Is there a forum thread which discusses the formulation of a wavy green leaf shader for large leaved plants such as Monstera ?  

I do not want to use an image mapped solution.  

I don't really know how to go about devising a leaf surface with that look of waxiness and organic life-likeness (yikes, not that plastic look !)

Would I have to use special lighting to complete the effect ?  Thanks...

Eternal Hobbyist

 

Quote - that look of waxiness and organic life-likeness

You mean scatter combined with fresnel reflection. Pretty much my skin shader.

Is there a free plant prop you would have me demonstrate on other than what comes with Poser? (which is not much)

 

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Is this the look you're after?

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Before / After

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Specifically, I imported an OBJ version of an SKP item from 3DWarehouse.  It is the Monstera plant (link to page):

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=453f6d287626764498c5858b88d0229e

( I used 32-bit Shade 3D for Unity to import the SKP, and then exported it as an OBJ for Poser).

@BB - the first example without the leaf veins, is more like what I should be using.

 

Eternal Hobbyist

 

Sorry, been caught up with the missing airliner in my part of the planet.  

Right, back to this.  

Here is my render of the imported OBJ with the default colour carried over from the source files. (Please ignore the notional ground shader).

 

Eternal Hobbyist

 

I don't know what the best way is of getting my PP2 version of the converted model over.  I also recall that sitemail isn't working reliably for you, BB. 

Eternal Hobbyist

 

get Dropbox, upload your file, send me a share link, I make pictures, you delete the file

 

I don't need pp2. Obj is fine. 

I switched to chrome for site mail. 

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Quote - Is this the look you're after?

 

Is this your Skin shader BB?

 

Looks really good with the plant.

La vie est éternelle. L'amour est immortel.

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
― Marcus Aurelius,

Quote - > Quote - Is this the look you're after?

 

Is this your Skin shader BB?

 

Looks really good with the plant.

Pretty much. It depends on what we mean by shader - is a shader the set of nodes and how they are connected, or is it also the values in all the parameters?

It is mostly the same set of nodes and connections as my basic skin S+B+FBR skin shader, which is also pretty much the same as for any kind of glossy surface - the differences lie in the values and colors you set in the parameters. Also, the bump. I don't use the skin bump here.

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So I have many problems with this prop that will limit what we can do.

1. The leaves are one-sided and facing down. Since they have no thickness, scatter doesn't really do its job, which is a big part of the realism of a leaf shader. The facing down part can be dealt with by using Normals_Forward but it's still coming out wrong.

2. The leaves are not UV mapped. Real monstera leaves have veins that need to be indicated in an image map - I can't do them procedurally. Also monstera have some patterning on the leaf tissue that has a specific orientation. Even in a procedural shader, I often use the UV mapping in the procedure to orient the pattern that is generated. With these leaves, I cannot do that.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Starr_080731-9573_Monstera_deliciosa.jpg

http://www.trianglenursery.co.uk/media/14312/Monstera%20Leaves%20Large.jpg

3. The geometry is entirely made of very long, very thin triangles. This is a Poser nono. I'm getting artifacts in my raytraced reflections and shadows that reveal the polygon shapes very clearly.

4. The leaves are flat, not curved like the real thing. The resulting reflections look like it's a plastic mockup of a monstera, not an actual monstera.

 

 

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This is about the best I can do.

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Here's the leaf shader. It's a poser material file (.mt5) - remove the .txt extension before you put it in your runtime. 

I put the same on the stems, but I made the stem color lighter and more yellow.

If your version of Poser doesn't have the Scatter node, replace that with a Diffuse node.

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Here's a screen shot of the shader.

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woww.

the first glossy sample looks like it would work for inner mouth procedural, to replace image maps.

i think that's the most organic poser render i've ever seen.

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Thank you, BB.

That's a nice shader. Looks good with other colors, too.

And yes, that very first example with the little plants you showed looks amazing !

bill, thx fr leaf shader.  will try it on leaf w/thknss.  xfrog guy gimme alotta freebies, might be useable on some.

Quote - Thank you, BB.

That's a nice shader. Looks good with other colors, too.

And yes, that very first example with the little plants you showed looks amazing !

omg, looks like milk chocolate.  wowwww

feels like i can reach out and eat it.

nomms

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Thanks guys. If you do have a color map, use it instead of the Turbulence node and the green color chips should be set to white.

