Not all surfaces have texture options available?

talidesade

So I am messing with some skin settings. I wanted to use top coat weight settings, but for some reason not all of the surfaces have texture maps available. I'm not talking about a lack of textures, the settings have no box at all to click on! What is going on?

I screen capped them. This is the arm settings. All of the different settings have a arrow to select a texture. Good so far.

But when I go to the face, now nearly all of the arrow boxes are missing! The only one with any texture box is the top coat weight!

These surfaces are both using PBR metalicity/roughness, but it doesn't matter if I switch to PBR Glossiness or Weighted. What is going on? How do I get the options to add textures back? I tried both 4.10 and the 4.12 beta.

zombietaggerung

I wouldn't think they needed a texture map. In my poking at skin settings there has never been an option to add a texture map for the settings under Top Coat. But perhaps someone more versed can explain it better.

Drip

Some settings may be hidden (there should be an option somewhere to unhide them), others may be disabled due to some setting elsewhere.

Just for experimenting, try applying the iRay Uber Base Shader to it, see if that unlocks some more features. Though save your work and make a copy before you try that, just to be safe, in case something messes up horribly.

talidesade

A lot of cool things can be done with top coat settings. Turn top coat layering mode to weighted, then in the top coat color option use the same texture you use for base color. Use the bump map in the top coat bump. This will make any surface shine with little effort. Turning down the top coat weight and adjusting top coat roughness determines how shiny. Using these settings will make any surface pop. It is great for clothes, especially leathers, satins and silks. Make Japanese silk brilliant. The top coat bump gives texture, and fabric can look amazing. Everybody loves the dual lobe specularity these days, but I haven't figured out a way to replicate this exact look with it.

This can work with skin as well, depending on the textures and specularity maps available. More textures can be used, like roughness bump maps if available. I have used top coat settings a lot over the years.

I also tried applying the Iray Uber Base to them and it did not change anything. I will try looking to see if any hidden parameters are available when I get back to my PC.

AlmightyQUEST

I was going to suggest checking the top of the surfaces pane to see the name of the shader applied to the surface. It could possibly be a custom shader applied that doesn't have the maps option, otherwise I'm not sure what would remove maps option. I do seem to remember seeing cases where a custom shader had almost the same name as the default shader, but either with a space removed or a space added.

chevybabe25

Ive come across this quite a few times - This is actually a strange bug in the material file :)   Unfortunately it requires hand editing in a notepad editor to fix.  If you feel comfortable fixing it on your own,  you have to do a keyword search for the body part it is affecting.  

 

1:  do a search for the face,  then scroll down all the way to the channel that is affected.  In this circumstance the first channel would be "Top Coat Color" 

2:  scroll all the way down and look for this blob 

"channel" : {

"id" : "diffuse",

"type" : "float_color",

"name" : "Diffuse Color",

"label" : "Base Color",

"value" : [ 0.7529412, 0.7529412, 0.7529412 ], (Ignore these value numbers)

"min" : 0,

"max" : 1,

"clamped" : true,

"step_size" : 1,

"default_image_gamma" : 0,

"mappable" : true

 

The part that controls the image slot is "mappable" true

You may need to copy and paste the "mappable" : true  part into every channel that is missing an image.  It is a complete PIA.

 

Hope this helps!

If this is way over your head, just report it to Daz and see if they can fix the offending file.

 

 

 

talidesade

Thank you for that! That is quite helpful so I'll keep that in mind for future use. I have have done some text file editing a few times. Wait, the duf is compressed, so I cannot access it! Yikes. Hmmm. I am totally redoing the surface settings anyway, so what I did was apply a different shader preset without changing the textures. This opened everything back up, so I can work from there.

Is there anything that causes this, or does it happen on its own? Could it be how the file was saved? I have come across this a few times but I worked around it. I had hoped there was a simple answer. I am also kind of confused why this is even an option, I can't think of any reason would somebody would want to deny the ability to apply a texture.

SpottedKitty

talidesade said:

Wait, the duf is compressed, so I cannot access it! Yikes.

It's only Zip compression, so you can use any unZip utility you might have handy to convert the file into plaintext. There's also an option in (I think, never needed to use it myself) the Edit menu which can uncompress one content file or a content folder containing lots of files.

Except... another option when saving a script file is "Encoded" — if the content creator did that, then there's no way to unpack the file.

talidesade

I had no idea about that, thanks.

ChangelingChick

This can often be fixed by reapplying the base shader, so I'd try that before hand editing files. (I used to have this problem a lot)

Flortale

Guys, if you plan on editing the DUF file, do this first: Change the label of the surface material node you want to change, that way you can easily find it in the DUF file. For example, I right clicked on the node Top Coat Bump, I edited it and changed the label to Top Coat Bump 25.   Then save your scene file.   Then edit that scene duf file withe notepad++ for example, and search for Top Coat Bump 25, and it will take you straight to the node you need to edit.  Add "mappable" : true to it, like chevybabe25 said, don't forget to add a comma at the end of the line before it. Example:

"clamped" : true,
"step_size" : 0.01,
"mappable" : true

Thanks chevybabe25, your solution worked.

ChangelingChick said:

This can often be fixed by reapplying the base shader, so I'd try that before hand editing files. (I used to have this problem a lot)

Can you tell me how to do that?

I tried applying: !Iray Uber Base to the lips surface of Genesis 8 Female, but the top coat bump map node still won't let me add a map.

Richard Haseltine

Do bear in mind that the properties in the Surfaces pane and their types need to match the actual shader, they don't dictate to it. In this case I don't know what is going on, it does look as if the properties were perhaps changed by something in a way that no longer matched the underlying shader but in general chaging property typs (or adding new properties) will - at best - be ignored.

DrowElfMorwen

Hello, I'm sorry to revive an old thread but I'm having the same issue (I can't add a texture into Top Coat Bump, and I want to)  but I don't understand the solution chevybabe25 proposed here to edit a file.... edit *WHAT* file? They said it's a mistake in a materials file but that doesn't tell me what I'm looking for, because I don't understand what a mat file saves as. If I save my own materials for a character, for example, it saves as a .duf.... I can't open that in Notepad to edit. If I do, I get a lof messy characters and not English, lol. So that can't be it, right?

Please can someone explain in super simple terms what I need to edit or change to fix the issue of not being able to add a texture into this slot, please? Or any other slot? I tried applying the DAZ Iray Uber shader but that didn't change anything. In any case I'd love an actual fix, if one is available, rather than trying to trick DAZ into making Top Coat bump (among others) mappable! :)

 

Edit to add: I did finally find a shader that let me open up the channels to being mappable but I'd love to be able to do this without "cheating"... if that makes sense XD

Richard Haseltine

The files are comperssed, you need to uncompess them first (e.g. using the Batch convert pane in DS). Also, make sure it is the .duf file you are opening - if you have the extensions of known files off (the default in Windows) then it is filenmae you want, not filename.duf (which is really filename.duf.png, the thumbnail image)

dumberer

I believe the issue stems from applying shader saved from another generation. In my case - i saved "Face" from genesis 8 and applyed to the "Head" of genesis 9. In theory another shader that uses the same broken parameters can fixed the issue.