Daz Original 8 Figures - Most Photorealistic Skin?

takezo_3001

charles said:

Substance Painter, just paint those skin details onto the bump map, I stay away from normal maps these days except for generic ones that I still turn way down. 

I do use XYZ for some stuff but still prefer to sample from 3D-SK.

I use Fastone image viewer's levels setting to equalize those horrid baked-in highlights, and/or affinity photo for the creases and black nostrils/ears, but I'd use substance painter if it wasn't overpriced rent-ware!

The Blurst of Times

marble said:

One thing that will instantly cause me to abandon a skin texture is the presence of creases and shadows - especally where the skin has to bend. Most particularly in the glute area. a dark line embedded in the texture for the glute crease becomes an ugly thick smear when the thighs are bent. If I really like that skin otherwise, I will take the time to try to paint out the line in an image editor but I think that PAs should be aware of this problem.

Sigh... another vote for this. It's so frustrating when you see it... it's not always visible, but when you do something where it's visible? It's a disaster.

I'm guessing the butt lines exist in underlying photoreferences, and they don't get corrected before they are applied to the Daz model shape. It looks more like shadows from the photo lighting than anything else, which is less likely to happen when it's not coming from photoreference.

The butt line/scar doesn't show up until you pose the model a certain way, and then it's horrifyingly bad. It's like someone cut their butts and left a giant ragged scar. Horrifying, really.

wmiller314

The Blurst of Times said:

marble said:

One thing that will instantly cause me to abandon a skin texture is the presence of creases and shadows - especally where the skin has to bend. Most particularly in the glute area. a dark line embedded in the texture for the glute crease becomes an ugly thick smear when the thighs are bent. If I really like that skin otherwise, I will take the time to try to paint out the line in an image editor but I think that PAs should be aware of this problem.

Sigh... another vote for this. It's so frustrating when you see it... it's not always visible, but when you do something where it's visible? It's a disaster.

I'm guessing the butt lines exist in underlying photoreferences, and they don't get corrected before they are applied to the Daz model shape. It looks more like shadows from the photo lighting than anything else, which is less likely to happen when it's not coming from photoreference.

The butt line/scar doesn't show up until you pose the model a certain way, and then it's horrifyingly bad. It's like someone cut their butts and left a giant ragged scar. Horrifying, really.

+1 The first time I encountered this I had no idea what was going on. I don't know about skin shaders or subsurface any of that, but I was posing a model thinking 'what the hell is that line?'. It took me a while to realize it was something on the model and not something I was doing wrong. 

zombiewhacker

Looks like Fred 8.1 might be a winner, too, looking at today's launch promos.

zombiewhacker

Following up, what makes for a good specular map? I assume it takes more than simply copying, then desaturating the diffuse map. Are there any details I need to be mindful of?

 

cridgit

Redacted

zombiewhacker

cridgit said:

To answer your question a good spec map should absolutely not be a desaturated diffuse. It should be quite dark and slightly lighter in areas where you expect to see some shine; and it should appear quite porous (fine-grained). 

I'm assuming the "T-zone" of the face would be a good starting place -- where else? Also, different areas of the face shine differently. The eyebrows reflect light differently than the skin does, and ditto the skin and the lips. 

Back in the 3Delight days, Lana Elite Texture was pretty much considered the go-to for specular maps. Can anyone point to modern Iray equivalents?

cridgit

Redacted

Sera

cridgit said:

I've mostly used Olympia maps and HD morphs on all my characters, but more recently Babina and Freja have pretty good textures (except their nips turn inward - the person who did the bump maps should be kicked). For non-base characters I recently picked up P3D Sigrid who has great textures.

But I almost exclusively use Anagenessis3 (it works on Genesis 8) which is an incredible product and it reduces my reliance on spec and bump maps.

This is Sigrid rendered with Anagenessis3. I recommend you buy it and start rendering then you won't have to worry at all about any texture maps other than diffuse.

 

Do you mean this product? https://www.daz3d.com/n-g-s-anagenessis-for-genesis-3 I want to make sure I get the right one.

cridgit

Redacted

Sera

@cridgit Thanks!

j cade

zombiewhacker said:

Following up, what makes for a good specular map? I assume it takes more than simply copying, then desaturating the diffuse map. Are there any details I need to be mindful of?

