I tried here, with 2 different settings.

I also think the monitor needs calibration.

Comments are welcome.

IDL + SSS , one single white infinite light inside bb sphere

Happy Posering

Tony

When the skin gets darker, you have to turn the specular down. That might help. I'm not sure what you're settings are, but if you post them, I'll give some thoughts, if you'd like. :)

You also need a morph that looks like a dark-skinned person. From a psychological standpoint, that would help us see what's right/wrong with the skin. It's funny how something as simple as face shape can make it hard to discern other things...at least for me. :)

Those skin tones aren't bad. Remember that there are thousands of "dark" skin tones.
Dark skin won't have the same subsurface scattering as lighter skin. I think it actually reflects more blue.

Here is a link to an overly technically paper on 3 skin.

http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems3/gpugems3_ch14.html

Melanin is actually a naturally produced polmer that acts to block UV radiation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin

Sadly, western culture and the digital divide combine and influence our technology.
The reason we used to use Blue Screens for visual effects is that "chromakey blue" was 180̊˚ from what was considered "Skin Tone" on a Vectorscpe. Of course... that was a WHITE Skin tone because back then mostly white people were on TV.

We moved to green screen because it was more natural to the eye, and still far enough away from skin tone. Green abmient light is easier to correct for than blue when abient light spills off surfaces IRL.

It also happened to be better for keying people of color.

Thanks for the comments so far.
I do have some blue in the Blinn node.

And I used the same obj file, as I was concentrating on Skin tone and color.
Could be correct that specular is less for a darker skin.

Will post the mat room setup in a while, Stay tuned.

:-) In bath on a tablet now :-)

Dark skin also has just as many, if not MORE shading variations as white skin. It's also NOT just white skin with color. LOL. Dark skinned people nearly always have lighter palms and soles of the feet and are darker at the elbows, ankles, knees, etc. Compared to white skin, it's actually shinnier whereas white skin tends to looks more powdery than shiny. White skin is more transluscent, but dark skin does have a "glow" to it for want of a better word ;)

So long as you try to make a dark skin from a light skinned texture it will NEVER look right. Never. The texture has to be made from a dark skinned person.

Laurie

Correct LauriA
I was gonna put palms of hands and feet soles on a mask.
There is some blue in Blinn, but I should reduce the reflectivity.

The thing is, the sheen on your dark skinned figures is almost right - but only in certain areas and not all over ;). Perhaps you should make a specular map as well ;). Have a look on google at dark skinned folks and see where's shinier and where it's not.

Laurie

The main problem when tanning light skin to a darker tone by using material settings is that dark skin is (like pale skin) not uniformly tannedin reality. The most obvious spots are the inner sides of the hands and fingers and the footsoles and toes. The fingernails and toenails are as various in color like they are on white people. Same goes for the eyewhite.

The big color variation on white people is the difference between legs and chest. I found that the legs and the buttocks are always more rosy in color than the upper torso is. If this is permanent or caused by standing for a longer while - not sure. However: I never saw this difference (paler torso, rosier/darker legs) on photos of black people. But often you see the same more rosy tone on the ears of both, lighter and darker tanned people.

So if you are after reality you may need a texture that is not color shifted (either by photoshopping or by material settings) but a texture that was made by using photos made from people that have the desired skintone or that was handpainted by someone who knows what he does.

Off of that the light may need some tweaking as well to get out the most of the textures.

My (limited!) understanding is that dark skin is a protective adaptation to prolonged strong sunlight, so it would make sense that it would be more reflective (so shinier) than lighter skin. The pigmentation is in the top layer of skin, the edipermis; the deeper layers are exactly the same. The reddishness in skin comes from the blood vessels in the deeper layers - one of the possible issues could be that the measurements used in Poser's SSS implementation are derived from lighter skin tones.

A specular map would definitely be needed - from what I remember, areas where bone is close to the surface of the skin tend to be more reflective, as are areas that are naturally moist or oily.

I'm not African American but I have quite a few friends who are. I think the heavy "shine" you might see at times on black people is actually what I've always heard them call "ash". It's a dry skin thing that doesn't show up that much on white people.  It's not something you'd want to emulate. Moisturize, baby! Many black people have very dry skin and hair. This would also explain why some areas (like arms) look "shinier" than others. It's the dry skin places that are reflecting more light.

That's why (I'd guess) you'll see people like reciecup (here at RMP; who actually is black) use low specular in her characters, which are quite lovely IMHO.  Here's her RMP store for reference:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=reciecup

There was a discussion about this a couple of years ago over at the DAZ forums. I think that was before the forum change-over.

