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  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    woww the 41 food shaders is 6gbs

    pbr and hdr needs serious ssd

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975
    edited June 2021

    Misty,  I had a chance to look at my lips face shader thingy. I used plastic not glass, but with reflection set to index of reflection... material set to something hard and shiny. Plastic stock red shader lips and diamond worked OK. Ice was OK, but the hard elements were better. The brighter the glow look (stayed away from glow channel), then the less the real the lips creases will look if you use any as the normals file won't be very noticeable. Collagen city.  They do look uniformly glossy on a a Carrara G3 female, though. Up close it is very reflective and a bit fake, but from a distance it works without having to create any special makeup.  

    heart Silene

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  • BrianP21361BrianP21361 Posts: 808

    Silene,

    Why did you choose Index of Refraction for Reflection? Index of Refraction is used for transparency. I would have thought setting it to a Value like 6-15% would have worked better, more natural. Adding a bump or normal map with creases as you stated will look more realistic too. 

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    BrianP21361 said:

    Silene,

    Why did you choose Index of Refraction for Reflection? Index of Refraction is used for transparency. I would have thought setting it to a Value like 6-15% would have worked better, more natural. Adding a bump or normal map with creases as you stated will look more realistic too. 

    I thought she wanted lips that 'popped' and were glossy and wet looking. At one time I needed bloody lips, so that was how I did it. I wanted them to glisten. Obviously you have more experience and ability than me, so if Misty finds your way gives a better result, then that's more useful!  I will file it away as well for when my eyes are better and I can do stuff again.

    yes  Silene

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    lip does look shiny and cant see her teeth thru transparency.  thanks. kiss

    has a look of 1970s/80s lip gloss.   popular when i waas a teen. and came in flavors 

  • BrianP21361BrianP21361 Posts: 808

    Silene,

    I wasn't criticising. I'm sorry if you took it that way. I was trying to learn from you by understanding your choices. I would have done it a different way, but maybe I can learn something new from your approach. One of the great things about Carrara is that things can be done different ways. 

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,988

    BrianP21361 said:

    Silene,

    I wasn't criticising. I'm sorry if you took it that way. I was trying to learn from you by understanding your choices. I would have done it a different way, but maybe I can learn something new from your approach. One of the great things about Carrara is that things can be done different ways. 

    I'm sure there was no offence taken. We all learn from each other's input - as you said! :)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,988

    Mystiara said:

    i'm ready to make the tough decision.  no more buying stuff til i put what i have in carrara.

    or a carrara specific set comes out.  or the dragon of my dreams comes out

    ha ha yes, I have stuff coming out of my ears that dim has stuffed in there

    for lip gloss shader you could try a map put into the reflection channel of the shader

    or do a subtle map in the glow channel

    I'm pretty sure you could put a map in either the Highlight  channel or the specular channel -

    see this great and brilliant article by dart Optimizing Your Content – Shader Basics | Carrara Cafe.

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    BrianP21361 said:

    Silene,

    I wasn't criticising. I'm sorry if you took it that way. I was trying to learn from you by understanding your choices. I would have done it a different way, but maybe I can learn something new from your approach. One of the great things about Carrara is that things can be done different ways. 

    Brian, I didn't take it that way at all, and thanks for your input!  yes  So many on here do far far far more than I do, so I like to see other options.  But the last time I used my way was for blood... Neanderthals weren't into lip gloss. kisswink but they did a lot of 'blood' laugh

    I was just going for that glassy look that Misty mentions was so popular in the past. I am sure there are more ways to go about it. Just being female and at one time into makeup, I remembered those times. laugh   

    No eye make up these last few years since I had corneal problems, and now cataracts on top of dry eye stuff. My sclera does not produce its share of the tear component.  I have to have plastic plugs in my tear ducts. Sadly they fall out, or I rub them out from time to time. During Covid I went without plugs for months, so no Carraring.  Now I have plugs, but am waiting for cataracts any week now and don't expect to be able to get any replaced till then, so am being careful not to dislodge them. I also use liters of hycosan a month. Ugh. indecision

    Oh well, I can read the forum, I just can't 'play' much, but file away lots of the WIPs and other suggestions/ideas, renders and contributions. They are all appreciated!smiley

    heartyes  Silene

     

     

     

  • BrianP21361BrianP21361 Posts: 808

    Silene,

    thanksnfor responding and good luck with the cataracts. 

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,988

    SileneUK said:

    BrianP21361 said:

    Silene,

    I wasn't criticising. I'm sorry if you took it that way. I was trying to learn from you by understanding your choices. I would have done it a different way, but maybe I can learn something new from your approach. One of the great things about Carrara is that things can be done different ways. 

