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neeraj1208

19.04.2024, 04:36

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CARLOS FACE 1

CARLOS FACE 1
Description:	I have always wondered why there aren't more renders of humans produced in Bryce. When I look at the Daz galleries I rarely see any good humans and if I do they were not rendered in bryce. One problem I encountered was bumpmapping. Using the hi res textures provided by daz i found the the color information was good but the bump map was far too low resolution and very pixelated at close-up view, especially around the nose that sticks out toward the camera. The parametric mapping does not handle noses very well. Also specularity was hard to set, as rtoo much looks like plastic and too little looks like stone. I decided to creat Carlos for my experiments as men look better hairless than most women and my emphasis right now is on skin. I decided to use hi resolution scans of leather for a convincing"grain", and also adding layers of bumps and depressions to it in psp7 for pores and protrusions. This is a greyscale jpg that tiles perfectly. The good thing is that I can map it as I need, in this case object space, giving me a much better and natural bump than the included hi-res photo bumpmap. Specularity was really tricky also. I will soon upload a template to share this texture with others, but first i need feedback. How did I do? Feedback welcome. Thanks
Added by:	rashadcarter1
Keywords:	rashadcarter1, bryce6.1, dazStudio, psp7
Date:	10.19.2007 16:58
Hits:	5711
Downloads:	96
Rating:	4.00 (1 Vote(s))
File size:	319.4 KB

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Horo
Admin

Join Date: 05.26.2004
Comments: 4721

My humble comment on all three

Well, I looked at all three and my comments are for all of them. First of all, you did an exeedingly good job in producing a skin that is not perfect, but natural. It looks as if Carlos had a bit of a problem when he last shaved (good, not bad) if you look closely at the throat. It appears that Carlos is in his forties, judging from his skin. This skin cannot be used for a woman but does very well on a gentleman.

It could do with a triffle more specularity, particularly on the forehead. The face looks freshly washed and dried. Had Carlos worked hard mentally, his forehead would show the specularity of slight perspiration. Not droplets, mind you, just the wetness (or humidity) of the perspiratory glands.

I know you concentrated on the skin and want feedback, that's why I'm going on about it, trying to point out what I think is missing or amiss. Nevertheless, I would like to point out that the teeth are very weak, they really look plastc, not even like the third set. But I think that is a DAZ problem. There are no gaps between the individual teeth, something I've noted previously on other human models from DAZ. If you look at the DAZ galleries, you see that there are few people who actually mastered that detail, too (e.g. "To be like Marilyn" by Janek in the Spotlight and the Hall of Fame; or Monthly May 2007). I've just browsed through most of the galleries back to January 2007 and you find surprisingly few persons with an open mouth showing teeth.

Finally, eyes and eyebrows are very convincing. The lips a bit too pink -- as if Carlos used a lipstick.

10.19.2007 18:09

rashadcarter1
Admin

Join Date: 06.04.2006
Comments: 2610

ditto

Horo, thank you for your humble input. I agree with your insights as my opinions are similar.
The Daz Galleries do have a few noteworthy entries are are superbly realistic. One of my most recent favorites from the monthly galleries is as follows: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/galleries/0/-/?id=30413&sec=2

The image is in black and white which makes it easier to mask errors, but even still the image is truly inspiring. It shows teeth, and teeth that glow a bit too much and are to me the weakest part of that render. Teeth are indeed a challenge.

I agree that the teeth are the weakest element of the Carlos series. The meshes Daz provides are a part of the problem, but a much bigger part lies with me. I could certainly do better, and in the future will indeed do better. Part of what teeth need to look good is a subsurface scatter, as teeth have an eerie transparency to them. I at first employed SSS for the teeth but the lights I'm using (4 radials and Livin'Large.hdri for ambient) are very bright so the SSS was too intensly bright.

All of the stubble and inconsistensies of the complexion are from the hi-rez daz photo texture, but I increased it's contrast in psp7 before rendering via the wonderful clarify filter to bring out greater detail and even to give the impression of bumpiness.
Remember that the bump I used is selfmade, and it does not have anything to do with the color info.
The specularity of the skin could be higher but I wanted to avoid any confusion with a plastic. I was playing it safe. It's nice to hear a request for more specularity.

You will see more humans rendered by me soon. I've got a few females in the works.

10.19.2007 21:23

richter
Member

Join Date: 04.15.2004
Comments: 1092

the way I see it, bro

It seems you dug deeper in characters too, Rashad. This is a very good thing. Characters I find more challenging than anything else I tried to create. They are organic, complex-shaped (mesh creation techniques I mean), each one is unique, and most importantly - they're alive. This is what we're trying to pull off.

Now back to the question. What you did as renders in Bryce is remarkable, and bold. Supplying a bump map for Carlos' skin and the way you mapped it In produced very successfull results. The nose and the chin are far from pixelating. I like how the light triggers the bump. For me, you have accomplished what you were after, Rashad. That is to say the skin-color/contrast, bumpmap, lights in scene. All are working smoothly together.

