How Can I lighten the tone of a skin, without the character completely disappearing in the render?

felixmustdie

I am new/extremely inexperienced. Still just prodding things to see what happens.

I wanted to lighten a skin tone that looked very tanned to me, to something paler/pinker.

 

What I found was under the  surfaces tab > Skin > TRANSMITTED COLOUR.  Was an easy tweak to the skin tone, but it fades the skin out in render (see attachment).

If  I mess wit this value, the character and skin render A-OK.

 

How should I be modifying the skin correctly please?

 

Paintbox

Don't know how to do it in parameters, but I usually use

https://www.daz3d.com/ultimate-iray-skin-manager

To slightly tweak skin tone with the "diffuse strength" slider. That seems to work for me at least.

andya_b341b7c5f5

I have found lightening to be much harder in DS than darkening. 

You seem to be using Iray.  If so, check the base color and glossy color are both completely white - probably are but if not, make it closer to full white.  Same with Top Coat color.  Then you have to deal with the image maps.  You could try reducing the gamma value in the built in image editor, or adding a white layer on top with very low opacity in the layered image editor.  I will be interested to see if there are other options suggested.

Outside of DS, you can use an image editor to e.g. desaturate the image map(s) a bit, or manipulate it in any other way that achieves what you are looking for.

BeeMKay

I also second the desaturating of skin maps, and the use of the skin manager. Skins are very tricky, and you usually need a combination of several settings to get the result you want.

FenixPhoenix

Altern8 shades is what I use now and it's amazing the possibilities it opens up to tweak skin colors: https://www.daz3d.com/altern8--skin-shader-system-for-genesis-8

Seven193

Would a geoshell help?  Would have to look that up.

JonnyRay

Dave230 said:

Would a geoshell help?  Would have to look that up.

No. All a geoshell does is create a copy of the geometry that is very close to the original surface. You would still have all of the skin material settings to have to work with.

Personally, I use Divamakeup's Aternl8 - Skin Shader System for Genesis 8 to setup my base skin settings, then use V3Digitimes' Ultimate Iray Skin Manager product to tweak the settings. V3's Skin Shading Essentials Tutorial is also an excellent reference on how the various skin material settings work together. I picked up their Skin Shading Bundle on sale and have been very pleased with both the tool and tutorial.

Seven193

JonnyRay said:

No. All a geoshell does is create a copy of the geometry that is very close to the original surface. You would still have all of the skin material settings to have to work with.

Yes, geoshells are second skins, but that doesn't mean they can't be transparent and blend into the base skin color.

What happens if you create a totally white geoshell, and turn down the transparency to 10% or so?