I found some plant online that I'm rendering with this shader + the color map and vein bump map that came with the plant. Will post when it's done. (slow)

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"omg, looks like milk chocolate.  wowwww

feels like i can reach out and eat it.
nomms"

 

It does, doesn't it ? :-)

I'll send you a sitemail.

Here we go. Same shader nodes, except this prop has a color map and a bump map. The color map goes into the Scatter.

 

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That is...quite a difference. :-o

Quote - Here we go. Same shader nodes, except this prop has a color map and a bump map. The color map goes into the Scatter.

 

WOW

https://www.darkelegance.co.uk/

Commission open.

Thank you so much for throwing your expertise at the converted OBJ monstera, BB.  I realise it is a very crude model.  The other posts in this thread are valuable for learning purposes, and I am grateful to other commenters here for their inputs.  

Eternal Hobbyist

 

nommms chocolate gnome, delicioso  :)

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choco roo  *lol*

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Hmmm.  I'll try this with the leafy recliner - it's leaves already have thickness.  Gaaack!  the normals are inside-out on the leaves!  There. Fixed.  I'll make a higher-poly version of the broadleaf plant and give it thickness.  The broadleaf will require re-mapping.

Poser 12, in feet.  

OSes:  Win7Prox64, Win7Ultx64

Silo Pro 2.5.6 64bit, Vue Infinite 2014.7, Genetica 4.0 Studio, UV Mapper Pro, UV Layout Pro, PhotoImpact X3, GIF Animator 5

hmm.  is it me being crazy or does the plant in the first pic sort of look like human testicals?

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Get your mind out of the gutter! LOL!

Quote - Get your mind out of the gutter! LOL!

 

tee hee.  well, looking around my room i don't see anything else that makes me think testical.

...

seeing a ruler and desk i think spanking.  if i act bratty maybe i'll get lucky. lol

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LOL!

Just wondering - why do you have a color set on the diffuse if the diffuse is turned off?

SreeD preview. I do many highly illogical things with shaders because the system is highly illogical.

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Ah ok. I'm not all that well versed in the material room so I wasn't sure if I just was missing something. Cool to know the reason, thanks!

it's like preview-only lites.  mat room:  white colour, intens 1, black diff, black spec.

> Quote - Here's a screen shot of the shader.

Bill;

Thanks for the screen shot!  I've been looking to create more realistic leaf texture for my Dryad character.

This image shows what I came up with on the left, and after using your method on the right, replacing the solid color with a image. The left has a bit of a waxier look to it, perhaps a bit much, but it certainly gives me something to work with.

Definitely increased the render time by several hours though...

...Insert some witty or thought provoking comment here...

Quote - Definitely increased the render time by several hours though...

And I can't see any evidence that you're using an HDR environment, which means you can get back a lot of render time by eliminating the (blurred) reflection. The reflection component of leaves is rather low, and without a bright sky will amount to nearly nothing. That's a lot of computes to calculate 0.

On the other hand, if you were doing this in a properly executed outdoor environment, you'd see a huge difference.

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Here we go. Same shader nodes, except this prop has a color map and a bump map. The color map goes into the Scatter.

 

Were the leaves of that prop a mesh with volume, or zero-thickness one-sided?

(Yes, I know that this thread is over a year old... but some old threads are like fine wines that have been laid down to mature - they need to be turned occasionally  ;) )

Yesterday I found myself in need of a good leaf shader, and ended up here. The leaves of the ivy I'm using are simple flat trans-mapped squares.

I read bagginsbill's comment about one-sided leaves on page 1 that noted "... Since they have no thickness, scatter doesn't really do its job, which is a big part of the realism of a leaf shader...", so I'm aware of that limitation.

I also noted bagginsbill's comment about saving render time by scrapping reflections - "...you can get back a lot of render time by eliminating the (blurred) reflection...", so I did that.

The ivy I'm using had no bump, so I generated a simple bump map in the shader from the original leaf texture. I also used a clouds node to provide some (hardly noticeable!) colour variation amongst the leaves.

Here's the shader network:

And here's part of the resulting render - Poser 9 Firefly render, auto settings halfway between draft and final with IDL quality increased to 20, IDL (my own worldball with LDR JPG) + an infinite (40degree elevation above the camera):

My guess is that the scatter node isn't doing much (as per bagginsbill's already noted comment) - so the only effect I'm really seeing is the from the specular (Blinn) and bump?

