Attached Link: http://mag.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=pageone&article_no=107

Just to warn you, I'm about to link to an article published by the website I work for. I'm not necessarily one to self-promote, so understand this is done in the spirit of providing you all with some really cool information. So, forgive me for pimpin'.

This is the article: On Co-Directing Shrek: Victoria Jenson

It contains some great information about the making of the upcoming Dreamworks flick: Shrek. While the entire article is cool, pay special attention to the last paragraph. Since it's beating Final Fantasy to the theatres, Shrek is the first full-legth, full-CGI film to feature humans characters in the principle cast. Even though it's cartoony, they didn't take that lightly. They've used a briliant technique to over-come that plastic look without completely throwing highlights out the door. And the best part is, this technique is so simple, it could easily be incorporated into our own Poser characters. Remember...last page, last paragraph (before the author info).

Let me know what you think.

Are you speaking of this?... The animators discovered the best way to heighten the realism of the princess, and Lord Farquaad, and his subjects, was to concentrate on the subtleties of the human form. "We built translucent layers of skin so they wouldn't look like plastic," Jenson says. "You really see that in Fiona in her close-ups. Light could actually pass through to create a luminosity. We painted freckles or warm tones a couple of layers down and light would pass through the skin to them. It just looked a lot more believable."

That's what I'm talking about :-)

Great article too, and very clever animation technique. It's sort of surrealistic, like a Dali painting...

From the article it's giving me hope that Shrek is not a typical Disney feature clone. Hopefully between Shrek and Final Fantasy this summer, many new fully 3D flicks will be inspired for production in the near future.

Here's I go pimpin' again but I know you're always into the latest biz news, Fox. You may want to check out our Headline News section.

Thanks, I will certainly add this to my favorites list...

Tried it once but couldn't get a figure to conform to itself properly. Thought I could get a figure to conform to an identical figure, then scale it up a tiny percentage and texture the outer one with a slightly transparent skin texture and the inner one with the Visible Woman muscle texture. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, the two figures would not actually conform to the identical pose and I blew it off. Someone a little more persistant might get some interesting results.

I was thinking for a simple starter you could, after posing and morphing, spawn a prop from the head geometry. Scale it up just a tad and apply a basic skin texture with transparency. Sure it wouldn't work for animations, and it would be pointless for long-shots, but it could be good for still-image close-ups.

More advanced usage would probably require a character that is modelled specifically to take advantage of this.

What interested me was not so much the blending of maps, which could be easily done in a paint program, but the idea of applying different reflections & highlights to the different layers, sorta like Ashlocke's Volumetric Water prop. The spawn prop approach sounds like it would be easier and work fine for that. May have to give it a go again. btw, is this technique part of Real Eyes? My standard figure picked up a second eyeball layer at some point in the past & I'm not sure where.

Right Nance, the highlight is the important part, but I think the outer layer needs a texture as well or you'll end up with just a 'wet look'...which could be usefull in itself.

Not sure what 'Real Eyes' is, but I know Vicky and Mike have an Eyeball material which is a second sphere layer that covers the eyes. You can use it with highlight set to give the eyes a kind of glistening look.

I'm gonna have to play with it a bit too...I just have so much to play with this weekend and I'm sure it will be over before I know it as usual.

heyas; you can't conform a figure to itself (it's identical twin, i should say), but that MIGHT be fixable if you create a conforming version of it. ie (as scott discovered): you need to set all the initvalues to zero. in standard figures they are not all zero, thus the problem -- or at least part of it. the old masters used to paint fleshtones in a similar manner, using transluscent layers of paint to get that lively skin 'glow.' thanks for the article, jk. :)

ooooh-nooooo... Way over my head Bloodsiedoodle. (Yuck... you were right.)