In this tutorial I run through how to take a sculpted head, generate maps and paint textures using blenders texture baking tools and GIMP, and then use these to create a realistic multi-layer SSS skin shader using blender’s material nodes system.
Part 02 of this tutorial covers the process of creating a multi-layer shader for the skin, and rendering and compositing the final image.
Support the site – Download includes:
- High resolution .mov Video
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FIRST!!
Second! Love these videos by the way. Where have you been? You need to make more videos! These are fantastic. Tackling skin and all that. I’ve never seen the whole dirty vertex painting before. Thats so interesting! I tried it with AO and the compositor but you filled in the gaps I’ve been missing!.
Looks like master Williamson is taking your credit again haha.
Oh no! Thanks for catching that
It is now fixed and Ben is listed as the proper author!
-Jonathan
A lot going on, but all good information.
can’t wait to watch. I really want to know what your computers specs are, mine crashes with a model of that many polygons.
4GB Ram, Quad core 2.3Ghz processor. It gets a little flustered sometimes, but it does the job.
If you need to polys you can try adding some procedural detail or extra bump maps to make up some of the details.
A year ago or so I was using a 4gb 2core 2.1Gh with small graphic card. I upgraded just the graphics card, and my blender experences went from slightly dragging to seamless.
I am starting to look at a full rig upgrade, for age not performance.
What program do you use to record on Ubuntu?
He mentioned it in the comments for the first part of the series.
I use recordscreen.py. As Jeff says, see the comments on the first part for links.
Great job Ben. I hope you can continue to share your texturing skills here at Blender Cookie!
Awesome tutorial. I think I am going to try these techniques on an alien/creature head so I can play with them and get a feel for how the different layers interact. Plus if they come out funky I’ll just say that is how the creature is suppose to look. lol.
Awesome, well explained Ben, I love how you don’t rush through the tutorial but takes time to explain why and why not you do things. One note on the edge aliasing at the end, as I’m sure you know, enabling the full samples (http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-246/rendering-features/) will give better anti-aliasing in the compositor, delaying the actual anti-aliasing after the compositing. Blurring the edges though does have the advantage of giving a more pleasant blend between the main model and the background, but I just thought I’d note the feature here if someone else is struggling with aliasing in the compositor and blurring is not a feasible option.
Thanks. If I neglected to point that out in the tutorial it’s definitely advisable to have FSAA on for any compositing involving the defocus node. The blur around the head though was as much to soften it’s outline as to deal with any aliasing though.
I just wrote an article for my own site on the defocus node actually if anyone wants more on that:
http://bensimonds.com/2011/06/01/depth-of-field-in-blender/
Thanks for this tutorial.
I’ve a little question about lights: Why do you put a plane behind your area lights ?
Aha, I forgot to mention that in the tutorial. It’s so that any ray mirror materials have something to reflect.
I have a INTEL core i3 540 @ 3.07Ghz, 6 GB RAM, INTEL HD GRAPHICS,Ubuntu 11.04(64 bit). With all drivers updated. Yet it starts to lag at 20000 polygons. Why ?????????
Pls help me. Reply.
Thanx in advance
Is there someone who can help me in this matter !!!!!!!!
I think the graphic card is involved here. Intel HD graphic isn’t powerful for CG. You should have a look at the latest nvidia cards (ATI doesn’t handle CUDA which is used by some render engines out there).
I was wondering, if your character model had hair using particles can the particles be adjusted in the node editor. I’ve tried to soften the strands and make them look finer with no luck, had to do post production in photoshop to get more control. Loved the tutorial and gained alot of info on texture mapping. Will have to watch a couple more times to get it down. Thank you
How does he bake the cavity map again? i keep scrubbing through trying to find it, but having difficulty finding it…
nevermind, found it, its in part1, around 10mins in *sigh*
Go into vertex paint mode then choose “Dirty Vertex Colors” from the menu. After this you need to enable VCOL in the materials option to set them as the material color, and set the material to shadeless. Next you need to ensure the mesh is unwrapped and then you can bake out the “Textures” from the Render Bake panel.
-Jonathan
hi Jonathan:
i´d just finish the tutorial and now a i want to put a tatto on mi character´s face. any idea how to do this? (sorry mi english)