Softimage and good skin renders

General discussion about 3D DCC and other topics
renisancex
Posts: 30
Joined: 06 Jul 2009, 16:48
Contact:

Softimage and good skin renders

Post by renisancex » 07 Jan 2011, 01:38

Hi

I have been wondering and scurrying the net to see if i could find good examples of realistic skin rendered out of softimage. They are some fantastic artists doing great work in softimage However there appears to be a disparity between the skin shading quality coming out of softimage versus renders I have seen done in other packages.


If you have any good examples please feel free to post them in your reply

NNois
Posts: 754
Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 20:33

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by NNois » 07 Jan 2011, 09:27

a bit out of the context but, just for the eyes, rendered out of softimage with the arnold renderer
http://www.ir-ltd.net/royalty-free-high-quality-scan/

renisancex
Posts: 30
Joined: 06 Jul 2009, 16:48
Contact:

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by renisancex » 07 Jan 2011, 15:13

thanx for the example unfortunately arnold is not available to the masses yet AFAIK

User avatar
origin
Posts: 619
Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 11:59
Location: warsaw

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by origin » 07 Jan 2011, 18:42

there are come on cgtalk/choice gallery (misss fast). But of course most come from 3ds max.

User avatar
3DTutorial
Posts: 52
Joined: 12 Sep 2009, 21:59
Location: New Jersey, USA

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by 3DTutorial » 07 Jan 2011, 23:56

I can think of many good examples of human skin created and rendered in XSI over at least the past 5 or 6 years. Most of them were posted on xsibase although it's unlikely that many of the images would still be available now, not to mention the fact that searching for anything on xsibase is pretty much futile.

The other issue of course is that in very few cases has anyone ever been willing to share the specifics of their human skin shaders, scenes or lighting setups which is a shame.

The topic of human skin is of particular interest to me and following developments with it has been something of an obsession of mine over the years. All I can tell you is that yes, there have been good examples done with Softimage and it certainly is possible achieve.

Cheers,

Joe
Certified Softimage Instructor & Old Timer
Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/JoeSaltzman

renisancex
Posts: 30
Joined: 06 Jul 2009, 16:48
Contact:

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by renisancex » 08 Jan 2011, 00:02

We have a project in development that will require alot of skin shading and we love xsi. However it seems to be lacking in the area of skin shading compared to maya and max as far an mental ray rendering goes. Although its the same renderer which is weird imo. I am basing this on results i have seen just googling and browsing around the net and popular cg forums. We have been also looking at vray which is looking pretty impressive.

User avatar
3DTutorial
Posts: 52
Joined: 12 Sep 2009, 21:59
Location: New Jersey, USA

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by 3DTutorial » 08 Jan 2011, 00:09

renisancex wrote:We have a project in development that will require alot of skin shading and we love xsi. However it seems to be lacking in the area of skin shading compared to maya and max as far an mental ray rendering goes. Although its the same renderer which is weird imo. I am basing this on results i have seen just googling and browsing around the net and popular cg forums. We have been also looking at vray which is looking pretty impressive.

It might seem that way only because more Max and Maya people tend to share much more but the truth is that there is no real difference anything that you can do with Max or Maya can be done with Softimage.

Again, Softimage users have as long as I can remember (which is a long time) been very bad about posting images.

Good skin quality skin can certainly be achieved with mental ray, Softimage and some knowledge.

Cheers,

Joe
Certified Softimage Instructor & Old Timer
Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/JoeSaltzman

User avatar
Mathaeus
Posts: 1778
Joined: 08 Jun 2009, 21:11
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Contact:

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by Mathaeus » 08 Jan 2011, 00:17

renisancex wrote:We have a project in development that will require alot of skin shading and we love xsi. However it seems to be lacking in the area of skin shading compared to maya and max as far an mental ray rendering goes. Although its the same renderer which is weird imo. I am basing this on results i have seen just googling and browsing around the net and popular cg forums. We have been also looking at vray which is looking pretty impressive.
From public available renderers, probably most 'accurate' skin shader is 3dLight's one. AFAIK it's based on (relative) 'physicaly plausible' method, and it considers ' subsurface groups' as well (it's able to avoid internal surfaces that you don't want to scatter, such as eyeholes, mouth, etc.). Check out for examples, here, and here.

