Genitals Question for Texture Artists
lx_2807502
Posts: 2,996
Note: this is not a complaint thread about Daz models having genitals or not. There are plenty of those already.
Many of the female models have a blank space for genitals, and that's fine. Others have some sort of shading to support the Daz genitals addon from the pro packs. I get that too. But a lot of characters have very detailed genitalia drawn on ... but without bump or displacement maps to really define them, so they wind up looking like some sort of slapped on sticker. It's like someone drew a nose but didn't bother with making it actually stick out. They also make it so that the genital morphs essentially break them, so it doesn't make sense in that direction either.
I just don't really get why you would go to that much effort (and these are clearly talented people who know way more than I do) adding something like this and then only doing it halfway. Do they have their own secret displacement maps? Are they silently encouraging you to make your own? Do they really just not realise that they generally look awful? Or was it fine on the older models in older renderers? I'm very new at this and I can't seem to think up any explanation as to why they would bother.
As I said, I'm not complaining about characters having genitals or not. I'm just trying to understand the thought process. Is there something really obvious I'm missing?
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Comments
A number of artists use some kind of photograph as a reference for the texture maps.
They're not necessarily drawing these features onto the base shape... the features are part of the underlying images. If you're not using a genital prop, you're most likely not going to be rendering that part of the body anyway, so why should the artist take off that patch of oddly toned skin if it's going to be covered in clothing?
Hm I suppose the problem is my not really understanding how they make them in the first place. If the features are already there as part of the skin creation process then that makes a lot more sense. It just seemed like more effort to make for something that as you said doesn't seem intended for render.
That's pretty much it, actually. If the original photos have them visible like that, then they wind up in the skin texture as often as not. If someone wants to brush them out in favor of a geograft, then that's easy enough to do. You have to do it carefully, so as to even out the tone in tight quarters. It's the geograft that's hard to deal with unless you have a way to deal with seams directly.
Getting a texture from being a photo to being correctly mapped around a model still kind of breaks my brain. I thought there'd be a lot more actual painting involved but that's probably just because the idea of copy pasting onto a 3d surface makes my head hurt. I guess it wouldn't be too bad in 2D with reference UV maps but it seems like everything would get kind of distorted doing it that way.
Oh well I understand the original question a lot better now, thanks.
That's where a 3D paint program comes in...it isn't all that easy to paint/cut & paste/etc in a 2D paint program and get all the seams matched.
Also, at medium to long range, fine details are mostly irrelevant, so if you want a beach with a bunch of naked people on it, there you go.
and that is how a lot of people render their nudes! if you need close ups...well then you have special needs and probably need to do whats neccessary to make things stand out. You can render the nether regions just fine, and they look fine.
And lots of people render "almost nudes", so those details are often mostly obscurred. With small bikinis(chain mail variant optional). with only bits of the treasure trail sneaking out. Those minor bits of fur that show up add a bit of realism. In real life we try to hide that stuff, but in CG we add those details. :)