In a totally different thread on IDL and single faced architecture bagginsbill noted that scatter is the 3D version of translucence.

Now, since scatter won't work on many plant leave meshes (including most XFrog OBJs) as they have no thickness, I'm thinking that plain old translucence might be worth a shot? But I don't see any nodes that would perform this function and replace the scatter node. So that leaves the Poser surface translucence. But here's the rub - it always seems to work just like ambient when I use it!

I think the main question I have is this:

Since the scatter node isn't designed to work with one-sided zero-thickness objects, is there a way we can modify the leaf shader to have a translucent/scatter part that will work with all those old plant models that we all have with one-sided zero-thickness leaves?

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I was beginning to think that the fastscatter node might be the answer (e.g. from 2008 "...Fastscatter handles backlight SSS...") until I found 2005's   "...only to discover that Point Lights cannot have Depth Mapped Shadows (which FastScatter requires)..." , and then this 2012 comment from bagginsbill: "...FastScatter and the Translucence channel are pretty much self-lit. Get rid of that..." So maybe translucence/fastscatter are non-starters?

I mentioned in the previous post that I guessed that the scatter node wasn't actually doing much. So just to check that I tried the old-fashioned very simple diffuse/specular/bump (no alternate). Here's the result (and yes, I forget to apply the transparency mask to specular strength, hence the ghostly white squares):

I think that more-or-less confirms what I thought? Here's the very, very basic shader I used (render settings were exactly the same as before):

Obviously my observations are limited to this specific scene/viewpoint with its specific lighting setup.

Going back to bagginsbill's comment that "... Since they have no thickness, scatter doesn't really do its job, which is a big part of the realism of a leaf shader...", I'm intrigued by the "...doesn't really do it's job..." part.

• So for one-sided zero-thickness leaves does the scatter node do enough to be worth using?

• Are there certain situations where we will see a difference (e.g. backlit leaves shadowing each other)?

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Quick experiment. Four leaves, two are one-sided flat zero thickness, two are solid volumes (basically just the flat ones extruded, with all normals facing out). bagginsbill's scatter node leaf shader without the reflect part, using a texture image and derived bump.

Worldball for IDL, and one infinite light with raytraced shadows. Poser 9 render as per the two posts above.

Lit from in front by the infinite:

And backlit:

Definite nice translucence effect on the backlit solid-volume leaves.

(Can't tell whether that's translucence on the flat leaves - done a couple more checks - it isn't, just the leaf colouration)

(Worth noting - I'm looking at the front of the one-sided leaves for the backlit image, i.e. I can see the leaves in preview mode. For the front lit view the flat leaves don't show in preview mode)

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On a whim I lit the one-sided leaves from the front and moved the camera round the back of them, so I'm looking at the back of the leaves (i.e. can't see them in preview) and they're backlit...

Shader network:

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Due to a nearly complete lack of documentation for the material system, much of what I know is from hypothesizing how something works and then testing the hypothesis. However, this somewhat failed me in determining what the Translucence channel does, or more specifically how it was intended to be used. Largely it does act like the ambient or alt_diffuse in that it just seems to emit whatever you set it to or plug into it. But that's not its purpose. Unlike those others, this channel reverses the normals used in Diffuse lighting calculations of a dedicated Diffuse node. It is so that you can get the back-lit paper-thin effect from either side. It is only useful for one-sided objects like your leaf. It does not help in any way with solid objects if shadows are enabled as they should be. In order to get it to do its back-lit paper-thin effect, you must plug in a Diffuse node, with the Normals_Forward option checked, and you must not send the data from that diffuse node to any of the other channels in any way. It must be dedicated to the Translucence channel.

I must add that it is buggy as hell. As far as I can see it is doing its thing as designed for directional lights and a dedicated Diffuse node, but for IBL or IDL, it doesn't behave like real translucence under those lighting conditions. I still advise not to use it, unless you first study it completely and understand how it will burn you if you go where it cannot go.

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Here's a demonstration. I'm using this basic diffuse-only shader for a leaf to keep things simple.

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My scene has a leaf and two pawns. The pawn behind the leaf is upside down. We are looking at the "front" of the leaf.

Ambient lighting is a small amount of IBL (could also be an envsphere) and I have IDL enabled. I also have an infinite light shining on the front of the leaf, from behind the camera. Its shadow is very evident.

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Viewed from behind, everything is as we expect.

