Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

Like all special nodes, the Hair node also provides diffuse, specular and eventually more as an all-in-one offer. Just black-out (or nullify) the regular Diffuse, Specular and other properties of the PoserSurface, and plug the node into Alternate Diffuse.

But besides that, the Hair node is special in its own right. It’s not just a surface cover, it’s a full 3-dimensional U-V-and-W mapped coloring device. And… it’s specially designed for the hair strands which result from applying the features in the Hair Room.

The (diffuse) coloring works as follows: one can apply a UV surface color at the hair-root level. A color, an image map, a 2D or 3D coloring node, whatever. So each strand gets its own color at the root. And one can apply a UV surface color at the other end, the hair-tip level. Then, Poser will interpolate the color, as in a gradient with set start and end colors, along the hair strand itself.

In the resulting image, the mid-part has a black tile at the root while the surrounding areas have a white tile underneath. So in some cases the color grades from black to red/yellow, and in the other cases from white to red/yellow. The black/white tiles are three times as large as the red/yellow ones.

Some notes.

• Hair – with any kind of coloring – is a challenge for rendering, due to its vast amount of vertices in the object. You might not realize this, but when you’ve got 300.000 hairs of 20 elements (verts per hair, see the screen grab) each, then you end up with 6.000.000 vertices. For comparison: a Poser figure like Vicky has about 60.000 vertices, so the hair object is 100 times as large. As a result, rendering stranded hair takes long render times and an enormous amount of memory. Like the image above: it took 90 minutes and 5.5 Gb ram to get rendered on quite a high-end machine.
• Under IDL conditions, each hair-element is considered to be a light source. This of course will grow out of hand pretty fast (as in the example above, I’ll have 6 million of them!), and it will require even more memory and render time. I do switch Light-emitter OFF!
  

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

Real velvet is some ‘hairy’ cloth, with short shaved strands standing out. As a result, one looks into the bare ends of the strands when looking perpendicular to the cloth, without any specularity, and with deep dark color. When looking at it sideways however, one looks at the sides of the strands which do have some specularity, and usually have a lighter color. That’s the ‘Sheen’.

Note that the strands – which stand perpendicular to the cloth – that point towards the camera have the deep red color.

To illustrate this, just consider the extreme case of blue strands and a white sheen (right pawn, the left pawn shows regular diffuse and specular):

Although a just paler shade of the (Velvet_)Color makes a better sheen:

Note that darker or off-color sheens can make interesting stuff, which however are not realistic velvets. But strands with a bluish inside core and a dark purple outside coat can make:

Like all special nodes, the Velvet node also provides diffuse, specular and eventually more as an all-in-one offer. Just black-out (or nullify) the regular Diffuse, Specular and other properties of the PoserSurface, and plug the node into Alternate Diffuse.

Kd, Ks and Ka represent the regular Diffuse_Value, Specular_Value and Ambient_Value and present any required mixture of those components. Roughness is the direct equivalent of Highlight_Size in PoserSurface, or Roughness in the various specular nodes. Its value is similar as well. Normals_Forward is the same as in PoserSurface, and in all diffuse and specular nodes.

The only new one is Edginess. The default (around 10) value makes realistic velvets. Low values (say 1.0) make very short-haired lightweight velvets, for which the Velvet_Sheen is quite dominant. High values (say 100) make long-haired heavy-weight velvets, for which the Velvet_Color itself is by far the dominant one. Compare cloth for T-shirts (lightweight) and for theatre curtains (heavy weight). Both extremes will lose the velvet effect somewhat.

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

In “old days” or “classical” Poser solutions, regular Diffuse (with image maps), Specular (sometimes with special maps too), and some Ambient were combined to mimic the presentation of realistic skin. Modern Poser versions (8 and Pro 2012, and up) offer additional surface scattering. This article presents a comparison of the various skin and scattering nodes.

For short: CustomScatter is the most generic, does require the SubSurface Scattering (SSS) option in the Render Settings, and provides direct access to all parameters of the mechanism. Subsurface Skin – discussed here – then is a derivative of CustomScatter, dedicated to (human) skin.

Like all special nodes, the Subsurface Skin node also provides diffuse, specular and eventually more as an all-in-one offer. Just black-out (or nullify) the regular Diffuse, Specular and other properties of the PoserSurface, and plug the node into Alternate Diffuse.

The left pawn shows regular diffuse and specular (default settings), the right pawn shows subsurface skin, as in:

To obtain a highlight of about the same size and intensity as the regular (left) material setting, the node needs about three times the regular values for Specularity and Highlight Size. But since the material supports some scattering under the skin, it will produce a more washed out color overall.

Some notes, mainly on parameters:

• Texture Detail: this value is meaningful when a texture map is applied. At 1.0 the texture is applied at the outside of the skin layer, making the texture quite crisp but reducing the skin scattering. At 0.0 the texture is applied at the inner side of the skin layer, blurring the texture by the scattering. The default 0.5 is offered as a starting point.
• MaxError: 1.0 offers speedy rendering at reduced quality, while 0.0 offers max quality at the cost of long render times. The default 0.2 is offered as a starting point.
• Specularity: according to the manual, 1.0 matches human skin reflectivity. This is something different indeed from the regular Specular value where values exceeding 0.2 match shiny hard plastics. As said above, the Specularity and Highlight Size in this node need to be set three times as high as the settings in the regular Specular component to match the effect.
• This node requires the SSS in Render Settings being switched ON.

