Two of the four Daz elite character texture maps provide no avenue for the natural face. Not that there is anything wrong with makeup, but in my opinion vendors should give purchasers the totally natural option for all characters. No makeup, no plucked/shaped brows, no highlights, no eyeliner, etc.,

Here's Marie after reconstructive brow surgery by yours truly, an amateur.

Gypsy's Brow Brushes at Rendo Marketplace 
Eye model and matierials: blackhearted
Hair: Wild Hair
Render engine: Firefly with raytraced soft shadows
Post processed in PS

Click for full resolution

I've learned to always include one head map with no eyebrows and no facial hair. Same about the body map, I include a no-body hair map too. Seems a lot of folks like to give a character their own look. :)

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     BluEcho...Faery_Light...Faery_Souls.

Wonderful work, operaguy!  And I am in complete agreement with you on this.  I much prefer a more natural look too. 

I also want to add that I am sure glad that some of these newer textures finally have natural looking necks with creases, lines, etc.!  Not to mention, much more natural looking lips.

I second the motion!

"...natural looking necks with creases, lines, etc.!  Not to mention, much more natural looking lips.'

Yes agreed and that is something MaskEdit has never shied away from. He has four products, each with three sets of skins, for V4 here in the marketplace. Here's an example....

Click for full Resolution.....

Another excellent image!  And naturally, I have a good many of MaskEdit's textures too.  They are definitely some of the top textures on the market and very affordable.

OG,

That second skin needs displacement.  mho but, painted shadows are the curse. They only make sense from the angle the pic or reference was taken. We need morphs to match the topology...

Nice job on the new brows btw

Thanks for the feedback. Can you say more about the need for displacement? Are you saying that there is not enough depth? I made that image a long time ago, so don't remember the details about his face.

Is increasing the bump the same as displacement?

::::: Opera :::::

Is increasing the bump the same as displacement?

Noooo..  You know this. I remember you were using the morph brush for some arm fixes. How about a few strokes around the neck to justify the crease shadows?

If you made it along time ago then,,, no fuss. I just mean you can't put an oldskin on a young body without someone spotting it. And I put "old" in the quotes..

i get it. mesh deformation to go with the texture

operaguy,

What else do you see that bugs you about Marie?

the texture is too uniform. That is very little character in the skin. This is "okay" in the sense you can thow in inperfections. But this defaul is not in balance with the lips, which are full of detail, discoloration and interest.

I am finding trouble at the tip of the nose! seems like no matter what morphs I use on the nose, the texture is stretched right at the tip and requires remidial PostProcessing. Now, this could simply be an issue with the V4 mesh (not enough poly density there)

I am not thrilled with the Elite eye maps/shaders overall. I am beginning to give up on the Daz eye solution and revert back to Blackhearted's model and textures.

Finding oddities with the eyelash transmap in Carrara, but have not yet determine if that is Marie-specific yet.

I am a big fan of the Lana maps! Marie (once you give her proper eyebrows) is cool too.

::::: Opera :::::

this one is with the original eyebrowse and not much attempt to change the skin.

Eyes by Blackhearted, not Daz

http://jrdonohue.com/marie2.jpg
full size

::: og :::

Without fully reading the progression of the discussion in this thread, I can say in response to the original post that it is difficult to find a woman with natural eyebrows in texture sources. 3D.sk is one example of a place where you can knock yourself out seeking any such thing. One might assume that any model that enters the Daz MRI-like automated texture creating device will be tweezed in the eyebrow area. It would defeat the purpose of eliminating manual labor through the acquisition of expensive automation devices to worry about the lack of natural eyebrows in the near-perfect models selected. It’s thinking like this which will allow third party texture creators to thrive despite Daz’s efforts to be cutting edge.   

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Two of the four Elites had either plucked/shaped/penciled eyebrows or in the case of Maya permanent makeup of some kind. Meanwhile Lana is fantastic.

I purchase a subscription to 3d.sk for the very purpose of finding faces suitable for texture making, and as paloth just said, and to my utter astonishment, the large proportion of faces have makeup on them, or artificial eyebrows.

I was astounded.

So, okay, paloth says this leaves the door open for the small guy. Bring it on.

:::::: Opera :::::

P.S. I found the process of removing the offending eyethingies and replacing them with brushes from PS vendors easier than I thought it would be.

I wish there were other sources aside from 3d.sk  
I've been there many times looking for photo references, but can can't bring myself to get anything. I'm not sure how to explain it - they leave me sort of flat.

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