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Bizarre AoA SSS Behaviour

Stryder87Stryder87 Posts: 899
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

So I'm working away, minding my own business, doing a test render, when one of my G2F characters (Mei Lin 6/Yumi) decides to do the usual 'lizard-skin' issue when paired with the Mei Lin 6/Sumiko character.  Not a big deal, Yumi has always had this issue.  I do what I've been told, and found, to be the fix; select all her surfaces using the AoA SSS shader, and change the ID number to something else (usually 97 works).  I do another test render, and she disappears (along with her shoes!).  I had a different problem where Mei Lin 6/Sumiko would do that when I used a specific dress on her, and tech support decided it was a corrupt dress file.  I deleted the dress, as instructed, and reinstalled, and it fixed the issue.

Instead of trying to figure out which item may have been the problem that made Yumi disappear (the shoes disappearing too made me think it may not have been a corrupt file issue) since it didn't show up before with the same clothes, only after I chaged the surface ID, I changed the number again and she came back... with her lizard skin again (and her shoes).  So, I changed the ID again, dropping it down to 50something, and it seems to be ok (judging by the test render I did overnight).

This is really weird.  I get the ID conflicts and causes the skin problem, but why would she disappear (along with her shoes!) if theID number matched something else in the scene (not another G2F as has always been the case)?

Crazy stuff.

 

Comments

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    The only thing I can think of is that something in the scene has the same ID number AND an opacity of 0% (or set invisible with the 'eye' button).

  • Stryder87Stryder87 Posts: 899
    mjc1016 said:

    The only thing I can think of is that something in the scene has the same ID number AND an opacity of 0% (or set invisible with the 'eye' button).

    Hmmmm... interesting idea.  I'll delete anything I have set invisible as it's probably proven to not be needed in my scene.  Weird though... I've never had this need to be set to anything other than the 97 I've always used when I have the two characters in the same scene.

    She's not 'completely' invisible though.  If you render her at a certain angle, it's like she's 98% transparent... you can still see her very faintly against the inside of her clothes.

    Normally I just get the lizard skin.  This was just a bonus.  Maybe I should do a halloween scene... it would fit perfectly!  haha

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    The interactions between items with the same SSS ID can be VERY wacky...lizard skin is one of the more common, then 'glow bug', but all sorts of other odd things can happen.

  • Stryder87Stryder87 Posts: 899

    So I did some testing last night.  I figured I'd save myself a lot of time trying to get the one skin right by making the Group ID change, then do a spot render of the character alone until the lizard skin went away.  It seemed to go well.  The first change I did was change the ID to 111, then spot rendered to check.  But then I did a full scene render and it's still there!  It seems no matter what I change the ID to I can't get rid of the lizard skin when I do a full scene render.

    Does anyone have any other ideas what I could do to fix this problem?  Changing the ID to a random number (97) always worked for me in the past.  Is there any way to find out what is conflicting and causing this problem?  I had really hoped spot rendering would have been a fast, easy way to check, but apparently not.  Is there a specific range I have to keep the number in?  What is actually happening here?  I've never had a deep explanation on what causes this.

     

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    Lizard skin can also be a SSS Scale and/or shading rate problem...not just ID.
    .

  • Stryder87Stryder87 Posts: 899
    mjc1016 said:

    Lizard skin can also be a SSS Scale and/or shading rate problem...not just ID.
    .

    Hmmmm... ok.  I'm not in front of my machine, but could you tell me what settings I'd be adjusting (would it be more than just those two (would they be named something different))?  I'm guessing that it would be while all the surfaces are selected so they'd all get the same adjustments.

     

  • Stryder87Stryder87 Posts: 899

    So I did some more playing around with this last night.  After going through all four main characters, cataloguing all the morphs and Group IDs of each one (for future reference if I need to rebuild one of them), I started to fiddle with minor changes to the Shading Rate, Shading Scale, Subsurface Strength and Subsurface Off-On to see if I could get rid of the lizard skin that Yumi was experiencing.

    A strange thing that happened was when I changed her Group ID to something really high (in the range of Sumiko’s 3656), suddenly not only did Yumi do the disappearing thing, but so did one of the minor background characters.  Man this stuff is weird.  After resetting it all, I did more level adjusting.  Finally I figured out how to fix the whole issue.  Set Subsurface Off-On on Yumi to 0.  That fixed it.  Turn the thing right off and walk away.  Too much stupid fiddling to figure it out.  I just couldn’t seem to narrow the effect down to anything.  I’m an extremely methodical troubleshooter, make a change then test, reset and make a different change then test, etc, but this was way beyond me.  It’s ok though, as it doesn’t even seem to make a difference since she is far enough away from the camera to even notice it being on or off anyway!  haha

    Total head-shaker....

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