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Now the main light is behind and we're looking at the front. This is the back-lit paper-thin effect, provided by our Translucence channel.

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Here I turned off Translucence_Value (0) and now we see what it was doing.

None of the back-light is getting through at all - we're only seeing the ambient lighting from the IBL+IDL.

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Still with no Translucence enabled, looking once more from behind, with front lighting, we see translucence. !!? Why is that?

The Translucence channel has only one job - to convey BACK lighting to the front. It is not responsible for conveying FRONT lighting to the back. As we can see this is already performed by the completely ordinary lighting of the built-in diffuse node (or any diffuse node).

What does this mean? It means that, for example, if you're looking up into a tree with the sun shining down, and the "front" of the leaves face up, you're looking at front-lit back-viewed paper-thin, and that is NOT the job of translucence. That will work no matter what.

You ONLY need translucence when you are BACK-lit front-viewed paper-thin. Change any of those three factors and it will not help you at all.

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One more point to make - this is about the modern ambient lighting from IDL.

I introduced a glowing prop. Here we are back-lit, back-viewed, with a glowing prop light source. We can clearly see the nice soft shadow from the IDL being blocked by the back pawn.

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Now we switch to front view. This is back-lit front-viewed paper-thin - we expect translucence to work here. But it does not.

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In case you were wondering, front-lit back-viewed IDL doesn't do a shadow either.

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For reference material and more detailed examination (from 2007!) check out this thread.

http://forum.runtimedna.com/showthread.php?26024-Diffuse-Clay-Skin-and-Velvet-nodes/page2

There is also this cool thread on the exploitable difference between front-lit and back-lit materials.

http://forum.runtimedna.com/showthread.php?37161-Rendering-single-faced-polygons-differently-on-the-back-facing-side

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Thanks bagginsbill, nice explanation and demonstration - I'll have to read through it all a few times to make sure I've got it correct. And those other two threads you linked - all good stuff.

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I'll throw my useless observation in here... the only thing I use translucence for is for illuminated signs that use an image map or for computer monitors. Plug the image map there rather than diffuse, ambient set to 0, translucence set to 1, get the image lit like an LCD monitor.

I'll throw my useless observation in here... the only thing I use translucence for is for illuminated signs that use an image map or for computer monitors. Plug the image map there rather than diffuse, ambient set to 0, translucence set to 1, get the image lit like an LCD monitor.

On the very rare occasions I've tried computer monitorsor TV screens in my renders I've used ambient. Any specific reason you use translucence instead? Back to the leaves - I tried the back-lit front-viewed and front-lit back-viewed experiment on the ivy I'm using with its default shader, and with the translucence connected as bagginsbill noted. Lighting was just an infinite (with ray-traced shadows - the translucence/shadows didn't seem to work with depth-mapped shadows) and IDL:

(bottom right caption should of course be "Back-lit front-viewed with translucence")

And here's the shader with translucence (I noticed as I was posting this that I used 1.0 for diffuse/translucence strength, whereas bagginsbill used 0.8.And the diffuse colour on the shader I used wasn't quite white):

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In case you were wondering, front-lit back-viewed IDL doesn't do a shadow either.

I noticed that there appears to be some translucence near the inverted pawn. But I'm guessing from the shape of it that it's actually an IDL 'glow' coming back from the inverted pawn?

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thx fr info on translucence, BB.

i agree with 3dch: if leaf in above case doesn't cast shadow, then it must be IDL bounce off upside-down pawn.

"On the very rare occasions I've tried computer monitorsor TV screens in my renders I've used ambient. Any specific reason you use translucence instead?"

No, they seem to be identical in brightness and projected light. It mainly came about because I made a mistake once setting up a monitor to render (the image was linked to diffuse so I just set ambient to white and gave it a low value. Needless to say the image didn't 'glow' that well and washed it out so I plugged it in to translucence, turned off ambient and it worked). I'm sure ambient is more technically correct, but to date translucence has worked as intended, and that's as much as I ask.

I know this has diverged a bit from the original "waxy leaf surface shader" topic, but I think it's best to continue posting to this thread rather than a new one.

My main interest is getting a nice leaf shader that I can use on all those old plant and tree models (and XFrog OBJs) that use one-sided transmapped squares for leaves.  This is a quick summary of what I think I've learnt over the past day:

• bagginsbill's scatter-based leaf shader doesn't seem to have a noticeable effect when applied to the leaves of the ivy in my render. Two likely reasons: (1) the scatter node requires a mesh with volume to work properly, and this ivy is one-sided transmapped squares; (2) my particular scene and lighting isn't a very good test.

