Course on creating skin textures

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

- I tried to create skin pores with the Cells 1 texture, and I obtained a normal map from it. But from what you explained to me, I thought that I would create a height map, that I should later convert into a normal map... Did I misunderstood? I also got a height map, but it is completly white...

I never said that. I said you can convert height to normal (if you wanted to, but not that you should)

Furtheremore, the normal map that I obtain looks a bit strange. I got a blue background and a border of the "useful map" has kind of bright rays:

 

The projection outwards from edge of map are set by padding value.  You can pad to infinity or pad a set amount. It's fine.

- And on the base color face map, I can't see any part darker for the nostrill and the ear shape. I already such darker part on existing corlor maps, so I wonder if it is normal here...

It's completely up to you. If you think it looks okay on your rendered character in Daz then it is okay, if you think it needs to be darker, darken it.  

lilweep

Also, by the way, you screenshotted your templates list but didnt show the template you had selected under 'Output Template'

lilweep

16bit PNG is usually only standard for Normal maps.

8bit image (e.g., JPG) is more standard for other types of maps.

16bit will cost more VRAM for rendering.

yuyu.atem

Thank you very much!  

lilweep said:

Maybe you are aware of this, but exporting Eyes and Mouth from Daz and importing these into your project is a waste of time. Better to do focus just on skin in one project.

Do you mean that I should import the mesh whith only the body itself, without the eye and the mouth? Since I didn't wanted to work on them, I first imported the mesh to Blender, and i created a new material (that I called "skin") contianing only the part of the body that have actually a skin... Maybe there would be simpler to do?

 

I never said that. I said you can convert height to normal (if you wanted to, but not that you should)

Ah, ok, I misunderstood.

 The projection outwards from edge of map are set by padding value.  You can pad to infinity or pad a set amount. It's fine.

I tried other padding but I got other weird results. Do you mean I should change the nuber on the right-hand of the padding section?

Also, by the way, you screenshotted your templates list but didnt show the template you had selected under 'Output Template'

Ah ok, I didn't understood! Here is what I have in the PBR Metallic Roughness section:

 

I have another question about the Cavity Texture of the tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0DhvFML7oM). I created the Curvature generator as shown in the tutorial, but nothing happen, I can't see any effect on the material. I first thoght that is was because I used a Substance Paiter texture instead of an actual map to obtain the skin pores, so I insterted the G8M default bump maps on my charater, but I still can't see any effect of the curvature generator. Could you help me, please?

   

   

I made a short video showing what happens when I hide and unhide the curvature generator, and we can see that nothong happen...

https://workupload.com/file/5ucmTQkYsry

Thank you in advance!

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

Do you mean that I should import the mesh whith only the body itself, without the eye and the mouth? Since I didn't wanted to work on them, I first imported the mesh to Blender, and i created a new material (that I called "skin") contianing only the part of the body that have actually a skin... Maybe there would be simpler to do?

Yes that is what I mean. Just export figure without any attachments. 

It is not the end of the world if you have them, Im just saying you dont need them.

I dont understand the point of going to blender for that. Without attachments, you can just export obj without Surfaces from Daz and everything will be on appropriate UDIM.

 

I tried other padding but I got other weird results. Do you mean I should change the nuber on the right-hand of the padding section?

I never said it needed to be changed. I said it looked fine.

If you want to change it, those padding options in your screenshot are how you can change it.

 

Also, by the way, you screenshotted your templates list but didnt show the template you had selected under 'Output Template'

Ah ok, I didn't understood! Here is what I have in the PBR Metallic Roughness section:

 

You have a Normal DirectX Converted Map plugged into your Normal Map.  Daz Studio uses OpenGL normal maps, so you should not be using a template with DirectX as ouput set up.  Your next question is going to be what to do next but honestly im not fully sure. I usually just use either the Normal channel or the Normal OpenGL in the Normal slot.  Just see which one gives you proper result.

 

lilweep

You dont need to export metallic and emissive for skin.  Did you even use those channels when texturing?

I would recommend setting up your own template and get the channels/maps you want exported instead of choosing some random default template for exporting maps. I assume you are going to come back with 100 questions about how to set up a template and so on and so forth so i should probably say now that it is too much effort to explain so you should read or watch tutorial on how to do because it is a bit technical.  If it was me, I would just use basic logical inferences to imitate the templates that exist when making my own.

