3Delight Surface and Lighting Thread

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Comments

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    edited December 1969

    I think you could do to lower the shading scale a bit. Generally I put it around 1-1.5. Easiest way to test is stick a distant light behind your character set its power to 200%, shadows to raytrace and render. The chest should be mostly dark and the ears super transparent, if not then you should lower the shading scale. Observe below, one oft hose poor Genesis' seems to be lacking in a skeleton and organs!

    The character certainly looks pale but not too washed out, I think I probably have less color and I'm certainly real. If you are worried about the texture losing too much detail, have you plugged the diffuse textures as the subsurface image? I generally do that plus a little pink for my subsurface color, at the very least it helps dark eyebrows stay dark.

    shading_scale1.png
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    shading_scale_2.png
    500 x 750 - 159K
  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited August 2013

    Thanks for the input. Glad to see this thread is still alive.

    Kamion99 said:
    I think you could do to lower the shading scale a bit. Generally I put it around 1-1.5

    I have SSS scale at around 0.75, so quite a bit lower. I don't see that much of difference in SSS shading rate between 1 to 4.


    The character certainly looks pale but not too washed out, I think I probably have less color and I'm certainly real. If you are worried about the texture losing too much detail, have you plugged the diffuse textures as the subsurface image? I generally do that plus a little pink for my subsurface color, at the very least it helps dark eyebrows stay dark.

    That's probably to me overdriving the gamma/gain too much. After some tinkering, I've tone it down so it's just a tad darker and the color of the diffuse textures are generally 'retained).

    I'm using the hemoglobin map on the subsurface color slot and try to avoid plugging the diffuse map there. The SSS effect on eyebrows (and other parts) are controlled with a separate SSS strength map which I plugged into the SSS strength slot.

    Post edited by wowie on
  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited December 1969

    Are there any merchant resource skin shaders for the new aoa sss that is built into ds?

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969

    Are there any merchant resource skin shaders for the new aoa sss that is built into ds?

    Haven't seen one here and I doubt there's one on other marketplaces. But shouldn't you be able to use the various available SSS maps? I do find it easier to make your SSS strength maps. Just take the diffuse/color texture, make it grayscale and fiddle around with the brightness/contrast and levels until the areas you don't want heavy (or any) SSS is black and everything else white.

    Albedo/hemoglobin maps do need more manual manipulation though.

  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited December 1969

    wowie said:
    Are there any merchant resource skin shaders for the new aoa sss that is built into ds?

    Haven't seen one here and I doubt there's one on other marketplaces. But shouldn't you be able to use the various available SSS maps? I do find it easier to make your SSS strength maps. Just take the diffuse/color texture, make it grayscale and fiddle around with the brightness/contrast and levels until the areas you don't want heavy (or any) SSS is black and everything else white.

    Albedo/hemoglobin maps do need more manual manipulation though.
    I mean for the slider/dial-spin stuff. It feels like I got a piano that is not in tune and I cant find someone to tune it for me.

  • wowiewowie Posts: 2,029
    edited December 1969


    I mean for the slider/dial-spin stuff. It feels like I got a piano that is not in tune and I cant find someone to tune it for me.

    These may be what you mean? Basically, some presets for the shader.
    http://www.daz3d.com/shaders-materials/subsurface-toolbox
    http://www.daz3d.com/shaders-materials/subsurface-goop-shaders
    http://www.daz3d.com/shaders-materials/subsurface-gummy-plastic-shaders

  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited December 1969

    kind of, I am afraid to look at those though because they are not merchant resources, infringement fear

  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933
    edited September 2013


    I mean for the slider/dial-spin stuff. It feels like I got a piano that is not in tune and I cant find someone to tune it for me.

    I've posted some settings I came up with for AoA's SSS earlier in this thread, feel free to do with them whatever you want. If anything's not clear, ask away, either here or through PMs. This shader is fairly capricious, BTW, as far as its interaction with lights goes (this is why all those little lightsets on my sharecg); a bit later I will be testing if it's due to AoA's particular implementation or if it's inherited from the actual SSS brick in Shader Mixer.

    What I mean is that it generally works great with simpler ”basic” lighting, like distant or spot lights, UE2 with omnifreaker's default IBL maps etc. But it reacts much stronger to changing that one IBL map than my go-to US2.

    I hope to have the first part of my long-overdue ”SSS treatise” online in a few weeks (real life keeps getting in the way, and US2's SSS controls apparently have no actual documentation that I could find... so I'm still doing tests to see exactly what the effects of the parameters are). And then I will get down to business regarding the SSS brick thing; this will be part II.


