Skin Shading Essentials Tutorial [Commercial]
V3Digitimes
Posts: 3,150
Skin Shading Essentials Tutorial is a paper and video tutorial, in which you will learn everything you have to know to be able to adjust and customize the Iray shaders used by the skins of your figures. At the end of it, you should be able to modify the exact properties which need to be modified, knowing exactly what you do, so that the final look of your rendered figures gets as close as possible to the one you have in your mind. It is a part of the Skin Shading Bundle.
You can find it here : https://www.daz3d.com/skin-shading-essentials-tutorial
The paper documentation reviews the key Iray Uber properties necessary for skin shading, respecting the Iray Uber shader groups order, and explains the contribution of these various properties on the final skin look.
The video documentation is organised a bit differently, and is divided in three parts :
- an introduction to PBR shaders and how Iray Uber Base groups of properties correspond to the physical interaction of light with skin
- A second part detailing all the parameters influencing the final skin tone, with a strong focus on transmission and scattering (SSS) effects
- A third part detailing all the many possible ways to modify the glossy look of your figures, explaining how you can act on the properties of Dual Lobe, Glossy, Metallic Flakes and Top Coat to adjust this glossy look.
A pdf summary of the Video files is also included so that you can find the information you want easily.
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Comments
Looks very very useful!
Excellent news. I mean, terible news in the sense that I will be forced to break my shopping abstinence, but truly joyous tidings in any other way.
Thanks!
Lol! Should I feel guilty to break your shopping abstinence? Thanks for your comment.
Another Instabuy!
;)
looks wonderful.
thanks for including a pdf!
The tutorial is finally released : https://www.daz3d.com/skin-shading-essentials-tutorial
Got the bundle. Great savings. Thanks so much!
I thank YOU! I hope you'll enjoy!
I've only watched the Introduction video (1st of 3 videos) so far. It is so well done! In addition to the narration there are lots of diagrams and supporting text blocks to make it easy to follow. This is a very professional looking tutorial.I'm excited to watch the rest.
Thanks! I did my best to make things as clear as possible for everybody :)
I'm glad you have this thread going. When I saw the bundle, it looked too advanced for me. However, based on the discussions and comments here, I'm going to get it.
Thanks! If you are not comfortable with skin shading begin with the tutorial :)
Oh I'm definitely starting with tutorials, lol I'm hopeful I will then understand what the various sliders do. I used to not touch skin settings at all, then @novica made suggestions on how to add glossiness, how to reduce reds, so I've started to dabble a little. I guess I will dive in with your tutorials and product :)
You will see there are not tones of things to do to adjust skins. Be confident once you see how it works, it becomes a game:)
FYI: V3Digitimes was able to let me know that she is unable to access the Daz site right now. She can't get to the store or forums. She'll be back to answer questions as soon as her connectivity to Daz is restored.
This tutorial has cleared up a lot of questions for me about the newest sliders and how they work. Thanks a bunch! :)
Laurie
And this is restored! Thanks!
You're welcome, I'm really glad I could help :)
I'm guessing that the videos can be moved onto another attached HD. They don't have to be stored on the main HD. Is that correct?
Yes the video are totally unlinked from Daz studio, you can place them where you want. The only thing you need is a mp4 player, and a pdf viewer for the paper version.
edit : since you work with David 3, there is a part explaining how to prepare a figure which is not Iray ready for Iray. I think it is in the beginning of the video about skin tone.
I bought the set. Very valuable!
It would be really really great if you could include some presets. Maybe in your update?
Thanks for your feedback. Well I have not thought at all of including presets, for me the purpose of all this was that people were able to make their own presets, this is why it did not even came to my mind. To answer to you : this is difficult to add presets, because the question is for what kind of initial figure clear skin, dark skin ? What generation? What initial shader, Iray, AoA, OmUber? What type of final skin look ? What EXACT figure? Because depending on the figure the results will vary in functions of the maps used, and where these maps are used, and even worse if the shader is not initially Iray, some maps transfer will not occur such as the map transfer of the Base Color Map to the Translucency Color Map. And, for instance for bump and gloss weight, even the graylevels of the maps will matter. If I set a bump of 5 for a very clear and constrasted map, I will have a radically different result as if I set the same bump strength on a figure using very dark and low constrasted bump maps. The same way, for instance if a figure uses a dual lobe with map and I join a preset for a figure based on Glossy and Top Coat, then the maps will be at the wrong place and the result will not be fine at all, and this is not be saved in a material presets which includes the maps for a given figure only. Or as you saw in the tutorial, it may also happen that the figure you work on has the wrong map for the Glossy (but the right for Dual Lobe).
This is why when I make skin shaders for "a whole generation" it takes me a LOT of time to find the most robust presets to be compatible with a maximum of figures (minimum 30 figures) and lights sets (minimum 12 lights sets), and sometimes to solve all issues, I am even forced to make scripted presets which identify where are originally the maps for the key properties and send them to the right place. This also is why you have not seen any product from me for Generation 8 yet : I did not have enough figures to warranty the results will be good for "every figure". I hope you see my issue : I would even not know what presets I could include because of the wide variety of initial conditions, and I fear that at the end it would lead to more unsatisfied users than satisfied users.
I hope you are not to disappointed... But I really don' t see.
Well, I bought it and now my brain hurts.
Having said that, I now have a much better understanding of shader properties than I used to. I'm already seeing better results than before.
Many thanks to V3Digitimes for a very helpful product.
Tim.
Lol sorry for your brains!
You're welcome and I am really glad I could help !
All kidding aside, I am very impressed. I've already been working with maps and Photoshop to customize my characters (conversions from 3DL), and your tutorial will take me to the next level. I can't wait to use Skin Manager. What a great tool. Now I'm eyeing Map Manager too.
Would you consider expanding Skin Manager to be useful for non-human surfaces? It could really be useful for Iray conversions.
Thanks for your very nice comments :)
For the skin manager, it works for all human, but nothing else. Now I could make a similar script for other types of animals or creatures, for me this would not be a huge effort, this would essentially be a matter of list to change. It cannot be included directly in the manager because too many of the subfunctions are already to much linked to human surfaces, but in another very similar script it could be. What were you thinking of?
For example, I recently converted Genesis Bot to Iray. It involved changing textures on many geographed parts, for which I used the copy/paste feature - a very tedious process, especially on the hand. When maps were involved (Genesis Supersuit), I had to manually make those changes. For optimizing Iray textures beyond just converting to Iray Uber Base, it would be great to have a tool to manipulate multiple surfaces and copy settings between surfaces without disturbing the maps, etc.
I see what you mean. I have the map manager to manipulate the maps of "anything", and the Iray Skin Manager which manipulates the rest "only on human figures". So it would take a Iray Surface Manager which would be an equivalent but for "any surface selection", and especially the store and restore script. I have to think about this, what makes me a bit afraid is the way I should display the properties which have different values for the surfaces. Furthermore in the case of figure you mentioned, what you can do in daz studio is to save one of the surface as a shader preset, but choosing "uncheck images" and reapply this shader on all the surfaces. So the interest of the script would be minimal.