• leaf translucence (assuming infinite lights with ray-traced shadows) is automatically handled by the basic diffuse channel, EXCEPT if the leaves are back-lit and viewed from the front.

• the translucence node of the Poser surface can be used to add leaf translucence (assuming infinite lights with ray-traced shadows) for back-lit front-viewed leaves.

• the leaf translucence effect seems to require a basic Poser light with ray-traced shadows (I've only tried an infinite light so far). bagginsbill notes that it doesn't work with IDL. I've only tested with an infinite, so not sure about point/spot/diffuse IBL. It doesn't seem to work with depth-mapped shadows (I read somewhere that depth-mapped shadows are required for the fastscatter node, so that might be an option?)

And here are a couple of observations on problems with the standard leaf shaders - some might be easy to improve in the shader:

• most plants use a single leaf texture image (maybe two), so every leaf looks the same. Something in the shader to add a bit of randomness might be good?

• the bump image for most leaves is usually just a greyscale version of the texture image, so the veins appear raised, which is (usually) correct for the underside of a leaf, but wrong for the upper surface. Using a math subtract node, or GIMPing the image can correct this.

• the transmapped squares used for leaves are usually flat (i.e. the four vertices are coplanar). It may be possible to use displacement to warp each leaf slightly?

• the underside of a leaf is often very different from the upper surface. You really need a 3D mesh for this. But just maybe, the exploitable difference between front-lit and back-lit materials thread that bagginsbill linked to... ?

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I know this has diverged a bit from the original "waxy leaf surface shader" topic, but I think it's best to continue posting to this thread rather than a new one.

My main interest is getting a nice leaf shader that I can use on all those old plant and tree models (and XFrog OBJs) that use one-sided transmapped squares for leaves.  This is a quick summary of what I think I've learnt over the past day:

• bagginsbill's scatter-based leaf shader doesn't seem to have a noticeable effect when applied to the leaves of the ivy in my render. Two likely reasons: (1) the scatter node requires a mesh with volume to work properly, and this ivy is one-sided transmapped squares; (2) my particular scene and lighting isn't a very good test.

• leaf translucence (assuming infinite lights with ray-traced shadows) is automatically handled by the basic diffuse channel, EXCEPT if the leaves are back-lit and viewed from the front.

• the translucence node of the Poser surface can be used to add leaf translucence (assuming infinite lights with ray-traced shadows) for back-lit front-viewed leaves. If used, it also seems to brighten up the leaves from other viewpoints (maybe some balancing of diffuse/translucence strengths required)

• the leaf translucence effect seems to require a basic Poser light with ray-traced shadows (I've only tried an infinite light so far). bagginsbill notes that it doesn't work with IDL. I've only tested with an infinite, so not sure about point/spot/diffuse IBL. It doesn't seem to work with depth-mapped shadows (I read somewhere that depth-mapped shadows are required for the fastscatter node, so that might be an option?)

And here are a couple of observations on problems with the standard leaf shaders - some might be easy to improve in the shader:

• most plants use a single leaf texture image (maybe two), so every leaf looks the same. Something in the shader to add a bit of randomness might be good?

• the bump image for most leaves is usually just a greyscale version of the texture image, so the veins appear raised, which is (usually) correct for the underside of a leaf, but wrong for the upper surface. Using a math subtract node, or GIMPing the image can correct this.

• the transmapped squares used for leaves are usually flat (i.e. the four vertices are coplanar). It may be possible to use displacement to warp each leaf slightly?

• the underside of a leaf is often very different from the upper surface. You really need a 3D mesh for this. But just maybe, the exploitable difference between front-lit and back-lit materials thread that bagginsbill linked to... ?

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I tried using separate cloud nodes with global coordinates to control saturation/value of the texture, and the displacement. Also included translucence, although with no back-lighting (sun behind and above camera) it's probably not contributing anything in this render. Here's the latest render (same setup as previous renders - only the leaf shader has changed):

And here's the shader:

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I just had to try combining that "Rendering single faced polygons differently on the back facing side" with translucence. Two infinites with ray-traced shadows, one in front, one behind;  a one-sided transmapped leaf with its front facing to the front; an upward pointing thingy in front of the leaf, and a downward pointing thingy behind.Here are my results:

So I've clearly got something messed up with the back-lit back-viewed part of it.