    __________________

    wowie said:

    The SSS effect on eyebrows (and other parts) are controlled with a separate SSS strength map which I plugged into the SSS strength slot.

    The lady looks great, Wowie! As I said, a delicate flower. Now I've read you're using higher scales, it makes sense how you achieved that.
    The gentleman a few posts above is probably a bit too shiny, but I guess it's because you're using HSS which does not do Fresnel attenuation of specular... IMO it's pretty much indispensable unless you're willing to ”cheat” with a lower spec overall and a set of spec-only lights in strategic places =) A reflection map set to Fresnel also helps, but it gives a different look.

    But. I would love to dare you. Try getting real black eyebrows or black ”goth” makeup with a SSS strength map on a single-level shader, like the HSS you're using. Make it as black as on the diffuse map. I failed at that. Can you? Please?


    __________________


    That's a bit more complicated as just specifying one scatter color for the overall skin and wanting to get something realistic
    ...
    The most accurate way would be to use Luxrender or some other unbiased engine...So cheating is the best thing to do.

    Hi Takeo!
    I quit LuxRender for good, it's too much like photography. It's for someone else (for those who can take a good photo, it´s an awesome tool). So yeah, ”cheating” is what I prefer – if anything, it's much, much more flexible than anything. But they way I prefer to do it, it's more like ”physically-based cheating” for lack of a better word. When it comes to lighting, I try to pretend I'm going for ”realism” - all lights (including specular-only ones, even though their very existence is a ”cheat”) casting shadows, environment lights using maps, etc. But. When it comes to surfaces, I want them to have ”tangible” properties. More like a Plato-like ”idea” than its ”shadow” in the ”real world” =) So I tend to exaggerrate those surface qualities that I find distinctive. Am I making any sense? It's one of those aspects that is incredibly hard for me to put into words, since it bypasses conscious evaluation. It's ”seeing and reproducing”. But what exactly _my_ eye sees might well be different from anyone else's!

    US2 should be better than US

    It is. It's just that the actual docs is fairly sparse. I'm trying to write a concise guide to meaningful fiddling with the SSS parameters of it, but I fear that even if it had the best docs in the world, it would still be an area where only experience can help achieve desired effects without that endless tweak-rerender-tweak cycle. There are several handy presets provided by default which are a good starting point for many of the materials imaginable, though.

    Finally as for inpiring picture I don't know. I made so many test renders (just looked at one folder : 1183 files 789 Mo) Do you like rabbits ? (PS there is a point light behind the green rabbit that is why it glows)

    These are awesome rabbits =) And thanks for the links to the classic test models! I should be using them for Part II of my ”treatise” =)


    As for procedural skin shader I'm not sure it is a good idea because it will be a bit monotonous. Using a map is still the best way to break it.

    You see, it kinda depends. For closeups and ”photorealism”, then you're absolutely right, you just cannot replace a photo texture. But for what I do... which does not really have closeups that often, and which tends to be, I don't know... ”hyper”-real, as I tried to describe above... I think it should be okay. Especially for toons.
    Take a look: it's a morphed version of Sixus1's HER, and it uses procedurally generated noise maps. These are not procedural shaders, it's US2 with two maps plugged into the bump channel (no other maps): one for lips and another one for the rest of the skin surfaces. Random noise maps generated in Paint.NET.
    So I think that for my purposes, a procedural shader should be great. It should have more flexibility than pre-generated noise maps.

    Tech specs:

    UberSurface2

    only Layer1 used, only parameters of active channels listed (others are off)

    Diffuse:
    white, 5% strength

    Bump:
    Noise map generated in Paint.NET
    min -0.04, max 0.02

    Fresnel:
    90% strength, falloff 2

    Specular:
    (67, 118, 146), 175% strength, glossiness 10%

    SSS:
    "Skin2" preset, 100% strength, scale 0.1, shading rate 2

    her_easy_with_morph.png
    608 x 800 - 413K
    Post edited by Mustakettu85 on
  • Mustakettu85Mustakettu85 Posts: 2,933
    edited December 1969

    Kamion99 said:

    I do have a question for anyone who can help. Is there any way to control the order things show up in the shader panel? Also some categories refuse to be hidden, they just go grey, is there any way to fix this?