    Brian, I didn't take it that way at all, and thanks for your input!  yes  So many on here do far far far more than I do, so I like to see other options.  But the last time I used my way was for blood... Neanderthals weren't into lip gloss. kisswink but they did a lot of 'blood' laugh

    I was just going for that glassy look that Misty mentions was so popular in the past. I am sure there are more ways to go about it. Just being female and at one time into makeup, I remembered those times. laugh   

    No eye make up these last few years since I had corneal problems, and now cataracts on top of dry eye stuff. My sclera does not produce its share of the tear component.  I have to have plastic plugs in my tear ducts. Sadly they fall out, or I rub them out from time to time. During Covid I went without plugs for months, so no Carraring.  Now I have plugs, but am waiting for cataracts any week now and don't expect to be able to get any replaced till then, so am being careful not to dislodge them. I also use liters of hycosan a month. Ugh. indecision

    Oh well, I can read the forum, I just can't 'play' much, but file away lots of the WIPs and other suggestions/ideas, renders and contributions. They are all appreciated!smiley

    heartyes  Silene

     

     

     

    sorry to hear :(

    Have you tried hyloforte - it might help a bit HYLO-FORTE® | AFT Pharmaceuticals

    I expect that you have tried warm compresses and lid  massage?

    Genteal Gel at night might be in order as well. 

    Fish oil has a reputation for helping with omega 3 fatty acids and putting oils in your tears -  havent seen the scientific evidence but worth a try if  it doesnt interfer with other meds

     

    Just suggestions!

     

    Good luck with the cats.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578

    Rosie has chronic dry-eye and Genteal Gel helps considerably. When I'm at the pharmacy, if a have any doubt I grab her another tube! ;)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578
    edited June 2021

    As for the 'Shiny Lip" thing, here are some tips to keep in mind:

    Firstly, we never really need to use the Reflection channel unless we want to reflect something. Gloss can be achieved much simpler, and without taxing our render times.

    Highlight Channel

    • Using the basic Value = 0 - 100, 0 means no highlight, 100 means full-on highlight power. If we look at some of the shader presets in Carrara, it's amazing how much highlight can be achieved with a relatively low highlight value because of:

    Shininess Channel

    • Using the basic Value = 0 - 100, 0 means wide coverage that spans edges, 50 is so tight that it creates a sharp highlight according to the direction of incoming light, 100 is so tight that it is commonly used to turn off highlights without having to worry about what's in the Highlight channel.

     

    Now let's think about an image - any image. All images have a range of HSL (Hue, Saturation and Lightness or Luminosity), even if it's a solid color. In the earlier days, content-producing artists would include and image of a solid color to ensure the specific color is used instead of a simple color chip (some still do).

    Knowing this, Using the basic Value = 0 - 100, 0 means Black, 100 means white and everything in between is a graduating scale, absent of color (hue) - in other words varying brightness of gray, while a color image will use the full spectrum of HSL.

     

    These two channels in Carrara don't really care what we put in them. So we could use a colorful image in either.

    The difference is that the Highlight channel will use the color from the image and the Shininess channel will not. It will see the brightness value of any pixel as a level along the gray scale, and apply that as the width (a value between 0 and 100, depending on the L (lightness) of the pixel) that it will allow the highlight channel to effect the surface at that specific part of the object.

    Okay, before we get lost in thought, just remember that the Highlight and Shininess channels work together to tell the render engine how shiny the surface is - and by using anything other than a value slider we can change the effect at varous parts of the material zone using only one shader.

    This "other thing" could be an image, a procedural, formulae or any combination of them.

     

    In PBR engines, this is determined in a very similar fashion, but the channels are often called Metalness (not really even a word!!!) and Roughness. Completely different engines, so I hope not to confuse anyone - just making a quick, basic point here.

    Although in a PBR engine this is responsible for more than just this, the Metalness is similar to our Highlight channel in that it tells the engine how much highlight there will be, and of what color.

    Roughness is like our Shininess channel in that it determines whether the metalness will spread out (less shiny/glossy) or tighten up (more shiny/glossy)

     

    Knowing this can be useful when using modern Daz 3d content in Carrara, as we can look at the maps to help determine what they'll do to our surface.

    When I use a roughness map in the Shininess channel, I keep in mind that a value of 50 in our Shininess channel is so tight that at lower resolution/quality renders, we might not even see the result from it - so I multiply the Roughness map by a value of 30 (30 being the tightest I want the shine to be.

    This is just 'my' preference - yours may differ - and '30' is just my quick default starting point. I often tweak these values if/when I feel the need)

     

    There are other factors involved in PBR render engines, so when I'm using a Metalness map in the Highlight channel, I ask myself if the entire map controls a single material and, if so, does that material require an additional color multiplied by, or added to it.