Here's the shader I cobbled together. Obviously I've made a mistake somewhere - or maybe it just can't be made to work?:

What puzzles me most is that it's NOT the back-lit front-viewed part that's wrong - so the translucence seems to working correctly to bring the back lighting to the front view.

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Hmmm... just noticed that if I disconnect translucence, set Translucence_Color=black, and Translucence_Value=0 I get the same problem for the back-lit back view. I thought I'd checked all that before adding translucence?  :oS

Even if I disconnect everything from the Poser surface and just use its diffuse colour the one-sided square renders black for back-lit back view. I'm missing something really obvious, I can tell... 

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Of course, it's all to do with Normals_Forward, Ticking that on the Poser surface of that latest shader makes the back-lit back-view look right - but of course that messes up the front view... don't think I can see a way around this...

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Remember I repeatedly used the word "dedicated" - connecting a Diffuse to the translucence channel changes its meaning. Since you are also using a pair of Diffuse to detect back-side rendering, but they eventually feed the translucence, you are doomed as it's no longer "dedicated". It stops working as expected.

This would be so much easier if there was a node to tell you which side you're rendering. There are so many trivial one-line-of-C++ things i could build if the node system was extensible via DLLs.

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Thanks bagginsbill, indeed you did! And you warned that it's buggy. And you advised against using it! And all in your first response to my translucence query.

"...and you must not send the data from that diffuse node to any of the other channels in any way. It must be dedicated to the Translucence channel.

I must add that it is buggy as hell. As far as I can see it is doing its thing as designed for directional lights and a dedicated Diffuse node, but for IBL or IDL, it doesn't behave like real translucence under those lighting conditions. I still advise not to use it, unless you first study it completely and understand how it will burn you if you go where it cannot go..."

I'd also noted your observation in post #29 of the RDNA "Diffuse, Clay, Skin and Velvet nodes" thread about the bizarre behaviour if you use the output of the diffuse node for something else as well.

But I hadn't expected that adding a couple of additional diffuse nodes upstream would mess things up.

Like I said, it was just something I felt I had to try... a little bit of burnt fingers is sometimes a good lesson! ;)

(Also found an earlier post by you explaining the same precise way to use translucence)

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Hang on a mo' (it takes a while for things to filter through the morass I call a brain :) )... that compilation of six renders I posted at the top of this page - it was only when the one-sided transmapped square was back-lit and back-viewed that there was a problem. But even if I just use the most basic material (e.g. a Poser_Surface with Diffuse_Color only) on a one-sided square it will render completely black if it is back-lit and back-viewed (unless of course you check Normals_Forward on the Poser surface)...

As far as I can see the Translucence bit seems to be doing what it should be, i.e. conveying BACK lighting to the front - the 3rd and 5th of my renders...

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Regarding the mysterious glow from pawn to leaf:

It's an IDL bug - a new one. I investigated it some more.

IDL thinks the pawn is recorded as fully lit and bouncing lots of light, and in a strange rectangular pattern that doesn't match the pawns shape exactly. I performed the following changes to see if the artifact remains.

1. Change the leaf to black - gone
2. Change the pawn to black - gone
3. Change the leaf to not be a light emitter - remains
4. Change the pawn to not be a light emitter - gone
5. Turn off the infinite light - gone
6. Turn off irradiance cache - remains
7. Turn off IDL - gone
8. Turn off cast shadow for the leaf - artifact gone, but now there is real bounced light, in the correct pattern

The last test indicates it's not quite the same as if the shadow was turned off.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

Took off the leaf shader (now it's just a square) and just made it simple Diffuse with a magenta (red and blue) color. I made the pawn a yellow (red and green) color. The two colors only have red in common. If we see red, it's bounced between both objects.

This is what I got with shadows off for the square - this looks right

This is what I got with shadows ON for the square - this is completely bogus

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All these issues that BB has been finding with IDL and other stuff recently really has me considering the jump to Daz. :/

All these issues that BB has been finding with IDL and other stuff recently really has me considering the jump to Daz. :/

Doesn't DS have bugs then?  (Just kidding!  :D ) I think the only real solution is to be a 50/50 Poser/DS user - you get the best (and worst) of both worlds!

