in this application." The way I read that is it will work with DS, but made specifically for Poser (materials specific for Poser). Any body have any experience with models like that?

Here are the models I'm looking at if it helps answer my question.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/the-metropolitan-collection---lyon-and-paris-v4-2/93874/

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/the-metropolitan-collection---dublin-v4-2/90599/

Thanks
Stefan

Comments

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    The models are in Poser format, which DS can read, but any shaders made for Poser will not work inside DS.

    These items should still work inside DS, but you may need to tweak some of the materials to get the best possible look.

  • JaderailJaderail Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Yes the materials WILL need tweaking. That is if the are standard mat files. Poser Shaders will not load at all.

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited April 2013

    The materials aren't all that bad when imported into Daz Studio actually. The image below shows Danae's Dublin character rendered in Daz Studio with no tweaks made to materials. Everything was loaded from presets. One minor difference is I'm using Genesis rather than V4 in the below example with GenX used to transfer the morphs.

    They really are magnificent textures, so you could do worse than to check them out. If you want the promo results though, you'll need to add in SSS possibly by upgrading the surfaces to UberSurface or pwSurface.

    Dublin.png
    236 x 826 - 135K
    Post edited by Herald of Fire on
  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited December 1969

    Hi Herald, what are SSS shaders ? Ubersurface or PWSurface ? I have alot of SSS shader material in poser content, thanx.

    The materials aren't all that bad when imported into Daz Studio actually. The image below shows Danae's Dublin character rendered in Daz Studio with no tweaks made to materials. Everything was loaded from presets. One minor difference is I'm using Genesis rather than V4 in the below example with GenX used to transfer the morphs.

    They really are magnificent textures, so you could do worse than to check them out. If you want the promo results though, you'll need to add in SSS possibly by upgrading the surfaces to UberSurface or pwSurface.

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    awesomefb said:
    Hi Herald, what are SSS shaders ? Ubersurface or PWSurface ? I have alot of SSS shader material in poser content, thanx. ]

    Both UberSurface and pwSurface have subsurface scatter options, the latter of which also offers density controls on translucence. UberSurface comes included with Daz Studio, so it's the more accessible of the two, but they're both give great results for different things.
  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited April 2013

    You lost me, Lol !!! Are Ubersurface or PWSurface part of SSS shader ?? Guess, I'll have to experiment with shaders. Still learning materials/textures at turtle crawl speeds, Lol !! Thanx friend :-)


    awesomefb said:
    Hi Herald, what are SSS shaders ? Ubersurface or PWSurface ? I have alot of SSS shader material in poser content, thanx. ]

    Both UberSurface and pwSurface have subsurface scatter options, the latter of which also offers density controls on translucence. UberSurface comes included with Daz Studio, so it's the more accessible of the two, but they're both give great results for different things.
    Post edited by AJ2112 on
  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    More like SSS is part of Ubersurface.

    When you go to the Ubersurface page, there is a tutorial link to omnifreakers site, which will tell you a bit more.

  • JimmyC_2009JimmyC_2009 Posts: 8,891
    edited December 1969

    Here is an image of where to find Ubersurface in DS4.5, the second icon is the help page.

    If you go to the Surfaces pane, you will find a long list of parameters, and a lot of them are labelled SubSurface.

    Untitled-1.jpg
    654 x 492 - 169K
  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited April 2013

    awesomefb said:
    You lost me, Lol !!! Are Ubersurface or PWSurface part of SSS shader ?? Guess, I'll have to experiment with shaders. Still learning materials/textures at turtle crawl speeds, Lol !! Thanx friend :-)


    awesomefb said:
    Hi Herald, what are SSS shaders ? Ubersurface or PWSurface ? I have alot of SSS shader material in poser content, thanx. ]

    Both UberSurface and pwSurface have subsurface scatter options, the latter of which also offers density controls on translucence. UberSurface comes included with Daz Studio, so it's the more accessible of the two, but they're both give great results for different things.

    SSS stands for SubSurface Scattering. It's an element of a shader, not the shader itself. Both UberSurface and pwSurface support subsurface scattering. When a Poser material states it's a 'SSS' material, it just means that the shader includes this subsurface scattering to improve the appearance.