 

Also you probably dont need 16bit png for a hieght map unless it is being used as displacement map, but up to you i guess.

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

 

 

I have another question about the Cavity Texture of the tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0DhvFML7oM). I created the Curvature generator as shown in the tutorial, but nothing happen, I can't see any effect on the material. I first thoght that is was because I used a Substance Paiter texture instead of an actual map to obtain the skin pores, so I insterted the G8M default bump maps on my charater, but I still can't see any effect of the curvature generator. Could you help me, please?

Im not watching an hour long video that isnt time stamped to the relevant seciton.

 

mesh maps are usually baked from highpoly models, and generators often use mesh maps.

Did you bake mesh maps from a high poly model? Probably not.

Do your baked mesh maps have any intersting details that could be used by a generator? Probably not.

Therefore, whatever part of that tutorial which is relevant (didnt watch it) would not apply.

RexRed

I think Daz Original artists make the best Gen 9 skin. How they do it? They might not be at liberty to say.

I wish Daz Original artists would make tutorials but then they might not have time to make us such great products.

RexRed

Just a hunch but I think the best skin may come from real photos. I also assume these real photos of someone's skin cost a lot to buy the rights to and they are tedious to apply to UVs.

My advice is to learn the best way to make skin (whatever that is) and not just any way.

There are a lot of skins out there that do not come up to good standards.

I assume that real samples eclipse something that is synthesized when it comes to "photo realism".

lilweep

RexRed said:

Just a hunch but I think the best skin may come from real photos. I also assume these real photos of someone's skin cost a lot to buy the rights

this is probably true if you want commercial rights to use on a daz charaacter which they may see as simply reselling their product. you would have to discuss with purveyor of said scans

to and they are tedious to apply to UVs.

this is not  at all true, it is trivial to move between UVs with something like faceform

lilweep

RexRed said:

I think Daz Original artists make the best Gen 9 skin. How they do it? 

you dont have to restrict your sights to daz skins. There's nothing special about daz figures that would mean any generic character creation tutorial aimed at other industry professionals or hobbyists could not be repurposed for daz figures.

Also, the makers of Michael 8.1 and Victoria 8.1 wrote a blog post on daz3d.com about their methods and it was just fairly generic using texturingxyz scans etc.

RexRed

lilweep said:

to and they are tedious to apply to UVs.

this is not  at all true, it is trivial to move between UVs with something like faceform

I have never done it before but doing behind and inside ears did not look easy and matching seams between different photos also seemed like it was not that easy.

But I am not talking from experience. If it can be done within a couple days work than that is actually very easy.  

lilweep

RexRed said:

lilweep said:

to and they are tedious to apply to UVs.

this is not  at all true, it is trivial to move between UVs with something like faceform

I have never done it before but doing behind and inside ears did not look easy and matching seams between different photos also seemed like it was not that easy.

But I am not talking from experience. If it can be done within a couple days work than that is actually very easy.  

You could wrap a full body scan in like 15 minutes with faceform. And it doesnt require any skill.

What you are clearly talking about is doing a more manual photo projection of head, ears, etc, with something like Substance Painter's projection.  I feel like hand and feet would be much more annoying than the face and ears when doing projection.  This would obviously take much longer than wrapping + texture transfer and require much more skill.

yuyu.atem

Thank you very much for all your answers, I will look at it! 

By the way, I have noticed that there is a cheaper version of Zbrush called Zbrush core (https://www.maxon.net/en/zbrushcore?srsltid=AfmBOoo3P1MtgqVXrCuRATmqNeO1l5aEGJZSDjjQIIS8-k2Xc4JgycL3). Do you know if it has tool to create high resolution character and skin as Zbrush has? Or if it is possible to export the Skin Detail Ressource alphas (https://www.daz3d.com/skin-detail-resource-4) into it to scumpt a character with them?

I  recently downloaded Zbrush core mini, which is free, to see how it works, and I searched for how to import alphas into it, but I have the impression that it is not possible to import any brush or alpa into Zbrush core mini...

lilweep said:

Im not watching an hour long video that isnt time stamped to the relevant seciton.

Oh, sorry, I forgot to give you the time, it starts around 24:05. It is the "Cavity Textures" section, the title of the sections is visible on the vidoe...

mesh maps are usually baked from highpoly models, and generators often use mesh maps.