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Regarding my attempt at the top of page 4 of this thread to use quinlor's 2008 idea to get different images on the front and back of the leaf. As bagginsbill said "The Translucence channel has only one job - to convey BACK lighting to the front. It is not responsible for conveying FRONT lighting to the back. As we can see this is already performed by the completely ordinary lighting of the built-in diffuse node (or any diffuse node).". So plugging an additional copy of quinlor's nodes into the diffuse node was totally pointless. All I should plug into the diffuse node is the texture map that I want the translucence channel to use when it's conveying back lighting to the front - it's a moot point whether this should be the leaf back image, the leaf front image, or a blend of both.

Also, While rooting around in the forum I came across another translucent leaf thread and noted willyb53's suggestion to use fastscatter with translucence, so I gave it a whirl. Here's the adjusted shader network:

And here's what I got:

So with a Diffuse node plugged into translucence (as at the top of page 4) the back-lit back-viewed leaf renders black, but with a FastScatter node plugged into translucence I see the leaf texture and the correct shadows.

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Using primary colours instead of textures with quinlor's network plus the FastScatter => Translucence...

(I haven't labeled each of the six renders as the shadows and position of the leaf-tip should make that clear. In case it isn't - top to bottom: both lights; front lit only; back-lit only. Left=front view, Right = back view)

Maybe...

buggy translucence + bodged fastscatter = asking for trouble ?

But I get a feeling that I'm almost at a "good enough for my purposes" stage - it's just the other side of that crocodile-infested river with the trolls underneath the bridge... ;)

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Well, I've started crossing the bridge and I don't hear any "Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum!" yet...

This looks promising. I added the duplicate of quinlor's node back and plugged that into the Fastscatter, after swapping colours in the blend node.

(Blue is the colour I want on the Back, Red on the fRont)

I noticed that with both lights on only the area where the front shadow and back shadow overlap appears as shadow. I have a hunch that reducing Diffuse_Value and Translucence_Value further may resolve that...

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Before reducing those values I decided to do a test. Exactly the same as the previous post, except that I tried to use just one copy of most of quinlor's network, with an extra Blender node with colours swapped to plug into the FastScatter>Translucence bit.

Guess what? I get completely different results. Just as a bagginsbill already mentioned!

But the shadows for the both lights on case look correct again.

It definitely looks like doing anything other than what bagginsbill expressly suggested for translucence is... interesting ?!?@!

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And back to the version with two quinlor networks, but with Diffuse_Value and Translucence_Value reduced to 0.33

Now the shadows look right with both lights on as well. So now the biggest problem I see is that the back-lit only renders both seem to be darker.

(Note: also seems fine with depth-mapped shadows. I'm using Poser 9 Firefly)

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Seems to work when released into the wild.

Now with a bit of colour variation and unflattening...

I suppose asking for different bump maps for the back and front of a one-sided leaf is taking a step too far... ?  ;)

(unforeseen problem - that ivy on the right. Loads of leaves are upside down - that'll be the plant mesh...)

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Following with much interest.

...Insert some witty or thought provoking comment here...

I note that you have boxed yourself into the front-back paradigm when you don't even want that. The "front" of your leaf seems to be facing down at times, and this isn't what you are after. Instead, you should be shading one way or another based on up or down. The top of the leaf is whichever face is on top, right?

To detect up or down, top or bottom, use the N (normal) variable node, configured with a huge Y multiplier. Now connect that to your blender to decide which input to take.

Here I configured my blender top use Input_1 for top, Input_2 for bottom, which I got by configuring -1000 in the y component of the N node. I demonstrate on my mat pawn, to show that this works with any shape, not just a one-sided square.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

This is off-topic for a leaf, but I'm sure that after seeing the top-bottom shader, some will wonder if you can get a gradient out of it. Yes, with the addition of one math node. Note that this technique is at the heart of the snow and dust shaders I've posted in the past, which found its way into SnarlyGribbly's snow machine.

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I suppose asking for different bump maps for the back and front of a one-sided leaf is taking a step too far... ?  ;)

Not at all - just connect them to a top-bottom blender. If you need a different multiplier on each, then premultiply them with a math node. (Don't try to multiply with shades of gray - too finicky and if you decide to change render gamma, it will change meaning.)

If you're using bump maps properly as I've taught, then you already have a math-subtract .5 node involved. Set each one up to do what you need for each map.

