I'm looking to buy a new skin texture set for V4 (pale caucasion ) but I'm having difficulty evaluating the best option.
I want ultra high quality and resolution.
I'd prefer diffuse maps with some variation in the colour (indications of veins etc although subtle) and definitely no burned-in specular. No make-up or tatoos either on the diffuse maps except maybe as options.
I'm very keen to get something with properly set-up bump and specular maps (not just b&w versions of the diffuse maps).

This is for use with VSS PR3, and I'm going for ultra realism (well, as good as Poser will allow).

I've looked at the Elite textures, Mec4D's 'Miss Wendy'  and the hi-res versions of the original V4 textures but am finding it difficult to make a choice.

Any ideas?

I'm looking the for the same ... And i didnt foud something realistic in market place ...

Elite textures are good, GW5 are good too ...

GW5?

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/victoria-4-gw?item=6139&spmeta=rq&_m=d

Quote from GW5 product info - "Torso Texture with flower tattoo on neck".

I could probably clone that out but it really bugs me that it isn't an optional extra.
It's also really hard to tell how the bump and specular maps have been made as they don't show these in the promos.

Dan. I suspect the only maker of textures who does NOT cheat and make the bump map from the diffuse map is Industrial Light and Magic, and they don't sell Poser content.

LOL, I suspect you're right bb.
Guess I'll have to take a punt and see if I can make something work. I've pushed the standard V4 textures about as far as I can.

The DAZ V4 Standard Res bump map is half the size of the color map, whereas in the DAZ V4 Hi-Res kit, the bump map is the same size as the color map, and both are much bigger than the standard res.

However, the bump map and specular map are both obviously just gray scale versions of the color map with some tweaking of levels, and some low pass filtering.

I could post some closeup examples with VSS PR3 if you like.

That'd be very useful.
I'm particularly interested in specular maps - no-one seems to be making anything with much variation to account for different levels of shine on the body.

And often the specular maps give the final render an overly sharp look. I think they contain too much detail - the bump maps already define all this detail.

Have you checked out Maskedits V4 texture packs?

Not sure if that's what you specificially look for, though.
But I'm a satisfied customer.

 I'm quite fond of D3D's PerfectSkin shader. It breathes life into my most pedestrian textures, and it's not so complicated that you have to spend weeks learning to use it... Slide the sliders, click "OK" and render.

My $.02

i dont think it is possible to have photorealistic specular map, the specular come from the light, if you take a photo without you have less specular than a photo with flash ...

How determine exactly wich part of the body emit more or less specular ?

Quote - How determine exactly wich part of the body emit more or less specular ?

You shine a light and measure the reflected light (from several directions for both).
If you don't have the equipment to collect the data directly, you can watch films, or view photgraphs to get a rough idea (certain areas of the face tend to be naturally greasy/oily).

I find myself using V4 Elite Lana quite a bit. Of all the Elite textures it's my favorite.

Quote - I find myself using V4 Elite Lana quite a bit. Of all the Elite textures it's my favorite.

I'm experimenting with it now. The diffuse has some nice fine detail (although some of the colour variation is odd), and the bump seems workable, but I have no idea what they had in mind with the specular maps for that set - probably geared more toward a D/S setup.

Quote - > Quote - How determine exactly wich part of the body emit more or less specular ?

You shine a light and measure the reflected light (from several directions for both).
If you don't have the equipment to collect the data directly, you can watch films, or view photgraphs to get a rough idea (certain areas of the face tend to be naturally greasy/oily).

For that we need a specular mask, not a color map converted in greyscale as usually used in some textures set i think ...

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - How determine exactly wich part of the body emit more or less specular ?

You shine a light and measure the reflected light (from several directions for both).
If you don't have the equipment to collect the data directly, you can watch films, or view photgraphs to get a rough idea (certain areas of the face tend to be naturally greasy/oily).

For that we need a specular mask, not a color map converted in greyscale as usually used in some textures set i think ...

Correct, there's no way to cheat as is done for a lot of bump maps, so a specluar map has to be properly engineered.

