Renderotica

I'm having a problem with Dicktator 8.  When I load a preset texture (in this case Fleshy_02 from Wild Breeds) onto the Dicktator Shell, it looks fine when viewing in Filament.

But when I render or view in NVIDIA Iray, it looks like color from below is poking through the shell.

I tried increasing the Offset Distance under Mesh Offset of the shell from the default of 0.02 cm to 0.12 cm.  This seemed to fix the issue when rendering or viewing in NVIDIA Iray. 

Then I go to add Messy 2_Shaft (from 6_Cream Cascade) to Dicktator.  Again, it looks fine when viewing in Filament.

But when I go to render or view in NVIDIA Iray, it looks like the increased Offset Distance is now taking away a good portion of Messy Shaft_2.

Can anyone help me with this?

Originally Posted by: TheBitterGent

First make sure you are using the node selector tool not any editor tool like geometry or bone editor as they tend to display shells incorrectly when active.

Im not familiar with the wild breeds settings, they may be only compatible by default with wild breeds expansion morphs.

If the shells are properly parented. Adjusting the shell offsets especially if you are stacking multiple shells is just a layering game. You want the next shell layer up to be as close to the base below as possible without colliding (very small increments). The collisions cause discolored fragments to appear. Additional shell layers might need to be adjusted as well so they do not collide with the newly adjusted shell underneath. (You don't want to have the offsets to be equal from the figure, ie one is +0.05 and other +0.10 but you raise the first +0.05 then they both are +0.10 and intersect each other)
The shells additionally may need to be offset adjusted when the figure is in certain poses causing them to collide or cross.

Hard to say for sure if this is your issue without a pic but I hope it helps.

Thanks for replying!

I only have one shell present, which has the Wild Breeds texture applied to it.  Increasing the shell offset seems to work on the shell and fix the poke through issue.  My problem seems to be with "Messy 2_Shaft" (that's part of Cream Cascade - I'm not sure what that's categorized as).  That does not appear to be something that is parented to a shell.  It's parented to Dicktator itself and there doesn't appear to be a way to scale it larger to make up for the increased offset of the Wild Breed texture shell below it.

I've tried to attach some pictures to help explain myself.  This is the first time I'm using this forum so please bear with me.

greenknight17 attached the following image(s):

I'd say the issue is there is displacement on the veins on the shell, problem with displacement especially in most of the view settings is it isn't calculated until the render engine takes over. So all the view options (save Iray preview) wont show the displacement effect so other than rendering, adjusting, rendering, adjusting etc etc. it is hard to get things adjusted around the displaced mesh or shell.

One option you can use, if the messy shaft prop is conforming (Fit to Figure) un fit it, and instead parent it to the shaft, which should allow the scaling dials to unlock and be adjustable again.Most of the time with conforming items it is assumed it will be inheriting the scaling and morphing from the underlying figure, so scaling is blocked out while it is fit to a figure. (I had issues with hair conforming and following/inheriting the shape of the underlying face, especially the eye area, so started un-fitting, and parenting to head, to get past the auto-follow/auto-morph issue,)  

Yikes. For that you could have different UVs, displacements, A hair shell.

EDIT: [Can you hide the hair and see if the black goes away? You might be able to scrub over the black area with the surface selector tool and see if it gives you a hair shell or other surface selection ID that you can then hide or delete some geometry from on the figure. OR (ADVANCED: Select your shells, go into Parameters/Shell/Visibility/Facegroups and Surfaces and make sure only correct surfaces are active (This might need see hidden enabled, edit mode enabled to save changes))] 

That situation in a pinch I'd copy the G8MDCK surface settings (if the skin tone isn't totally blocked out by the Fleshy 2 shell coloring, a dark skin tone G8MDCK) and paste it the surface of the APEDCK.
This should rule out any surface discrepancies not changed by mat copy.

If still unsuccessful, (its possible a hair shell is being stretched over the DCK graft)
Id probably try a manual unparented load of DCK and then manually parent it to the figure. (depending on complexity of the scene/scenes and reoccurrence of the character)

Edited by user Thursday, May 1, 2025 12:36:43 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Here's a thought that I haven't seen covered: displacement on the graft itself. 

If the torso maps for the figure have a displacement map, they will get copied over to the graft when you run the mat_copy script. The geoshell has no idea what to do with this, and you WILL get poke through. My guess is that a gorilla character would probably have displacement maps for the skin textures, so this could be your culprit. 

It's easy to check. Go to the surfaces tab, select the gorilla, and in the dropdown menu you'll find a subfolder also called surfaces. Click that, and then find the torso surface. Select it, and in the search bar up top, type in 'disp'. This will isolate all of the displacement parameters. It will be obvious if it has a displacement map or not. 

If it does, what now? You have two options. Firstly, you can remove all of the displacement maps from the character and rerun the mat_copy. However, you will lose that precious detail that a displacement map gives to you. The second option, and in this case I believe to be the best option, is to remove the displacement information from the parameters on the graft. Normally, I would not recommend this as it will create a line around the graft edge, but with all of the hair on the gorilla, I really believe that you won't even see it unless you're rendering really close up with bright lighting. 

As far as the Messy 2 Shaft add on goes, it will not account for displacement on the shell or some morphs, and I haven't found a way around that other than a different displacement map or no map at all. It's an imperfect system but it's what we've got.