Creating Octane Skin Shaders for Daz Figures?

PSIExperience

I apologize if this seems like a common or mundane issue, but nothing I've found through these forums, the Otoy forums, or google seems to cover my issue. To out it simply, I want to take a Daz figure (let's say Victoria 8), and make it look good in the Octane Renderer. I currently have the Octane Daz plugin. The problems I'm running into with the guides and tutorials I've found are the following: -tutorial just says to auto convert the iray materials, which defeats the purpose of getting octane in the first place. -tutorial assumes I know way more than I do and goes into detail about a specific thing, rather than generally about how to go from start to finish. -tutorial gives me an already-made shader and just tells me where to put it, rather than telling me how it's put together. I'd like to be able to use the Daz texture files where possible, unless its preferable to do without. This tutorial has been most helpful so far-- https://thinkdrawart.com/how-to-create-realistic-skin-in-daz-studio-octane -- except the author does not really talk about how to do eyes, eyelashes, or nails. Also at one point in that article he has a series of images showing the different layers in his shader, except he doesn't really explain how he made and setup those layers in a single material, and as far as I can tell when I apply the daz texture to his shader like he says to do in the article, I'm overwriting whatever he's done anyways. Another really common thing I see is people recommending the tonysculpter skin shaders from the LiveDB. The problem is when I try to apply them to a surface, my figure looks like a ballistics gel dummy, so I'm clearly not using these correctly. I'm really sorry this is all stuff that seems obvious to you all. I'm still really new to this and cutting down the render times with octane seemed worth it.

shaneseymourstudio

I struggled with these issues for many months and even to this day I am seeking the best way to get the skin looking great. I ended up taking the route of learning about the materials themselves and render settings from many many different sources. While I found out alot about other types of materials skin was always the most uncovered. I too went the path you are and ran through the tony sculptor recommendation. I can put in some examples of my own custom shaders when I am home later today and get some info together to help you and anyone else wondering about this. I have an art thread dedicated to my progress in Octane with skin:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/339021/

For the mean time I can recommend this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1xN9zvlC3Q

It doesn't cover the subsurface scattering aspect but that is something I learned about more from other tuts that werent directly related to skin. Also you do not have to use materialize as many daz models come with the maps he is making but you can get much higher resolution if you do use materialize as he does in the video.

What version of the plugin and daz are you using? I recommend the latest test version here:

https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=71080

It requires the studio sub to use but has newer features that are good to use.

For eyes I let the auto convert do its thing and search for "Cornea" from the live db and apply that to the cornea. That is all I ever do with the eyes.

 

 

shaneseymourstudio

Here is a scene with a simple Universal material setup I used in these images:

Textured Lights

 

HDR Environment

 

Open or merge the attached duf with material and save it as a preset under the Octane material tab. Let autoconvert take place when you load a character so the maps will show up in the list for quick access under N.G.E. (node graph editor). Place your diffuse map in the albedo RGB node using the dropdown. Bump in bump and specular in specular. If the model your using does not have a specular map you can follow the video I linked above for making one. For the eyes just use the autoconvert with the "Clear Cornea" for the cornea from the live DB.

PSIExperience

I'm using the R4.2.1.44 version of the plugin as I believed it was the latest version.  I made a similar post to this on the Octane forums and somebody from Octane replied that they're putting out the 2019 version of the plugin within the week, which apparently will totally overhaul how skin shaders are organized.

Thank you for the links, I'll start combing through them and post what I learn for others to see.

shaneseymourstudio

PSIExperience said:

I'm using the R4.2.1.44 version of the plugin as I believed it was the latest version.  I made a similar post to this on the Octane forums and somebody from Octane replied that they're putting out the 2019 version of the plugin within the week, which apparently will totally overhaul how skin shaders are organized.

Thank you for the links, I'll start combing through them and post what I learn for others to see.

Thanks for sharing that! I look forward to having the updated version of the plugin. I am guessing the plugin update will not be for the latest 2019.2 XB1 that introduces Random Walk SSS:

https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=72221&sid=5fb04c679ccf6bf7ee57172811d5aad2

I am excited for that to be released as a stable version and finally into a plugin form. I have used it on the Standalone Octane from the link above after exporting my scene. I have not noticed a change with the skin shader organization but there are alot of good features on the way, especially for RTX users. The simple shader I posted is very fast even on non RTX cards (P5000 laptop version here). 

If you find out anything please do share!