Are there any guides that anyone knows of fto help with the generation of specular maps?
I've seen a couple of vids that talk about how light energy is measured on faces, but nothing about the results.
It's seems quite deceptive just relying on observation for something like this.

Attached Link: Essence: The Face

This is just the color map, rendered on the figure without any lighting model. (Face only is non-lit - lips, eyes, ears are lit.)

You can see there is quite a bit of burned-in specular in the diffuse color map.

Observe the incredible over-done detail. This is derived from the original photos. Some attempt was made to re-factor it for specular map use, but what should have happened was to low-pass filter it (blur it). Then the sharp pattern of the eyebrows should have been multiplied back to disable specular there.

Instead, we have black in every pore and crevice. Since the original color map also has these features, they will become over-done.

The bump map, of course has the same highlights as the specular reflections from the reference photos The result is classic. We have irrational bumps that happen to line up in horrible ways with the speculars produced by the specular map and the specular burned into the diffuse color map.

All in all, not worth the extra money. I don't even use this - I use the standard res most of the time, because the detail here is actually a detriment. The details are junk, and ruin the face.

That book does looks very interesting - thanks for the link.

Here's a few direct questions, related more to the use of maps in the VSS PR3 shader setup (since we don't have a true SSS system in Poser I'm assuming things might be a little different from some of the tutorials I've been looking at for 3dsMax or Maya, but this may be wrong):

1. What should a caucasian diffuse map look like? - i.e. what colour bias should it have (red/yellow, neutral/saturated?) - when using environment lighting I've noticed skin can often take on a lot of the colour casts (mine often look overly yellow). What other colour variations should it ideally contain?
2. What should an SSS map look like? If it's a B&W tone map what does black/white equate to in terms of the PR3 SSS? Where would you plug an SSS map in?
3. If I'm going to include some form of environmental reflections in my shader setup, how might this affect my diffuse and specular maps?

I guess a lot of this skin stuff in Poser is a little make-shift anyway. Often when I get skin set up in one lighting state and looking great but then shift to another set of lights it all falls apart.

There is far too much detail in most specular maps - I always thought they should be quite simple, delineating areas of higher specularity fairly roughly.

One other question relating to the Blinn lighting model as used in PR3 with Shine, shine spread and shine level. Is it useful to have specific control maps for each of these (for an ultra realistic effect).

If we come at a point where specular and bump map dosn't match the reality, the color map isnt realistic too !

personally, i'm going to try making my own maps for precisely these reasons.  everything i've read about texture making seems to advise mostly painting from scratch to avoid burned in artifacts, and i have seen photoreal results from this.  may be a fool's errand, but if i get it to work the way i want, i should have a fair amount of flexibility off of a few textures.

oh, and if you want the amount of red in texture, take the red component and divide it by the sum of all the three components.  if the texture has burned in SSS and is only skin, this will give you something of an SSS map.  i'd bet bagginsbill has a way to mask eyebrows and body hair.

Quote - T

1. If I'm going to include some form of environmental reflections in my shader setup, how might this affect my diffuse and specular maps?

i'm totally not an expert, and i'm very sure that bagginsbill has a more efficient way now, but after mucking around in some Matmatic scripts, i'd say treat it like any other reflecting material. 

1. Define your specular with Blinn using some sort of shine control.  Try a combination of maps and variable because it's easier to to make a spec map on a 0 to 1 scale than try to work in the more limited space of 0 to randomShineMax scale.
2. Define your diffuse, incorporating SSS
3. Adjust your diffuse to be less than 100% and multiplied by 1 - specular
4. Create your reflection, whether with a reflect node or a faked image.  don't forget to anti-correct if you use an image.
5. Blend your diffuse and your reflection according to the most accurate and applicable bagginsbill Fresnel approximation you can find multiplied by a shine control
6. Add the specular to that
7. Correct the whole thing

sound good?

After searching is there many threads on the net about creating specular from normal map, what do you think ?

