Subsurface Scattering - advice

Hi everyone

Here is a link that helped explain SSS to me a little bit more, check it out, it might be helpful:

http://www.paulfedor.com/texturing/books/SSS_chapter.pdf

I found that when I used the Subdermal colour map(step3), as suggested it brought out the blues and reds in the skin.

I found that when I used the weightmap (step4) it made the skin generally darker.

Not too sure how the epidermal colour layer (step2) affects it

Hope it helps - if you find anything useful about SSS please upload it

DM - Holly

Hey Holly,

Sorry for the late reply.

The whole scene seems to be progressing really well. I have a couple of suggestions on the modelling front.

1) Looking at your reference images I would be inclined to add some shape to the hands. I feel that they could do with being scaled down a bit and made to taper more. In Elvgren's images the hands, as well as the feet, are petite and the fingers are tapered and delicate. Also the fingers are drawn with a slight backwards curve which really sells the poses. It maybe worth employing this exaggerated bend to get the look you are going for.




2) As mentioned I would also shorten the feet and shoes, maybe a lattice around the whole section would work. I think these would be quick and simple changes that would make a huge difference but it really depends how closely you want to get to the heavily stylised reference.

3) I would consider trying to hook the back foot behind the front calf. This seems to be a recurring element of the reference poses. Also in the ref, the legs are more bent than in your pose, is that intentional?

The textures are really starting to sell the piece so keep it up.

I think the framing/posing is working well, but be sure to focus on the model. Elvgren's images are character driven rather than environment so make sure that the character is shown off the best possible way and the surrounding objects can be moved to suit the final shot. I would just keep going back to your reference as to the final framing. Find one you think really works and try to be faithful to it.

Hope this helps.

Well done on sharing the eye lash trick with everyone. I am sure everyone will find it useful.

Good luck,

Dan

Holly - More Poses

Hi Dan
I have updated the pose. I took reference from Elvgren's pin-ups perched on handrails, I noticed that they all seem to have their legs side by side and tucked under their torsos.

Once I moved the legs I thought that the position of the arms no longer suited the pose - please see images and let me know if you agree with this. From this I decided to straighten out the left arm and rest it on the handrail.

I liked this pose and have taken closer shots of it from different angles ( I don't intend to use all of these angles, just thought you might be able to get a better idea of the pose)please let me know if you think the pose is working.

Can I ask you a composition question? I have been trying to achieve some lines of direction. I have laid a line of direction over my poses - is it clear what I am trying to achieve, do you agree with the lines I making? I particularly like the way the composition is creating an arrow shape(to my mind anyway, please see pics) I feel this adds an energy and speed to the piece.

-currently experimenting with lighting, hope it's not distracting you from the modeling detail

Thanks in advance

Holly

How to Texture Eyelashes using a Transparency Map

Hi Guys

Took me ages to figure out how to create eyelashes on a transparency map, but it was so simple I thought I would share with everyone how to do it - should you need it. If it's not working for you give me a shout and will help out

Thanks to Adam for helping me figure it out -

Holly

Holly - The Pin-Up Pose

Hi Dan

Have been busy posing my character, have mainly rigged it in XSI, my eveloping is not the best and so I need to go in a tweak the points alot - it would be great if you could have a look at poses and let me know if anything wrong is jumping out at you - please be brutal. Does the tilt of the head work?

The first two images are the two main shots I want to show, I want a close-up of the face, I have added some other shots/angles, please let me know which you feel are working and which are not - I don't have to include these ones

I have attached some images of Elvgren's paintings that I have been taking inspiration from. I really like what he does with the fingers and the hands - I have been trying to capture the delicate pose of the fingers, but not quite sure I've got them yet.

I have also been trying to model in the curves and tapers that Elvgren uses, such as the curve of the calf muscle, the tapered ankle and exageratted foot and the tiny waist. Please let me know if you think I've got these, or if you think they will work at all - does this only work for the painting?

Have just begun lighting, I am liking the look of the clothes, but I don't think that I have the skin right yet. I think the Subsurface needs some fine tuning, also need to get the hang of the overall colour multiplier (for the lips and the eyebrows) need to make this more subtle. (please ignore the shadow which falls on the grid at the back - I won't have this in the final I will add a matte painting of the sky in comp

I intend to add some eyelashes by painting a texture on a transparent grid.

Not sure about the eyes, hair and teeth (am tempted to just close the mouth) I don't particularly want these areas to look amazing or realistic (no simulations), I just don't want them to look ridiculous, so any tips or advice you may have on these would be great.

