Quote - Well, while working on one failed indie game, I've found that the key to achieving likeness is the texture. Literally, If you project the photo of Brad Pitt on a sphere, from certain distance and angle, it will look exactly like Brad Pitt :)

I bet if you use fygomatic's awesome textures (which, I believe, was made with combination of modifying generic hi-res textures and drawing) on default V4 figure, you won't lose too much of the likeness, but if you apply one of his morphs on a character with different materials, I bet you will have a hard time recognizing what sort of celebrity is this.

This is a mistake a lot of folk seem to make because sometimes it seems like a texture is all that's required to achieve a likeness.

The real Brad Pitt is recognisable as Brad Pitt because of a combination of the shape of his face, his particular skin colouration, where his eyebrows and hairline come on his face, and because of the particular shapes of his facial expressions. A diffuse texture made from photos of his face will only ever make an un-shaped 3d head look like Brad Pitt when lit in quite limited conditions, and will probably contain burned in shadows and specular reflections that will conflict with 3d lighting and materials. It's these burned-in shadows and speculars that are describing in part the shapes we associate with being like Brad Pitt, but these details come from photos that were taken in specific lighting conditions with light falling from specific directions.

Given the example of 3d games - many use limited lighting schemes with a lot of ambience in the materials which is why textures alone can transfer a significant amount of likeness to reasonably stock figures. You usually find that some degree of shaping has been done in the better looking games to help things along.

I think Fygomatic's excellent likenesses are achieved through a combination of both very accomplished morphs and textures. I'd be equally willing to bet that the textures alone would not be as effective as you think - certainly not with strong directional lighting.

 

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