Did you bake mesh maps from a high poly model? Probably not.

For now, I used the G8M default bump map. I thought that if I could not succeed to create cavity textures from an existing map, I couldn't succeed to do it from any baked map too, so I used the G8M bump map as training... Further, I have not the impression that there are more particular details on the tutorial character map than on the G8M bump map, and the effect of the generator is completlty visible on the tutorial...

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

Thank you very much for all your answers, I will look at it! 

By the way, I have noticed that there is a cheaper version of Zbrush called Zbrush core (https://www.maxon.net/en/zbrushcore?srsltid=AfmBOoo3P1MtgqVXrCuRATmqNeO1l5aEGJZSDjjQIIS8-k2Xc4JgycL3). Do you know if it has tool to create high resolution character and skin as Zbrush has? Or if it is possible to export the Skin Detail Ressource alphas (https://www.daz3d.com/skin-detail-resource-4) into it to scumpt a character with them?

I dont know, but Blender is free, so...

Oh, sorry, I forgot to give you the time, it starts around 24:05. It is the "Cavity Textures" section, the title of the sections is visible on the vidoe...

Okay, well i dont need to watch the video to know that what you are trying to do wont work.  Substance painter isnt psychic, it cant magically create detail in a baked mesh map that isnt on the low res or high res sculpt.  I assume he would be baking a mesh map from a high res sculpt onto a texture, i.e., he is taking all the high resolution detail like pores which were sculpted, and putting that into a texture so it can be used on the low res model.  I feel like ive said this a few times already.

For now, I used the G8M default bump map. I thought that if I could not succeed to create cavity textures from an existing map, I couldn't succeed to do it from any baked map too, so I used the G8M bump map as training... Further, I have not the impression that there are more particular details on the tutorial character map than on the G8M bump map, and the effect of the generator is completlty visible on the tutorial...

So you are using G8M bump in place of a baked cavity map for the generator?  If you think that is working, then you can proceed, just recognise G8M maps arent merchant resource. And im curious at what point are you going to just be recreating the G8M maps in the most roundabout way possible.

yuyu.atem

Thank you very much! I think I don't understand well yet. By dint of searching, I realized that I had no image imput in the curvature generator: I inserted the bump maps by dragging them to the mesh. I did that much before to create the genertor, I didn't understand that I had to add them in the image imputs section.

Now, I inserted the G8M bump map in the Curvature image imput, and I can see an effect, but I is very slight.Further, I don't understand how to use the other image imputs.

In the tutorial, it looks like everything happen automatically, I can't see the user insert the maps in the image imput section, so I don't understand why it is not automatic for me...

Further, probably I misunderstood how it works, but on the tutorial, we cas see that deep parts of the body, like nostrills, become dark when the curvature generator is activated. Does it mean that these parts were explicitely visible on his maps? Why do these parts not react to the generator on on my character? He are notrill too...

Thank you on advance.

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

Thank you very much! I think I don't understand well yet. By dint of searching, I realized that I had no image imput in the curvature generator: I inserted the bump maps by dragging them to the mesh. I did that much before to create the genertor, I didn't understand that I had to add them in the image imputs section.

Now, I inserted the G8M bump map in the Curvature image imput, and I can see an effect, but I is very slight.Further, I don't understand how to use the other image imputs.

In the tutorial, it looks like everything happen automatically, I can't see the user insert the maps in the image imput section, so I don't understand why it is not automatic for me...

Further, probably I misunderstood how it works, but on the tutorial, we cas see that deep parts of the body, like nostrills, become dark when the curvature generator is activated. Does it mean that these parts were explicitely visible on his maps? Why do these parts not react to the generator on on my character? He are notrill too...

Thank you on advance.

Clearly there is some misunderstanding taking place.  

Those maps are all autopopulated with mesh maps once you bake mesh maps. Generators often use mesh maps.

Early in the video he baked mesh maps. Dont you remember?

There is a section in Substance Painter called Bake Mesh Maps, where it can create all those maps like World Space NOrmals and Curvature maps etc automatically. Usually you do this first thing after creating your project.  I recall when watching that video earlier, it was one of the first things he did.  It is usally done with a highpoly highly detailed sculpt. But you can do them without a highres sculpt but there just isnt much point.

