In my never ending quest to find nirvana as it related to procedural skin materials, here is my latest update. I finally figured out how to create a custom color ramp that ties to the vector of the main light source. The function map for this is shown in the next post. I'm still trying to work on subsurface scattering and Blinn specular highlights. I will post this material in free stuff during the next couple of days

Here's the function map with key details for creating a custom color ramp based on the main light direction

Very interesting - perhaps someone has asked you before, but will this be compatible with V5Esprit? Thanks!

Wow.

Wow.

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I'm not sure whether this is compatible with V5 esprit or not. I don't see why it wouldn't be. I'll check with the Vue folks to see if there are any differences in functional mats for Esprit Versus Infinite

dburdick That is impressive work. Down to the veins even. If you get subsurface scattering down (very good so far), that will be one heck of an accomplishment. richcz3

When you import a Poser character, the eyebrows are painted on the texture. How do you keep the eyebrows when applying a Procedural Skin. I have managed a cumbersome work around, but there must be a better way.

yet again....wow Marque

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Helgard, This material does not produce eyebrows or utilize a Poser skin map texture. To show eyebrows, you would enable the eyebrow object for your Poser figure to become visible and use a transmap for the eyebrows. In many poser figures, the eyebrow object is disabled (e.g. made totally transparent) because the head texture has eyebrows mapped on it.

Yep. I know that,and that is what I have been doing, but some Poser figures don't have an eyebrow object.
What I have done on my figures is use a mixed material, one material the original Poser texture, and the other material a shader like this. The shader improves the Poser skin texture, but keeping the skin texture makes it possible to still use the bumps and detail of the original texture. As you can see from your picture above, using just the shader means you lose the detail on the nipples, hands, scars, etc. Mixing them solves a bit of this problem.

Message edited on: 06/09/2005 20:58

Helgard, Sounds like you've got it dialed in. Where I'm going is to try and totally eiliminate the need for texture maps altogether for several reasons 1). Renders are about 10 times faster sans tex maps 2). There are no ugly seams 3). You can render very large art poster images (20,000 x 15,000 for example) with no loss of resolution and 4). It's fun to try and mimic realism using only mathematics

dburdick Proceduarals are ultimately better than hires texture maps for the reasons you point out. I know Vue will bake illumination, but I don't think it will bake textures. If it does, it would be great to export the map for "touch up" in Photoshop for use outside Vue. richcz3

I had a play with exporting texture maps from V5I. With the correct settings on wavefront object (.obj) export it will generate a texture map that matches the UV map of an imported object so it can be used to generate a picture you can edit later. I've only used relatively simple objects and small texture maps so far and you do need to fiddle with the setting on object export or there are some weird effects on the texture map like a tiled texture being all wrong.

Wow! I never thought of exporting the material as a texture map. I'll have to give it a try and see what it looks like in Poser. If this works, I could see all kinds of neat possibilities such as adding ecosystem features/objects to the skin material (e.g hair, scars, etc). Thanks for the great idea.

This is amazing. What Quality you achieved. I am anxiously awaiting it's release to Free stuff. cheerio lululee