Skin settings | Recipes | Forums

Post edited 1:50 pm – September 11, 2010 by maddoctor

If you use a specular close to black and glossiness value below 50 won't that make the surface equal to having the "Matte" setting? I mean it's almost as if you disable the glossiness.

Forgive me if t's a newbie question

Setting glossy to one, and Skin specular colour to a value in the 8-10 range produces an effect that can look fairly matte under dimmer area lights, but with a bright small-point source (like sunlight) the difference is still visible without being overwhelming.

If I don't have a specular map for the character, I use the above settings. But it's almost always better to steal specular maps from another character than to have no specular maps at all (I usually use the base V4 and M4 specular maps).

I made some DS presets to apply just the specular maps and settings for rendering in 3DLight after I started noticing the difference in results – I'm waiting until 1.01 comes out before creating a new set of presets for Reality though. There's no point in fussing with the Glossy setting and specular colour if the way Reality reads those is going to change in a week ;)

If I DO have a specular map, I turn specular colour up to something in the 25-45 range and bump up Glossy to 3ish – with the specular maps I can get a proper sheen on the forhead and bridge of the nose without getting the same sheen on the cheaks or arms (the nose and forehead are slightly more oily so they sheen more).

For lips with lip gloss or lipstick, I push the Glossy in Reality up to 10ish and the specular colour value to 64 – tint as appropriate.

Right now I can't get Reality to read a Studio Glossiness value and come out with a number below about 100 so I'm waiting for 1.01 before I find out what values I need in Studio. I'll put out a .dsa freebie to tweak characters settings to whatever "good defaults" I settle on then, cuz it's just handy ;)

Is there a fix for the SSS causing light eyebrows and washed out detail?

Pret-A-3D said:

RandallLloyd said:

Is there a fix for the SSS causing light eyebrows and washed out detail?

---

Version 1.2 will introduce a new ski. Shader that doesn't show that problem.
 

::sigh:: so now im back to eagerly waiting for 1.2 LOL

Nice tips and I agree that using a grey shade for specular works well in most cases.

Skin is an interesting material and possibly one of the hardest for us amateurs to emulate. Personally I don't like too much glossiness on my skins unless the character is enganged in something  physical. There are of course other times when it's needed.

Attached is a bit of a cheat done as an experiement. There are two M4's in the scene. One placed inside the other and shrunk ever so slightly so that it's just below the surface. Skin face on the outer one was set at 90% opacity. Skin face on the inner one was given a red hue. This, I hoped, would add a bit of randomness to the final pixel colour due to the light penetrating the outser skin at different angles. I also wanted a softer looking skin.

If you're ever thinking about doing close ups of skin you'll also have to consider using bump maps to break up those expanses of slightly shiny skin.

It also helps to start with a good detailed base skin texture too

Thanks Paolo. I meant to add that it was rendered using your softbox as the sole light. It's my 'go to' light for a lot of renders because it makes it so easy to control how soft the shadows are and gives a nice light all over.

If you were commenting on my words, then thanks Steve, and you're most welcome.