Am Tigers User manual
Hi, this short instructions manual will show how to get the most out of the "Tigers by AM"
model.
For convenience, I divided the instructions in two sections, one for Poser users, and
another for Daz users.
General Notes
Please close all un-necessary applications, check that you have a reasonable amount of
free disk space, and that your Poser or Daz Studio is updated to latest version (Daz
version 3.1.1.73 has been optimized to load high polygon count models, so my advice is
that you update to this version).
Also, especially on Windows systems, check your processor usage at idle: it should be
around 5%. If it's much higher than that, you should probably test your system against
spywares or malware.
Poser Users
Once you load the tiger figure (Tiger - Poser.cr2), you can change the fur scheme directly
in the Material Room: you will have to select the "Panthera Tigris" figure and apply the
White Body material (or reverse to the Standard Body material) and do the same for the
Fur figure (White Fur material or Standard Fur material).
In the same way you can change the eyes color to blue or reverse to the standard
yellowish one.
Applying poses is also very easy: just select the "Panthera Tigris" figure and apply any
pose you like.
Tigers by AM - Instructions Manual
Full body morphs are available in the "Panthera Tigris" Body Parameters Panel.
There are also independent Claws Off morphs available for each foot.
Note: due to the high number of polygons, it may be convenient to hide the fur, pose the
character, and make the fur visible just at render time.
Rendering tips: Poser Pro users should always use the Queue Manager in order to avoid
possible FireFly errors. Once you have setup the character, open Render Settings and
Send the Render to Queue.
Non-Pro Poser users should configure the Render options in the General Preferences as
follows:
- Number of Threads: maximum value available (32 on Poser 8)
- Separate Process: Enabled
Also, in the Render Settings->FireFly->Manual Settings window, set a Bucket Size equal
or less than 16.
Non-Pro Poser users will have probably to experiment and tweak settings to find the best
balance between quality and stability.
Best quality renders are obtained using the following settings:
- Depth Map Shadows with a 1024 map size
- 16 pixel samples
- Min shading rate: 0.20
- Smooth Polygons: enabled
Remember also to enable "Use displacement maps" in the Render Settings window.
Displacement mapping is particularly useful when doing close-up renders, but if the
character is reasonably far from the camera viewpoint you might want to decrease it's
value or even disable it.
To do that, just go to the Material Room, select the Body material and adjust the
Displacement value as you wish. I found out that a value of 0.002 is perfect for close-ups,
and 0.001 is the best when the figure covers the whole render area.
Note for Poser7 users: on some Poser7 versions, Velvet node calculations seem to
produce very dark results. If that's the case, please set the Standard Fur and White Fur
velvet nodes as follows:
Ka = 1, Kd = 1, Ks = 1, Roughness = 0.5, Edginess = 0.1
Daz Users
Load the tiger figure (Tiger - DS.cr2). Since it has just the "basic" material assignments
inherited from Poser, apply DS specific shaders doing the following operations:
Tigers by AM - Instructions Manual
- select the Body surface, go to Poser->matPoses and apply the Standard Body or White
Body material pose
- select the Fur surface, go to Poser->matPoses and apply the Standard Fur or White Fur
material pose
- select the Whiskers surface, go to Poser->matPoses and apply the Whiskers material
pose
Now the character is setup with Daz shaders which will give a higher render quality. You
might want to save the character setup or the scene so that next times you won't have to
do the setup again.
Applying poses is very easy: just select the "Panthera Tigris" figure and apply any pose
you like.
Full body morphs are available in the "Panthera Tigris" Body Parameter Panel.
There are also independent Claws Off morphs available for each foot.
Note: due to the high number of polygons, it may be convenient to hide the fur, pose the
character, and make the fur visible just at render time.
Also, if Daz Studio interface is particularly slow when handling or tweaking materials or
posing, please switch off "Display Optimization" in the program preferences.
Rendering tips: if you experience 3Delight render errors, or out of resource errors, please
use 3Delight in "deferred mode". Check this easy guide that will teach you, step by step,
how to render your scene just like you would do in Poser Queue Manager:
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=1744671
Best quality renders are obtained using the following settings:
- Max RayTrace Depth: 8
- 16 pixel samples
- Min shading rate: 0.20
Displacement mapping is particularly useful when doing close-up renders, but if the
character is reasonably far from the camera viewpoint you might want to decrease it's
value or even disable it.
To do that, select the Body Material, open the Shader Mixer, click the menu item File-
>From Scene->Ok and tweak displacement values as you wish.
I found out that in the Displace-Standard Brick, a value range of [-0.50 0.50] is perfect for
close-ups, and [-0.10 0.20] is the best when the figure cover the whole render area.
That's pretty much it, if you need further assistance or suggestions, or you have questions
Thanks !
Alessandro
Tigers by AM - Instructions Manual
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