I saw the amazing artwork of moebius and the use of the skinshader by face_off. If you take a look at the "blow your mind" image, you will know what I am talking about. How do you create such a skin ( the white reflective zones still show the bump texture, it's just perfect.) Does anybody knows the secret to that, and is willing to share it with me? Thanks a lot Peevee

Get the face_off Shader, $12.00. Learn how to make a bump map from any given texture. Study the materials room. Read face_off's tutorial. Voila! ::::: Opera :::::

Right, now the face_off tutorial, where can I find that? (to make a bump map: get the texture image in black and white and inverse the black to white and vica versa right? but how do I save it as .bump, and how does Poser(5) knows to wich texture that bumpmap belongs? ) Regards, Peevee

http://www.users.on.net/~pkinnane/RealSkinShaderTutorial.html Awesine sgader. Worth the price.

Attached Link: http://www.users.on.net/~pkinnane/RealSkinShaderTutorial.html

With Poser5, save the file to a .jpg and place it in the same folder as the texture. You can call it anything.

Then, in the material room, find the root called "bump", make a new node...2dtexture....image_map and from inside that node you can attach the file.

If those terms and instructions are 'greek' to you, you should study the material room.

::::: Opera :::::

Nope, they're clear to me! one last question thow, how do I get those white reflection zones? Do I add reflection value to the skin texture or does it involve a more complicated trick? Peevee

i don't know the answer to that. :::::: Opera :::::

Thanks for this thread. I got the shader set, and it's great. It's also great for actually making and improving textures. I've been working on a new texture, and by adding the nodes and rendering to a flat plane, I got a MUCH better texture that looks even better in P4.

pdxjims, someone asked me if that was possible, and I didn't think it was, so said 'No'! There is a technique (similar to yours?) used by someone at ZBrush central. It involves posing your character identical to a reference photo. Then having a program to project the reference photo onto the model and generating the texture from there. Awesome idea (although probably very lighting specific).

Anyway, to peevee's question....I'd say that realism is achieved via skill in a number of areas. RealSkinShader helps you in some of these areas - but you still need skill in the others to get great results. Good renders are make up of good lighting, the right render settings, great texturemaps and bumpmaps, a system to give the model depth (so they don't look like a maniquin) - ie. subsurface scattering, a balanced, relaxed pose, skin reflections that match real skin (Blinn for dry or Phong for wet), etc, etc, etc.

I think that the BlowYourMind image probably used Phong specularity, tinted blue, with the bump-map as the phong colour. For the white reflection zones you are pluging the reflection node into the alt_spec plug, and setting the normal specular_value to 0.

Message edited on: 12/21/2004 15:19

No, that's not my method. But it'd work in combination with the face room. My method involves taking an existing texture (one I've created myself), applying it to a figure, then running your script. I then save the resulting materials for skintorso and skinhead to my materials library. I then delete the figure and load a 1 sided square prop, and apply the materials I've saved to it (resizing the square to 3X4 ratio and filling the render window. I then render the image to a new window at 3000X4000. You do have to adjust the lighting to get a very even and flat surface. I suppose you could create a face texture using the render-the-figure-to-reference pose idea. Apply the skin shader instead of the texture map, render one frontal and one side face view, then use the face room to generate the texture for Don or Judy (Mike 2 or V2), then use the UTC to convert the texture to M3/V3. I think I'll try reloading Don and Judy and trying that, if I can ever find my P5 disc in the Christmas hell I'm living in this month.

Well there you go - I never would have thought of that!