How to texture lips and eye edges

# 1 24-03-2010 , 07:10 AM

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Hi all

I am in the midst of rendering / texturing my 3D head mesh with the objective of photorealism. I've applied fast skin, Brownian 3D and hair and eye / eyebrow and its looking good. I use PaintFX for the eyebrow and convert it to polygon. I would like to know how to texture/shade/render the lips and eyelid / eye lining area which is normally darker than the facial tone. I am not using UV mapping but directly applying Maya's generic shaders from Hypershade which I think give more realistic and better results. Any ideas ?

Thank you in advance.

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# 2 24-03-2010 , 07:16 AM

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Re: How to texture lips and eye edges

Originally posted by ezanih
I am not using UV mapping but directly applying Maya's generic shaders from Hypershade which I think give more realistic and better results.

Originally Posted by

Sorry no.

Uv mapping and painting your textures either directly (if your good) or using photo reference gives the most realistic result.

You might get something looking ok using procedural textures but never something that looks great or realisitc. Painting is the only way forward really.

Oyu can UV map what you've got then bake the textures down then paint over them, that would probably be the way I would go in your situation

"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle

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# 3 24-03-2010 , 08:53 AM

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Thanks for your reply, gster123. I used fast_skin directly on the head mesh plus the Brownian 3D displacement map but I understand what you mean about using UV and doing it outside because there's no way to do random spots unless its done that way. I might export the Brownian texture to Photoshop and then add random spots later as in Dr Julian Mortimer's tutorial.

But UV mapping the lips and eyebrows with an external texture file and leaving Maya's misss_fast_skin on the face would be quite difficult I think but I'll give it a try.

As you noticed, I don't have ZBrush (or MudBox) which is why I haven't textured directly to the face in a 2.5D kind of way :-) but hey, you just gave me an idea - why don't I try downloading the trial 3.1 30-day version and see how much better I can make the head with it...

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# 4 24-03-2010 , 08:55 AM

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Using photo reference

gster123...just wanted to clarify...when you mentioned using photo reference to get photorealistic results, did you mean scanning the photo and then applying it as texture or mapped image? Thanks!

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# 5 24-03-2010 , 09:21 AM

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you really need to use hi res images to get this right. There are places on the web where you can down load hi res images to do this. You then need photoshop to edit them for your uv map which will then in turn fit perfect to the model you have. You'll then need to create bump and spec maps from the same image to increase the effect making it more 'realistic'. Try going to 3dsk for some images. or take your own. You necessarily need zbrush either. You need to learn the basics. Theres plenty of tutes available on this site to achieve it as as well

Using the fast skin shader is only a the start of it. Theres alot more to it than that. Dr Julians stuff is good but he is baking that stuff out to a color map that will fit his uvs.

J

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# 6 24-03-2010 , 10:10 AM

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Thanks Jay

Thanks Jay, I think I got it now. Ok..as many high res photos as I can find...and then manipulate it from there...

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# 7 24-03-2010 , 11:01 AM

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These tut should get you started..........dave

UV
https://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/3d-...-in-maya-2009/

work flow
https://www.3dm3.com/tutorials/maya/character/

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# 8 25-03-2010 , 08:43 AM

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Thanks dave and everybody! I've actually collected all the Maya UV tutorials way back (yep...including the Marlene Dietrich tut by Max the Indonesian artist...and of course...the Joker tut by that Iranian dude) and setup a couple of UVs myself but I didn't realise that you actually need to use UVs to set up a photorealistic face. I know about all those colour , bump, transparency, specular maps and stuff and doing everything in Photoshop but that would mean I would not be able to use misss_fast_skin. I mean, how can you use SSS if the texture you're using is actually a Photoshop TGA or TIFF file ?

However, its much, much easier to do eyebrows and lips in Pshop (with brushes). I might the Julian Mortimer way by baking to PShop, layering, doing the color, bump and specular and then UV-ing them back in Maya... :-)

I'm kind of confused and in conflict here because if the texture maps are all from Photoshop and UV'd on to the Maya mesh, when do we then use miss_fast_skin (it has its own SSS colouring mechanism for epidermal, subdermal and backskin) and when do we use PaintFX for the brows and the beard and the stubble? From what I have read, you don't use fast_skin if you're using color maps for PShop and you don't use PaintFX for the brows but use brushes and bump maps from PShop instead. But fast_skin is kinda vital to get realistic skin, you know...

But I'll try doing it the UV way (because the brows and lips will be much easier to do and finer texturing can be done on the eye edges). I guess then, Maya Hair can be put on the top scalp with a sort of hemisphere hair emitter.