Note that multiply on a math subtract, whose job is centering the bump map around the 0 value, can be accomplished in one node - just multiply your input_1 and your input_2 by the same value. For example, if you want the map centered on .5, and multiplied by .16, then on the Math:Subtract set Value_1 = 1 * .16 = .16 and Value_2 = .5 * .16 = .08.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

i remember when you unlocked gradient magic for dynamic hair strands. rainbow hair. :)

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I note that you have boxed yourself into the front-back paradigm when you don't even want that. The "front" of your leaf seems to be facing down at times, and this isn't what you are after. Instead, you should be shading one way or another based on up or down. The top of the leaf is whichever face is on top, right? ...

Now that you've pointed it out...

Using the N node rang a very loud bell - Eventmobil's 'dust-on-top' [nudity warning - not that post, but the thread, which was about "slightly soapy water"] and snarlygribbley's snow machine. I've even used the N-node like that myself, but never thought it could be relevant here. I'll try that tomorrow.

I've run into a separate problem with back-lit one-sided meshes (as opposed to single faces, like my leaf). The mesh lines appear in the render (back-viewed or front-viewed) but only if I use ray-traced shadows. Depth-mapped shadows seem okay. I'm sure that must have been covered many times, but I can't find anything.

(P.S. I don't seem to be getting notification messages for new posts now.)

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For raytrace polygonal self shadowing artifacts either 

1 raise shadow min bias to higher value (diminishing returns in shadow quality though, with corresponding gradual elimination of artifacts).

2 disable smooth polygons (completely eliminates artifacts but is really only useful if model is higher res and not so dependant on Poser smoothing).

3 In recent Poser version, raise SubD level of mesh.

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Observation; Raytrace mesh artifacts as above must be specific Firefly bug as I've yet to see similar in other Raytrace renderers.

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Observation; Raytrace mesh artifacts as above must be specific Firefly bug as I've yet to see similar in other Raytrace renderers.

Yes, I'm using Firefly (Poser 9). I see the mesh-line artifacts regardless of whether Smooth Polys is checked. Bizarrely, adjusting shadow min bias has the opposite effect (i.e. increasing it makes them bigger, decreasing it makes them smaller), but only for the mesh-line artifacts on the back-lit mesh. Mesh-line shadow artifacts on other objects behave exactly as you say.  :oS Definitely seems to be a back-lit + one-sided-mesh + Firefly + ray-traced-shadows specific problem

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(Edit time ran out on that post, so an additional note...)

I also think that the rather cobbled-together shader I'm using (posted recently, with back and front leaf images, two of quinlor's networks, plus fastscatter driving translucence) might be an additional condition for seeing this effect. Just going to do some checks...

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Hmmmph. I'll keep an eye out for that particular problem. I must say that I've experienced quite a bit of frustration over the years with said artifacts. With manifold geometry I generally disable smoothing, here's hoping that I don't run into the one sided geom version of the bug. :)

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Actually, now that I think of it I have encountered those artifacts on one sided geometry. In this instance a morphing high res plane that I created. the artifacts would only show at higher morph levels though, when the polys were extremely attenuated. I always had a nagging suspicion that non planar polygons were a contributing factor. Who knows?

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This particular version of the mesh-line artefact problem appears to be caused by plugging Fastscatter into Translucence...

So it appears to be:

one-sided-mesh + back lighting from a Poser light + ray-traced-shadows + Fastscatter node plugged into Translucence_Color + Firefly = mesh line artifacts

Using a Diffuse node (which is what bagginsbill said to do), not a Fastscatter node, the mesh line artifacts don't appear. But the shadow from the downward-pointing thingy behind the leaf doesn't appear on the leaf if you do this.

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I'm thinking that these one-sided plane problems should continue on a new thread, so I'm just going to start a new thread (linking back to this one of course).

Here's the link - "One-sided face/mesh problems, tricks, workarounds, stumbling blocks, etc.."

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So far following this thread has been most illuminating. Using the various methods shown here, I've improved the leaf shader for my Dryad character:

The first is without translucency, using the wax like shader described in this thread

and the second is a back lit translucent shader

Still trying to work out how to dampen the translucency a bit so its not quite so strong.

...Insert some witty or thought provoking comment here...

and here's the nodes for the translucency

...Insert some witty or thought provoking comment here...

And what the translucency shader is like without back light

...Insert some witty or thought provoking comment here...

Very nice... the Dryad is looking great. Perhaps you may want to lower the reflectivity on your blinn? I think a lower value might give a more pleasing sheen to the leaves. 

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