 

All my favs tend to share the same thing in common - very high contrast. The pores and skin creases are black the high areas are white.

 

that said, technically the newest figures don't use specular maps at all (though specular occlusion serves a similar purpose imo) they instead have roughness maps which are generally considered more physically correct and I find them generally easier to do things like shinier lips or tzone of the face and have it look right.

These can also be fairly high contrast, just this time your areas like pores should be white for full roughness (less shiny looking) and the areas like  nose and lips should be darker (more shiny)

 

I'm also firmly of the opinion that the most important maps are base color, bump/normal, and roughness. (I am firmly of the opinion that SSS maps are a waste of resources)

zombiewhacker

Juan Carlos and Babina are now downloaded and indeed they have terrific textures as advertised. 

My question is now a procedural one. I can learn a lot just by eyeballing the diffuse maps, but other maps are trickier. For instance, how do I create specular maps similar to the ones used for these characters? Clearly the artists involved didn't simply desaturate a diffuse map then adjust contrast, like in Genesis1 days of yore.

I'm using GIMP so I have plenty of tools at my disposal -- the question is how do I utilize them?

FSMCDesigns

cridgit said:

I've mostly used Olympia maps and HD morphs on all my characters, but more recently Babina and Freja have pretty good textures (except their nips turn inward - the person who did the bump maps should be kicked). For non-base characters I recently picked up P3D Sigrid who has great textures.

But I almost exclusively use Anagenessis2 (it works on Genesis 8) which is an incredible product and it reduces my reliance on spec and bump maps.

This is Sigrid rendered with Anagenessis2. I recommend you buy it and start rendering then you won't have to worry at all about any texture maps other than diffuse.

[post edited to Anagenesis2] https://www.daz3d.com/n-g-s-anagenessis-2-revolution

I never liked the results I got with anagenesis2. I felt they relied on the diffuse mape too much and the results had to much contrast and always looked dingy, kinda like old V4 character textures.

zombiewhacker

A related question when generating a Normal Map in GIMP:

A bump skin map is easy to figure out -- pores and creases in skin are darker, skin surface is lighter. With a normal map, it's harder to make out. Which colors indictate depth (such as a skin pore) and which represent height? 

When converting a grayscale map to a Normal, GIMP does offer the option of reversing the map along the x or y or z. But since I don't which way is which in a Normal map to begin with...

takezo_3001

The Blurst of Times said:

marble said:

One thing that will instantly cause me to abandon a skin texture is the presence of creases and shadows - especally where the skin has to bend. Most particularly in the glute area. a dark line embedded in the texture for the glute crease becomes an ugly thick smear when the thighs are bent. If I really like that skin otherwise, I will take the time to try to paint out the line in an image editor but I think that PAs should be aware of this problem.

Sigh... another vote for this. It's so frustrating when you see it... it's not always visible, but when you do something where it's visible? It's a disaster.

I'm guessing the butt lines exist in underlying photoreferences, and they don't get corrected before they are applied to the Daz model shape. It looks more like shadows from the photo lighting than anything else, which is less likely to happen when it's not coming from photoreference.

The butt line/scar doesn't show up until you pose the model a certain way, and then it's horrifyingly bad. It's like someone cut their butts and left a giant ragged scar. Horrifying, really.

Was disappointed to see that Mousso started using *hard outlined/baked specular with not only the diffuse maps but the bump/normal/spec maps as well! It really sucks as Mousso is one of the few PAs that have AO/Detail maps for the G8.1 PBR skin materials, were it not for their incredible sculpts I would have refunded the product altogether!

*(Breast/glute/nose/etc)

sunnyjei

Can't believe no one has mentioned (or I missed it!) Torment. Love Torment's promos as well as what people in the gallery have come up with too. Kind of a cheat because he isn't a core character, but he is a Daz Original by one of my favorite artists here, Trance is pretty stellar too (https://www.daz3d.com/trance-hd-for-genesis-81-male). So is https://www.daz3d.com/rocco-hd-for-genesis-81-male (but he's another cheat-not a core character)

Erik Heyninck

I assume you will love the Sahira skin as you can exercise with it: it's got baked-in tan lines.

For a 'pirate woman' - 18th-19th C, bikini tanlines are rather ridicu;lous but, well, that's life...
And it a good challenge to hone your skills.