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These are not your grandmother's wet maps! Back in the day, we used to create detailed specular maps with drips, drops, and tiny sparkles, then adjust the Glossiness parameter of Daz Studio's default shader to make the skin shimmer. And that worked pretty well. The thing is, real water has dimension and it does all kinds of crazy stuff with the light that shines upon it. So the old school way of doing things is not as convincing if you get real close.

Now with Macro Wet Maps, you can get as close as you want and get startlingly realistic results for drenched, sweaty, or oily skin. Born out of exhaustive R and D, Macro Wet Maps reproduces all the effects necessary to make water on skin believable, particularly for close-ups. Seriously, this is major shader alchemy here. To learn more about the critical components, take a look at the “Anatomy of a Water Drop” promotional image.

Macro Wet Maps is a map and custom shader combination for Genesis 2 Female and Genesis and the 3Delight render engine (built into Daz Studio). It loads on a geometry shell, so all presets and adjustments for this product are made without modifying your existing character. Control maps for this product are based on the Victoria 5 UV set, but your base figure (underneath the geometry shell) can use any UV set that Genesis 2 Female or Genesis support.

Macro Wet Maps pairs super detailed 8K specular and displacement maps for the body (torso and limbs) with 4k head maps, so the detail is great no matter where you zoom in. The custom shader utilizes multiple speculars to describe moist skin and liquid volume independently. It casts realistic shadows from displacement onto the skin while preventing shadows from casting on the inside of the drops and drips. Blocking this interior shadow combined with an additional reflected specular simulates the effect of interior caustics without the high overhead or need for a caustics camera.

While the Material Presets make it easy to get standardized results, this sophisticated shader provides control over each component via surface parameters. These controls come in handy when adjusting to the vast array of possible light conditions. In addition to familiar surface parameters, you can control unique ones such as standard or BSDF specular models, Glossy (sharp specular), Cast Shadow Strength, Shadow Color, Shadow Blur, Fresnel Reflection, and Gamma Correction. The shader supports flagging for Age of Armour's Advanced Lights, so you can control how the lights respond to the wet skin shell. And there are also custom presets for Macro Skin to accommodate brow displacement.

Below is a list of the installation package types provided by this product. The name of each package contains a Package Qualifier, which is used as a key to indicate something about the contents of that package.

• 2 Core ¹⁾

Not all installation packages provide files that are displayed to the user within the interface of an application. The packages listed below, do. The application(s), and the location(s) within each application, are shown below.

• You can find new icons for loading this product in the following DAZ Studio Folders:
  • “People:Genesis:Clothing:Parris:Macro Wet Maps”
  • “People:Genesis:Clothing:Parris:Macro Wet Maps:Materials”
  • “People:Genesis:Clothing:Parris:Macro Wet Maps:Materials:4K”

• You can find new icons for this product in the following DAZ Studio Categories:
  • “Materials:Feminine:Macro Wet Maps Genesis:Effects”
  • “Materials:Masculine:Macro Wet Maps Genesis:Effects”

• You can find new icons for loading this product in the following DAZ Studio Folders:
  • “People:Genesis 2 Female:Clothing:Parris:Macro Wet Maps”
  • “People:Genesis 2 Female:Clothing:Parris:Macro Wet Maps:Materials”
  • “People:Genesis 2 Female:Clothing:Parris:Macro Wet Maps:Materials:4K”

• You can find new icons for this product in the following DAZ Studio Categories:
  • “Materials:Feminine:Macro Wet Maps Genesis 2 Female(s):Effects”

