how do I add emission to something that doesn't have it already in surfaces?

Upirium

I'm wanting to make an emissive area on a tail and horns, but when I go through surfaces there isn't an option for emissive stuff at all.

How do I add it?

Quasar

I think this means the creator of the items has created their own custom shaders for them. What you can try doing is selecting the items in the scene tab, then select all the surfaces for them and then apply the default Iray shader, Iray Uber Base. That should give you emission options. The texture files should hopefully stay in place, but it depends on how the original shader was built.

Upirium

Quasar said:

I think this means the creator of the items has created their own custom shaders for them. What you can try doing is selecting the items in the scene tab, then select all the surfaces for them and then apply the default Iray shader, Iray Uber Base. That should give you emission options. The texture files should hopefully stay in place, but it depends on how the original shader was built.

it unfortunately messed up both the shaders (made it weirdly pale for some reason?) is there any way i can fix that?

Quasar

Since I don't know what features were being used in the original shader to make them look the way they do, I'm not sure how to fix the paleness. Did the texture maps (like diffuse and translucency maps) stay in place when you switched shaders? Are they items you can link to from the store (just in case I might have them)? 

crosswind

It should be case by case... You can firstly check what shader is used on that tail, I presume probably the tail is with SBH so Blended Dual Lobe or Omni may be used... if so you have to no easy choice but adding Emission to its Base or using a geo-shell on it then customizing Emission.

On the horn, it should be easy to make an Emissive effect if it uses Iray Uber shader.. but if it uses default PBRSkin shader, you either convert it to Iray Uber shader, or use a geo-shell, or direcly use this product https://www.daz3d.com/pbr-skin-plus in which there's an capability of Emission (just load it to the surface which uses PBRSkin shader,  then you'll find Emission is back)

Gordig

Let's make things really simple: select a surface in the Surfaces pane and tell us what it says at the top for Shader: _______

apocalypse_cow

A possible workaround if the shader doesn't include emission would be to use a geo-shell and then apply the default uber base shader to it. Then disable the geo-shell on all surfaces except the one you want to glow.

you can also use opacity maps on the geo-shell if you have them.

Richard Haseltine

Gordig said:

Let's make things really simple: select a surface in the Surfaces pane and tell us what it says at the top for Shader: _______

That is, the Editor page within the Surfaces pane. The shader is listed at top-left.

Cybersox

Upirium said:

Quasar said:

I think this means the creator of the items has created their own custom shaders for them. What you can try doing is selecting the items in the scene tab, then select all the surfaces for them and then apply the default Iray shader, Iray Uber Base. That should give you emission options. The texture files should hopefully stay in place, but it depends on how the original shader was built.

it unfortunately messed up both the shaders (made it weirdly pale for some reason?) is there any way i can fix that?

First, have you tried just turning down the intensity... it's amazing how little a difference there can be between perfect and totally washed out.   Also, if the area that you're replacing is meant to have both dark and light areas, you need to copy the original base image for that area and paste it into the photo area for the emitter so that the dark areas are not completey washed out.