    The shader looks ultra cool!
    As for the shader panel, you mean the actual interface of the finished shader? Try clicking on the "Properties" tab in the ShaderMixer window, the one next to "brickyard". There you can see the parts of the user interface. Each of them has that little gear that opens up a dropdown menu that has "Parameter settings". Then you can edit that part which says "Path", it should move things around. At least, a similar way used to work for that in DS3 =)

    As for things that refuse to be hidden... if they aren't supposed to be user-changeable, I remember reading that you could plug a "value" utility brick into their inputs.
    Hope that helps!

  • Jim_1831252Jim_1831252 Posts: 728
    edited December 1969

    Hey guys. Hey Mustakettu85, didn't realise you were a regular over here.

    This is a great thread. My current project is trying to get some good materials for Dawn. The ones she comes with are pretty... not good. Might have something to share on that front soon. I've also been doing a lot of crazy Bouce GI stuff with UberEnv. That really chews up those CPU cycles, especially if you use a touch of reflection and up the trace distances to simulate more light bounces.

    http://fav.me/d68mkk2 http://fav.me/d68z32u

    Can't say I fully understood the trace distance setting when I first started out, but I think I get it now.

  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited December 1969

    Mustakettu85 good to hear from you I'm sorry I have not got around to packing up and uploading your pw edit, I don't mind if you do it it, I thought I would have done it sooner.

    Thanks also for posting your aoa sss settings, I saved them and will try to set them up this weekend and do some test.

    thanks again

  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited September 2013

    @wowie : your last render seems better. Got to see her with a complete render with different lightnings and in ootdoor as well as indoor environement. With nothing around, it's not enough to jugde but it's a good start

    @Type 0 Negative : I rarely use the same preset twice without tweaking it. In fact you should tweak the shader to your liking depending on the color of the skin and above all, the shader to use and the features used depend on the lightning. The problem is that depending on the map color, the way the texture artist worked, you don't have the preset working the same way

    @JimZombie : I don't find Dawn's map so bad. I just found the SSS settings strange : the diffuse map is plugged in the SSS and in another one too (don't remember which) . But you still can get good render if lighted correctly. Just tweak

    @Mustakettu85 : Glad to see you there. You're quite the active one when you come :)
    I don't play that much with Lux. Too slow and I prefer Blender's Cycle Engine. The interactive render and the node system is pretty comfortable to work with. I also play a lot with 3delight shaders. Tor the tweak/render/tweak/render cycle, it's pretty much a must do. There is no other way with non physically plausible shaders. If they were plausible, then you could use real world values that would ease the process, but still you have to have some knowledge or at least a material property database somewhere to rely on.

    There you've done a pretty skin and for not too realistic render it's OK. But if you look for realism, then I think it's a no go unless you programmatically break the uniformity
    I've made some "almost" skin procedural shaders too. I say almost because I still use the diffuse map but there is not much detail left. Have to do some cropping before posting to conform to forum rule (yeah I don't really bother putting some cloth on the characters for skin test)

    Post edited by Takeo.Kensei on
  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited December 1969

    I was experimenting with HSS and I don't see Fresnel doing anything.
    I made sure Fresnel Active is turned on, I changes the Strength, Falloff and Sharpness values several different ways and did renders and never seen any visible differences.

    What am I missing?

  • Jim_1831252Jim_1831252 Posts: 728
    edited December 1969

    Have you tried comparing the reflection from multiple angles to see if the resnel is actually doing something?

  • Jim_1831252Jim_1831252 Posts: 728
    edited October 2013

    I've just stumbled upon something that might prove to be very useful. To be honest I haven't tested it a great deal yet, but combining uberenvironment bounce with point based occlusion is doing something very interesting. This scene uses a single mesh light (and the other already mentioned tools). Figure and textures have no nipples or genitals so I'm guessing it is safe to post.

    Image removed, Please see this thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/3279_97/

    Edit: Link to image. Site has filters and image is flagged as having mature content http://jim-zombie.deviantart.com/#/art/Newborn-version2-1-405474178?hf=1

    Here's a clay (grey rendering no textures) for in case you can't or don't want to see the above http://jim-zombie.deviantart.com/art/Better-Stronger-Faster-study-of-ambient-occlusion-405248528

    Post edited by Jim_1831252 on
  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited December 1969

    I was experimenting with HSS and I don't see Fresnel doing anything.
    I made sure Fresnel Active is turned on, I changes the Strength, Falloff and Sharpness values several different ways and did renders and never seen any visible differences.

    What am I missing?

    Don't know for HSS but it works with ubersurface when reflection is active

  • Jim_1831252Jim_1831252 Posts: 728
    edited December 1969

    There really isn't any need to use HSS. UberSurface was designed as the replacement, so if it doesn't work there then there is absolutely no harm in upgrading, though it probably means redoing the shader settings from scratch.

