Please release Genesis Elite Maps for Carrara.
Boojum the brown bunny
Posts: 348
You know, it has been an awful long time since Genesis has been available for Carrara.. please release some high-rez elite maps for Genesis so that we don't have to make do with modified poser textures? Or even if you could give us a way to set the UVMap in Carrara so that we can use the M4 Elite Carrara Maps?
I know the programmers are working hard to produce the next version, but the product feels like it is languishing because Genesis is only partially functional without decent carrara shaders.
Boojum the brown bunny
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To use Genesis with a UV set other than the default in Carrara you need to use the preset figures. Basic Male is M4 if I remember correctly.
This is where studio comes in handy. In studio you can select which UV genesis will use. Set which maps you want; V4 or M4, then save out as a DUF. Now you can use you elite textures, but not the global shader. You will have to build the shader in carrara using the elite textures.
I think it's funny, in studio I can set genesis to M4 uvmap and use the studio shaders for M4 just fine. Doesn't work in carrara. Drop a carrara elite M4 shader on genesis that is supposedly set up with M4 UVs and you have a mess because the shader zones don't match.
But why pay or wait for DAZ to do something you can easily do yourself?
Hi All :)
In Carrara, and Poser,. there's no "live swapping" of UV's,. so,.. to work with different textures, you need to start with whatever genesis figure that can use those textures.
The default Genesis is set to use Genesis UV mapping,.
if you want M4 textures on genesis,. Use the Basic Male,. which uses M4 UV's
That's why M4 textures applied to the default Genesis won't work,.
if you want to use V4 textures,. use the basic female,. which has V4 UV's
Autofit also depends on "Clone Shapes",. like the iconic shapes,. which allow it to work with a greater range of clothing,.
AFAIK ..development of autofit is still on-going to support more / other clothing types, and work better.
Since Carrara's global shaders can be created and saved in carrara, by editing the DS or Poser shaders,. and since that's something that anyone can do,. it's not clear whether there's a viable return for the time spent creating / testing / packaging / submitting, a Carrara shader set, just for skin textures.
I think that most Carrara users choose to edit and save their own global shaders for figures.
All the Elite shaders currently available for Carrara,. use the same texture maps as the Poser product, and are normally 4096x4096
So,. the maps are already High res,. and they're the same texture maps in DS, Poser and Carrara.
All that said,. I think it's about time that Daz3D started to release products with shaders to support all of their software,. not just DS and Poser.
but that's really an issue for Published Artists, who make the products and shaders,..
just my random thoughts. :)
It isn't about using the M4 texture map, it's about having Carrara Shaders, not Poser Shaders. The two are not the same thing as you can see below.
The first picture, the one totally messed up, is what happens when you load the Carrara M4 Elite shader into the Genesis Basic Male (which has the M4 UV maps)
The second picture shows the default M4 character with the Poser M4 Elite shader (on the left) and the Carrara M4 Elite shader (on the right.) Notice the Carrara shader looks much more real. That is because, while it uses the M4 Texture map, it does other things as well. I have attached two screenshots of the shader tree's, one for the poser shader and one for the carrara shader.
Notice that while they both load the same textures, the Carrara shader has extra nodes to make it work better with Carrara. Now yes, I could go ahead and load in a poser M4 map and then hand change the torso, then the hands, then the thighs, then the abomen.. and so on and so forth. But I would have to save each parts shader.. and if I ever work with Genesis I will have to hand load them again (or hand modify them).
The whole purpose of buying content is to not have to hand modify and create everything. Computers are wonderful at doing hundreds of boring tasks so that I don't have to. I like the Genesis figure but it takes forever to do anything with it in Carrara because basic things like shaders are not present... and hand modifying things is getting to be a pain.
Boojum
Oh, and yes, I know that the poser settings above are not for a Poser Elite M4 shader, it is for a different one that I used on the first two character thing when I was trying to get Genesis into the picture. I redid the dual character picture to both be M4 since that gives a better example of the difference between loading a Poser Shader and loading a Carrara Shader. Then I didn't re-screencapture the shader settings... but what is populated is still the same. No texturemap loaded for shinyness, so the guy ends up bright and shiny. No additional settings for the other texture maps loaded.
Boojum
Another tip:
This example is using V4 Elite textures, but will work with any texture product for applying to Genesis, though it was intended for another.