Quote - That book does looks very interesting - thanks for the link.

Here's a few direct questions, related more to the use of maps in the VSS PR3 shader setup (since we don't have a true SSS system in Poser I'm assuming things might be a little different from some of the tutorials I've been looking at for 3dsMax or Maya, but this may be wrong):

1. What should a caucasian diffuse map look like? - i.e. what colour bias should it have (red/yellow, neutral/saturated?) - when using environment lighting I've noticed skin can often take on a lot of the colour casts (mine often look overly yellow). What other colour variations should it ideally contain?

Like a dead person - pale greenish yellow. Like the color of fingernail clippings. Like parchment.  Like the skin of a butchered chicken in the supermarket. All the red/pink - all of it - comes from blood. In the absence of SSS of blood, the skin is pale yellow. If you're going to deal with red SSS, you want the diffuse color to be bloodless.

Quote -

1. What should an SSS map look like? If it's a B&W tone map what does black/white equate to in terms of the PR3 SSS? Where would you plug an SSS map in?

It shoud look like a smooth low-frequency image (blurry) and be britgher where the skin is more sanguinated. In PR3 you'd plug it into PM:SSS. Where is the skin more sanguinated? That depends on the age, sex, and alcoholic content of the individual being simulated.

Quote - 3. If I'm going to include some form of environmental reflections in my shader setup, how might this affect my diffuse and specular maps?

It wouldnt' affect those maps at all. An increase in reflection occurs at shallow viewing angles of incidence, which depends on pose and camera position. You cannot take this into account in a map, as it would be a "burned in" feature, just as bad as burned in specular for exactly the same reason. It's a 3D effect, not a 2D mapping.

Quote - I guess a lot of this skin stuff in Poser is a little make-shift anyway. Often when I get skin set up in one lighting state and looking great but then shift to another set of lights it all falls apart.

 
Absolutely - and while you'll never achieve your maximum realism in all conditions, you certainly can improve your worst realism in your worst conditions.

This is something I seem to have trouble making the community understand, in a larger sense. All scenes (lighting, camera, shaders, etc) are approximations. The degree to which these approximations match some objective reality in the Poser constrained environment is not very great, but there is no excuse for the terrible results we often see. A few more nodes can increase the maximum and the minimum achieved realism.

Quote - There is far too much detail in most specular maps - I always thought they should be quite simple, delineating areas of higher specularity fairly roughly.

One other question relating to the Blinn lighting model as used in PR3 with Shine, shine spread and shine level. Is it useful to have specific control maps for each of these (for an ultra realistic effect).

I doubt it. I provided all three knobs, but two of them are actually built into the third. Sigh... this is a complicated subject, one I'm hoping to tackle in my book. It needs about 30 pages to explain.

Here it is in a nutshell.

Specular reflections that are blurred cause small bright things in the environment (e.g. light bulbs) to appear in reflections to weaken in luminance and to spread out. The exact pattern of the spreading out varies, in addition to the size of the spread. In all cases, however, as the spread increases, the value (or luminance) decreases.

In the VSS shader, I made an attempt to produce a single numeric parameter (PM:Shine) that simultaneously controls shine spread and shine value. So you can say this: A shiny area should have a higher PM:Shine. A less shiny (more dry) area should have a lower PM:Shine. This also means for a wetter look use less spread - for dryer look use more spread. Wetter = more value/level/luminance, dryer = less value/level/luminance.

I made the separate parameters for spread and value so that you could push my entire response curve up or down if it isn't to your liking - particularly you would do this if you have intentionally mis-configured your lights to deal with some other prop in the scene, and you'd like to adjust the VSS skin shader to compensate. In and of itself, if there is no need to adjust my shine spread or shine level (value, or luminance). The ability to configure impossible highlights is there when you use these parameters, so I prefer you do not use them. They are there as secondary controls to try to balance your skin with other approximations in the scene. Remember, the apparent size of lights when seen through the specular effect is arbitrary. In Poser, all infinite, spot, and point lights are point sources having no dimension at all.