Legends Altar - usable in DAZ Studio?

SpottedKitty

This will have to be a quick discussion, I just realised I'm getting close to the 30-day limit (just in case).

I've bought the Legends Altar, and I just started trying to adapt the materials for DAZ|Studio. I don't think it's possible. I haven't studied the Poser files in detail yet, but something odd is going on in the shaders.

* One of the glowy spheres above the altar is invisible in D|S with no applied texture maps, only plain colours (the other is clearly visible, no problem there). Is it some kind of Poser-only light object?

* Many of the bump and displacement maps on the rocks, terrain and carved stuff make no apparent difference when I apply them and render. I've tried bumping up the +/- limits, again no apparent difference. I've looked at the maps, they should be doing something.

* Many of the normal maps either go way overboard, crinkling the rocks and terrain, or cause the applied object to turn completely black when I render. Never seen this happen before. Are these normal maps useable in D|S?

I've had some success with other Poser models, but I don't think this can be used in D|S. Has anyone had more success (or luck!) than I have?

mjc1016

Considering the very first promo render is in DS, I'd say...yeah, it's possible.

SpottedKitty

All the promos seem to have been made in D|S - didn't notice that before. But a close look at things like the little stones on the ground, and the circular carvings, show many of them to be suspiciously flat. And I don't see much surface features matching what's in the bump, displacement and normal maps.

Medzin

IMHO, it also requires much adjustment to render properly in Poser also.
None of the displacement or bump maps have correct gamma setting if you use GC in Poser.

DS does not read the values correctly on bump and inserts the default minimum values.
(e.g., the ground bump should be 100% at 0.0254 with a zero minimum, not -0.01 to 0.01)

The spheres use Poser procedural nodes so they come up blank in DS.
You might be able to duplicate this with the Shader Builder.

For me the fixes in Poser are minor, so I plan to keep this model.

adamr001

Sadly I don't own this one so I can't check how things are setup on either side. :(

Bejaymac

A friend of mine has this, a couple of weeks back I got pes...... asked to help get it working for them ;)

The bump maps are so-so, some items have 2 different displacement, some of them are so-so like the bump, while the others are a case of WTF is this meant to be, there are also normal maps, but you dont see them being used in the promos for a very good reason, some are just bad, while others leave artifacts when you render.

The sphere is procedural, so I threw together a quick and dirty SM shader for it, just plugged a fractal sum brick into the opacity, set it to turbulence and messed about with the scale & octaves 'till I was happy, and just used ambient to get a glow.

SpottedKitty

Medzin said:

DS does not read the values correctly on bump and inserts the default minimum values.
(e.g., the ground bump should be 100% at 0.0254 with a zero minimum, not -0.01 to 0.01)

In Poser, that's OK. Remember those differences, though — those settings would give the rocks and stuff on the ground a maximum relief height of about 1/5 of a millimetre.

I'm sorry to say it, but this is going back. I don't use Poser any more, didn't even re-install P7 when I got my most recent computer, and I just can't see how the maps can be made to work anything like they're supposed to. There can't be that much difference in how Poser and D|S use normal maps, for instance... can there?

Bejaymac

I got my friend to do a couple of quick renders for me, the first is the settings I set up, that's bump and displacement, the second has had the bump & displacement removed and the normal maps added.