Daz [Genesis 9] Looking for High quality skin materials

[no_more_name]

It doesn't matter.
You need to understand what translucency is, and what is the logic behind it.
Everything else is just noise.

 

[Turning Tricks]

It doesn't matter.
You need to understand what translucency is, and what is the logic behind it.
Everything else is just noise.

And the information and warnings you are sadly trying to lecture us with are the words of someone who has actually never done any production renders.

It's like someone reads the manual on some new high-tech device they bought and then pretends to be an expert about it to everyone else. There's a huge difference between book learning and practical experience.

You're basically trying to tell everyone not to touch settings that you absolutely need to adjust to make the best renders possible. It's like buying a Mustang and then never touching the carb jets because "Well, they were set at the factory! Don't touch them!!!"

 

[jamdan]

And the information and warnings you are sadly trying to lecture us with are the words of someone who has actually never done any production renders.

It's like someone reads the manual on some new high-tech device they bought and then pretends to be an expert about it to everyone else. There's a huge difference between book learning and practical experience.

You're basically trying to tell everyone not to touch settings that you absolutely need to adjust to make the best renders possible. It's like buying a Mustang and then never touching the carb jets because "Well, they were set at the factory! Don't touch them!!!"

Not to butt in, but no_name has made renders before. They've posted them in the various threads they've posted in on the dev help forum (on this account and their previous account they deleted). So it doesn't really matter if they've not made a game yet (although they do have a game development thread). They do know about rendering and make pretty high quality art.


More so, I don't think the point is that you should never touch the translucency setting. Rather, that human skin is naturally translucent so it should be kept in a fairly narrow range if you want realistic results.

So while you can, technically, adjust the settings to have other effects (like more/fewer details) you aren't really doing it the correct way if you mess with the translucency settings to achieve those results. Instead, you should adjust the texture/detail maps themselves. Simply making the skin more or less translucent will throw off other things, like how light interacts with the skin, which is the main point of translucency/SSS settings. And everyone knows how important light is for 3D art.

 

[ouch2020]

Ashbash since you had started the thread with one question, but now the thread seems to continue on something else, where the answers you got useful for you ?

 

[Turning Tricks]

Not to butt in, but no_name has made renders before. They've posted them in the various threads they've posted in on the dev help forum (on this account and their previous account they deleted). So it doesn't really matter if they've not made a game yet (although they do have a game development thread). They do know about rendering and make pretty high quality art.


More so, I don't think the point is that you should never touch the translucency setting. Rather, that human skin is naturally translucent so it should be kept in a fairly narrow range if you want realistic results.

So while you can, technically, adjust the settings to have other effects (like more/fewer details) you aren't really doing it the correct way if you mess with the translucency settings to achieve those results. Instead, you should adjust the texture/detail maps themselves.

It's their attitude that is completely wrong. It's one thing to do a hobby and goof around, but do not lecture people like you are an expert when you have really never had to depend on your work to actually pay the bills. Or, it seems, have they ever ventured beyond the "Basic" level of render settings.

Their very first comment was a reply to me that " You shouldn't do that. " when I mentioned having to dial down Moussa's TW setting for Hana 9. They then repeatedly tried to double-down that we just can't fuck with these settings, when that is exactly what you need to do to reach that next level in rendering. Sure, you can just farm assets and render out of the box, but that is boring and vanilla and the end results are ... Blah.

Learning how these settings interact with your character is what separates the amateurs from the professionals. Never mind that we showed examples in this thread where the TW settings are all over the place... based solely on how the asset maker designed their characters.

TL;DR - Put up or shut up, is basically what I am saying.

Ashbash since you had started the thread with one question, but now the thread seems to continue on something else, where the answers you got useful for you ?

They are probably afraid to come back here, lol. We WERE trying to give the OP some useful information until the Society for Translucency Protection officer crashed the party.

 

[Synx]

I will start of that I have no idea how DAZ uber shader works since I'm a Blender user.

But I don't get how changing the translucency would change the skin color of a character? That just doesn't make any sense from a shading perspective.

As far as I understood transluceny is just how much light is going through vs reflected by the material. 0% translucent would just show the top layer, 50% would mix it with whatever is under it 50/50, and 100% would show nothing of the top material. Or as a more understanding example; A black layer above a white layer. 0% would show black, 50% it would be grey, 100% would just show white.