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

Skin is an “all in one” material node, which caters for diffuse, specular and ambient portions of the definition. So it responds to diffuse light (direct and indirect), specular light (direct only) and also generates some lighting of its own (glow). Just black-out (or nullify) the regular Diffuse, Specular and other properties of the PoserSurface, and plug the node into Alternate Diffuse.

The SkinColor is dominant when looking straight onto the surface, the SheenColor becomes dominant at skew angles towards the camera. The idea is that light is diffused from slightly below the surface. At skew angles that light travels a longer distance through the surface layer, and picks up more color from within that layer. SkinColor therefor represents the color at the outer side, SheenColor represents the colorization within the surface layer by the scattering. The specular and ambient colors of the material are derived from them.

Kd is jargon for Diffuse value, Ks for specular value and Ka for ambient value.

The left pawn shows a regular diffuse and specular use, the right one shows skin at default settings (except for the color adjustment to blue).

Note: with this node, precalculating Indirect Light takes quite some time, and the surface gets an enormous amount of ‘red dots’. RAM usage goes up accordingly (over 2Gb for a single pawn at 85% irradiance cache), so this node certainly is a ‘render killer’ and should be used on high performance machines (and patient users) only.

Left pawn using regular diffuse and specular, right pawn using skin node at default values.

As the left pawn had Diffuse value 0.9, Specular Value 0.1 (and 0.0 ambient), let’s use those values instead of the default ones.

In the first place, the lower values for ambient and diffuse produce less Indirect Light, and renders much faster than the default settings. Second, the result looks like velvet, without any noticeable highlights. So, the Kd and Ks do behave different from their Diffuse Value and Specular Value equivalents. This effectively means that I’m on my own finding the right mix of settings.

Let’s set ambient to 0.1, just to add a bit.

Now the result looks like glowing velvet:

This article presents a comparison of the various skin and scattering nodes.

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

All nodes in the Specular group respond to specular light, which refers to specular light from direct (point- spot- infinite) sources only. The regular ‘specular’ node itself, either separate or embedded in the PoserSurface definition directly is fast to calculate, but falls short for a neat illusion of about any real stuff except hard plastic. And even then Poser offers an alternative: Glossy for hard, smooth surfaces.

This is why Poser offers alternatives, like Blinn, or Anisotropic for microscopically grooved surfaces “with a direction”. Generally, Blinn is the preferred node to use, but it’s too soft for the really hard and shiny surfaces. Especially since not all hard, shiny surfaces are smooth. Some have a cellular structure, where each element is smooth and shiny, but the surface as a whole is more diffusive.

Recent Poser versions introduce the Ks-microfacet node for this. As can be seen (right pawn), the highlights are small and sharp as are those from glossy (left pawn).

So, like glossy was the improved version of Phong for hard and shiny stuff, ks microfacet seems the improved version of glossy, or the improvement over Blinn for hard and shiny stuff. What’s the difference with Glossy then?

Well, when I give the example a closer look, it shows that the glossy pawn (left) is fuzzy, blurred all over the highlight while the ks-microfacet one (right) is quite bold in the middle of the highlight, and becomes blurred at the edges only. To me, the latter has a stronger impression of smooth hard plastic or a hard blank lacquer than the first. Another difference is at the parameter values: although the highlights have about equal sizes, the glossy pawn (left) needs a roughness 0,02 (or: 2%) while the ks-microfacet one (right) needs a roughness 0,05 (5%) for it. This implies that the ks-microfacet node can represent much smoother and harder materials than the glossy node, as it has more ‘room to maneuver’ for nuances left before it reaches the ultimate 0.0 value. (At roughness <0.001 I won’t get a highlight of any size any more).

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

All nodes in the Specular group respond to specular light, which refers to specular light from direct (point- spot- infinite) sources only. The regular ‘specular’ node itself, either separate or embedded in the PoserSurface definition directly is fast to calculate, but falls short for a neat illusion of about any real stuff except hard plastic.

This is why Poser offers alternatives, like Blinn, or Anisotropic for microscopically grooved surfaces. Phong is considered completely outdated.

Some background

B.T. Phong introduced (in 1973) a method to make neat highlights and smooth surfaces out of a surface which consisted of small flat elements, as our 3D objects do.

As his method was improved by Blinn, and as the results in Poser hardly differ from the regular specularity (left pawn, vs right pawn showing Phong):

the method – and the node – can be considered outdated. The parameters have the same meaning as the Specular ones.

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

In cartoon style, images have their colors reduced and have the contours of object and object elements lined out. Poser once even had a Toon Renderer to support this but it dealt only with images as a whole. That effect can be obtained with about any reasonable image processing tool in post, nowadays.