    Poser materials can't be directly used in Daz Studio since they use different render engines, so you'll need to convert the SSS settings to use UberSurface or pwSurface. There are other ways of using SSS, but those are the easier options. The upgraded versions of those shaders (UberSurface2 and pwSurface2 respectively) naturally share the SSS settings of their predecessors.

    Luxrender also supports SSS through Luxus, but it's a bit trickier to use. Makes Dublin look very nice indeed though.

    Dublin.png
    1000 x 1000 - 1M
    Post edited by Herald of Fire on
  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited April 2013

    Thanx for the 3D education Herald :-) I'll have to give info some time to absorb, Lol !!! Creating a referance manual with your answers.

    Poser materials can’t be directly used in Daz Studio since they use different render engines
    So basically both software renders differently. Now I wonder how Poser and Daz differ? Will check out SSS shader literature, I'm sure I'll have tons more questions.

    Post edited by AJ2112 on
  • spswaffordspswafford Posts: 179
    edited December 1969

    Thanks all.

    Herald, this was the final puzzle peice to help me understand what GenX does,
    "One minor difference is I’m using Genesis rather than V4 in the below example with GenX used to transfer the morphs."

    I thought it was for something else. I will have to pick up GenX at some point. I have several V4 models I would like to use with Genesis. Maybe Dublin too. ;)

  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Some the skins I have that were intended for Poser need a lot of adjustment in DS. These come with Simple and SSS materials. I don't think the SSS material will work very well in DS, but the so called Simple material works well with no adjustment.

    The attached pic is Paris from Lyon and Paris set with no adjustments to the skin.

    test03.jpg
    750 x 1000 - 456K
  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited December 1969

    I did a shader chart using Amber, top images no lighting, normal shader (left), SSS shader (right), bottom with lighting. Appears to me, lighting adjustments work well with SSS shader material, 3Delight render. Proper light set up really makes a difference. Here's chart I created.

    ShaderChart.jpg
    500 x 374 - 91K
  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited April 2013

    Here's an image I did last night with Amber, lighting makes a major difference in character model appearance. In this image, I used SSS shader materials, Daz 4.5,. Background credit: Sylwia77. Amber by Sabby.

    AmberMoonRender_.jpg
    650 x 488 - 260K
    Post edited by AJ2112 on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    awesomefb said:
    I did a shader chart using Amber, top images no lighting, normal shader (left), SSS shader (right), bottom with lighting. Appears to me, lighting adjustments work well with SSS shader material, 3Delight render. Proper light set up really makes a difference. Here's chart I created.

    Here's an image I did last night with Amber, lighting makes a major difference in character model appearance. In this image, I used SSS shader materials, Daz 4.5,.

    I'm not completely sure who this Amber is. Is it the Sabby-Amber available on Renderosity?

    Poser SSS materials will work in DS, they just don't work very well. DS only loads the most basic settings from the Poser SSS material files. The result is usually a skin which is too glossy, with too much specular and a bluish cast.

    If you compare your render with the Sabby-Amber promo images that were probably done in Poser with the SSS materials, your skin looks too shinny and too bluish for my taste. That doesn't mean it is wrong, it is just very different appearance than if you rendered in poser with the SSS materials.

    When I said SSS materials don't usually work very well in DS, this is what I meant. They do "work" in the sens you can get a render, just the render results are not at all like the promo images done in Poser.

    You are correct, that lighting makes a big difference in appearance. The Danae characters come with both 'Simple' material and 'SSS' material. The Simple material for those characters works pretty well in DS without any adjustments.

  • spswaffordspswafford Posts: 179
    edited December 1969

    I may be wrong, but it looks like the simple texture does better than the SSS. Except for the Dublin shot from Hearld, the SSS shots look kind of like Gen 3 models. I'm guessing that is either the lighting for these particular examples or that's just the fact that they are not specific to DS.

