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LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 6:47 pm
by sixb0nes
Hi,
Now that Octane/Daz play nice with such LiveDB materials as Tonysculptor's skin, could someone help me break things down for applying Tony's skin to a V5 or V6 model?
I'm having difficulty figuring out where to apply textures within the NGE, etc.
Screenshots would help immensely.
Thanks for any help.
Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 7:59 pm
by DrHemulen
I don't think it uses texture, it seems to be a purely procedural skin material, as most of the others do too.
DAZ_SSS_Skin_Mix_Diffuse&Glossy and
Daz_Skin Material seem to be texture based. The first one seems like the most advanced.
This is a really good idea for a thread, there are a lot of things that aren't really clear as a new user

Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 3:08 pm
by 3dmania
Creating a good SSS Skin is not that easy. There are multiple ways of doing it however. I would recommend working with the NGE instead of the Live materials, since you cannot ungroup a Live material as far as I know.
I will write a short tutorial on how to create a good SSS material for use with Diffuse/Bump textures this weekend.
Here is the preview for the NGE
with the result
Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 4:38 pm
by t_3
3dmania wrote:Creating a good SSS Skin is not that easy. There are multiple ways of doing it however. I would recommend working with the NGE instead of the Live materials, since you cannot ungroup a Live material as far as I know.
I will write a short tutorial on how to create a good SSS material for use with Diffuse/Bump textures this weekend.
Here is the preview for the NGE
with the result
looks pretty good. btw, ungrouping works by extracting pins (alt-click->pin->drag-out), but i'm also working on an unfold method that creates an external node structure out of any collapsed node; it will keep nodes used in multiple pins as single nodes, will unfold pins when the value is different from the default value, and will create single external nodes for any pins that share the same settings.
oh, and btw, if you like to share this particular setup, you may save it into a single shader .duf (from any of the daz surfaces where you have applied it) and post it here for dl.
setting up the image nodes as templates will make it work whether the maps you have used are on a target system and will of course make applying it to other mat sets easier - would be cool to see if this works (may need some bug fixing though)...
Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 8:54 pm
by DrHemulen
Looking forward to the tutorial

Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 8:58 pm
by sixb0nes
Thanks all for discussion.
Would love to see you tutorial 3dmania, looking forward to that. If anyone has a sample .duf they are willing to share per the feature t_3 described, I'd really appreciate it.
Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 9:43 am
by michael_g
Low sample, low res test DAZ_SSS_Skin_Mix_Diffuse&Glossy with the amy elite texture set, original textures on the neck and shoulders compered to the DAZ_SSS_Skin_Mix_Diffuse&Glossy on her face, It`s a total pain loading in all the textures one by one but it looks pretty good.
Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 9:59 am
by t_3
michael_g wrote:It`s a total pain loading in all the textures one by one but it looks pretty good.
if you want to make your live a lot easier...
- before you go and change all the maps
- expand all the internals of the live db mat by alt-dragging the pins out, until you have all image maps as external nodes,
- reconnect the image nodes so that you have only the minimum needed amount (means where you have 2 image nodes for the diffuse mat and glossy mat diffuse pin you'll probably only need to have one and can delete the other),
- set the image nodes up for templating,
- and from that point on just drop this template mat onto other daz surfaces in the mat tab to have it take over all the maps of the target surface; apply it to a bunch of similar daz surfaces and they will be grouped into the minimum amount of needed octane mats also.
should be even faster to complete for the initial setup, and of course a 1-click(drag) thing for subsequent use...
ps: be aware that i'm currently sorting out problems that appear to some when working in the nge; unfortunately it's a bit unstable there, but should be much better pretty soon...
Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 2:05 pm
by alaman64
If not too much trouble, could you make the tutorial as a video. I find it so much easier following a video. The video should be with genesis loaded up with a default Daz material. Then walk us through applying advanced maps with SSS. Maybe also go over the template function if possible.
I kn ow it might be alot of work coming up with good tutorials, personally, I would not mind paying up $15 for a good 1 hour video that covers these advanced features.
Thanks.
Re: LiveDB Advanced Materials
Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 9:58 pm
by Tugpsx
Thanks for node graph