I have put an incidence shader on the stockings, they currently look plasticy, so need to tone down the spec.
I am going to try using an incidence shader on the skin to see if it gives me the shading that Elvgren uses in his paintings(please see images)

I think that's it, have asked quite alot, so if you're time is limited then my main area of concern is whether you think the pose is working or not, and what can make it more convincing

Thank you, and look forward to your response

Holly

DM - Lies

Hey Lies,

All looks fine. XSI can handle quite a lot of polys but you should always try and make the mesh as light as you can.

The decimation master mesh is a good fall back and you can always render the wires of the low res mesh if you need to show you topology.

From looking at your Approximation settings I can see that there is a lot of room for you to reduce the triangle length, and therefore the detail that will come though from the displacement map. For my MA project I think I had settings for 0.002/3 for he face wrinkles so with yours at 0.3 you have a relatively large length. Reducing this will have an effect on render time so you will have to find a level that you are happy with.

Another way to go would be to retopologise the train mesh to that the poly flow fows the larger folds. Doing this might allow you to have a larger length setting and therefore faster renders.

I would have a play with the Geometry Approximation length settings to start with and see how that goes first off.

Hope that helps.

Dan

DM - Ric

Hey Ric,

The Triangles shouldn't really matter. Although, depending on where they are the smoothing problems they can cause might create issues. I would try playing with the displacement settings in the shader and also the mesh's geometry approximation.

You can always try and subdivide the mesh, remembering to transfer the UV's and materials, this should get rid of the triangles and will show you whether the problem is the triangles or not.

Hope that helps, the settings are a bit of trial and error so you might have to experiment.

Cheers,

Dan

Lies - Decimation Master

Hi Dan,

I'm sorry for posting another post today, but I thought I would let you know how it went with the Decimation Master plugin that you suggested.
I tried it to see what effect it would have, and I must say the results look pretty good so I'm considering using it in case displacement doesn't want to work at all.

This is an example:The only thing that's negative is that the wireframe looks incredibly messy (all triangles). Luckily, the UV's stay the same.

How many polygons can the scene handle? I'll have to calculate how much I can reduce every part of the model.

Thanks!
Lies

Lies - Wires

Hi Dan,

Here are the wires of the train. The image on the left is the mesh that I used at the beginning, but because it was not working, I started using a higher polygon mesh (image on the right).
You can see the Geometry approximation and other settings I'm using for the train in the following image:

This is the displacement map I got out of ZBrush. I've got a feeling that the problem might be here. If you look at the top left part of the displacement, than you can see that it doesn't really show the right folds, and maybe this is making it look round.
Thanks for your help!

Lies

shriek updated

Hi Dan, apologies for the lack of updates, my car broke down again. Always picks the busiest moments. Thanks for the advice with the bump maps. I have a small problem with my displacement in that I have a few triangles in the mesh, that really blow up when the displacement is applied. Is this simply a product of having triangles in the mesh or can I change this using the settings? Here is an update of my creature in pose.

DM - Lies

Hey Lies,

The model is looking great.

As for the displacement, it looks like you have the right level of displacement (ie the size of the folds) but I can see what you are saying about the "rounding" that you are getting. What level have you got your Geometry Approximation at?? Also, can you post up a wire frame of the train? If it is just a grid that you have sculpted then retopologising the high res mesh to follow the folds might help the final render and allow you to use less polys.

Another way to go might be to try the new decimation master plugin for ZBrush. I hugely reduces the poly count whilst trying to retain the details. Might be worth a look!!

If you can post up the wires that would be great.

Cheers,

Dan

Lies - Problems displacement

Hi Dan,

It's been a while since my last update so I'm posting my current model.
I have finished the woman and the dress so all the ZBrush work is done.


At the moment, Everything is unwrapped and I've exported the low polygon models from ZBrush to XSI. I'm now trying to apply the displacement maps, but this is a bit trickier than I first thought.

For the bodice, it is not showing the finer details (like the seams) correctly:
For the overskirt, it is not displacing the folds correctly. Where the folds are more "straight" in ZBrush, they are round in XSI when I apply the displacement.
This is the closest I could get with the train, but there is still a big difference between them both. It doesn't look smooth and certain folds are not defined correctly. I've got the same problem here as the one I've got with the overskirt, the folds (at the top) look round instead of straight as you can see in the next image:
I first thought that I had to use low poly meshes (subdivision level 2, around 500 polygons) but now I'm using subdivision level 4 (around 8000 polygons) for the train's base mesh and it is still not displacing it right.

For exporting the displacement map out of ZBrush I'm using the settings from a link you gave us a month ago. I'm using 4069 maps.

