Shader help?
Chelle the Cat
Posts: 239
Awhile back I did up an image in DS2 utilizing the free jlg velvet shader. I'd forgotten that I used that particular shader and today when I opened up the setup to play with that particular figure for a new image, I realized that of course, DS4.5 can't use the jlg shader (it gives an error about recompiling which I can't do). My big problem is, the shader was used for a character's skin, rather then clothing, so I need to have the look be as close to the original as is possible. Is there anyone that can help me with this?
I've attached a screenshot of how the shader looks when rendered along with the settings it shows in case that helps any.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
well with DAZ 4.6 there is the Base Sub Surface Scattering shader (should be a free download if you haven't already got it thanks to the Daz install Manager)
it does have velvet settings you can play with.
Does it work with 4.5.1.56? I can't use 4.6, for some reason it really does a number on my computer.
not sure but, there should be the !HumanSurfaceBase which also has velvet features.
That's what I would suggest. You should have it already with DS 4.x, either as "Human Surface Shader" or as "UberSurface".
a Quick test with the !Human Surface Base and I get something similar, colors need more tweaking I think
Or try http://www.daz3d.com/velvety-goodness I have used that one on animals a lot, not on human skin so far but it work wodners for the animals *smiles*
DS 4.5+ is meant to do a temp recompile of old shaders, and give you a warning about properly recompiling them, so try a spot render over an area of skin and see if you get anything, if the shader is broken/out of date/missing then you'll know right way as that area of the spot render will be bright white.
So far everything I've tried makes her look purple, when she's supposed to have more of a grey hue with violet undertones and I just can't seem to find the balance which is disheartening. And sadly I cannot afford to get Velvety Goodness to see if that shader pack would help or not.
The exact error I get is as follows (copied from the log file):
3Delight message #45 (Severity 2): S2068: shader 'C:/Program Files/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4/shaders/jlgVELVET.sdl' uses a different interface version: please recompile
3Delight message #45 (Severity 2): S2051: cannot load shader 'jlgVELVET', will use 'defaultsurface'
When I do a test render it doesn't render all white, but rather purple with no definition at all.
ok this is with the !Human Surface Base
see if this is what you are looking for.
That actually looks VERY close to what I have been trying to do.
That actually looks VERY close to what I have been trying to do.
well here are the settings (ALL of them) so have a go at it
Diffuse color 15,15,17
Diffuse Active - on
Diffuse strength 100%
Diffuse roughness 1.00
Opacity Strength 100% default
Opacity Active - on
Opacity Color 255,255,255
Refraction Active - off
Index of Refraction 1.3
Smooth - on
Angle 89.90
Bump Active - on
Bump Strength 100%
Bump Minimum -0.10
Bump Maximum 0.10
Displacement Active - off
Displacement Strength - 100%
Displacement minimum -0.10
Displacement maximum 0.10
Trace Displacements - off
Map Tiling U 1.00
Map Tiling v 1.00
Specular Active - on
Specular Color 255,0,255
Specular Strength 50%
Glossiness 50%
Specular Sharpness 0%
Specular2 Active - off
Specular2 Color (255,255,255)
Specular2 Strength 100%
Specular2 Roughness 10%
Multiply Specular through Opacity - on
Ambient Active - off
Ambient Color 0,0,0
Ambient Strength 0.0%
Reflection Active - off
Reflection mode - Environment Map
Reflection Environment Map (Map in Lat/long format)
255,255,255
Reflection Color 255,255,255
Reflection Strength 100%
Reflection Blur 0.0
Reflection blur Samples 4
Multiply Reflection through Opacity - off
Fresnel Active - off
Fresnel Strength 100%
Fresnel Fall off 0.40
Fresnel Sharpness 0.0%
Velvet Active - on
Velvet Color 255,255,255
Velvet Strength 50%
Velvet Falloff - 20.0
Subsurface Active - on
Subsurface Color 255,128,255
Subsurface Strength 100$
Subsurface Refraction 1.5
Subsurface scale 4.00
Subsurface Group 0
Subsurface Shading Rate 32.00
Translucency Active - off
Translucency Color 255,255,255
Translucency Strength 100%
Accept Shadows - On
The AoA SSS shader does indeed work with 4.5-- but you might prefer to use the HSS or even UbS since the SSS shader results in monster rendering times.
I want to thank everyone that gave me options, ideas, and different things to try. After tweaking and fiddling with things I finally got a reasonable version of what I achieved with that old shader.
I've got D|S 2, 3, and 4 installed on my machine, and there's definitely a difference in the way each one handles shaders, even shaders that don't crash completely. Pendragon's shaders, circa D|S 1 or 2, about 2006 or 2007) will render in DS4, but they look downright bizzare, color-wise. Even between D|S 3 and D|S 4, there's a significant change. For settings that work fine in D|S 4 at 100% Ambient, I'll have to cut Ambient nearer to 50% and lighten accordingly for D|S 3.
Wasn't there a change in Renderer between DS 2 and DS 4
that would account for much of the changes in how shaders look.
I have DS2, DS3A and DS4.6 and YES each version has a different Renderman Render engine version. They each have the best version they could support at the time of release. So you will see differences in many things because of the updates to each newer version used in each version of DS.
3Delight, not Renderman - 3Delight is a different engine, though it's Renderman complaint. Recent shadrs will recompile on the fly with recent versions of DS, but older shaders, such as those by Pendragon, won't and will be replaced with one of the working shaders - usually with odd results.