 Of course, you can bring external resources like bump maps into your project and plug those into the generator slots. You can do anything you want.

yuyu.atem

Ah, ok, I didn't understand the relationship between these two parts! In fact, I didn't understand the Bake Mesh Maps part because I did't find hox to do. Since the other parts of the tutorail semmed to work correctly, I continued and I indended to come back to this part later, but I complely forgot it...  I just tried, but I think there is still somthing that I don't understand. On the image imputs, I can see the maps, but there is no effect on the material, even nostrills aren't dark:

   

Fot the curvature map, I used these settings, sice i have a bump map but no normal map:

Though, it seemd there are varaition on the curature mode, so I con't understand why there is no effect on the materail mode:

Furtheremore, I have the impression that the bake was done only on the fisrt UV, because I can't see the torso, arm and leg UVs. How can i to make it to bake all all the UVs?

Thank you in advance for your help!

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

  I just tried, but I think there is still somthing that I don't understand. On the image imputs, I can see the maps, but there is no effect on the material, even nostrills aren't dark:

I have no idea what this image is supposed to be showing. I will assume it is supposed to show no effect, and what you expect to see is darkening like in the video you are referencing. Are your layers set up properly (not shown in screenshot).

Furtheremore, I have the impression that the bake was done only on the fisrt UV,

I have no idea what you mean - it would be helpful if you didnt severely crop all your screenshots. You only show the tiniest part of your screen and i have no idea what you are alooking at.  What i will say is that clearly the bake isnt on one UDIM because there is a giant 4 overlaid on those maps, which represents a 4 x UDIM set of textures

lilweep

Also.. with baking mesh maps, your curvature map is not even worth the time to bake.  It has no detail. And it never will have detail because you are not baking from a high poly highly detailed sculpt.

Repeating myself here, but Substance Painter is not psychic and it cannot invent from thin air that type of detail.  The point of baking mesh maps is that it gives you detail from a high poly sculpt on a texture map, so you can use it on your low poly characters, and feed into generators etc.  You can get some information in a mesh map without a highpoly sculpt, but it's not super valuable, for your purposes.

lilweep

Another thing, to avoid these artefacts (in attached), it can be better to bake mesh maps onto highly subdivided lowpoly mesh.

Having a highly subdivided lowpoly mesh in your project can slow down Substance Painter, so might be better to do the baking of mesh maps in separate projects. So: 1 project for baking mesh maps (with a highly subdivided lowpoly mesh), another project for painting (low subd low poly).  You could import the baked mesh maps into the other project.

yuyu.atem

Ah! I didn't realize that the settings that are used in the tutorial were'nt adapted in my case! I changes the settings especially by sitting the "fine" channel to 1 intead  the "sharp" channel, and it works much better, thank you ver much!  

lilweep said:

I have no idea wI have no idea what you mean - it would be helpful if you didnt severely crop all your screenshots. You only show the tiniest part of your screen and i have no idea what you are alooking at.  What i will say is that clearly the bake isnt on one UDIM because there is a giant 4 overlaid on those maps, which represents a 4 x UDIM set of textures

Ah, do you mean that even if I can see only one image, it is a set of 4 map, is it that? I am not familiarized with how work maps and baking in Substance Painter, as you could notice, so I didn't understand what the number on the image meant...

    

By the way, it seems there is a huge difference between the torso and the rest of the body; is there a way to fix it directly in Substance Painter or is it just due to the difference of texel density and it should be fixed by the InTheFlesh'item that use told me? I hadn't time to test it yet, I think I ill try it soom...

Thank you in advance for your answers!

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

Ah! I didn't realize that the settings that are used in the tutorial were'nt adapted in my case! I changes the settings especially by sitting the "fine" channel to 1 intead  the "sharp" channel, and it works much better, thank you ver much!  

That is never going to help you bake a detialed curvature map unless you have enough high resolution detail on your mesh to generate interesting curvature detail in a baked map.

lilweep said:

I have no idea wI have no idea what you mean - it would be helpful if you didnt severely crop all your screenshots. You only show the tiniest part of your screen and i have no idea what you are alooking at.  What i will say is that clearly the bake isnt on one UDIM because there is a giant 4 overlaid on those maps, which represents a 4 x UDIM set of textures

Ah, do you mean that even if I can see only one image, it is a set of 4 map, is it that? I am not familiarized with how work maps and baking in Substance Painter, as you could notice, so I didn't understand what the number on the image meant...