• Macro Wet Maps works by loading a geometry shell over your figure with the Liquid Shell shader applied to its surfaces. So all you need to do is select your figure in the Scene tab and double click the correct Liquid_GeometryShell for your figure to load the geometry shell: For Genesis load Liquid_GeometryShell_Genesis.duf (in People > Genesis > Clothing > Parris > Macro Wet Maps), and for Genesis 2 Female load Liquid_GeometryShell_G2F.duf (in People > Genesis 2 Female> Clothing > Parris > Macro Wet Maps). Please note that Genesis's shell will not work with Genesis 2 Female or vice versa. By default the geometry shell loads with the Waterworks preset applied.
• This product also uses Hierarchical Material(s) Presets. This means that you just need to have the figure selected when applying one of the Macro Wet Maps material presets (you don't need to select the geometry shell that is parented to it).
• With the exception of Mercury, all colored liquid presets work in conjunction with the Waterworks and Drops presets. So be sure to load one of them first before applying a colored liquid. Please note that you will not see a change in the Viewport when applying a color. Liquid colors will show in the render.
• You can also easily make your own liquid colors by selecting the Liquid Geometry Shell in both the Scene and Surface tabs and then changing the values for Refracted Specular Color and Refraction Color surface parameters.
• To get visible shadows cast from displaced drops and drips, you should set the Shadow Type of your main light to Raytraced and Shadow Bias to a value between .1 and .01 (.01 usually works well) and remember to place the light at an angle that will make fairly long shadows (45 degrees is generally a good starting point).
• The Liquid Shell shader has built in support for Age of Armours Advanced Lights. So you can use their flagging system to modify how the Liquid Geometry Shell's surfaces react to these lights. As a convenience, Ambient Strength is set to .10%. This ambient setting has no visible effect in itself. But you can then easily select the Advanced Light in your scene, and set “Flag Surface Shaders With” to “Ambient Strength Value Of…” and “Diffuse, Ambient or IOR Value” to .10%, and choose what you want for “If Surface is Flagged”. For instance, if you are using the Advanced Ambient Light as a “fill” light, you can choose “Don't Illuminate” so that the liquid surfaces do not get an unnecessary boost from the ambient light.
• Waterworks, Drops and colored liquid presets use refraction, so Max Ray Depth in Render Settings should be set to 1 or greater. Otherwise you may get undesired black spots inside the drips and drops. The BabyOil preset uses ray traced reflections by default, so it also needs a Max Ray Depth of 1 or greater unless you turn off Ray Traced Reflections for the Liquid Shell shader. Remember, if you want ray traced reflections to look right you need something in the scene for your reflective surfaces to reflect.
• For users who intend to modify surface parameters: Refraction Strength (default is 100%) and Index of Refraction (default is 1.0) both need values greater than 0 for non opaque surfaces. This is so that the shader can differentiate between shadows cast outside the displaced liquid and the inside shadows. This helps emulate the interior caustic effect that hides interior shadows with real world liquids. Diffuse Color is set to black by default which tends to work best with refraction. However, if you want to create opaque liquid, you can turn off refraction and set Diffuse Color to whatever you like.
• By default masks are applied to several surface parameters so that the shininess (specular and glossy) properties of displaced and non displaced surfaces are controlled separately. So specular settings affect only the skin while Glossy and Refracted Specular affect only the drips and drops.
• The Macro Wet Maps Liquid Shell shader has several surface parameters you may be unfamiliar with so here is a brief description of each:
• BSDF Specular (switch): If switched to On, the first Specular channel will use an advanced specular model instead of the DAZ Studio default. Among other things, the advanced specular models provide smooth fall off for glancing angles even when a low Glossiness value is used, whereas the DAZ Studio default (BSDF Specular Off) can produce harsh glancing falloff when Glossiness is low. This comes at a cost of longer render times, so you probably don't need to switch it on unless your lowered Glossiness and now your rim lights are showing harsh falloff (a sharp line between light and shadow). By default only non displaced surfaces are affected by this parameter.
• BSDF Blinn ←–> Cook-Torrance: If BSDF Specular is On choose BSDF Blinn (0) or Cook-Torrance (1). Both are good. Cook-Torrance is typically sharper and brighter.
• Specular 2 Glossiness, Specular 2 Color, Specular 2 Strength: This second specular uses the 3Delight specular model. Its fast, spreads more at the same Glossiness setting as Specular and also avoids harsh falloff at glancing angles. However, it bleeds into the rest of the surface more, so it works best as a broad coverage detail enhancer, while Specular provides the main (stronger) specular highlights. By default only non displaced surfaces are affected by these parameters.
• Glossy Color, Glossy Strength, Glossy Glossiness, Glossy Sharpness : These control the sharp specular highlight you see on displaced drips and drops. By default only displaced surfaces are affected by these parameters.
• Refracted Specular Glossiness, Refracted Spec Gloss Map, Refracted Specular Color, Refracted Specular Strength: These surface parameters control the caustic effect and project light on the opposite side of the displaced surface (the side closest to the cast shadow and furthest from the light). By default only displaced surfaces are affected by these parameters.
• Refract/Shadow Mask: Provides the masking for refraction opacity and helps define where shadows should be visible. Don't modify unless you have created your own masks to use here.
• Cast Shadow Strength: Use to control the strength of the shadows that are cast by displaced drips and drops. The default value (100%) usually works fine but you can turn it down if you like.
• Shadow Blur Amount: Use to blur the edges of cast shadows. Usually a value between 0 and 10 is sufficient.
• Interior Shadow Strength: Affects the visibility of shadows inside displaced areas (drips and drops) Default is 0 which is generally best for transparent or semi-transparent liquids.
• Fresnel Reflection (switch): If switched on, reflections (whether mapped or ray traced) will be strongest at glancing angles and weaker when viewed strait on, as dictated by the Reflection IoR setting. If Switched off, glancing and facing edges will reflect equally (good for mirror, chrome, mercury, etc.).
• Ray Traced Reflections (switch): If switched on, reflections will be ray traced. Wherever there is nothing in the scene to reflect, the Environment Map Color settings will be used.
• Reflection IoR: Index of Refraction for reflections. Use standard scientific IoR values like 1.33 for water, etc. Higher values bleed more reflection strength into facing surfaces.
• Shader GC Strength: provides shader based gamma correction if Gamma Correction is not on in Render Settings. A value of 1 shuts Shader GC off, while 2.2 (default) sets optimal gamma correction. If displaced drips and drops are too visible in shadows, you can decrease their visibility by turning this down or off.

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