From out-of-the-box stuff, it's the same mi_SSS_Skin as in other two Autodesk's 3d app - based on 'cheap trics' (blurred diffuse shading + biased gamma + back translucency, something like that). You probably know that words 'epidermal, subdermal' in PPG of this shader, are nothing more than just words. I think it's really hard to talk of 'quality' of this solution, as it can look great sometimes, but also completely wrong - anywhere.
Generally, it's possible to get the similar effect, using ICE on vertex colors...

Fact is that Softimage implementation, sometimes, has a few problems more ('double additive' in mi_sss_skin compound, at least sometime around XSI 7), but there are also a lot of fixes/improvements by Softimage community.

It seems to me, there were more of human skin renders a while ago, in times of XSI 4, 5, especially using a famous Diffusion shader by Daniel Rind. Who knows.. maybe authors were found their jobs in meantime. Where I works, last time I saw the demand for realistic portraits, it was done by Photoshop guy in fraction of time needed for 3d version (It was a bunch of portraits of heroes for video games). If you want to animate it, realism became a problem, you have to add the correct motion to every damn wrinkle or whatever... In big productions, you'll already have a help of TDs...

User avatar
Rez007
Posts: 609
Joined: 12 Jan 2010, 15:51
Location: Nevada
Contact:

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by Rez007 » 08 Jan 2011, 15:39

I don't know exactly the qulaity that you are looking for, but if you need some information the link below might help. The information is older, but knowledge never hurts. You might be able to find something in the link that may be useful.

http://www.mentalimages.com/fileadmin/u ... F/skin.pdf

User avatar
origin
Posts: 619
Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 11:59
Location: warsaw

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by origin » 08 Jan 2011, 16:29

NNois wrote:a bit out of the context but, just for the eyes, rendered out of softimage with the arnold renderer
http://www.ir-ltd.net/royalty-free-high-quality-scan/
probably best skin I've ever seen. So this example shows that shader is only part of success. Model with (ultra)detail and textures are probably more important.
At least it's working in multiple light conditions, and it doesn't look like a wax model like 90% of cgtalk choice award images.
It seems that everyone loves to exaggerate sss effect.

User avatar
Maximus
Posts: 1103
Joined: 09 Jun 2009, 15:45

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by Maximus » 08 Jan 2011, 19:48

If you want to try Daniel's Rind Diffusion shader you can find it here http://www.rray.de/xsi/

Pooby
Posts: 501
Joined: 27 Aug 2010, 22:25

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by Pooby » 08 Jan 2011, 23:24

Lee is pretty smitten with Arnold and it's skin shader. The shader does make a big difference.

http://www.cgfeedback.com/cgfeedback/sh ... .php?t=751

This is worth taking a look at. Its the same head model and textures rendered with lots of different shaders and renderers.

User avatar
Mathaeus
Posts: 1778
Joined: 08 Jun 2009, 21:11
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Contact:

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by Mathaeus » 09 Jan 2011, 03:12

Pooby wrote:The shader does make a big difference.
Of course it makes difference, it's visible how mi_sss_skin tends to look 'monochrome'. Correct shader is neccesary component, together with textures and geometry. One bad component can destroy everything - all three are important...

renisancex
Posts: 30
Joined: 06 Jul 2009, 16:48
Contact:

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by renisancex » 10 Jan 2011, 19:03

Thanks guys


Yes it was evident to us that there seems to be a different implementation within the softimage version. Even when using the mental ray phen version in xsi 2011.5 it gives you different results compared to the softimage Fast skin

Thansk for the cgtalk thread some of the images there are pretty well done.

User avatar
dwigfor
Posts: 395
Joined: 17 Nov 2009, 17:46

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by dwigfor » 10 Jan 2011, 22:32

This was rendered in 3Delight by Kissb (xsibase); I think it's outstanding!

Image
http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php? ... 6;start=15

User avatar
Cacoman
Posts: 81
Joined: 02 Aug 2010, 23:11

Re: Softimage and good skin renders

Post by Cacoman » 26 Apr 2011, 03:44

Well I think we would never see Arnold for mortals. Even their website is on construction. Perhaps if we "mortals" gather to make a full animated 3d feature film in SI we can take a test drive. Someone who is interested in putting some bucks on it?

But never mind the world is ending in 2012 as the Mayans said...

The only thing I really hate about MR in Softimage is FG in an animation sequence. If some one can tell me how to get the goddamned flickering in some scenes when the camera is moving with descent settings. I am tired of appending points to the map, freezing it, increasing the rays, turning my chair 2 times to the left then 3 times to the right. Pulling out my hair... It is still there... b-(
To create something that does not exist, to exist.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 26 guests