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Ambient color black and non-zero strength on teeth???

barbultbarbult Posts: 24,228
edited December 1969 in The Commons

I'm using DAZ Studio 4 pro. I got Aiko3 Morphs and Maps today on the Gen 3 sale. I used one of the skin maps and noticed that the teeth were pretty gray. While investigating why I saw that the ambient color was black (0,0,0), and the ambient percent was 15%. Is it common to use a black ambient color with non-zero percentage on surfaces? I changed the ambient color to white and it looked better to me. Or should I not be setting an ambient percentage for teeth at all?

Comments

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited December 1969

    This is a common issue with mat files that do not contain DAZ optimized materials. In some cases though, even the "optimized" ones do this and I find myself removing or changing these settings.

    Keep in mind that the Ambient parameter is basically a "This should show up this color even without lights" type event. Try setting the ambient one something to 255,255,255 and 100% and then adding a point light at like 1% intensity to the scene as the only light. Render and you'll see that entire surface will appear. That's what ambient does.

    A few vendors use Ambient settings on skin and other materials to offset / change the final appearance of a texture. It's always up to you whether to leave this in place or not. ;)

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,228
    edited December 1969

    Adam, thanks for your reply. I now understand that ambient is basically a "glow in the dark" setting. This product has PZ2 files with the little scroll on the icon and a DS file in the same directory, so it is applying the DAZ materials. I think they just didn't do the best job of optimizing those material settings. In my experimentation, it seems that it doesn't matter what the ambient percent is if the color is black. Is that right?

  • info_7ab70978f3info_7ab70978f3 Posts: 78
    edited December 1969

    Those are like DS 2 settings and never will be right

  • adamr001adamr001 Posts: 1,322
    edited August 2012

    People have different standards about what is and is not expected, even in the DS specific settings. Not everyone's idea of "appropriate settings" is my idea. ;) It's a lesson I've had to learn as well so I don't like to say that the settings are not optimal. It is as they creator intended them, but when I see posts like this I choose to simply explain what the settings do and let the end user decide. Plus, it never hurts to know more about your application of choice and how to use it, right?

    Post edited by adamr001 on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,228
    edited December 1969

    adamr001 said:
    People have different standards about what is and is not expected, even in the DS specific settings. Not everyone's idea of "appropriate settings" is my idea. ;) It's a lesson I've had to learn as well so I don't like to say that the settings are not optimal. It is as they creator intended them, but when I see posts like this I choose to simply explain what the settings do and let the end user decide. Plus, it never hurts to know more about your application of choice and how to use it, right?

    Right! I always want to learn more about what all those controls and settings do. Thanks for your explanations. I'm learning more about how to customize things to the way I want them to look.
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