Superheroes Rebooted - Ready to Rrrrrender?

Geminii23

john_antkowiak said:

Sweet, Gemini! Truly impressive. I was using the M6 Superhero Suit too, but I'm running into a perplexing render problem. I've never seen it do this before - and it's not just the suit, it's the eyes too. Rendering black instead of white. I don't know if it's Surface settings, Environment settings, or what. Have you ever seen this before? Everything is optimized for iRay.

Hi John,

I don't normally use iRay because I am on a Mac with AMDs so it is slower than molasses.  That being said, I think I had to do an Edit > Geometry > Add Smooting Modifier to get the suit to display correct in the viewport at all.  Not sure if that is part of the problem.

Here is an iRay render I just did.  The settings are obviously all wrong for mine cause I don't know much about how to optimize the surfaces for iRay yet.  I normaly am using 3Delight.  But my render with just everything set to defaults doesn't seem to have the same issues I see with yours.  No weird see through stuff.    

Geminii23

Sometimes black is apparently grey.  LOL

This didn't turn out exactly how I intended.  Was going slightly for the look of Spider-Man 3 black suit.  Gonna have to darken up those grey parts more I guess.

BTW- Does anyone know how I can save this new suit as a Material Preset?  Rather than create a Scene Subset for the character itself, it would be nice if I could just add this as a material after loading my default Classic Spider-Man character.  Also, planning on attempting a Homecoming style suit next so would like to have both as just presets after loading the original.

Thanks

john_antkowiak

Well if you're also trying to do this one in iRay, I might be able to help figure out why the gray isn't black. I don't know about Material Presets, but I'm not afraid of just going through the steps and seeing what prompts I'm given. It shouldn't affect the hard work you already did... right?

Geminii23

I am thinking that I either need to darkened up the grey sections, though in Photoshop they are already really close to black, or I need to play with the specular settings.  I can alter the diffuse but then it will darken up the white logos as well.  

Not sure if I will ever use iRay at this point.  I am inclined to start learning how to use Reality/Lux instead because from what I understand the results can be very good and the render times with AMD are much better.

john_antkowiak

Well I'm guessing you didn't create new material zones, and the M6 suit has only one, which makes the problem more interesting  lol... I guess I have no other insight on this particular issue. If it were me, I might try a custom opacity map for the M6 suit that reveals only the red parts and hides the blue. Then load a second M6 suit on top of the first (adding the Smoothing modifier and setting its collision item as the first M6 suit). That way, you can tweak the red areas all you want and it will leave the blue areas alone if you like them already. Yes, I know we're talking about a black suit and not red and blue, but it makes it easier to refer to them by colors...

Oh, and about the smoothing modifier... that helps with pokethrough, which isn't the issue my Superman is having. But you're right, in that most items are almost always more useful and practical if they have one. It mkes a huge difference. 

Geminii23

john_antkowiak said:

Well I'm guessing you didn't create new material zones, and the M6 suit has only one, which makes the problem more interesting  lol... I guess I have no other insight on this particular issue. If it were me, I might try a custom opacity map for the M6 suit that reveals only the red parts and hides the blue. Then load a second M6 suit on top of the first (adding the Smoothing modifier and setting its collision item as the first M6 suit). That way, you can tweak the red areas all you want and it will leave the blue areas alone if you like them already. Yes, I know we're talking about a black suit and not red and blue, but it makes it easier to refer to them by colors...

Oh, and about the smoothing modifier... that helps with pokethrough, which isn't the issue my Superman is having. But you're right, in that most items are almost always more useful and practical if they have one. It mkes a huge difference. 

I don't know how to create a new material zone.  I imagine that can not be done just editing things in Photoshop, right?  An opacity map seems interesting.  Can you show me an example of that?

Here is another modification darkening the (previously red) sections again.  The lighting still seems to be making things a bit lighter than I would expect.  I also can't go much darker in those sections because if I try to use the marquee Photoshop isn't doing a good job of differentiating them from the full black sections now.

Overall I guess it doesn't look too bad.  The only other alternative is to just make the whole thing true black. 

john_antkowiak

No, you can't use Photoshop to make a new material zone, but you can use it to create an opacity map. I've never tried to add a material zone and I don't even know if you can do it from DAZ. But essentially in this case, it would amount to the same thing using the opacity map. I was sure you'd have picked up on this technique already; you seem to have been doing this a while. But if not, I think you'll find it useful.