So Poser now offers a toon node, which translates a regular diffuse light distribution pattern to a reduced color scheme, plus the required line-out (inking) as well. This enables me to mix regular, photo real and cartoon elements in one scene, or even animation.

Diffuse Andy (left) and Cartoon Andy (right).

The node parameters are quite obvious:

The surface fades from LightColor to BlackColor like a regular surface would fade from bright to dark, but in a toon surface the pace is determined by the Spread value. If 1.0 then LightColor is very dominant, and I’ll see various surface and shape details. If low (say 0.1) DarkColor is dominantly present, and surface and shape details will hardly show.

The object elements are outlined in InkColor, with a specified LineWidth in a way determined by Outline Mode. Just experiment a bit to find out what settings fit your needs best.

Normals_Forward is like the similar switch in PoserSurface and in any node from the diffuse or specular group: when the surface elements have their normal (dictated by the vertex order in the mesh definition) in the wrong direction, light bounces might be calculated erroneously, and dark spots on the surface will result. Check the box to make Poser fix the issue.

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

The probeLight node is one for very specific purposes, related to IBL (image based) scene lighting. The idea is as follows:

In the industry, when images are shot for IBL scene lighting (see http://my.smithmicro.com/tutorials/1850.html for example), shiny metal balls or ‘probes’ are used. Photographs of those make good candidates for the images attached to IBL lamps, lighting the scenes.

But what if I want such a probe itself in my scene? Then I take a ball, and use the probeLight node to wrap the same IBL image around it, the same way as it’s mapped in the IBL lighting itself.

relates to

I even can wrap the image around a point light, but do note that in such a case the light ray will be directed in a direction opposite to the IBL lighting. Someone might get disoriented then. So, for balls as well as point lights, I should take care of their orientation (that is, their yRotate transform value). Some need a 90° or 180° twist.

Andy is lit by the IBL light shown above, the ball also has the probeLight material attached to it. Andy looks towards the scene Front.

Now, what are the probeLight parameters about?

Next to the SurfaceColor which just filters its (image map) input like usually for such color swatches, the Exposure and Saturation adjust the image at hand, so I can match is with the lighting levels from the IBL lamp in the scene. All the other, L00…L22 parameters, are (undocumented) vectors which all squash and stretch the image in various directions, when being mapped onto the object at hand. This is meant to adjust for imperfections. Not in the object, this usually is a perfect round sphere in virtual 3D space. But for imperfections in the image, which might not have been shot from such a perfect sphere in real space.

Note: when using a ball to serve as a probe in the scene, the lowres Poser ball is recommended over the hires one. The latter appears hard to orient easily, while the first maps correctly immediately.

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

All nodes in the Specular group respond to specular light, which refers to specular light from direct (point- spot- infinite) sources only. The regular ‘specular’ node itself, either separate or embedded in the PoserSurface definition directly is fast to calculate, but falls short for a neat illusion of about any real stuff except hard plastic.

This is why Poser offers alternatives, like Blinn. These specular effects make round highlights, similar in all directions. Iso-tropic (iso=same), so to say. An-isotropic (=non-iso-tropic) therefore introduces some directionality. This is meant for brushed metals, and for other materials with a microscopically ‘grooved’ surface, like brushed metals and the good old vinyl music disks.

The left pawn shows regular specularity, the right pawn shows anisotropic.

In the parameters, we recognized the Color, Value and Highlight size and in the regular Specular setup, and those do mean the same thing. The highlight size however is distinguished for U and V direction, that’s relative to the object surface layout.

The node also offers the possibility to distinguish for X, Y, Z directions but up till now different values have not produced different results.

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Nodes are the essential building blocks in the Advanced interface to the Poser Material Room. They are the graphical representation of mathematical function calls, that is: calculation procedures which turn parameters (inputs) to a result (output).

Intermediate

All nodes in the Specular group respond to specular light, which refers to specular light from direct (point- spot- infinite) sources only. The regular ‘specular’ node itself, either separate or embedded in the PoserSurface definition directly is fast to calculate, but falls short for a neat illusion of about any real stuff except hard plastic.

This is why Poser offers alternatives, like Blinn, or Anisotropic for microscopically grooved surfaces. In this series, Glossy can be considered as somewhat outdated, and available for compatibility reasons mainly. Glossy was introduced as an improvement over the classic Phong specularity, and added the suggestion that light sources have a physical size (while in Poser, they have not). So Glossy produces quite intense midsections in the round highlights; nice for point- and spotlights but incorrect for infinite lights unless these represent a sun.

Above: the left pawn shows regular specular, right pawn shows glossy, both at their default settings.

Glossy makes sharp highlights with eventually a softening edge. In the image above the highlights are about equal size. The left pawn is regular specular, color white, value 1.0 and highlight size 0.05. The right pawn has the same color, the Ks value matches Specular Value and Roughness matches Highlight size, while Normals Forward matches the same option in PoserSurface.

This leaves Sharpness as an extra parameter. It makes the width of the blur at the edges of the highlight. High values – up to 1.0 – produce sharp edges but frankly, values over 0.1 start to make quite an unnatural impression.

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