SSS Shader becomes solid black on specific body when playing animation -toggling on smooth mesh by subdivision removes the error
A couple issues that might be connected to the same problem.
1. It took a long while to discover what might be making the body and arm materials render black during animation playback. This issue is also present in iC8. Enabling smooth mesh be subdivision seems to correct the render but isn't a favorable solution.
2. My character still has extra materials for no explanation. If I add a texture to the CC4 created duplicate material "Head_03" and disable the opacity of the original head, you will see the head becomes invisible (there is no additional mesh).
The only thing I can think of as to why there are additional materials is that when I was creating the character from scratch was that when I was creating the body before the rigging process, I sent all the subtools of the body parts individually (head, body, arms, legs, eyes etc) and then labeled each of the meshes and materials in CC4 then merged them. Since CC4's weld option didn't seem to be available for my merged character parts I then exported the merged mesh as an FBX, then opened it with 3DCoat's PPP paint mode where it allowed me to weld the verts. The correct number of materials were showing in 3DCoat and I then exported it to akeytsu to be rigged.
After rigging in akeytsu and examining the ability and skin weight quality to do animations, I then exported it rigged to open in CC4.
When I imported it into CC4 there were suddenly duplicated materials that have no purpose and should not exist.
Later when I changed the original materials that did belong from PBR to SSS, all parts of the character's body except for the head rendered black when I pressed play.
It took a long time to discover a connection and it seems that smooth mesh by subdivision is somehow related because when enabled and I press play, the SSS shader renders correctly.
As for why only the head is not effected, the only thing that comes to mind is your cloth tracking system which allows cloth on the face like beards to conform to the shape of facial expressions is also somehow connected.
Hi Ascensi,
Sorry for the late reply.
Did UV issue still happened in CC4.2?
Thanks for your help!
Calvin
Reallusion
Ascensi
Success!!! In Zbrush, I copied the UVs from my older character before they somehow were destroyed to the mostly UV empty area of the newest version of my Character with the correct number of materials listed that was exported to obj with binding pose (body only). I examined the obj grouping in Zbrush, then grouped my UV updated character parts the same way. I exported as obj to be imported into CC4, then used replace mesh with UV in the toolbar. For some reason the imported mesh extremely distorted my character. I then used a GoZ version of my character with the correct shape and projected it back to the distorted character.
I wish in the future that the replace mesh option doesn't require the shape of the character, that it could give us the option of just accepting the new UV changes.
Also GoZ should have the option to automatic setting to clear cache on successful import ( I don't know if GoZ created mesh duplicates over the existing mesh with the same group ID, or if the error was from 3DCoat on import or export but the file size was over a 20 MB difference compared to the fixed version, 3DCoat's paint mode doesn't create merged geometry so my suspicion is with GoZ and the cache not being cleared and in turn doubling the meshes/materials.
This whole problem with the phantom materials started since the beginning of installation, GoZ cache was not cleared. When I first sent each of my freshly modeled and correct UV body parts from Zbrush to CC4 to retain mesh & material names like a CC3 character, then merge them into one body, the weld verts didn't work as it should on the merged character. So I exported as FBX for 3DCoat, imported with PPP mode with Weld option enabled, deleted the phantom materials and exported as FBX. I then had to use akeytsu (currently free) to use the "update skinned mesh" option. To do this you have to load your rigged character and then import the unskinned FBX or else just drag the meshes outside the rig to become useable, then Click on your Skinned mesh part that you want to replace (you must be in paint and check mode) then hold ctrl and select the unskinned mesh you want to use, then on the "skin altelier" UI select "update skinned mesh" and your character should then have the updated part. The good thing about this feature is that it doesn't have to be the same topology & UVs.
Summery: the reason why the SSS shader was rendering black is because the character's UVs were mostly missing. Only the head UV was working properly at one point.
This was a big mess and I hope no one else would have to go through -EVER but at least if it does happen to you, this was my workaround.
Ascensi
I discovered that the likely reason why the SSS shader is not working correctly is because after cleanup of the extra materials, I noticed my UVs were pretty much destroyed.. so now I have to dig up older files to copy and paste to rebuild them. When I can restore the UVs I will report back.
Ascensi
I've tested exporting a regular CC3 character then importing as HIK but the autodetection/conversion is exact to provide compatibility to CC3 characters. The Cayote character body works fine with SSS but is made of one mesh so that isn't a fair comparison. You would need another non CC character that has multimesh/materials as the body to test compatibility to see if the problem is system wide or only exclusive to my character somehow.
