Realistic Skin???

[Tazz]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to 3D Coat and I'm just working my way around this FANTASTIC software. I've had it for awhile but just let it sit and I said one day I will get to it. Now is the day. Basically new to 3D in general but I have Z-Brush 4.0 and I'm still learning that as well. Anyway, I am wondering if there is a way to create realistic skin texture in 3D Coat that would be applied to an OBJ file and then round trip that file to another application such as Poser to use for character creation. I tried my hand at the Paint feature and actually exported the textures. I love the hair brush by the way. So, in testing the export texture, I applied a JPG face texture to a model I've created in Poser. Surprisingly it looked real good. The hair was so realistic looking. The model looked so good that it seemed to be missing realism. ie, skin definition, veins, etc. I just want to know if this can be accomplished in 3D coat. I've tried to see what was available in Votel but my model wouldn't load and then my application froze where I had to shut down and do a restart. I don't know if you can go from one to the other. I'm still learning. Please let me know if there are any TUTS or other links. Thanks.

TAZZ

[Psmith]

Tazz:

Truly realistic skin is a tough one and it is a problem than has been solved primarily on the render side of things.

Real skin is translucent and allows light to pass through the uppermost layers and reflect off those beneath. This effect is really difficult to simulate properly and requires a renderer that is capable of sub surface scattering.

I'm not sure that Poser's renderer, Firefly, is up to the job of scattering light in exactly the way it would need to create the illusion of translucent skin.

Of course, 2 dimensional traditional media painters have been able to produce this illusion through the use of translucent layers of paint, layered one over the other, (glazing), thus allowing the light to scatter when hitting the canvas. This effect is difficult to produce digitally, but can be done in a similar fashion to that which is used in traditional media. Not something so easy to do.

Within 3D-Coat, you could try building up translucent layers of digital paint - and maybe there is someone on the forum that has tried this with success. I know Michalis has made a very nice model and produced a very nice photo realistic rendering of an older man which was rendered in Blender 3D. Maybe, at this point, he could share his own experience.

Greg Smith

[AbnRanger]

If you're going to stay within Poser, there was a cheap (if not free) plugin for Poser that did a really good job. Can't remember what the name was...but you can find it on their content site

[Tazz]

Thanks for your help. This plugin for Poser your referring to AbnRanger is this specific for creating realistic textures in renders? I'll do a search but not quite sure what I'm looking for since you can't remember which plugin it is. If you happen to remember PLEASE let me know. Thanks.

TAZZ