I can see how increasing it would add more details of the underlying layers of human skins (like veins), but how would that change the skin color at all? At the most it should make the skin look a bit more red, but that's about it. Using it as a way to chance the skin color makes from a realistic shading perspective absolutely no sense. Did the creators just added a darker version of the skin texture as a sublevel or something? Or are they just mixing it with a black color?

 

[Ashbash]

Ashbash since you had started the thread with one question, but now the thread seems to continue on something else, where the answers you got useful for you ?

Hey there! Yes some good skin material examples to get it started with Gen 9!

 

[MissFortune]

But I don't get how changing the translucency would change the skin color of a character? That just doesn't make any sense from a shading perspective.

I think a lot of it can be narrowed down to Daz shaders just not making a lot of sense versus the industry standard counterparts.

I can't speak to the general translucency settings as I'm not expert on them, but I know what looks good at the end of the day regardless of what is technically 'right' or 'wrong'. I tend to specifically use Translucency Weight to either A) remove the red nose/ears/etc. that you tend to see with some Daz figures, B) to lighten the tone shade of the skin. Many of the G9 figures come with a default of like 0.85-0.95, which usually tends to be much too dark for your typical suburban white kids that most AVNs use. I usually drop it down to 0.50 or so and just leave it (sometimes add a bit of orange to the Translucency Color, as well, but not nearly as often).

 

[Turning Tricks]

I can see how increasing it would add more details of the underlying layers of human skins (like veins), but how would that change the skin color at all?

Think of two pieces of parchment paper... both of them have a someone beige or yellow skin type color. And both of them are about 50% translucent. When you layer one over the other, the sum effect will be a darker, more opaque color. Well, technically... it doesn't have to be darker. It will be a sum of the their relative color outputs.

In Daz, you have the skin base materials as the "top" layer and the Translucency Color Map underneath that. There's other layers and effects, but I am just sticking to those two since they are tied to this discussion.

Here's two images to try and make that easier to understand...

This first one is the two maps in my example above. The map on the left is the one used for the Translucency. You can see it has the vein details. the one on the right is the Base color map showing the main skin color and textures.



Now, on this image, I took both those maps and layered them, making each one about 65% transparent. I used a black background because it helps see the difference. The area they overlap is both lighter and a different shade then either of those base maps. This is a result of those colors being combined.



Anyone who renders in 3DCG should study some old school color theory. It's very helpful for addressing color issues and apply filters.. that sort of thing. I was taught about color theory in my old fine arts classes ... many moons ago. In that theory, the primary colors are Red, Yellow and Blue. Of course, in the age of electronic displays, the colors are Red, Green and Blue, because you have to include a light element to the formula on something that projects color, rather than is just a colored material.

 

[Synx]

In Daz, you have the skin base materials as the "top" layer and the Translucency Color Map underneath that. There's other layers and effects, but I am just sticking to those two since they are tied to this discussion.

I know how translucency works (I even gave an example in my post), but how DAZ is using it for skin is not a transluncey effect, Its just an alpha parameter to mix two textures together lol. Transluncey parameter is supposed to be used to let light pass trough a material, like for a curtain. Increasing it would let more light pass through and simulate a thinner material.

Besides DAZ already has a subsurface scattering parameter which was created specifically for the transluceny effect for materials like skin. The only thing it doesn't do is letting the light pass through the material, it just 'fakes' the effect by showing a redness of parts where light would pass through (or more acurate where red part of light is being absorbed, and green/blue is passed through). This faking of the effect doesn't matter unless your scene is litterly a full dark room and the only light coming through is from a thiny whole in a wall blocked by some persons hand. But for 99,9999% of the scenes subsurface scattering is more than enough.

Everything the translucent parameter for skin in DAZ seems to be used for, should just be done by adjusting the base skin textures instead. Like if you wanted to add veins to your character, you would mix it with your base skin, using a vein map (a map that just has veins and nothing ells) if you wanted to add a tiny bit of veins to the skin (on like parts where the veins would be more visible like your hands, not across your whole body), or/and mix it with your normal/displacement maps if you wanted to add more distinct veins from being muscular ,since veins from being muscular pops out a bit from just being there (or sculpt the veins on the model themselves if you go for 100% accuracy but that requires an absurdly high polycount model).

Or if you wanted to add a more distinct veins/redness to the whole body you would use an hemoglobin map that specially highligt veins in very thin parts of the body (like your eyelids) and redness of fleshy parts of your body (like your cheeks).

