Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: OT? Animating a Photo Real Digital Face

Vestmann opened this issue on Apr 22, 2010 · 14 posts


Tangible posted Thu, 22 April 2010 at 7:18 PM

Quote -  Now, while this is beyond anything that a normal Poser user can produce it does touch on things like diffuse and specular maps...

Please define what a normal Poser user is. If you're into 3D, even with Poser, you have a basic grasp of the fundamentals. Nobody says you need to model like Sze Jones, or animate like Chris Taylor, but you can certainly create something decent for today's standards, and you can certainly expand your knowledge of the subject at any time.

On the matter now, I think you need a normal map rather than a displacement one. There is this basic yet significant difference between these two: Displacement maps render "true" geometry where it doesn't exist, which is quite a burden for any renderer that supports this sort of map. They can also be very tricky at times, which is why they're mostly used for rougher details, but not for human skin, and especially not for facial characteristics/marks. Normal maps on the other hand are basically bump maps, but offer a much better illusion by creating fake shadows and generally responding to light more correctly.

I think that pretty much every map can be animated, just by changing its offset value during time, or by gradually replacing it with a different map. I don't know if the latter is possible in Poser, as I've not given much attention to its material settings, mainly because I prefer to export the models and experiment in Max and Vue for the time being. But it's certainly worth checking.