First things first, load in V4 and apply the texture product within Carrara
(Elite texture for Carrara require no further tweaking of shaders)
Tweak the shaders to work to your liking within Carrara. This is often easiest if you first 'Edit > Remove Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Textures' so you don't have as many edits to make.
In your Shaders tab of the browser, save each shader. I always rename the shaders first. For example, after consolidating, the torso shader often is named "nipple" or something else. The shader that includes to torso maps, I name "xxx - Torso", where xxx is a unique name of description.
Continue this for each separate eye shader, Torso (which includes the back of the head), Face, Limbs, Inner mouth, teeth, lashes, etc.,
For this purpose, I often go into "My Documents > DAZ 3D > Carrara 8.5 > My Presets > My Shaders" and create a new, descriptive folder to which to save. If Carrara was open during this folder creation, "Update Folder" will get it to show in the browser.
Now, since V4 is our example, we'll load in the Genesis "Basic Female" Character preset from Content Tab > My Library or My Daz 3D Library > People > Genesis > Characters
Select 'Actor' and enter the texture room. Drag your browser saves to the appropriate part of Genesis.
Special Note: Indigone's V4 Shader Kit and Lights is already set up like this, with separate shaders for each shader domain. Although she calls it "V4 Shader Kit and Lights" it doesn't have a single V4-specific shader, but rather a great default shading solution for any figure in Carrara. In the provided tutorial, she explains how to place your own textures into the shaders. These shaders use Subsurface Scattering, which you may disable at your leisure. Likewise, her Endless Eyes kit for V4 has no specific ties to V4 and can be used on any figure in Carrara - as far as I can tell. These are great free packages with very good tutorial information, valuable to anyone who wants to learn more about creating better shaders for people... but the techniques are useful for any shaders you work with.
These are all fine and dandy for solutions, But we need to see some Carrara shaders for Genesis hitting the store.
Perhaps there will be more of this when 8.5 becomes official.
Ok, I just attempted the Carrara V4 Elite Maria and got basically the same result as with the Carrara M4 Elite. Parts of the basic male go transparent, texture maps are applied to the wrong places. Could you please try it again? Are you using basic male for your Genesis figure? Or are you using something else?
Boojum
Hi Boojum :)
No,. you can save the entire set of shaders, by dragging the "Global shader" (multi-coloured ball) at the top of the shader list,. and dropping it into your browser, under "my shaders" or wherever you want ...
Then you can apply that Global shader to another figure in another scene.
You'll still need to load the texture maps and adjust the settings to make a Genesis shader form M4 textures,. but copy / paste and consolidate shaders helps a lot to reduce the amount of shaders you need to edit,.
for example:,. Once you've edited the torso shader,. then that can be copied and pasted into several other shaders which use the same texture map and settings.
The UV Mapping in Genesis allows you to use the texture map "UV layouts" from M4,.
which is different from applying the complete list of shading domains and their respective order from a poser shader, directly onto a Genesis figure.
The shader domain list (for genesis) is in a completely different order from M4, and some domains in M4/V4 shaders, don't exist in Genesis.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong,... just,.... that's how it is right now,.
As you mentioned,. the current "conversion" of Poser mat's into Carrara shaders, could do with some work, as some maps don't even load, or load without any settings,. and generally,.. all poser mats, load with the Diffuse texture map Multiplied with a Colour,. which in anyone's book,.. is wrong,. it tints the original texture map,. which would only be necessary if the original texture map was the wrong colour.
This is the way the Poser shader is built,. and that's simply being re-opened in carrara, as is.
Then it's up to the user to adjust the settings to work better.
Sadly,.. this whole subject of applying and then adjusting shaders,.. was my very first question in the carrara forums,.
why? ...when DS and Poser users get shaders that work with every product.
this is one of the initial stumbling blocks that any new Carrara user will hit ,. and improving that process, or eliminating it by encouraging PA's to make Carrara shaders for their products, is, I think, ..the only answer.
Andy :)
You're missing the point Boojum. No you can't use the M4 elite shader on genesis but you can use the elite textures. Genesis having ether M4 or V4 UVmapping means you can use the textures, not the global shader; which is all the shader zones. Because the shader zones are different. And once you have used the textures to set up the shader for genesis it's a simple drag and drop of the multishader domain to the carrara shader browser. Then it's just a drag and drop back anytime you want to use it.
ManStan is correct except that, you CAN use the Elite shaders on Genesis as I've described in this thread up a few posts. You simply have to allocate the proper shaders to the right domains. That's all there is to it.