Is it maybe possible that it is not looking good because some polygons are stretched in my model? Do you think this will be solved if I would retopologise the meshes that are not displaying the displacement right? Or do you think I have to apply a normal map together with a displacement to get the look from ZBrush? Are the finer details not showing because displacement can't handle them?

I'm a bit stuck at the moment cause I've been trying several things for over 3 days and I can't get 1 mesh to look exactly like the high poly mesh.

So any advice on this would be fantastic!

Thanks!
Lies

DM - Richie

Hey Richie,

I have noticed that when I am UVing to use in ZBrush I often have to leave a bit more space in-between my islands of I get overlapping UV's ............ maybe this is why. I would guess it is so you don't get issues at the seams, but that would be a guess. At any rate I have never had any problems with the UV's in Z so it is probably fine. Might be worth posting on ZBrushCentral someone might be able to clarify the issue for you.

Sorry I can't be more help.

Dan

DM - Ric

Hey Ric,

I am afraid that as far as I know you will have to make the shaders in XSI match the ZBrush base. However there is a good tutorial on the Pixologic classroom that shows you how to bake out the materials onto you UV's. I would suggest trying this and then comping the result under your painted texture, or just bake the two together in the render, although having them as two layers might allow more flexibility. That might be a good place to start.

The models are looking cool though. Look forward to seeing more.

Cheers,

Dan

DM - Holly

Hey Holly,

Basically it is very difficult to get pure white......... and nothing is ever really pure white as the environment will add colours to it. Also shadows will make it go grey. If you get it to go white chances are your lighting will be blown out.........I would just tweak the lighting until you get something you are happy with.

As for the stripes, get them right for the view you are using. You might need to up the anti-aliasing when you get further away from the model. At a distance you may be able to get away without using the bump at all and just using a diffuse map to give you a change in shade. You can always change the texture depending on how much detail you need.

I am not sure what you mean by halving the mesh. Do you mean UVing half and then mirroring it so you have both sides sharing the same UV's?? Or just speeding it up by UVing half the flipping them and patching them back together? You will need to UV both sides separately if you are going to use a displacement map for the cloth folds assuming that it will not be symmetrical.

The hand is looking good. I might just shorten the pad at the top of the palm:



The collar can be a separate mesh if it is working for you. Basically, what ever works is right.

Hope this helps.

Dan

Holly - Texturing Stripes Advice

Hi Dan,

I wonder if you can offer me any advice on my sweater texture.
Firstly - the material won't go white - I might need to ask Adam to help me figure out what this is, as I've changed the material colour, the lights, the background sphere, but it's still grey.
Secondly any tips of adding stripes to material - I have stripes(as a bump map -although they look the same in diffuse) on my sweater, which I think look good close up, but from a distance they go all fuzzy.
Also I halved my polymesh and duplicated the polygons - but when I did this the stripes at the centre disappeared or stretched (is it worth my while not halving the the mesh, and instead having a complete mesh to apply the UVs to?)

Looking forward to any advice about stripes that you have,

Thank you,

Holly

Hi Dan, thanks for the advice, ive made changes to thecharacters clavicle and bony landmarks and it looks much better. I have been painting my characters in zbrush using polypaint. Its going ok, but ive suddenly realised I might have a problem getting the models to look the same in xsi. I used the skin material in zbrush for the man and the wallpaper material for the shriek. Is there a way I can recreate these materials in xsi, as the effect of the paintjob relies heavily on them. Ive posted images below. Have a good week, Ric

Jamie, better image

I think I accidently uploaded a mini version of my image that can't really be seen very well so just trying again....

Jamie Update

Hi,

First of all thanks for all the feedback up to this point. It's been great reading the advice.

I have been working on transferring the energy of my sketch into 3D and thought I would post some of my progress. Not sure how clear the video is so I put some pics up too.



I'll try and upload some wireframe captures for feedback in the next few days, just thought I would show it taking shape though.

I'm much happier with the new pose and glad I took the time to rethink things, lots of work to do on the humans in particular and many details to add but it's taking shape.

Any thoughts would as always be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
Jamie.

Richie--UV problem

Hi ,Dan

I got a problem in UV. When I import my model (OBJ file) into Zbrush and check UV . The borders of UV seems a bit expended. I don't know why.

Then I create a new white texture to check it. I found that if I increase the resolution of the texture image, the borders of the UV will have more details.

Is it a display bug or it will influence my work?



the first image is 4096* 4096 ,

the second one is 512 * 512

the last one is in UV layout.



Thank you

Richie