pdxjims, someone asked me if that was possible, and I didn't think it was, so said 'No'! There is a technique (similar to yours?) used by someone at ZBrush central. It involves posing your character identical to a reference photo. Then having a program to project the reference photo onto the model and generating the texture from there. Awesome idea (although probably very lighting specific).

Anyway, to peevee's question....I'd say that realism is achieved via skill in a number of areas. RealSkinShader helps you in some of these areas - but you still need skill in the others to get great results. Good renders are make up of good lighting, the right render settings, great texturemaps and bumpmaps, a system to give the model depth (so they don't look like a maniquin) - ie. subsurface scattering, a balanced, relaxed pose, skin reflections that match real skin (Blinn for dry or Phong for wet), etc, etc, etc.

I think that the BlowYourMind image probably used Phong specularity, tinted blue, with the bump-map as the phong colour. For the white reflection zones you are pluging the reflection node into the alt_spec plug, and setting the normal specular_value to 0.

Message edited on: 12/21/2004 15:19

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Creator of OctaneRender for Poser
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