Opacity maps are shades of gray. All I've ever needed are black and white. Black hides, white reveals. Various shades of gray reveal different levels of the underlyig color map. (The lighter the gray, the brighter the underlying color.)

So I presume you created Spidey's suit texture in Photoshop, then added it as a color map. Yes? You must have created... I don't know what it's called in Photoshop, but it's linework to define where the web patterns go... right?

So what you do is, you create a new image in Photoshop. All the areas that were blue, make them black. All the red areas, make them white. If you want to get fancy, make the web pattern gray. (Depends how you might handle the web if you want the end product white, or gray. This is just a for-instance.) Does that make sense so far?

Here's the catch, if using this trick in other projects. If you've ever tried to use premade Shader presets, you know you can tile them to achieve different effects. But you can't tile the color map one way and the opacity map another way. Opacity maps will only work if you use horizontal and vertical tile values of 1.0 each. Let me know if any of that is unclear.

If all is clear so far, I'll clarify how to use one, 

Silent Winter

john_antkowiak said:

No, you can't use Photoshop to make a new material zone, but you can use it to create an opacity map. I've never tried to add a material zone and I don't even know if you can do it from DAZ.

Yes, you can - using the geometry editor, select the polys you want and then right-click to bring up the menu.  Go to 'Geometry Assignment: Create Surface from Selected'  Then name the new surface.  But then you're left with the new surface at basic 3DL with no maps applied, so you have to copy+paste (after applying Daz Iray Uber shader if applicable) from the previous surface it belonged to, and tweak from there.

Needs the polys to be in the right place though.

john_antkowiak

Thanks, Silent Winter! I'll just have to try that sometime soon! Oh - and I have just the right idea. It should work on fibermesh hair too, yes? Tell me more about "Needs the polys to be in the right place," please.I want to create a zone enabling me to make the right half of the hair invisible.

Silent Winter

john_antkowiak said:

Thanks, Silent Winter! I'll just have to try that sometime soon! Oh - and I have just the right idea. It should work on fibermesh hair too, yes? Tell me more about "Needs the polys to be in the right place," please.I want to create a zone enabling me to make the right half of the hair invisible.

All I meant is that if a texture has a smooth line that goes across the middle of a poly, you won't be able to select 'half a poly' to resurface.  So your surfaces must correspond to the polys in the figure.

I guess it'd work on fibremesh hair just fine, though I've never tried it.  Selecting half the hair should be easy enough with the marquee/freehand select tools (be aware that those select even the polys at the back, so line up your viewport first and it's easy).

Geminii23

john_antkowiak said:

No, you can't use Photoshop to make a new material zone, but you can use it to create an opacity map. I've never tried to add a material zone and I don't even know if you can do it from DAZ. But essentially in this case, it would amount to the same thing using the opacity map. I was sure you'd have picked up on this technique already; you seem to have been doing this a while. But if not, I think you'll find it useful.

Opacity maps are shades of gray. All I've ever needed are black and white. Black hides, white reveals. Various shades of gray reveal different levels of the underlyig color map. (The lighter the gray, the brighter the underlying color.)

So I presume you created Spidey's suit texture in Photoshop, then added it as a color map. Yes? You must have created... I don't know what it's called in Photoshop, but it's linework to define where the web patterns go... right?

So what you do is, you create a new image in Photoshop. All the areas that were blue, make them black. All the red areas, make them white. If you want to get fancy, make the web pattern gray. (Depends how you might handle the web if you want the end product white, or gray. This is just a for-instance.) Does that make sense so far?

Here's the catch, if using this trick in other projects. If you've ever tried to use premade Shader presets, you know you can tile them to achieve different effects. But you can't tile the color map one way and the opacity map another way. Opacity maps will only work if you use horizontal and vertical tile values of 1.0 each. Let me know if any of that is unclear.

