Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby punkduck » Thu Dec 29, 2016 9:15 pm

ngc7293 wrote:Thanks for the information. I am using OSX Sierra (Mini with 4gig or ram). I will make sure to have cycles running before I load my characters.

Maybe that will fix the "Bowtie hair". As I said most recently, the lashes and brows are fixed but the hair doesn't seem so. On the other hand, I tried one that you uploaded "long alpha7" and the node setup that I used took away that Star-Wars-Blast-Shield-look ;) and the back looks fine.

The Bow tie one uses a Normal Map. I tried a Node configuration that used the Node Map but no luck......however that was before what you have just said. But I would still like to know if things like clothes and hair that use extra images Normal map, etc need an extra texture node.

Thanks again for the help


I've the same box, but an older OSX ... sometimes when rendering I wish I've at least 4 of them ;)
And, believe it or not, I bought it, because on my old Mac I was not able to work with MH (I had some stone-age OSX). But I use these boxes like the Linux ones ... the advantage is that I know what is happening where, well in most cases ;)

Normalmaps are in a way different, they contain non-color information. A more complicate setup, which determines also the backfaces of a skirt, I put it in the gallery (see link), we had a problem of normal maps inside of clothes. When you have no backfaces (faces you can see from both sides), then the original setup of MH is okay. And I always plug in the glossy color input to the diffuse-texture ... to avoid plastic effects.


http://www.makehumancommunity.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13728
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby ngc7293 » Fri Dec 30, 2016 6:08 am

As I was trying to make changes and find out why that hair style wasn't smoothing out, I was coming to think that Nodes are more for small changes. This particular hair style has several rough angles. I don't think there is anything in nodes to smooth it out and make those angles into curves. I suppose if I were to add a modifier and smooth, it wouldn't look so bad.

I just saw the Normal map and (not knowing) thought it would have some way to clean things up. I'm not going to worry about it.

About the Mac. I got it because I didn't want Win10 and at that time I didn't even know about Make Human. Years ago, I played with Wings3D and Blender. Had I known I was going to be using the Mac for this I would have invested more money in the one with more memory. Oh well.
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby punkduck » Fri Dec 30, 2016 11:11 pm

I guess we all use subdivision surface after importing the character in Blender ... you should not even try to export the smoothed version from MakeHuman, simply use the non-smoothed. The reason is, that posing becomes rather hard because the system has to change in the view (not the rendered screen) 4 times as much vertices ...

The rest you may find in this text ... especially let the view be non-smoothed, only smooth the rendered scene.

http://www.makehumancommunity.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13729

You do not have to copy my workflow, I do it this way because I do not want to export and change my characters again and again, when I create new clothes.
But read about the subdivision surface etc. ;)
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby ngc7293 » Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:41 am

This question isn't about eyelashes but it is in the same vein (couldn't thing of a good hair pun)...
Though I will eventually learn particle hair, I am a slow learner so I will continue to use what is available. I downloaded what you uploaded about a month ago on December 7th. Long2_alpha7
I think this is the same hair used in a tutorial "Blender Cycles Tutorial- Make Human- The fast way." Anyway, I used a specific Node setup that has worked for the brows, and lashes that was presented in this tutorial for the hair. (I think it is at the beginning of this thread) I can't seem to duplicate the hair that is shown on your Evi character.

Thanks
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby punkduck » Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:05 am

ngc7293 wrote:This question isn't about eyelashes but it is in the same vein (couldn't thing of a good hair pun)...
Though I will eventually learn particle hair, I am a slow learner so I will continue to use what is available. I downloaded what you uploaded about a month ago on December 7th. Long2_alpha7
I think this is the same hair used in a tutorial "Blender Cycles Tutorial- Make Human- The fast way." Anyway, I used a specific Node setup that has worked for the brows, and lashes that was presented in this tutorial for the hair. (I think it is at the beginning of this thread) I can't seem to duplicate the hair that is shown on your Evi character.

Thanks


When I use your setup from the 28th of December then I have also problems with the hair. This setup seems only work correctly for real transparency on dark or black assets (like the eyelashes, eyebrows and the the hair style you have chosen, it is black or it is not there). I tried the original setup and yours in the compositor, took e.g. the ponytail and enlarged the preview box. Then I connected first the original to the material output and then yours. The difference becomes visible:

Your method simply does not work correctly for "semi-" transparent sections. All details are lost. The reason, and the thing I never understood, is how the Alpha layer (a single byte value) could be used as an inverted color (an RGB 3byte value) input for transparent shader :?: I guess a one byte value becomes a grey tone. Inverting a grey you will get another grey ;) ... and that means half visible for the transparent shader. Then using an add-shader :shock: ?! Each classical setup I know uses the alpha value as a factor of a mix-shader. In this case it is simply the amount of how much transparency should be used. The only thing is, that you can confuse both inputs of the mix-shader.
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby Aranuvir » Tue Jan 10, 2017 12:43 am

The alpha channel can be represented as a gray scale image, though, in fact it stores the information for each pixel how much of its rgb value is mixed with the rgb value of its corresponding background. You can use the node wrangler addon if you want to know how the texture looks like. You should avoid using the add shader node, this is mostly used for volume things...
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby ngc7293 » Tue Jan 10, 2017 4:52 am

eyes.jpg


Okay, I'm told I shouldn't use this. But it works for the lashes that come with MH. It works with the eyebrows that come with MH.
It was shown to work with the one tutorial where the guy was not using version 1.1.0 MH hair. He was using hair that was exported from 1.0.a7 MH.
The Longhair2 that that PunkDuck uploaded looks a lot like that one, but I have no clue on that information.

I have tried several things including Mixshader. One of them had this result.

mixshader.jpg


This broke up the hair but not to the degree that is wanted.

I will take into consideration changing the the Node setup for the lashes and brows. I know that lots of things in Blender work for other things and in this case the current settings are working. I just haven't got anything working for the hair.
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby Aranuvir » Tue Jan 10, 2017 8:08 am

Sigh, getting slowly closer. Why don't you use lokis node setup (download/file.php?id=3861&mode=view)? This can be used for almost every material setup on MH. Back to your hair material: the hair info node only works with particle hair, but you are using a mesh hair with a texture. So, you need a texture coordinate node! And the Texture is uv-mapped, i.e. you have to plug in the uv-slot! This node setup is valid for hair, eye brows and eyelashes and should basically work with clothes that have transparency, though it could get more complex if you want to mix in normal-, bump.-, specularity- and ao-maps. BTW, the node input and output slots are color coded and only corresponding colors should be connect, though every rule has its exceptions.
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby ngc7293 » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:32 pm

Thanks for the information about the Particle system only Node.
About the Lokis node setup. Here is what it it looks like with lashes:

proof lashes-different-nodes.jpg


And here is what it looks like with Hair:

next-hair-node.jpg
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Re: Make Eyelashes look like eyelashes (in Nodes)

Postby Aranuvir » Tue Jan 10, 2017 10:48 pm

Indeed, this material isn't easy to use. You can control the effect of the alpha channel with a color ramp and you need to reduce the glossiness. I simply mixed the alpha channel to the fresnel node (see my node setup.
Screenshot_02.png
Screenshot_01.png

Perhaps set the mix color node to multiply.
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