  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited December 1969

    I completely agree with you, I'm in learning stages (2nd week), trying to do best I can with software I have. In my advance stages of learning, I'll learn realism, etc..... Yes, Danae looks fascinatingly real, but I'm more into fantasy world creation. I just started learning SSS shade yesterday, reason I created chart to see the differences. There are alway's going to be software that can achieve different results, all that matters is, person is happy with results. 3D world is all about fun/learning. Happy rendering friend :-)


    mark said:
    awesomefb said:
    I did a shader chart using Amber, top images no lighting, normal shader (left), SSS shader (right), bottom with lighting. Appears to me, lighting adjustments work well with SSS shader material, 3Delight render. Proper light set up really makes a difference. Here's chart I created.

    Here's an image I did last night with Amber, lighting makes a major difference in character model appearance. In this image, I used SSS shader materials, Daz 4.5,.

    I'm not completely sure who this Amber is. Is it the Sabby-Amber available on Renderosity?

    Poser SSS materials will work in DS, they just don't work very well. DS only loads the most basic settings from the Poser SSS material files. The result is usually a skin which is too glossy, with too much specular and a bluish cast.

    If you compare your render with the Sabby-Amber promo images that were probably done in Poser with the SSS materials, your skin looks too shinny and too bluish for my taste. That doesn't mean it is wrong, it is just very different appearance than if you rendered in poser with the SSS materials.

    When I said SSS materials don't usually work very well in DS, this is what I meant. They do "work" in the sens you can get a render, just the render results are not at all like the promo images done in Poser.

    You are correct, that lighting makes a big difference in appearance. The Danae characters come with both 'Simple' material and 'SSS' material. The Simple material for those characters works pretty well in DS without any adjustments.

  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited December 1969

    From my newbie experience, simple materials works well for fast renders. SSS shades can work in Daz too, with lightning adjustment to taste. Patience is the key, Lol !! Many promo images look amazing, but I'm into fantasty art, so realism is not of importance at the moment. Amber by Sabby promo was rendered using Poser 2012, SSS, IDL, and Gamma Correction with included light set. Once I learn Daz, I'll venture off into Poser. Herald has some amazing renders at DeviantArt. Happy rendering :-)

    I may be wrong, but it looks like the simple texture does better than the SSS. Except for the Dublin shot from Hearld, the SSS shots look kind of like Gen 3 models. I'm guessing that is either the lighting for these particular examples or that's just the fact that they are not specific to DS.
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited April 2013

    So where do you load these files? I'm so used to DAZ that if I checkout from Rend. what do I do? Put it in the my library/people? (I don t use DIM, and am not a tech type)

    Post edited by Novica on
  • mark128mark128 Posts: 1,029
    edited December 1969

    Novica said:
    So where do you load these files? I'm so used to DAZ that if I checkout from Rend. what do I do? Put it in the my library/people? (I don t use DIM, and am not a tech type)

    The download is a zip file that contains a runtime directory that contains everything.

    You could just paste this runtime into the runtime directory in Studio/My Library, but I like to keep separate runtimes for each external vendor. It is much easier to remove a 3rd party product if you decide you don't want it when it is in a separate directory. I have a directory named "Studio/3rdParty". In there I have a directory for each vendor. This directory name will become the library name in DAZ content library. I created a directory 'Studio/3rdParty//Danae' and pasted the runtime folder from the zip in that directory.

    If you create a new directory for the 'runtime', you need to add that poser format library to your content libraries.Select the content tab. on the pull down menu in the upper right corner, select "Content Directory Manager ...". In the dialog box that comes up, select "Poser Formats". Then select the "Directory -> Add..." menu on the left side of the dialog box. Navigate to the directory you put the 'runtime' in and click ok. If you select 'Poser Formats" in the Content Library pane, your new library will appear under "My Library" and "My DAZ Library". In my case it is called "danae". You can have many Poser Format Libraries.

    If you are on a Windows PC, you do not need to unzip the zip file. Windows will treat the Zip file like a directory. You can just click into the zip and copy the 'runtime' directory and paste it where you want it. If you want to merge the runtime into another, you can just paste onto an existing runtime directory. Windows will ask if you want to merge the folders. Say yes, and windows will merge the new runtime into the existing one.