If all is clear so far, I'll clarify how to use one, 

No, Smay's suit is the first time I have ever tried to make my own textures.  I basically started with Flash and Daredevil as my first attempts.  Those were very basic, just the lightning bolts and the DD logo.  Each character I try to make, I am getting more comfortable with things and trying more eleborate texturing.  Spider-Man being the most work because of all the webbing.  Essentially what I figured out so far was making a diffuse map for the colors, then using the bump and/or displacement maps for the raised textures/logos/emblems etc.  I try to be very organized with my photoshop files, so I have everything in groups, meaning I can hide/show groups and then can use one Photoshop file to make all the maps I need.  Spider-man's webs are done entirely with the pen tool and paths, if that is what you mean by linework.  

I saw the opacity map Smay included but it was just a white square with a thin black strip for the end seams so I wasn't sure about what it did.  But if I am understanding your explanation, if I want to make the red parts of the suit a darker grey in the opacity map instead of white, then it will darken these grey parts and making the webs and logos white I can still keep their lighter colors.  Correct?

Thanks for explainging this stuff.  I have been doing everything on a trial and error basis which is unbelievably time consuming.  LOL

Geminii23

Silent Winter said:

john_antkowiak said:

No, you can't use Photoshop to make a new material zone, but you can use it to create an opacity map. I've never tried to add a material zone and I don't even know if you can do it from DAZ.

Yes, you can - using the geometry editor, select the polys you want and then right-click to bring up the menu.  Go to 'Geometry Assignment: Create Surface from Selected'  Then name the new surface.  But then you're left with the new surface at basic 3DL with no maps applied, so you have to copy+paste (after applying Daz Iray Uber shader if applicable) from the previous surface it belonged to, and tweak from there.

Needs the polys to be in the right place though.

I just watched a YouTube video on that.  Definitely want to experiement with it.  Would creating these new material zones be a way for me to make a specific part glow?  For instance, I thought about going back and redoing my Flash attempt and having lines of yellow that would glow on the suit or his lightning bolts glow instead of just being a flat yellow.  But I didn't know how to achieve this.

john_antkowiak

"But if I am understanding your explanation, if I want to make the red parts of the suit a darker grey in the opacity map instead of white, then it will darken these grey parts and making the webs and logos white I can still keep their lighter colors.  Correct?"

Since I've never used gray in mine, I can't swear as to the result. But that's what I'd expect to happen, yes. You got it. And, you can still use any diffuse map (color map) you want. 

Knowing how you did the web linework makes your results all the more impressive  : )

Sounds like you're already using the bump maps to great effect, so it won't be necessary to explain how to use an opacity map. Let me know if I misunderstood that.

As to using material zones to make Flash's bolts glow... I don't think that'll work because the suit's mesh won't have vertices and polygons matching them. I'm guessing, the only way to achieve it using 3Delight is through post-work in Photoshop. In iRay, there might be a workaround that would be time-consuming but not extremely so, given the simplicity of your bolt designs. If you were trying to do that with Spidey's web lines, I'd say, "Forget it!" lol... But that's just me. Someone better versed in 3Delight might have other ideas.

Geminii23

Ok so, adding grey sections to the opacity map didn't have the intended effect.  My thinking on this was off.  If black makes something completely invisible at 100% opacity strength with an Opacity color set to pure white ( 255, 255, 255) then making sections of the map grey actually lightened those areas and started revealing the skin beneath.  With the Smay's normal opacity map being all white, it is back to showing the light grey.

I went into Photoshop again and took the levels to 4% or 10,10,10 which is pretty close to black.  The results in 3Delight are pretty good I think.  Any lower and I might as well not have the webbing sections on the suit at all and just do the classic all black with white emblems.

 

 

 

Silent Winter

Geminii23 said:

Silent Winter said:

john_antkowiak said:

No, you can't use Photoshop to make a new material zone, but you can use it to create an opacity map. I've never tried to add a material zone and I don't even know if you can do it from DAZ.

Yes, you can - using the geometry editor, select the polys you want and then right-click to bring up the menu.  Go to 'Geometry Assignment: Create Surface from Selected'  Then name the new surface.  But then you're left with the new surface at basic 3DL with no maps applied, so you have to copy+paste (after applying Daz Iray Uber shader if applicable) from the previous surface it belonged to, and tweak from there.

Needs the polys to be in the right place though.