For the eye brows, I'm still not sure whether to use Photoshop brushes, PaintFX, Maya Hair or Maya Fur ? Looks like they're all eligible candidates for great eyebrows :-). Also thinking how I can still keep my fast_skin if I were to use UV and Photoshop.

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# 9 25-03-2010 , 01:02 PM

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Hi ezanih
This is the shows the lightwave fast skin but will work the same for maya fast skin, see how the layers are built up.The fast skin shader will work on the maps. any way have a look at the link.............dave

https://www.spinquad.com/forums/showt...ghlight=muriel

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# 10 25-03-2010 , 01:12 PM

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The textures and bumps are there for your color (basically) and all the detail too. The shaders are there to help define the property of a specific material, in your case skin. You can use a blinn if you want, but it wont be as good without alot of hassle of making maps for alot of the channels within the shader.

Just take care with the fast skin shader though, its very time consuming the the results can look good if you tweak them enough. The most common mistake with the fast Skin shader is that alot of peopl tend to make theirs look waxy and transluscent. The key is subtlety...have fun

J

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# 11 26-03-2010 , 02:21 AM

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Thanks all

Thanks all - Jay, daverave!

dave, I'll check out the tut. Many thanks once again! How are your kids doin'?

I checked out all of your work. They're all really fantastic stuff! Keep it up! And Jay...I really enjoyed The Talos Project link by your buddy Poulos. That Greek guy's got TREMENDOUS talent...not only are the renders great but the vision and concept is really top stuff. I'm trying to get up to his level in artwork and Maya. That's the kind of quality I want my movie to be (though I really need to learn ZBrush). He would do great to convert that comic book to a B-movie since all the materials are there already and...I've signed up! :-)

[@Jay : The shaders are there to help define the property of a specific material...]

Jay, I did a post on this long ago on some other forum but really haven't gotten a satisfactory reply : is misss_fast_skin only a SHADER ? Is it actually applied to a Blinn, Lambert, Phong, PhongE or Anisotropic MATERIAL ?

The reply that I got previously is that if you applied Blinn material to my head mesh and then you applied misss_fast_skin later, the misss_fast_skin actually REPLACES the Blinn. My question is then: how can I do UV if I use misss_fast_skin ?

You're absolutely right about tweaking the fast_skin stuff as you can get "waxy" to one extreme and "sweaty" at the other extreme. Have a look at this great tut from lamrug (but please don't fall in love with Globulus :-) :-

https://www.lamrug.org/resources/doc/...n-tutorial.pdf

I am using the settings recommended by the above author and I am using the fast_skin for both skin and eyes (as explained in the tut) and the results are great stuff! Just make sure you use moderate values (in the teens) for the epidermal and subdermal and check the reflection box.

Again my question is : how can you use UV if I you're using the fast_skin shader? I mean the baking approach. The only way I can see is : let the color map and specular be fast_skin but you can still use external bump files for fast_skin.

Ezani

("Watched Avatar in 3D at midnight the other day and watched my second rerun of Beowulf last night on cable")

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# 12 26-03-2010 , 09:29 AM

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Yeah the Skin Fast is a shader (mental ray). You can plug your textures into it just as you do on a normal shader like a blinn. The channels are named slightly different for the color textures, I believe its called Diffuse Color and Overall Color.

Yeah Lamrugs stuff has been about for a long time and its always a good place to start.

cheers
Jay

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# 13 26-03-2010 , 09:44 AM

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Yup, you are correct Jay. For the overall color, you can click the button on the right and apply your Photoshop color texture file. I just don't know how it will affect the sub-surface skin scattering effects because fast_skin has its own three native individual color attributes in epidermal, subdermal and backskin so applying an external Photoshop color texture file would probably nullify those and you will lose the SSS effect. I dunno...have you ever used misss_fast_skin on a face before the UV technique you mentioned? I checkout ZBrush and that direct 2.5D texture applying technique plus ability to touch up to and from Photoshop is a million times better! :-)

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# 14 26-03-2010 , 09:49 AM

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Yeah I know Im correct, I was answering your question.

Yes I have used it several times. I will post more on it later as I am working right now....got a city to build for a film...

cheers
Jay

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# 15 26-03-2010 , 10:48 AM

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Wow

[@Jay : "got a city to build for a film..."]

Wow !!! I'm only using planar images but you're building a whole city out of polygons and meshes !!! Major wow! Definitely would love to see it :-))

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How to texture lips and eye edges

Re: How to texture lips and eye edges

Using photo reference

Thanks Jay

Thanks all

Wow

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