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Description

So, I've been tinkering with the new PBRSkin shader for Iray, using it on G8 as well as on G8.1F. This includes using the new Skin Detail Resource 1 kit (and wildly misinterpreting the settings for that kit that Bluejaunte mentioned in the forum, but it's been corrected here).

On the left is Leyna using Iray Uber, along with the settings that I worked out using the Evilded777 model, trying to bring her back to her original skin tones without using epic translucency. On the right, Leyna using PBRSkin and Skin Detail Resource 1. I've got another character that I'll probably show somewhat later, but it does look like PBRSkin is going to be fine for lighter skinned characters, and have some unintended side effects for darker skinned characters.

One of the things that lots of people do -- and which I had to do with Iray Uber Leyna -- is to use translucency strength and color, and transmitted color, to darken and deepen the skin tone. It works just fine -- if sometimes annoyingly -- with Iray Uber. (If you don't use a mask in the translucency strength channel for arms and legs, it has some undesirable effects on palms and soles.)

Changing translucency/transmission color and strength does not work with PBRSkin. Not to any significant degree, in any event. Translucency Strength makes some difference, but not a lot -- I noticed this with Vittorio, when I dropped his translucency from .9 to .75; he looked somewhat less tannish than Victoria ... but only somewhat. Granted, not a huge amount of difference in the setting, but with Iray Uber, dropping a character off .9 translucency tends to make a dramatic and noticeable difference. The other thing to note is that Iray Uber Leyna looks notably darker and deeper in color thatn PBRSkin Leyna ... but her translucency strength is only 0.5, whereas PBRSkin Leyna's translucency strength is, in fact, 0.75. The color in both translucency and transmitted color is very very dark brown, and in PBRSkin, that made not a huge amount of difference; the color in the image is not a lot different than her default texture color. PBRSkin is somehow MUCH less sensitive to changes in translucency and transmission than Iray Uber. This explains how PAs have been saying, in the Genesis 8.1/Victoria 8.1 thread in the Daz forum, that you can use very high translucency without getting the waxy skin result that some (like me) so dislike; PBRSkin is just much less sensitive to translucency overall.

The other aspect of this is that looking so washed out, relatively speaking, makes Leyna's skin details much less visible. She seems to have stronger detail in Iray Uber than PBRSkin, but how much of that is due to the fact that the normal and detail maps from the skin resource kit are cutting down on the gloss without changing that setting at all, I don't know.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the scatter and transmit toggle, and related properties like reflectance tint, have vanished. Is it possible that it's all just Scatter Only now, but unlabeled?

In any event, regarding darker skinned characters, what this is likely to mean is that vendors will need to use actually darker skin resources. Which means that they'll be doing very very dark overpaints. Which means that palm and sole issues, which had somewhat turned a corner (vendors were noticing that those areas needed to be lighter, and that they needed to pay attention to fingertips and the tips of toes where texture edges meet), may get rather grim again. For now, at least, Iray Uber may be a better model for darker skins.

Assuming that Daz reissues what seem to be core figures -- the ones that have appeared in Genesis 2-3-8 (Michael, Victoria, Olympia, Josie, Darius, Monique, Lee, Mei Lin, Gia, The Girl) -- in Genesis 8.1, it will be interesting to see what Darius 8.1 and Monique 8.1 look like, when/if they come along, and what their textures and shaders look like.

Description

So, I've been tinkering with the new PBRSkin shader for Iray, using it on G8 as well as on G8.1F. This includes using the new Skin Detail Resource 1 kit (and wildly misinterpreting the settings for that kit that Bluejaunte mentioned in the forum, but it's been corrected here).

On the left is Leyna using Iray Uber, along with the settings that I worked out using the Evilded777 model, trying to bring her back to her original skin tones without using epic translucency. On the right, Leyna using PBRSkin and Skin Detail Resource 1. I've got another character that I'll probably show somewhat later, but it does look like PBRSkin is going to be fine for lighter skinned characters, and have some unintended side effects for darker skinned characters.

One of the things that lots of people do -- and which I had to do with Iray Uber Leyna -- is to use translucency strength and color, and transmitted color, to darken and deepen the skin tone. It works just fine -- if sometimes annoyingly -- with Iray Uber. (If you don't use a mask in the translucency strength channel for arms and legs, it has some undesirable effects on palms and soles.)

Changing translucency/transmission color and strength does not work with PBRSkin. Not to any significant degree, in any event. Translucency Strength makes some difference, but not a lot -- I noticed this with Vittorio, when I dropped his translucency from .9 to .75; he looked somewhat less tannish than Victoria ... but only somewhat. Granted, not a huge amount of difference in the setting, but with Iray Uber, dropping a character off .9 translucency tends to make a dramatic and noticeable difference. The other thing to note is that Iray Uber Leyna looks notably darker and deeper in color thatn PBRSkin Leyna ... but her translucency strength is only 0.5, whereas PBRSkin Leyna's translucency strength is, in fact, 0.75. The color in both translucency and transmitted color is very very dark brown, and in PBRSkin, that made not a huge amount of difference; the color in the image is not a lot different than her default texture color. PBRSkin is somehow MUCH less sensitive to changes in translucency and transmission than Iray Uber. This explains how PAs have been saying, in the Genesis 8.1/Victoria 8.1 thread in the Daz forum, that you can use very high translucency without getting the waxy skin result that some (like me) so dislike; PBRSkin is just much less sensitive to translucency overall.

The other aspect of this is that looking so washed out, relatively speaking, makes Leyna's skin details much less visible. She seems to have stronger detail in Iray Uber than PBRSkin, but how much of that is due to the fact that the normal and detail maps from the skin resource kit are cutting down on the gloss without changing that setting at all, I don't know.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the scatter and transmit toggle, and related properties like reflectance tint, have vanished. Is it possible that it's all just Scatter Only now, but unlabeled?

In any event, regarding darker skinned characters, what this is likely to mean is that vendors will need to use actually darker skin resources. Which means that they'll be doing very very dark overpaints. Which means that palm and sole issues, which had somewhat turned a corner (vendors were noticing that those areas needed to be lighter, and that they needed to pay attention to fingertips and the tips of toes where texture edges meet), may get rather grim again. For now, at least, Iray Uber may be a better model for darker skins.

Assuming that Daz reissues what seem to be core figures -- the ones that have appeared in Genesis 2-3-8 (Michael, Victoria, Olympia, Josie, Darius, Monique, Lee, Mei Lin, Gia, The Girl) -- in Genesis 8.1, it will be interesting to see what Darius 8.1 and Monique 8.1 look like, when/if they come along, and what their textures and shaders look like.