I just watched a YouTube video on that.  Definitely want to experiement with it.  Would creating these new material zones be a way for me to make a specific part glow?  For instance, I thought about going back and redoing my Flash attempt and having lines of yellow that would glow on the suit or his lightning bolts glow instead of just being a flat yellow.  But I didn't know how to achieve this.

If you're using Iray, then you can set a surface to be emissive - so yeah, if the polys are in the right place, you could do that.

An alternative is using an emissive map, with the non-emissive parts as black, and the rest as whatever colour you need.  Put that in the emissive colour channel and set the base colour to white.  Temperature at 6500, and lumens at whatever strength you need.

Geminii23

Silent Winter said:

Geminii23 said:

Silent Winter said:

john_antkowiak said:

No, you can't use Photoshop to make a new material zone, but you can use it to create an opacity map. I've never tried to add a material zone and I don't even know if you can do it from DAZ.

Yes, you can - using the geometry editor, select the polys you want and then right-click to bring up the menu.  Go to 'Geometry Assignment: Create Surface from Selected'  Then name the new surface.  But then you're left with the new surface at basic 3DL with no maps applied, so you have to copy+paste (after applying Daz Iray Uber shader if applicable) from the previous surface it belonged to, and tweak from there.

Needs the polys to be in the right place though.

I just watched a YouTube video on that.  Definitely want to experiement with it.  Would creating these new material zones be a way for me to make a specific part glow?  For instance, I thought about going back and redoing my Flash attempt and having lines of yellow that would glow on the suit or his lightning bolts glow instead of just being a flat yellow.  But I didn't know how to achieve this.

If you're using Iray, then you can set a surface to be emissive - so yeah, if the polys are in the right place, you could do that.

An alternative is using an emissive map, with the non-emissive parts as black, and the rest as whatever colour you need.  Put that in the emissive colour channel and set the base colour to white.  Temperature at 6500, and lumens at whatever strength you need.

I will have to look into that.  I am just using 3Delight right now.  Not sure if the mask or socks will allow for that.  I noticed that the surface options for both in the Editor are very limited compared to Smay's SHS.  I am pretty sure the mask was originally made for M4.  Not sure if that makes a difference.

Geminii23

Ok, so here are my final (at this point) renders.  I think this is as good as it is going to get until I learn some new tricks.  Time to move on to my next character or possibly revisit some of the previous ones that I want to fix up (possibly a Reverse Flash or redo my original attempt entirely).

 

john_antkowiak

I love it, Gemini. Great job! And for what it's worth, I just found a likely source of my problem. I found a hint elsewhere in the forums. Apparently there's a known flaw in rendering with iRay - the further the figure is from the World Center (that is, in the General/Translation Parameters, x=0, y=0, z=0), the more pronouced the distortion. So I grouped everything in the scene, moved it all so that the figure ws somewhere close to that, and rendered again. And the problem disappeared. So now I can finalize the lighting and facial expression, and be done with it. check out the before and after, attached.

Geminii23

john_antkowiak said:

I love it, Gemini. Great job! And for what it's worth, I just found a likely source of my problem. I found a hint elsewhere in the forums. Apparently there's a known flaw in rendering with iRay - the further the figure is from the World Center (that is, in the General/Translation Parameters, x=0, y=0, z=0), the more pronouced the distortion. So I grouped everything in the scene, moved it all so that the figure ws somewhere close to that, and rendered again. And the problem disappeared. So now I can finalize the lighting and facial expression, and be done with it. check out the before and after, attached.

Oh wow.  Yeah.  Major difference there.  Very nice!  So then did you have to push the environment down in the scene instead of moving the character up?  I think I would naturally move the character to a logical place in the air away from the ground environment, so that is a good tip to know for the future.

john_antkowiak

Exactly. Originally I positioned the city at 0, 0, 0 and moved Superman to his relative spot... putting him at 4100, 9000, -3000 or some such crazy thing. I had no idea that would happen!

Geminii23

So you would think that Rogue (X-men) would be the easiest character to make using Smay's SHS for V6.  I am sure dozens of people have made renders of her already ... but I figured what the heck.  Why re-invent the wheel here.  Just another character to add to my arsenal for future renders.  Not to mention that the SHS for V6 and the included colors are pretty much spot on - right out of the box!  Yet for the life of me I can not find a belt, jacket, head band or hair to use in my entire library.  LOL

Anyone have any ideas?