  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited December 1969

    jimzombie said:
    There really isn't any need to use HSS. UberSurface was designed as the replacement, so if it doesn't work there then there is absolutely no harm in upgrading, though it probably means redoing the shader settings from scratch.

    Not really. I've just released a Ubersurface upgrade preset as freebie. Just apply it over the HSS then play with fresnel

    see http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/30022/

  • Jim_1831252Jim_1831252 Posts: 728
    edited December 1969

    Hey, that's a great little freebie Takeo. Now the question is does the "upgrade" for US2 work when moving from HSS, or is it only for US1? I assume it does, but I don't think I've had need to test it yet. I usually redo skin setting from scratch.

  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited October 2013

    The US2 already has an upgrade option and it should work too. The freebie is only for US1. I was fed up of copy/paste my settings each time. And Gedd in another thread told me about that upgrade option in US2.

    Post edited by Takeo.Kensei on
  • Jim_1831252Jim_1831252 Posts: 728
    edited December 1969

    Oh, yeah I get that your script is for US1, but I was wondering if the default one for US2 works with HSS. I know it works with US1.

  • RiffulRifful Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I was never really that happy with the skin I was getting with HSS, and even SSS in DS was lackluster compared to Poser. You see all these great character skins with Poser previews, while the DS previews of the same product looked dull and plastic, and this really bothered me. Most of the time, the character materials in DS didn't even bother to use SSS in DS, and when they did the results were OK but not great.

    Then V6 came out with a much improved SSS skin. Gia's skin was even better, and with Girl 6, I can see the DS materials closing in on that soft, almost too real, skin quality that Poser SSS materials get.

    Maybe it's not your cup-o-tea. Everyone has different expectations of what looks 'real'. Photography itself isn't actually real, and DS can look downright photographic with the right lighting and render settings. I was looking for that soft, touchable look, that I'm sure you've seen.

    I noticed that with Girl-6 they actually scaled the diffuse back to 50% and upped the SSS to 75% while putting the Diffuse texture into the SSS color, so that the make-up isn't completely faded. It still does fade some, so the burden of the detail sharpness of the skin, I think rests on the Specular map. (and probably the Normal and Bump maps, although adapting these are a lot harder) and I think you need both specular 1 (the sharp highlights) and specular 2 (the hazy sheen) to get it right. And yes, the lighting in a scene is a critical factor.

    The AoA shader works well to adapt older textures, although because of the lack of custom bump and normal maps, the texture isn't as good as the newer DAZ base textures (like Gia or Girl-6). I've been ctrl-clicking the AoA-SSS onto the older skin (to retain the maps), and setting the surface closer to Girl-6, with pretty decent results. Girl-6 is meant to be more of a 'toon' type figure So you may not want to go to that extreme, but I was using it as a base and working back towards a more realistic setting which is largely controlled by the Diffuse.

    Around 60-80% diffuse seems to retain enough of the make-up texture as long as the diffuse texture is loaded into the SSS color (and a peach skin color), SSS Strength is good from 40-75%. I start with the SSS base setting of Skin A or Skin B. It's an easy way to get a good color setting for the light scattering.

    The specular channel really makes or breaks it, though. Some skins already have the map loaded into Specular 1 Strength, the color can be anything form blue-gray to white. Specular 2 (the skin sheen) gives me good results without a map, and with a white or light peach color. As far as lighting goes, some sort of specular light or a dark light without shadow can give the skin a little pop.

    ----
    Here's a render using 2 lights ( a spotlight and a softbox) with a non-SSS skin that I added the AoA-SSS shader to. The skin was originally pretty pale, but I darkened it with a dark red-brown color (and the diffuse texture) in the SSS color channel to get a more ethnic look. The base SSS settings were Skin A.

    It doesn't show the make-up, because the face is obscured, and there's a lot of shadow, but I like how the tattoo came out with a realistic softness that doesn't look painted on, and the skin has a good sheen from the specular 2 channel.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/29799/P45/#444186

  • Joe CotterJoe Cotter Posts: 3,258
    edited December 1969

    It looks like you might be linking from a general thread to a member only thread with the image link.

  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited October 2013

    at the moment I'm trying things with HSS,

    would someone please explain something for me about the Subsurface Group?

    It ranges from o to 64

    something something about things can't share or need to share ? I don't get it?

    __________________


    So then for one character, the eyeballs, skin, nails, teeth, etc. all need to have a value of 0
    but add a second character and all values of that character need to be set to one, and on and on as long as we do not have more than 64 things in the scene using SSS

    Is this right?

