Some of you may have been following the discussion in the TinaChep Forum 
about shaders and the techniques to achieve the most realistic Poser 
skins possible. See: 
http://tinachepforum.forumup.co.uk/about208-tinachepforum.html

For the discussion I was reminded again of the outstanding texture 
technique developed by Ive, and the experimentation I had done with part 
of it back in 2008/2009. I dusted off the code and made it up to date 
for use with the latest versions of Poseray and POV-Ray.

This brought me to some wondering about the provided image maps in the 
different versions 8, and I suppose 9, of Poser. Not being an expert, I 
feel a bit confused about the different types and names. The following 
maps are provided:

<name>Body.png
<name>Body_Transluc.png
<name>BodySpec.png
<name>BodySat.png
note that there is no bump map anymore

So, how to use them ultimately and to good effect in POV-Ray?

<name>Body is simple of course. It is the generic skin texture of the 
figure. Tentatively, I am using the <name>BodySpec (of specular?) for 
the bump map, and it seems to work correctly. I have now been using the 
<name>BodySat (saturation?) as an image pattern in Ive's code like this:

#local M_Body =
material {
    texture {
      pigment_pattern {uv_mapping <name>BodySat}
      texture_map{
        [0 T_Body_S0]
        [1 T_Body_S1]
      }
    }
}

where the individual textures are looking like this:

#local T_Body_S0 =
texture {
    pigment {uv_mapping <name>Body}
    normal {N_Body}
    finish {F_Skin_S0}
}

I can provide the complete code derived from Ive's technique if you 
want. It works quite well.

I suppose that, in the absence of a saturation map like in the older 
Poser versions, the generic skin map can be used, as is also done in 
Poser and, through conversion by Poseray, in POV-Ray.

And what about the <name>Body_Transluc (translucency?)? I suppose it is 
intended to be used for subsurface scattering in Poser, but could it 
have a use in POV?

What do you think? All comments appreciated :-)

Thomas

Post a reply to this message