For ease of use, I always find it convenient to consolidate duplicate shaders as I've mentioned above a bit and save them to the browser under M4 Torso, M4 Face, and M4 Limbs plus the rest (example for M4). That way you can easily drag them onto Genesis in the proper domains.
Again for V4.
For convenience, Once you have these set up onto Genesis, you can save off the global (colorful ball) to the browser as well.
Again, for V4 UV mapping, use the Genesis Basic Female and for M4 UV mapping, use the Genesis Basic Male.
You can get your own 'Elite' results using any good texture set with Indigone's V4 Shader Kit and Lights, no matter if your using M4, V4, Genesis... any figure. It's set up with sss and everything. Proper usage of Spec maps in the highlight channel with a good value in Shininess... great set of shaders, great tutorial.
And I have agreed that you can hand craft, tweak, and assemble things so that they work with Genesis.. a product that has now been out for ages. Now that I have agreed, do the rest of you agree that, given advances in modern technology, there is no reason why a content provider like Daz can't release shaders that have already been so tweaked, adjusted and modified so that we don't have to do it? Isn't that the role of a content provider?
So I'm trying to assemble a decent skin now so that I can try saving the multi-shader version of it and then load it in on a new character. I'm hoping that works. I've been working on this for over an hour now... time spent not making a picture. I've learned a few things while doing this.
1. The shineyness/highlight texture of poser figures is way to light, making things to shiny. Either ramp them down inside the shader OR (do what I did) go steal the shiney/highlight maps from the Carrara Elite shaders. :)
2. Don't forget that skin head on M4 doesn't use the face texture (and I blush to have forgotten that.)
3. Decent lighting makes a big difference to.
Boojum
Carrara's elite shaders are based on the multishader domain. If you drag and drop an M4 or V4 multishader on to genesis you will have a mess.
Poser shaders have more then just shine/highlight issues, they also have an added color; usually. The first thing I do when I load an item to carrara is head straight for the shader room ;)
Boojum, master shader. if you set up a master shader per domain, or before you even start use the edit/remover unused masters/consolidate duplicate shaders, so you only have to replace/tweak each shader domain rather then each shader in the domain. Then I think you just do 6 rather then 30 some odd.
But no I don't need DAZ telling me how to set up my shaders. I use the elite textures because they are high rez, but not the preset shaders. If you refer back to my previous screen cap you can see 3/4 of those are skin shaders I set up; mostly for mil4. The rest are shaders I set up to use on repeated objects in a scene.
The thing is, most companies never produce products that will only work in a beta product. PhilW produced a hair product for Carrara 8.5, but it certainly is not normal practice.
I actually probably will go over her tutorial. :) but not until this weekend. Sadly, my time during the week is very limited to work on what I love, which is one reason why it irritates me to find myself doing the same thing over without getting any closer to rendering a picture.
As it is, I'm having fun with some of the things discussed here. I'm using the Basic Male Genesis figure. Then I loaded in a nice skin texture that I bought someplace else. Next, I fixed all the specular maps, highlight maps, color, reflection, etc to have the correct values. Then I loaded in the Elite M4 Shinymap to get some variation to the skins. Then loaded in the M4 displacement maps, which I'm running at 25% displacement (Multiplier shader with texture map for first node and percentile for second)
Now I've loaded in Howie's asian garden (because I love it so) and imported the model I've been working on... and have since been tweaking settings. To cut down on the hotspots I put a translucent white panel between my figure and the sun. To lighten the shadows on his face I've added a white plastic panel opposite the figure from the sun. :) So as you can tell, I have gotten a little bit sidetracked. It is rendering right now.
Boojum the brown bunny
That's awesome! You should really have fun during those rare times that one is supposed to have fun! ;)
Just another darn tip you can use or discard at your leisure:
Instead of using the displacement tab, try multiplying that displacement map with your bump map in the bump channel - or just add instead of multiply. Then you need to turn up the bump value in the top shader setting to get them both in there. Just something I've been using to save render time, but it doesn't actually displace then... which might not be what you want. For further cool lighting results, try running a mixer in the highlight channel with your darkened spec map in one mixer channel and your displacement map in the other and mix the disp. map in enough to really show of what the displacement map is performing.
One of these days I'm going to take a day off, and just play for fun!
A fun experiment I did when I first figured out the secrets of Genesis
Genesis in Carrara Demonstration
Oh wow, I never thought to use a multiply on the bump map and use it there. I can even split the two maps again to allow each to have it's own percentage, which would let me give a heavier weight to one map or the other! Thanks!