    Since this map is often also responsible for reflectivity in a PBR shader, I might also copy it into the Reflection channel's Shader slot, after I turn on Reflection.

    It will still work to override the warning and simply add the map to Reflection instead of turning it on first, but then we lose out on the other reflection options that Carrara's incredible render engine affords us - like fresnel and blurry reflections, for example.

     

    Keeping all of that in mind, open the textures folder for your character.

     

    Look at the facial maps and particularly seek out ones that have brighter accents in the lips. This is often going to be the Specular map (MapName_S, for example) but we might even see a great set of highlights in a map we'd least expect. That's why I almost always visit and explore the texture folder of new products as I buy them.

    Now:

    Using a gray scale Specular Highlights map (called a Specular or Spec map for short) will offer a glossy shine if we let it, by placing it in the Highlight channel all by itself at full strength, and adjust the Shininess value until we get the results we're after.

    In Misty's case:

    We'll drop the Spec map into the Highlight channel, and begin our test renders with a Shininess Value of somewhere around 18 to 25, then raise or lower the value to taste.

    Another thing we might try, to get that really sexy shiny lips effect would be to also copy that Spec map into the Shininess channel and multiply it by the same value range. This will cause the lips to be glossier where the Spec map delivers highlights, and more spread out where there are less highlights in the map. 

     

    Silene's Refraction technique can also be added to all of this to let the Index of Refraction help to scatter the light in different ways and at different strengths according to which way the light is coming from. In order to use these effects, we might also need to use a touch of translucency, transparency (I wouldn't in this case) or reflection. 

    These techniques are beyond my comfort zone, since I usually remove these effects to speed up my animation renders. So I spent years playing with what can be achieved using only Shininess and Highlight, most of the time not even using Reflection!

    But for some surfaces, including Refraction allows us to turn on Caustics and really let this wonderful engine come to life. 

     

    Ringo, GKDantas, Magaremto*, Dimension Theory and others are the folks who perform these bits of magic. Buying their products have glorious examples of what we can do with Carrara's shaders.

    * I was lucky to have bought all of his Daz 3d Carrara products before they hit the vault! Great Stuff Magaremoto!!! You too Macello (GKDantas), Ringo, PhilW, DT, Tim Payne, Howie Farkes, Sub7th and many more over the years

     

    I Love to open shaders I've bought from them and others (mmoir included) and just experiment with them to see why they set up shaders the way they do - and each of them have their own style of surface shaders. All are very much worth examining.

     

    Dimension Theory's Delphinia Carraractors product, for RebelMommy's Delphinia for V4 was a full-on Carrara rendering class on its own - it even comes with a special secondary tutorial on how to make a camera mount that allows us to 'drive' the camera around the scene while looking through it!

    He also explains (it comes with videos and manual) why he uses reflection on her skin. I don't want to spoil it, so I'll leave that for folks to explore on their own.

    Of course, PhilW's Carrara courses all have shader tricks. Realism Rendering really gets down to business on that front.

    mmoir's Modeling in Carrara tutorial doesn't end with modeling. He shows us first hand how to build a shader from scratch according to what we imagine our surface to look like.

    Any/all of Ringo's shaders for Carrara products are a tutorial in their own right, simply by opening them up and exploring how he made them. Same goes for GKDantas' Carrara shaders - as well as mmoir's Carrara kits.

     

    One of the great resources that helped me get my V4 based hero looking the best she's ever looked, is Indigone's V4 Skin Shader Kit and Lights.

    Beyond that, however, her accompanying tutorial has really taught me a ton about shaders.

    This kit contains shaders for all of V4's various parts in separate shader files. The tutorial explains which goes where, but their descriptive names say it all.

    This set may be for V4, but it works for Genesis, M4, V3... any 3d figure, really.

    It makes use of Sub-Surface Scattering, Highlights and shininess, and just really walks you through the whole process. The lights set that comes with it was developed by her over a long period of optimizing shadows - and really makes your figure look good! If this sort of thing interests you, she also has an eyes shader package available: Endless Eye Kit for V4

     

    Oh... is that really the time? LOL

    I hope this helps a bit. Working with shaders is how we get good renders in Carrara. Like any rendering app, however, nothing is as easy as a "Make Art" button.

    Exploring and learning shaders, lighting, scene composition/camera framing and render settings all play a huge factor. Shaders that look great in one person's work might not do anything good for another person who uses entirely different lighting techniques, render settings, etc., so we all have to take the time to hone our own comfort zone with all of this - and I spent years practicing to become the mediocre artist I am today!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578

    Speaking of which, there's a fine DP Painters Bundle (Ringo Monfort) for Carrara in the 1.99 PC for a Day sale today (June 09, 2021)!