For changing skintone you would or just use a heu/sateration modifier if you wanted some slight chance in skintone, or for a more accurate approach a melalin map. But this should just be limited to adding a tan or slightly lightning/darkening a skin texture, since its far from accurate for actually changing somebody skintone. A darker skintone doesn't universally dark the whole skin, its more darker in certain places than others (like palms of the hand or way ligther than the rest of the body). You would just pick a different skin texture to start with.

But i guess thats why DAZ use it how its used. It's not supposed to be 100% accurate, but more easy to use, since everything above requires photoshop or actualy node based texturing set-up.

 

[no_more_name]

Wait, do people genuinely wonder why it only scatters at surface when, wait for it, *scatter only* is used?
I can't even lmao

​

First one is .90, second is .60. As you can see they are the same picture, no big deal at all. It totally not broke the SSS. You can also see how it improved every level of details, from basic flesh to quite an expensive mashed paper. You can't stop f95 devs progress, don't let naysayers say otherwise.

More seriously. Translucency is one of most important layer to keep a flesh aspect and also deeply linked to the volume part of the shader. It's not only your best bet, but it's your only one (until there is a major shader change, but I doubt it). So, no, DON'T adjust skin tone on translucency weight (a subtle change is alrightish, going from .90 to .60 is not, and never will).

If someone is confused about the skin shading part, download Babina 8 if it's not done and read that tutorial wrote by MelissaGT [

You must be registered to see the links

] few years ago. I slightly diverge from it (I don't use scatter & transmit Intensity as color is lost for intensity if I recall correctly), nonetheless it's a solid exercise for who wants to take a dive into it.

 

[Turning Tricks]

Wait, do people genuinely wonder why it only scatters at surface when, wait for it, *scatter only* is used?
I can't even lmao

View attachment 3934216 View attachment 3934369

View attachment 3934395
​

First one is .90, second is .60. As you can see they are the same picture, no big deal at all. It totally not broke the SSS. You can also see how it improved every level of details, from basic flesh to quite an expensive mashed paper. You can't stop f95 devs progress, don't let naysayers say otherwise.

More seriously. Translucency is one of most important layer to keep a flesh aspect and also deeply linked to the volume part of the shader. It's not only your best bet, but it's your only one (until there is a major shader change, but I doubt it). So, no, DON'T adjust skin tone on translucency weight (a subtle change is alrightish, going from .90 to .60 is not, and never will).

If someone is confused about the skin shading part, download Babina 8 if it's not done and read that tutorial wrote by MelissaGT [

You must be registered to see the links

] few years ago. I slightly diverge from it (I don't use scatter & transmit Intensity as color is lost for intensity if I recall correctly), nonetheless it's a solid exercise for who wants to take a dive into it.

You're arguing subjective opinions like they ore objective facts.

Take a look at your own (or someone else's) skin some time. There is no one-style-fits-all setting. Take your two examples above... in my opinion, the one on the left looks like a skin that is slightly greasy/oily... like if someone worked all day or hadn't had a shower recently. While the one on the right is a dry skin in slightly brighter setting.

The settings are there for a reason. And they are not hidden. I wonder why that is?

But opinions are like... well, you know.

 

[no_more_name]

Just stop.
There is stubbornness and being a complete retard.
Dual lobe has nothing to do with the color part of the skin, you would understand it if you know what you are doing.

 

[ouch2020]

Just stop.
There is stubbornness and being a complete retard.
Dual lobe has nothing to do with the color part of the skin, you would understand it if you know what you are doing.

Ehm, people, I don't know when you started, and who started it, but can you avoid trading insults ? And by the way, if you want to continue fighting endlessly, it woldn't be bad to do it in private.
This thread was born to answer a specific question, collect answers to that and become a point of reference for that, doing some additional comments/information/suggestion in line with the subject, like suggesting settings that can change the qualtiy of the results, as you both did at the start, makes sense.
But it has now become more akin to a religious war and crusade.

 

[no_more_name]

Absolutely not!
It's half of the fun!

more akin to a religious war and crusade.

If only...
Hear me out, how about a full *battle royale*

 

[ouch2020]

If only...
Hear me out, how about a full *battle royale*

View attachment 3943918

Have an island available at hands ?

 

[Turning Tricks]

Just stop.
There is stubbornness and being a complete retard.
Dual lobe has nothing to do with the color part of the skin, you would understand it if you know what you are doing.

I'm trying to discuss this like an adult. I also do this for a living. And you're answer is to basically call me retarded and call anyone else who disagrees with you stupid.

Enough of this shit... welcome to the ignore list.