And the animation was cool, though I was expecting to see more shapes then just the well endowed girl. ;) I'm still fiddling with my own render here. Luckily, render time I can do at work, though I don't have access to my renderfarm from there.
Boojum
Here's something else, regarding your latest thoughts:
Operations > Mixer, instead of Multiply
Then for the blender, select value 1-100
That value will blend the two, one from the other. 0 = 100% first channel, 100 = 100% second, and 50 = 50/50 split - so you can adjust everywhere in between.
Also, That busty girl is my wife. I use her in nearly all of my creations. Consider me a bit biased that way! lol
Oh, and one more thing.
Welcome back Brown Bunny! Missed ya 'round here! ;)
I live in the shader room lol I have come up with some pretty scewball ideas just to see if it works, and so far most of them have :gulp:
Try this. You can light a scene with just a shader, yes a shader. I have a few scenes where the only light in the scene is from the glow channel of a shader. Just turn on indirect lighting and render.
Want lights on your scifi console? Make a glow map. Some times the panel texture in the glow channel is enough.
Bump maps can be used in the displacement channel. Doesn't replace an actual displacement map, but works great for weathered materials.
How do you get a wet body look? Shine and highlight maps. :-)
Why do you think I love Genetica? Because it can make all these effects maps; plus normal maps, for any texture I make, as well as make mock effect maps for others textures. :coolsmile:
ARRRRRGGGG! I did something wrong and now my character has no longer shows in the render, just in the preview. I've checked the figure settings to make sure it didn't get flipped to not visible. I have closed and gone back into Carrara. This is REALLY frustrating now. Oh well, another day before I get anything renered. Time for me to go catch the train again.
And thanks for the welcome back! :D I'm sorry that I've been gone for so long, but I got out of the habit of working with carrara when genesis came out and there was no support for it. So I couldn't play with the new stuff I'd bought.
Boojum
Thanks for all the input.
I have challenged myself to build a Ready2Render Carrara Character package this weekend, starting with V4.
If it works out, V5 is next.
I'll probably need to ask a few things, to be continued...
I just got Genetica Basic, but haven't tried it yet. Normal maps too, eh? Probably not in Basic, but I think even that is pretty potent texture editing/creating software. Looking forward to using it ;)
As for your other shader experiments, I like to just hang out in that room too... see what happens. I really like your idea with indirect light and glow. I'll have to mess with that :)
BooJum, the Brown Bunny,
I don't know what you're doing, but it ain't right. This stuff isn't that darned hard. We need to just sit down and start from scratch one of these days. You'll smack your little brown, furry forehead and go, ohhhh maaannnn! lol
Don't worry man, we'll get this all straightened out for ya.
Ok, I have an acceptable skin for my character Strethem. He was built using a combination of advice here, parts of the M4 Elite Carrara skin, a high quality texture map that I like. A full figured render (Yes he's wearing pants) can be seen at http://www.alchemicalcreations.com/pictures/StrethemCarrara.png
But I'm attaching a closeup render of what I did here so that people can admire and let me know if they spot things I did wrong. It should be noted that I'm not completely happy with the eyes, I'm still working on them.
Boojum
Well, at half time and I got a new set og V4 Carrara shaders to work with my new textures, but I had to cheat using some bump maps and specular maps from regular V4 packs. Looks like merchant resources don't ship with bump and specular maps, you have to make them yourself.
No idea how to make good ones though.
Looks like the first character will be the hardest to do, lots of texturing work...
Found some more merchant resources, this is getting expensive...
Hello Fenric!!
having a few times swapped the Carrara shaders around to match the Genesis order I got to thinking, it should be doable to create a plugin to automate this.
Not just Genesis, any universal shader.
Many universal shaders load in as a parametric layers list, esp on FBX import and change one shading domain in the vertex room and they are all out of whack.
The problem is they all show as one shader and only going into the layers you can find the seperate ones, which I then drag out and reassign to each domain manually.
a plugin that reassigns them back to each shading domain instead of each having "none" would help by itself.
while the order may not be right, it at least is easier than going through the shader tree.
with Genesis having a set order a plugin to reassign the V4 & M4 order to correspond would be extra usefull.
I really like what you've done with this skin shader. Highlight channel appears to be working really well with the Shininess channel settings, Great texture map, I really like what you've done! Great job!