Servant

Not sure if they qualify as "Superheroes". (L to R) Gilius Thunderhead, Tyris Flare, Ax Battler. 

megagearx_eaad3c70d6

Where would I find a yellow version of the Poison Ivy eye makeup from Injustice 2?

I would also like to find out where I can find some black eye makeup to go under the super hero mask, kind of like how Batman has in the movies and games.

john_antkowiak

Hi, Megagear. The answer to the question you asked depends on what generation of figures you're using. Certain characters come with various eyeliner options - or maybe the Layered Image Editor (LIE) makeup products would work; I don't know much about them. However, there's an easier method than spending money on a new product. You can open the face maps in Photoshop (which is also expensive last time I looked) or GIMP (which is free, and which I use) and color them yourself. As a beginner with this technique, you can't go wrong with Batman as the mask will cover most of it.

Servant

Antimage from DoTA 2

megagearx_eaad3c70d6

john_antkowiak said:

Hi, Megagear. The answer to the question you asked depends on what generation of figures you're using. Certain characters come with various eyeliner options - or maybe the Layered Image Editor (LIE) makeup products would work; I don't know much about them. However, there's an easier method than spending money on a new product. You can open the face maps in Photoshop (which is also expensive last time I looked) or GIMP (which is free, and which I use) and color them yourself. As a beginner with this technique, you can't go wrong with Batman as the mask will cover most of it.

Genesis 3 male and female.

If I did open the face maps in Photoshop and create my own looks, how do I import them into Daz Studio? Would shaders color over them?

 

Does anyone know if you can alter the color of LIEs or are you stuck with any purchased colors?

Servant

megagearx_eaad3c70d6 said:

john_antkowiak said:

Hi, Megagear. The answer to the question you asked depends on what generation of figures you're using. Certain characters come with various eyeliner options - or maybe the Layered Image Editor (LIE) makeup products would work; I don't know much about them. However, there's an easier method than spending money on a new product. You can open the face maps in Photoshop (which is also expensive last time I looked) or GIMP (which is free, and which I use) and color them yourself. As a beginner with this technique, you can't go wrong with Batman as the mask will cover most of it.

Genesis 3 male and female.

If I did open the face maps in Photoshop and create my own looks, how do I import them into Daz Studio? Would shaders color over them?

 

Does anyone know if you can alter the color of LIEs or are you stuck with any purchased colors?

You can manually replace them through the Surfaces tab or set it up as a resource. It's how those second-skin textures work.

Geminii23

Decided to update my Redhood kitbash character.  The first one was made with Genesis 1, this one is for G2M.  Went with some different options here, such as different boots and pants, also now using 3D obj armor plates originally made for Batman.  So I think this attempt looks a bit closer to the Injustice 2 version of him.

 

john_antkowiak

"If I did open the face maps in Photoshop and create my own looks, how do I import them into Daz Studio? Would shaders color over them?"

If you select the figure and go to the Surfaces tab, you can see which channels contain the face maps. The nice thing is, you don't have to create separate bump maps or normal maps; you only have to substitute your color map for your character's default. I have  separate file structure for my characters where I keep all the maps I create; that way I always know where to find them. You click on the default face map in the Base Color (iRay) or Diffuse (3Delight) channel and browse to your desired replacement.

And no, shaders won't replace them unless you specifically apply a shader to the face Surface.

john_antkowiak

john_antkowiak said:

Yes, you can - using the geometry editor, select the polys you want and then right-click to bring up the menu.  Go to 'Geometry Assignment: Create Surface from Selected'  Then name the new surface.  But then you're left with the new surface at basic 3DL with no maps applied, so you have to copy+paste (after applying Daz Iray Uber shader if applicable) from the previous surface it belonged to, and tweak from there.

Ok, @SilentWinter, I'm ready to try this. Only it occurs to me to ask: How exactly do I "use the geometry editor"? I've never done this before. I assume I go to Edit/Object/Geometry/Update Base Geometry/Update Full Geometry, yes? And then what do I import - the .duf from the My DAZ 3D Library/People/Hair path, or something from the /data path? Seems like a strange question to be presented with (that is, "what geometry do you want to import?"), given that the item has to be selected before they ask you the question. I'm not sure I'm understanding this correctly. Thanks --