Shimmer and raised tattoos.
cclesue
Posts: 420
Below find Maddelirium's Shimmer. The image on the right was rendered in Poser and as you can see the tattoos are raised. The very thing I purchased this figure for. The problem as you can see by the render on the left done in studio and with Iray the tattoos fail to raise. The package comes with the neccessary maps to do the job in Poser but I guess I'm not smart enough to figure out what I need to do to get the desired result. Lordy I tried and the Iray render you see here was my last iteration with no joy. Suggestions?
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Comments
Displacement is handled differently in DS and Poser. I suspect that's why Maddelirium doesn't support Studio-- extra maps and mats. You could try putting the displacement maps into the top coat bump channel (if top coat is on) and giving it a higher value. Otherwise, possibly in the regular bump channel. Not having the character, I can't give you more specifics than that though.
Thanks for the tips @ChangelingChick. This is still rendering but I thought I'd post for @cclesue to try as well. Also fussing with the lighting to get some shadows also helps with the 3D effect of the tattoos
The problem as i see it and so far has proved true with my fiddling of things is that using the bump map does not give a true raising of the raised tattoo scheme. I see where Marcius has a character called Ynarah for Mika 7 that utilizes the raised tattoo idea so it can be done. the problem is fixing Shimmer to yield up her secrets.
Since I picked up a free Mika 7 I just might spring for the Ynarah figure if Marcius joins the 50% off (or better) crowd sometime during March Madness jubilie. Maybe then I can disect the image and figure out what is going on.
You can use displacement in iray, but you need to up the displacement subD in the shader to probably 3 for those tattoos (maybe 4). Bump gives the illusion of topography, displacement actually changes it. In iray though, you need the polys to support the displacement. Also, if the displacement maps are on a black base, you'll need to adjust that. I forget if just changing the gamma will fix it or not (from 0 to 1 or vice versa-- I forget). DS uses a mid-tone base (gray 128) for the 0 in displacement and bumps so you can go out or in with them where Poser starts at 0 on black and goes out from there so you can just come out.
Yes the displacement maps are on black base for this figure so adjusting the gamma will make a change or is it necessary to change the background to grey? I might look at Ynarah as well although the tattoo effect is really extreme and I really like the mild effect of the raised tattoo, but I'd like to see what @cclesue comes up with.
Change the minimum offset to 0.
Unfortunately, that doesn't work the way one would think. In DS (granted it's been a while since I've messed with it so it *could* have changed, but I haven't seen any changelog notes on it), the 0 point for displacement is halfway between the minimum and maximum offset. Generally, it's set to an equal amount negative and positive from 0, but in DS, there will always be in and out values. If min is -1 and max is 1, the 0 point for no displacement is 0. But if the min is 0 and the max is 1, the point at which no displacement occurs is .5 and anything lower than that will cut in.