Cant get glossy or shiny lips to work on G8.1 Female

[Hot Coffee]

I cannot for the life of me get glossy lips or any type of specular to work on lips for the G8.1 Female. They work fine on G8 & G9... Even applying some makeup lipstick from various resources still appears without the gloss. It doesnt even matter what skin I use, here I am using a base victoria 8.1. Dialling up and down the values on top coat do nothing either. Can somebody please tell me what I am doing wrong?

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I solved that for myself with shaders.
Some assets require you to select the surface before applying their color.
Shaders work in some sense better for the little light you may shine on the face.

 

[MissFortune]

Have you tried using these?:



Depending on the assets, etc. that you're using, you might have to turn it down fairly low to get a glossy enough look. Light sources might also a play a role in getting the look you want, as well.

View attachment 2023-10-21 17-42-18.mp4

 

[noping123]

I cannot for the life of me get glossy lips or any type of specular to work on lips for the G8.1 Female. They work fine on G8 & G9... Even applying some makeup lipstick from various resources still appears without the gloss. It doesnt even matter what skin I use, here I am using a base victoria 8.1. Dialling up and down the values on top coat do nothing either. Can somebody please tell me what I am doing wrong?
View attachment 3022549

I have to assume it's the lighting your using, though the fact that you say 9 works fine makes me wonder. Here's 2 screenshots from daz, using base v8.1 - no lighting was used, nor hdris - this is in daz sun/sky mode (set to 6pm, which is the default for me whenever I open a brand new scene)



and changing it to the exact settings you used :




You can clearly see the gloss there on the default skin, (in both settings actually) which leads me to believe it's the lighting you are using - though like I said, the fact you said it works fine on 9 makes me wonder.

What I can say for sure is the skin isn't the issue here

 

[Hot Coffee]

I have to assume it's the lighting your using, though the fact that you say 9 works fine makes me wonder. Here's 2 screenshots from daz, using base v8.1 - no lighting was used, nor hdris - this is in daz sun/sky mode (set to 6pm, which is the default for me whenever I open a brand new scene)

View attachment 3024135

and changing it to the exact settings you used :

View attachment 3024134


You can clearly see the gloss there on the default skin, (in both settings actually) which leads me to believe it's the lighting you are using - though like I said, the fact you said it works fine on 9 makes me wonder.

What I can say for sure is the skin isn't the issue here

I believe It has something to do with the custom file I set up that had tweaked parameters (lighting and no hdri) which would boot up as soon as I loaded a new daz file. I started from a fresh unaltered one and it's fixed now. But I dont believe it had something to do with my lighting setup as I just disabled the HDRI and added my 3 point lights into the mix and now I can see the glossiness of the lips. Odd, I guess its something to do with the custom file I had prepped, I'll ditch it. But thank you so much!

 

[Hot Coffee]

you might have to turn it down fairly low to get a glossy enough look.

I see you use dual lobe specular instead of top coat, do you reconmend using one other the other when it comes to lips/skin??

 

[MissFortune]

I see you use dual lobe specular instead of top coat, do you reconmend using one other the other when it comes to lips/skin??

It seems to largely change with the vendor of the figure/texture for me. Sometimes top coat does the trick, other times the dual lobe spec does. I personally prefer the latter for a lot of situations, but Top Coat certainly doesn't go unused.

 

[noping123]

I believe It has something to do with the custom file I set up that had tweaked parameters (lighting and no hdri) which would boot up as soon as I loaded a new daz file. I started from a fresh unaltered one and it's fixed now. But I dont believe it had something to do with my lighting setup as I just disabled the HDRI and added my 3 point lights into the mix and now I can see the glossiness of the lips. Odd, I guess its something to do with the custom file I had prepped, I'll ditch it. But thank you so much!

I noticed you edited it, but I will answer your previous question:

My recommendation is to *always* test new characters under multiple lighting conditions. I'd Recommend setting up multiple completely different ones (for example, your 3pl setup, then just an hdri, then maybe something with just mesh lights, probably a couple more I can't think of atm because I'm about to pass out).

You won't always be able to use the same lighting in every situation, and I've been personally burned by this before - characters that look great in one lighting condition, and terrible in others. It's better to test them under as many as you can during creation - so you can either try to address any issues, or try something different. It's absolutely terrible if you do say 100 renders with a character, and then move onto somewhere where you need to use a completely different lighting setup, only to find the character looks completely different. You're stuck at that point playing weird games trying to "replicate" the previous lighting on the character without ruining the rest of the scene, and that can just compound problems.

The one thing I'd say about your "broken" saved setup, all I can think of is either there was something weird tweaked with the lights, or something different in the render settings or tone mapping that was causing it.

 

[Hot Coffee]

It seems to largely change with the vendor of the figure/texture for me. Sometimes top coat does the trick, other times the dual lobe spec does. I personally prefer the latter for a lot of situations, but Top Coat certainly doesn't go unused.

Noted, thank you again!

 

[Hot Coffee]

I noticed you edited it, but I will answer your previous question:

My recommendation is to *always* test new characters under multiple lighting conditions. I'd Recommend setting up multiple completely different ones (for example, your 3pl setup, then just an hdri, then maybe something with just mesh lights, probably a couple more I can't think of atm because I'm about to pass out).

You won't always be able to use the same lighting in every situation, and I've been personally burned by this before - characters that look great in one lighting condition, and terrible in others. It's better to test them under as many as you can during creation - so you can either try to address any issues, or try something different. It's absolutely terrible if you do say 100 renders with a character, and then move onto somewhere where you need to use a completely different lighting setup, only to find the character looks completely different. You're stuck at that point playing weird games trying to "replicate" the previous lighting on the character without ruining the rest of the scene, and that can just compound problems.

The one thing I'd say about your "broken" saved setup, all I can think of is either there was something weird tweaked with the lights, or something different in the render settings or tone mapping that was causing it.

This is all really helpful advice, I will try to implement that into my workflow when I make new characters. I believe it was deffo something to do with the tonemapping now that I think about it.