HI: I a, trying to do a portrait and I realized my characters for V4 just aren't that realistic close up. Usually it is the eyes that are off. The makeup and lashes. What are your favorite V4 characters for closeups?

I tend to use characters created by Mihrelle as I do like the skin tones and there are some in the Prime collection if you are a prime member.  With most characters I change the eyes as I am not a fan of burnt in reflections and control the reflection in the scene with the lights.  With a close ups this may be just a highlight but again I can control the position and the size of the highlight via the lighting.

I do a lot of close ups, as any one visiting my gallery will see, and skin tones are important but it is also a matter of taste so it is worth looking for someone who creates in a style you like.  My aim is to try and create a portrait that is believable rather than photo realistic so your aim may well be a factor on what character you use.

Yes, your work is gorgeous. I like the space scenes, too.

Thanks for the comliment, I tend to be very critical of my own work but looking back at what I was producing way back in Poser 5 days I have improved but then a lot of that is to do with the advances in Poser and the characters available.  The main thing is it gives me a great deal of enjoyment.

The space scenes are a lot to do with my aims, they are never going to be seen as real which is why my drive is towards renders being believable rather than photorealistic.  This, in turn, influences my favorite vendors.  The character I use the most is actually a composite of a number of Mihrelle characters with overlays of Danie Marforno characters added.  Things like freckles and tattos are added in Paint Shop using layers and the skin shaders are based on the SSS setup by Bagginsbill.  As already stated, the eyes are from yet another source.  So the character is not 'off the peg' but the vendor characters allow me to create a character I would not otherwise be able to do with my skill level.

Make sure you have your texture filtering set to 'crisp' on all of your skin maps. Scenefixer will do it painlessly.

I find fingers to be especially lacking in closeups, as there is usually too much shadowing of the knuckle wrinkles from the photo used; a painted map would likely be better....

A lot has to do with the hair, too. Most of it looks fake.

danae has some very nice skin textures. London is my favourite.

the hair look as fake, you try to do it better

Quote - A lot has to do with the hair, too. Most of it looks fake.

Your hair seems a bit thin. You might check the gamma settings on the non-colour maps for the hair (like the trans-map or spec map, if there is one) - make sure (click on the Image_Source value on the image_texture node, which will bring up the Texture Manager) it is set to "Custom Gamma Value" with a value of 1, not 2.2.

I always use the 'change gamma' script under MaterialMods scripts setting the gamma to one for all props and figures and using the 'all of the above' option if I am doing a close up.  I does make quite a difference, particularly to hair. 

Yes, I noticed the hair looked thin. THanks

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V4, custom face morph

Lana maps from DAZ

Diffuse IBL and infinite Sun

Indirect lighting, subsurface scattering, high-res render settings, DOF

Firefly Render, 4 cores

It is important to do something around the eyes. Poser renders fail because those areas are 1) simplistic in Poser default; 2) highly noticed by the human eye.

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She looks great!

Looking at the result next day....I should have done more customizing on her mouth/lips...she looks too "Posery" there. No real woman looks like Poser defaults.

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