procedural human skin

[Dreamwave]

I think this depends on the software you're using isn't it?
I use Lightwave and I have some kind of skintexture, but I'm almost afraid to show it :blush:

edit: or maybe I will, I could use some procedural improvement...

[thOrNes]

i use 3dsmax 5

[RichSuchy]

Originally posted by thOrNes
hi there !

I work on a anim / video project and need to texture a human. It doesn't have to be 100 percent photorealistic, so I'd like to know if someone already tried a procedural human skin (maybe even multilayered solution) - would save me some days of highpoly texturing:surprised if you know a tutorial or technique would be nice if you could breifly describe it

Cheers
thOrNes

I had lots of success with that. There is allot to be said about fractile noice at diferent scales repeating in nature... by using vertex maps to regionalize your color and scale, and by layer procedural noice and bumps subtly at varying sizes you get get a good fake of human skin all in procedurals, however, baking that to a texture will render faster. And you might just paint maps and add some noise on top. I find that more render efficient.

[leigh]

Since I don't use Max, I can't really help you in terms of setting up the actual procedural, but if you are going to stick to procedurals only, I thought it worth a mention that you should ensure that you light the model really nicely, with different tones so that the skin adopts some colours from it's environment a bit :)

And definitely heed Rich Suchy's advice about baking them to an image when you're done setting them up, as one image takes quicker to calculate at render time that a whole bunch of procedurals ;)

[JagaSkywalker]

I'm pretty new in this stuff, but I guess one of the advantages of procedurals is the resolution at close range. You can get almost as close as you want...

If you bake to a texture then you may need to have a very big map !!

I'm not sure about the pros and cons in render time (bigger map -> more memory....)

Maybe for the face is OK, but a large texture for the body ... well I do not know...

Rich, could you share some of the seetings you used for your procedurals ?

I'm using procedurals for skin and I find some problems at render time, when doing animations, as the skin seems to flicker randomly, specially at mid distances...

Jose

[RichSuchy]

Originally posted by JagaSkywalker
I'm pretty new in this stuff, but I guess one of the advantages of procedurals is the resolution at close range. You can get almost as close as you want...

If you bake to a texture then you may need to have a very big map !!

I'm not sure about the pros and cons in render time (bigger map -> more memory....)

Maybe for the face is OK, but a large texture for the body ... well I do not know...

Rich, could you share some of the seetings you used for your procedurals ?

I'm using procedurals for skin and I find some problems at render time, when doing animations, as the skin seems to flicker randomly, specially at mid distances...

Jose

I really can't, you see, its always diferent. I havnt done it Maya and I havnt used LW for a long time, to make matters far worse than my memory, I never used presetts so I always reinvent the wheel to try and improve over the last one. So I may overlap them diferently...

Heres what I can tell you... I use a cellular style procedural at .5-9 mm in scale which some some nice things with the render but I'd have a hrd time explaining it, it has to do with antialiesing and the chaos underlying all things natural. Then I do a bigger cellular pass for visable bumps, a larger fuzzy noise pattern to add larger scale variation to the surface that is subtle... Thats all bump channel

In colour I like to play with tonal variation, with spots of varyng sizes, natural colours and subtlety, This I overlay on a painted map because its just easier to paint makeup on a face. Though you could get very fancy with vertex weighting to control the blending of diferent colour variations into diferent areas. In specular I use my overall composited bump map (which would include some painting especialy for lips and wrinkles) and adjust the properties based on both camera angle and a layer for light angle. Aldusting colour temperature with ramps as well. Specuilar highlights dead on tend to be m ore yellow while whiter or bluer shades in the glancing angles.

In Diffuse... Some programsd have a separate difuse... You can apply this step into your colour channel or use it in Diffuse. I think of diffuse as a great way to darken areas that wouldnt get as much scene radiated light... That is to say I use it to fake radiosity, or final gathering etc... But also You can take some of the bump channel and subtly effect your difuse with it to make recessed areas get slightly less light.

If you want to go all out, you can use some reflection instead of or on top of specular, especially on wet areas like lips... Play with that if you want. Specular is really just a fake of reflection on a surface anyway. The problem is that you would want your reflection to be diferent degrees of blurry. You will have to experiment with that.

All the above being said, you will have to be highly cvritical as you go and refine, refine, refine... if something doesnt look right, you will have to adjust it until it does.

There is no magic bullet.

[RichSuchy]

...or you can make a really big texture map Or set of higher or lower rez maps... a diferent character for diferent distances from the camera or make a bot file out of your large map in Maya, or other program that can use them, or just settle for a really big map.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.