Here's a sample article about "ash":

http://www.black-women-beauty-central.com/ashy-skin.html

If you look at 3d.sk's dark-skinned models, some show more "specular". It's hard to tell if that's lighting bouncing off nicely moisturized skin or "ash" reflecting. My guess is the latter.

Maybe one way to get around it is less white in the specular and something more toward brown and far less intense.

I hope this is helpful in some way, vilters.

Edit: Agreed with saintfox on the palms and feet, too.

...and may I add that any kind of shine is always stronger if the surface is dark. You may know the effect from blonde hair: Regardless how hard you try - you'll never get the mirror-shine you have on very dark to black hair - as long as we talk about straight hair or compare blonde and black curly hair.

So if there's shine we simply have a better contrast the darker the skin is.

The RGB color I added in the Subsurfacve Skin Color is RGB,
R200,
G150,
B125 
this is for the third figure

The first figure has:
R180,
G150
B130

added to the Subsurface skin color.

happy Posering, Tony

Using Diffuse texture to drive nodes through Math_functions has some advantages.

For Displacement; => Dark areas like brows get the displacement they need.

For Blinn; => Same thing, inverting the map reduces Blinn on dark area's like the brows again.

One essential thing for Dark skin I found was; Connect the Diffuse texture to the Value in the HSV node.

SubD once
Rendered with Smooth Polygons ON at crease angle 180
IDL + SSS with one single white infinite light at 65% inside BB sphere.

Quote - I'm not African American but I have quite a few friends who are. I think the heavy "shine" you might see at times on black people is actually what I've always heard them call "ash". It's a dry skin thing that doesn't show up that much on white people.  It's not something you'd want to emulate. Moisturize, baby! Many black people have very dry skin and hair. This would also explain why some areas (like arms) look "shinier" than others. It's the dry skin places that are reflecting more light.

Actually ash is very common in ALL people, regardless of race. Darker skin tones just makes it show up more. You're right about it being dry skin though, but ash is anything BUT shiny. In fact, it makes skin look rather dull. So when you see a "shine " on black skin it probably the result of some kind of moisturizer. A lot of black women  will rub something like vaseline or baby oil on their skin to get rid of dry skin. Obviously, that will produce a sheen, enhanced because of the dark skin .

As andolaurina suggested, lack of an ethnic morph might be throwing you more than you think.

More than ever with Poser renders lighting is more accurately revealing form. If the form is incorrect for the type of character you're trying to re-create it'll jar as much as using the wrong balance of skin tone.

Something to consider.

Quote - > Quote - I'm not African American but I have quite a few friends who are. I think the heavy "shine" you might see at times on black people is actually what I've always heard them call "ash". It's a dry skin thing that doesn't show up that much on white people.  It's not something you'd want to emulate. Moisturize, baby! Many black people have very dry skin and hair. This would also explain why some areas (like arms) look "shinier" than others. It's the dry skin places that are reflecting more light.

 

Actually ash is very common in ALL people, regardless of race. Darker skin tones just makes it show up more. You're right about it being dry skin though, but ash is anything BUT shiny. In fact, it makes skin look rather dull. So when you see a "shine " on black skin it probably the result of some kind of moisturizer. A lot of black women  will rub something like vaseline or baby oil on their skin to get rid of dry skin. Obviously, that will produce a sheen, enhanced because of the dark skin .

I think it depends on what people call shine. I think this is semantics.

I'm talking about white-colored areas on a dark person that I think some people think are shine but are not --- aka a "blinn" white specular. This is what vilters' shader looks like to me. Flaky skin always looks gray/white on dark-skinned people to me. I think that's why people started calling it ash (because of the gray/white color). I've never heard anyone but a black person call it ash. I'm pale but I have dry skin. When I do my skin looks like it has a whitish layer on it as well and it can be pretty noticeable too if you're at the right angle. (ok, I think I'm grossing myself out now)

When a dark-skinned woman has moisturized, the specular is more reflective like a brownish color it seems with white specular only showing up in extreme light situations.

http://www.ebony.com/photos#axzz2eE3ArVX1

Well, I don't know about white colored areas, but on me whenever I get ashey, it's definitely a grayish coloring. Of course, you can still see the brown skin underneath. But I agree, it's probably just semantics.

@ vilters: have you tried driving the color chip from HSV instead of the subscatter node?  That is the way EZSkin implements any texture color changes.  Also, disconnect the value link on the HSV node.

Ya black and white textures do not have very many variation of color in the skin.

Have some fun .Go crasy with a lot of diffrent colors.See what happens.:)

For Example

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2432287&user_id=48237&np&np

Black skin textures have just as many variations in color as white skin, as yellow, as tan, etc.

I don't think I've ever seen a person who is the exact same color all over. They'd look like a mannequin.

Laurie

Skin tone study.

Some morphing again and the rest is material room work.
All still have the same texture.