Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Adding a warm glow to skin!

Valandar opened this issue on Dec 25, 2003 ยท 25 posts


Questor posted Sat, 27 December 2003 at 6:42 AM

While on the subject of eyes it's also worth remembering that the eyes do have morphs for the pupils. This again is where "people watching" plays a part, getting used to how the eyes react to certain lights and situations. A wide pupil is considered more attractive and shows desire - according to "them who know" - but is somewhat unsuitable in bright light. The pupil expands and contracts with a great deal of variation and can make a considerable difference to close portrait shots along with where the eye is pointing. It becomes a negligible point for anything beyond head and shoulder portraits but is worth thinking about if you're going for those close in "mood" renders. On that note, don't ever forget the expression dials, these can make a world of difference to a portrait, even just using the dials in small increments can turn a plastic manikin into a better render. No face is completely expressionless - unless you're Charles Bronson. Eyes looking directly at the camera work better for portraits as they help to draw the viewers eyes into the image, but with a pin-point pupil you can actually make a viewer feel uncomfortable. They're cold, angry, staring... and few people will look directly at the eyes, whereas a wide pupil has almost the opposite effect. For dreamy, thoughtful or distant expressions the eyes should not look at the camera. Then the viewer becomes interested in the ambient mood of the image. What's the model looking at, what's she thinking about? Then there's focus. Nance's trick with cylinders can work very well if you're trying to align the eyes with a particular object/item and helps to focus the model eyes on that item. It might not matter to the viewer but it can make a small difference to the render. In this respect it's also worth concentrating on the pupils because they will contract and/or expand depending on the subject, the focus of the subject and the lighting. It's also worth noting at this point that the default setting for the millenium figure eyes (and this appears to be all of them) is bossed. They're about 6 points shy of true on the figures when they're loaded so it's worth checking and straightening them up first before parenting or pointing at another item. In the end it comes down to the long term Poser users most socially obvious trait. Watching people closely and trying to relate how that real life action could be poserised. If Poser had a better lighting system, it would be possible to get better effects with the eyes as you could use the lights to fake some of the more common real life things that eyes do. That's one of the more limiting aspects of Poser that takes some hard work to get round. Also consider the texture map you're using. Has it got annoying false highlights added to the texture and does that highlight match your lighting? If not, change it to something that does match. Ultimately it's care in construction and compilation. Don't reject something because it's too fiddly or too boring. The face dials are important with portrait renders and refining a pose is vital. There is a weight to humans that is very rarely reflected in Poser renders where it seems that limbs and other things are often "floating". If it takes two hours to make a hand appear to be resting on a piece of clothing, then it's two hours well spent. If it takes a day to tweak a facial expression, it's a day well spent. The end result will be subtly far superior to similar images. This tweaking and thought in construction might not get more comments in the gallery or more "wow, cool" comments, but they are personally much more satisfying. Remember, most people will look through the galleries just to look, they're not actually concentrating on the images they see. It's a few seconds glance, scan over, move on. A very few people actually LOOK. Those are the ones you'll catch. Those who are looking at the image to be impressed, not just to "see it". In the end though it's personal satisfaction. You "know" what you did for that render, it's your enjoyment in the knowledge that you did what you could and didn't just load, pose, click render.