    Post edited by Type 0 Negative on
  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited October 2013

    I have encountered a problem, I made up a character, was happy with it, eyes, skin teeth, nails etc. all using SSS, Translucency, Ambient, and just about everything else, this is not a photo real human, just a fun character learning experience; but everything looked great to me; so I saved the nails as a DUF materials preset, changed the color a bit, saved that as a different preset, done that a few more times., and the whole time I was doing test renders to see everything looking the way I wanted it too.

    Then I tested the presets, I load one, render, and for some reason, the skin look like crap.

    I was careful and made sure I was only saving the nail and not selecting anything else. I loaded the nail presets and it took the blushing glow off my skin and made it dead dull.

    another test then, loaded the skin, rendered, looked great, add random shader that is only using simple DS default shader, nothing fancy, and it killed the skin again.

    It is really aggravating to do a lot of work, everything makes me happy and I break it trying to pack it up.

    Please, any clues or advice?

    Post edited by Type 0 Negative on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,206
    edited December 1969

    The group setting identifies surfaces that are connected and so should get scattered light from each other - so parts of the same physical surface should be given the same value and things that should be separate should have different values.

    I'm not quite clear on the issue with presets - are you saying it is not correctly storing or setting the shader used?

  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited October 2013

    The group setting identifies surfaces that are connected and so should get scattered light from each other - so parts of the same physical surface should be given the same value and things that should be separate should have different values.

    I'm not quite clear on the issue with presets - are you saying it is not correctly storing or setting the shader used?

    So, hand arm shoulder neck face legs feet torso head would be set to 0 because they are tied together and finger nails and toe nails would be set to 1and teeth is set to 2 all eye parts set to 3 is this right?

    And the material presets seem to be saving correctly however the botch happens when i apply a preset to the nails. Only the nails are suppose to change but for some reason it is changing the skin too. And i check the surfaces and see the skin settings have not changed all is still the same the differences is showing on the render.

    So,

    Skin renders fine. Nails render fine. I apply preset to nails. Skin settings do not change in surface tab but now renders differently.

    Post edited by Type 0 Negative on
  • Takeo.KenseiTakeo.Kensei Posts: 1,303
    edited October 2013

    The group setting identifies surfaces that are connected and so should get scattered light from each other - so parts of the same physical surface should be given the same value and things that should be separate should have different values.

    I'm not quite clear on the issue with presets - are you saying it is not correctly storing or setting the shader used?

    So, hand arm shoulder neck face legs feet torso head would be set to 0 because they are tied together and finger nails and toe nails would be set to 1and teeth is set to 2 all eye parts set to 3 is this right?

    And the material presets seem to be saving correctly however the botch happens when i apply a preset to the nails. Only the nails are suppose to change but for some reason it is changing the skin too. And i check the surfaces and see the skin settings have not changed all is still the same the differences is showing on the render.

    So,

    Skin renders fine. Nails render fine. I apply preset to nails. Skin settings do not change in surface tab but now renders differently.


    I wouldn't activate SSS on anything else than skin but that is your choice

    Bit hard to guess regarding the few informations. For SSS shaders, check that you use raytraced shadows on all lights. No DSM allowed

    Some render before/after would be good

    Post edited by Takeo.Kensei on
  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited October 2013

    example 1
    I really hope this does not get pulled.
    note that I am not a merchant vender never sold anything and this wip could last forever so at the moment this is not a commercial add for an upcoming character

    Okay, so I got the skin set up and am happy with it, kind of got an over exaggerated lively glow and I have not done anything to the nails, they are Dawns default nails.

    example1.jpg
    1081 x 1528 - 118K
    Post edited by Type 0 Negative on
  • Type 0 NegativeType 0 Negative Posts: 323
    edited October 2013

    please forgive the double post but I needed to make sure the images went up in the right order and please note the time of this post I am not thread bumping.

    Problem here in this image,
    after doing the first example render, I went into the surfaces tab and set up the nails the way I wanted them, I then saved the nails as a DUF materials preset. I made sure that when the widow opened only the finger nails and toe nails were selected and saved.

    I then applied my saved preset and rendered and when I did, it changed the skin making it look like this. see how the skin is dulled down now? However, I double checked the skin materials in the surface tab and nothing has changed, everything is exactly the way it was, nothing changed for the skin in the surface tab but the skin changed on the render.

    example2.jpg
    1081 x 1528 - 117K
    Post edited by Type 0 Negative on
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