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    THANKS ALL for the advice!  I don't see that brand Genteal Gel here in the UK except at crazy eBay prices.  I have used all brands of tears and gels, plus I get some from the eye hospital as well. I switch around with Hycosan, HyloForte and Theoloz.  I just have to wait it out!

    Great ceramic shaders in the sale MISTY as DART pointed out!  Better than plastic faffing.

    heart Silene

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578

    We pay a tall price for Genteal, but it's the only thing that fixes her eyes

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    Dartanbeck said:

    We pay a tall price for Genteal, but it's the only thing that fixes her eyes

    Only price available is $20 and it's sent from USA and includes postage, so we will see. If Rosie says it works, I will try it!

    yes  Silene

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578

    Her optometrist subscribed it - as HeadWax just did you :)

    The Gel, for us is closer to $15, I think, for a small tube. That Gel is the Severe strength fix for chronic dry-eye. They also have Moderate strength for roughly the same price but the bottle is bigger, and it's not Gel.

    So she gets the Moderate and uses that except when she goes to bed, which is when she glues her eyes shut with Severe strength Gel! ;)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578

    There is also a generic brand available, but I haven't seen that around for at least a year. Perhaps they had to pull it for patent issues?

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    Dartanbeck said:

    There is also a generic brand available, but I haven't seen that around for at least a year. Perhaps they had to pull it for patent issues?

    I will show it to my pharmacist when it comes, as he is very keen on new stuff (independent, not a chain) and see what he can get in with same ingredients. I got the severe gel for night time. I have a gel now that is like vaseline, but it doesn't work that great. Hopefully soon I can get this sorted. When I have the tear duct plugs in, it's much less of a problem. The sclera problem is from birth, it just never bothered me till I got older and got corneal problems.

    Fingers crossed... by summer's end I hope to be back to 'normal' vision. I miss driving when I need to go someplace as I am wary of the trains at the moment.

    frown Silene

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,225

    Not that dear down here

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    goin for my eylia treatment in an hour.

    doan wanna go. crying

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    Mystiara said:

    goin for my eylia treatment in an hour.

    doan wanna go. crying

    Misty, What did you have done?

    Wendy, Is the product made in Australia? That comes about to about £12 for me, But I don't know where it is coming from.  I thought the UK was doing a deal with Australia... if so I will buy them from there if possible in the future!

    surprise Silene

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    SileneUK said:

    Mystiara said:

    goin for my eylia treatment in an hour.

    doan wanna go. crying

    Misty, What did you have done?

    Wendy, Is the product made in Australia? That comes about to about £12 for me, But I don't know where it is coming from.  I thought the UK was doing a deal with Australia... if so I will buy them from there if possible in the future!

    surprise Silene

    eylia is an injection in the eyes.  is supposed to shrink the blood vessels and stop the bleeding.
    doesnt improve things, is supposed to stop it from going worse. 

  • SileneUKSileneUK Posts: 1,975

    eylia is an injection in the eyes.  is supposed to shrink the blood vessels and stop the bleeding.
    doesnt improve things, is supposed to stop it from going worse. 

    @Mystiara  Ouch. Sounds a very serious treatment, I hope it will help you.heart Silene

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,578

    A friend of mine has to force himself to blink, because somehow it's not an involuntary action for him.

    That must really suck! I'm sure he'll have issues with age.

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,066

    Mystiara said:

    SileneUK said:

    Mystiara said:

    goin for my eylia treatment in an hour.

    doan wanna go. crying

    Misty, What did you have done?

    Wendy, Is the product made in Australia? That comes about to about £12 for me, But I don't know where it is coming from.  I thought the UK was doing a deal with Australia... if so I will buy them from there if possible in the future!

    surprise Silene

    eylia is an injection in the eyes.  is supposed to shrink the blood vessels and stop the bleeding.
    doesnt improve things, is supposed to stop it from going worse. 

    OMG!

    my dad used to have eye injections .... thinking of you during this procedure smiley 

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    these pages so bright after the other forums for a couple hours.

     

    i can't make heads nor tails of the new gallery.

    i don't see how to add an image.

    don't see a carrara gallery.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,225

    Dartanbeck said:

    A friend of mine has to force himself to blink, because somehow it's not an involuntary action for him.

    That must really suck! I'm sure he'll have issues with age.

    they might eventually be able to make a nerve simulatior like a pacemaker that they place in his sinus or something (batteries changed up the nose)

    like they are working on for spinal injuries

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    think i finally nailed the make up layering.

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