Yes, the number overlaid tells you how many UDIM textures there are.

If you want to import a set of textures in this format, e.g., you said before you importanted bump maps from G8M, then you have to label the texture map file like so before you import them:

Bump_1001, Bump_1002, Bump_1003, etc. 

This way Substance will know to import them as a set of UDIM textures.  I shudder to think how you have imported them so far.

   By the way, it seems there is a huge difference between the torso and the rest of the body; is there a way to fix it directly in Substance Painter

Sorry but im not going to help if you crop the screenshots that much.  It could be your layers not set up properly, which you cropped from screenshot. 

or is it just due to the difference of texel density and it should be fixed by the InTheFlesh'item that use told me? I hadn't time to test it yet, I think I ill try it soom...

Thank you in advance for your answers!

It's very likely nothing to do with that.

yuyu.atem

lilweep said:

That is never going to help you bake a detialed curvature map unless you have enough high resolution detail on your mesh to generate interesting curvature detail in a baked map.

Oh, no, no, of course! I am not teilling thet I had inexisting detials that magically appear! I am just telling that now, parts like nostrill and ears are darken correctly. I worried about these parts didn't react to the curvature generator, but now, they react.

Yes, the number overlaid tells you how many UDIM textures there are.

If you want to import a set of textures in this format, e.g., you said before you importanted bump maps from G8M, then you have to label the texture map file like so before you import them:

Bump_1001, Bump_1002, Bump_1003, etc. 

This way Substance will know to import them as a set of UDIM textures.  I shudder to think how you have imported them so far.

Thank you very much, I will try! For now, I imported them from their DS directory, without changing enything, and to make them act on the character, I just dragged them on it. I guess it is not the best way at all... 

Sorry but im not going to help if you crop the screenshots that much.  It could be your layers not set up properly, which you cropped from screenshot. 

Ah ok, sorry about that! I am not sure of what you need, so I restarted the carvature bake from zero in a new file and I made a video of what I did. I hope it will be helpfull...

https://workupload.com/file/yvSpF5Z85NP

lilweep

turn off auto tone mapping per uv tile - you will have to play with the min max numbers: https://community.adobe.com/t5/substance-3d-painter-discussions/bake-curvature-udim/td-p/12550691

yuyu.atem

Ah thank you very much, it perfectly works, now! 

 

I am now working on the lips and I wonder, when I am working without material group, is there a way to select only the lips to be sure to don't paint on the rest of the face?

Thank you in adavance!

lilweep

yuyu.atem said:

Ah thank you very much, it perfectly works, now! 

 

I am now working on the lips and I wonder, when I am working without material group, is there a way to select only the lips to be sure to don't paint on the rest of the face?

Thank you in adavance!

Only with a mask on whatever paint layer/fill layer you are using

yuyu.atem

Thank you very much! And is it needed to paint this mask with the hand, or is it possible to create this mask in anotherfile with the material groups on the character (to easily select the lip group), and to export this mask to the file without material group?

lilweep

Since you are asking very ludicrous questions, you should really just invest your time wisely and watch hours of tutorials on Substance Painter basics to get a sense of how basic things are done.  In the time it took you to type that you could have easily masked it by hand since it is something that tikes 30  seconds to mask lips.

In general, you could import masks if absolutely needed.

There is also a polygon fill paint brush in Substance to assist with rapidly painting geometry- it will fill the geometry you paint over.  https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-painter/painting/tool-list/polygon-fill.html

 

yuyu.atem

Hi! I am trying to sculpt a skin by using Blender and the alphas from the Skin Deteil Rressource 4 (https://www.daz3d.com/skin-detail-resource-4), and sometimes, when I am sculpting close to a part where I had already sculpted, there is like an overlapping (I don't know how to call that), and it creates waves on the skin, that is not pretty beatifull neither realistic...

   

It's the first time that I try to sculpt a skin, so I wonder if there exists a way to avoid this "wave effect". Maybe in the technic of sculpting or the sense of tracing? Doese there exist some technic or "trick" to avoid it?

I also made a short video showing how I am sculpting the cheek in case it would be usefull:

https://workupload.com/file/v8TXZjfC3As

Thank you in advance for your advince!