anisotropic ubersurface settings for hair
sriesch
Posts: 4,243
in The Commons
Can somebody point me at the proper settings to get the anisotropic effect working on hair using ubersurface? I've been messing with a ton of paramaters, nothing I do seems to matter in any way. I can post screenshots and settings once I know I'm at least at the correct starting point or know which ones you want to see so you all can point out whatever I'm doing wrong. Thanks!
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Not on my DS rig now, but from memory, first, you will get a better effect with bump enabled, maybe 40% strength at 0.1 min/max. With the spec 1 lobe that uses glossiness, try 80% glossiness, 20% spec sharpness and anisotropic U enabled. For the spec 2 lobe use about 20% roughness which should be about the same as 80% glossy. There's really not much else that can be done with Ubersurface IMO. It's all about balancing bump (or displacement) strength with specular strength and roughness. If you use both specular lobes you might want to set one of them to a rougher setting. Sorry I can't be more specific at this point:)
Btw, chances are that the hair maps all have baked in highlights, in which case getting rid of at least the diffuse- and specular maps will make it easier to see the effect
Well just a very quick demonstration of anisotropy directions, FWIW. Used just an AoA spot in front and to the left of the character and an AoA ambient with only diffuse light.
Using both specular lobes with no maps. primary lobe with 80% glossiness, 20% sharpness. Secondary lobe with 30% roughness and 50% sharpness, both lobes with anisotropy.
U direction:
V direction:
Sorry for the crappy quality, didn't let them finish;)
Ok, here's my first rendered attempt using the settings from the first post. Note the complete and total lack of any highlights at all.
I tried the settings from your next post as well in just a thin strip, both with the original diffuse maps and with no diffuse maps and the color set to black, but no significant change.
So is your lighting outputting specular light? Note that, if you use UberEnvironment 2, it only outputs diffuse light. You could always add a spot or two with only specular light enabled.
ETA: I see you enabled bump, but not sure if you had any maps loaded? The hair seems to use normal maps also, not sure if that would be enough to create the effect you're after, have to test that=) If the hair lacks bump / displacement maps, try using the transmaps. Sometimes they actually work better than bumpmaps and rarely have baked in highlights.
Edit2: Having studied your screenshot some more, I can see 4 or 5 spotlights, so it's a bit odd that you don't get any highlights. Did you use specular maps? Some maps can be very dark, in which case one needs to compensate with spec strength and a brighter spec color. I can see some brighter areas on the left and right side of the hair, but it's hard to tell if it's diffuse light or highlights. Try adding a specular spot with a pure white color and 100+ intensity, no fall off, you should see some result.
The hair has specular maps and bump maps.
What/where is a specular spotlight? Is that a third party product, or something I'm overlooking already built into DS? For the spots, I was just using the default DS spotlights. (DS 4.8 if it matters). I don't see a specular parameter. I assumed specular was built into them, but is that incorrect? I've not used AoA Advanced spotlights yet, but I tried adding one in case that was what you were using and I don't see a specular parameter for that either (plus it didn't appear to have an effect either.).
Got it. Your note that the specular maps can be very dark was the key. I tried replacing the specular maps (which had very faint higlights) with the opacity maps (which were stark black&white stripes) to see what would happen, and was then able to see a very faint specular effect. I then tried boosing the material's specular strength to 400, and here's a quick test render, now I can see highlights:
You can make a specular light out of the default spot light just set it to specular only
Glad you got it working! Yes, as scorpio mentioned, select the spotlight, go to parameters pane/light/illumination. There you can select specular only, or diffuse only (or on/off).
Ah, there it is. Thanks!