    If you are on a mac, I'm not sure how you merge the runtimes.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,449
    edited December 1969

    mark said:

    If you are on a mac, I'm not sure how you merge the runtimes.

    Merge is possible with Mountain Lion (holding down the Alt key while dragging and dropping gives you the option) but I've found it a bit dangerous so I usually copy the sub folders manually into the runtime structure. A bit of a pain but this is one of the things Windows does better than Mac though, for most things, I've found Mac much better than Windows since I migrated a couple of months ago.

    As for Danae characters, I fiddled with the SSS spec/gloss and was able to get nice spot renders in DAZ Studio. These skins are really beautiful - as is Oxygen by Syyd/Vincebagna and the latter does have a DAZ studio version. One thing to note for Reality users: Danae Dublin has an ACSEL share in the database.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited December 1969

    Thank you Mark! I posted a link to your post in my Art Studio (and credited you.) Will give this a try soon.

  • AJ2112AJ2112 Posts: 1,416
    edited April 2013

    Hello friend, all content I've purchased from Render has content install instruction, just unzip read documentation or ReadMe file. Most have step by step instructions for install, how to locate content or specific notes pertaining to content.

    Click on the ReadMe file within product page, prior to purchase, insure content will work with software/models, etc... Also can ask questions prior to purchase. ReadMe file states system requirements, install instructions, how to contact vendor etc..... Vendors I've contact, respond within a few hours.


    Novica said:
    So where do you load these files? I'm so used to DAZ that if I checkout from Rend. what do I do? Put it in the my library/people? (I don t use DIM, and am not a tech type)
    Post edited by AJ2112 on
  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited April 2013

    What about a product for Poser that says "Materials will need adjustment in DazStudio." I need clarification on the use of the words "materials" and "surfaces." Are they talking about just using the Surfaces tab and changing that?

    EDIT- the ReadMe link had gone to the bottom of my screen, found it!
    This package was tested in Poser 7 and PoserPro 2012. Not tested in DazStudio.
    Poses are usually working in DazStudio. Prop materials may need adjustment (Bump, Displacement,Specular).

    Post edited by Novica on
  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    Novica said:
    What about a product for Poser that says "Materials will need adjustment in DazStudio." I need clarification on the use of the words "materials" and "surfaces." Are they talking about just using the Surfaces tab and changing that?

    EDIT- the ReadMe link had gone to the bottom of my screen, found it!
    This package was tested in Poser 7 and PoserPro 2012. Not tested in DazStudio.
    Poses are usually working in DazStudio. Prop materials may need adjustment (Bump, Displacement,Specular).


    To help clarify. A surface is a part of the object which can have a material applied to it. The material itself is a shader which dictates how that surface will appear. I hope that clears things up.

    The surfaces tab will show you a list of all the surfaces which an object might have. Clicking on any surface will show you the material which has been applied to the surface. For many this may show up as 'Daz Studio Default'. but others include pwSurface, or omHumanShader and so on. Each material may have different settings in them.

    When you import a Poser material, it uses the 'Daz Studio Default' material and not all of the settings may be transferred over. Daz does it's best to convert most of it manually, so things like diffuse and bump maps are generally preserved. Special shaders however will require manual tweaks to look right, and others still might not be easily reproduced such as procedural shaders.

    If you need help converting any materials though, feel free to post your requirements. I'm sure either myself or someone will be able to help you get the best look for any given scene, or at least point you in the right direction.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited December 1969

    HOF- sending you a PM to look at a product if you don't mind. It's 50% off but not sure if this is going to take a lot of work with that statement they included.
    Cathie

  • Herald of FireHerald of Fire Posts: 3,504
    edited December 1969

    The reflections look like they might need tweaking along with the water in the fountain. Other than that I'd imagine most of the materials would transfer without too many hiccups.

  • NovicaNovica Posts: 23,859
    edited December 1969

    Thanks, will give it a go. (To everyone else, not trying to be rude by PM'ing but this isn't a DAZ product and I felt it would be tacky to promote here. Not trying to be mysterious.)

    Cathie
    (signatures are messed up- so have to do it manually)
    my Art Studio: best info from threads/tips/tutorials
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/19756/

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