For the weak points - Having my "experience" in mind when working on Helsing's Anna Valerious, I can say that if you want to have things where they're (probably) supposed to be concerning the skin-color, bump and specularity, you'll have to UVmap manualy the "ready-imgs" you have. Sadly Bryce handles poorly those user "actions" for it provides insufficient mapping options to work with. You said it - parametric mapping doesn't work quite well and there's no uv option in the current version of Bryce. Now, the image I like best from the three here is Carlos Face 3. There the lower part of the neck is hidden, so is hidden a part of texture stretching, which is visible in the 1st and 2nd img. This is the moment where I'll have to disagree with Horo. The specularity is slightly overboard for me. While the forhead and the nose seem fine in my opinion, the cheeks and the chin shine a bit too strong. This 1st ver. of Carlos shows the chin to be shining noticable more, the 2nd due the position of the camera and lights expresses the more shiny cheeks. The 3rd seems best ballanced. The lips here could use less saturation. Teeth, I can echo Horo about the teeth. I think those need entirely new type of bumpmap (best produced from a procedural mat in Bryce I guess) and an appropriate level of translucency/SSS, the last ones again aren't present within the Bryce software. So we'll have to find a way around to recreate such natural look. The eyes are a complex subject. I'm no expert, so don't get me wrong, I just explain what I see. Those eyes lack depth. I'm not aware if the iris texture is mapped directly on the bulged cornea, or there's an inner layer of the eye where the iris is mapped, leaving an appropriate space between it (iris) and the cornea. This "space" will later give the depth an eye requires via refraction value. Those were my thoughts when creating the Eye for Necro's amulet. Again, I'm no expert and hell, I'm still learning and always will, but to me you are on the right path for creating realistic skin/character.

Personal note:
I was talking about UVs and modeling, and when commenting back on Anna V. img - about the Daz "clones". I'm not intending to insult anyone of the Daz team or any other artist worldwide. The models Daz provide are simply great. Only that the artist himself is limited to create different shades of hair/skin color, posing or morphing an expression which is close or similar to so many others like it, created by other artists. With the appropriate post-work or mesh editing a certain level of difference is noticable (that guy, Horo pointed out, Janek, is insane with breath-taking pieces, he also uses 3DS Max with its advanced shading network abilities), but as a whole it is just Victoria 3, 4 or whatever number you like. Just the already countless hours of studying different techniques on organic, head and overall human/character modeling taught me that something is really yours and unique when your own hand creates it. And that doesn't mean I have to start every time from scratch when making a model, arranging the UVs or drawing a new texture map. I can buy some, or better yet learn how to make my own and use them further in future projects. It is tough and time consuming, but for me it was the cost of improvement in a direction I always strived to perfect, so in the end things are sweeter and hopefully a step closer to be one day a professional-made. Of course what I'm saying, I'm saying that it applies to me and to me only, anybody can freely disagree with me. Nothing wrong with choosing a widespread model. It's just not a unique one anymore.

Sorry I had to keep you reading my stuff, Rashad, I knew I was gonna tell you my opinion about this, I was just waiting for the right moment:) Take care and have a nice render, buddy!

10.20.2007 00:07

rashadcarter1
Admin

Join Date: 06.04.2006
Comments: 2610

No need to apologize Richter for having me read your stuff, your stuff is what I need to improve. Thanks for the detail in your explanation. Thanks also for the positive feedback.

The level of specific and detailed feedback is one of the things that sets bryce5.com apart. There are very few forums where an artist can interact with other artists as freely as we do here without fear of conflict, ego, or just plain craziness destroying the mood. We are fortunate to have a core of well adjusted peers. Talented persons with good hearts and kind words even when expressing a criticism. It's all good!

No offense was taken by myself nor anyone else I'm assuming in regards to your comment about Daz Character "clones." What you say is true so how can anyone dispute that? You are usually working with Maya, hands down the most versatile software out there in my opinion, it is a one stop shop for all imaginable kinds of work, keep it up my brotha from anotha motha. If you have the patience to create humans from scratch, then do so. I remember long ago building humans out of metaballs, it was all that bryce offered, and it was not very good, at least not when compared to the Daz characters. Owning Maya myself I have seen what it can do and Maya users don't need Daz, all Daz can do for them is to save them some time if they happen to be in a hurry and don't want to build from scratch.

I see what you mean in regards to the eyes. The meshes have a good bit of space in between them. The irises are set to the mazimum concave setting, while the corneas are set to the maximum convex setting. This should create depth, but in this case it fails to work because of the blackbox environment. The scene is shot in a black box, so there is nothing for the eyes to reflect. I could have used a reflection map of a scene applied just to the eyes to give the impression that Carlos was looking at something, but I always find reflection maps odd in blackbox scenarios. I always wind up wondering where those reflections are coming from. But there's no denying that reflection mapping adds to the sense of wetness and depth within an eye. I will keep that in mind.

The teeth. I can easily create a crude SSS by using a modification of the foliage transparency trick, because it features the Black Nothing procedural that is the neutral basis for creating the glow of a leaf or the glow of a tooth or thin skin in response to light from above. But it is a very sensitive effect and crude, so as of yet it has not proven ideal with the current lighting set-up. I think uv mapping the teeth with real photos of teeth might be the right answer, I'll check it out.

As always you and Horo have come through for me on feedback. I humbly accept your insights and thank you for your time and attention.

10.20.2007 15:32

gat
Member

Join Date: 12.21.2006
Comments: 667

hey! where is my comment? :( what happened to it! stupid firfox!

anyways, it looks awesome, I can't say much anything else other then that this would look very realistic if it was rendered with SSS, as you can see really at the ears how it is very dark and unnatural, no way to fix this without SSS

10.21.2007 05:05

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