Female Bust

[Mathaeus]

Hi,

but this one, seems to work nicely. It's a bit lighter kH Follow NURBS that allows up to eight inputs - there is 'Repeat with Counter' node from Phil Pack inside.
Only what is important, it's to fill inputs in order, like A,B,C, not A,D,E... Compound will repeat itself, according to number of plugged NURBS surfaces.

The rest is similar to single kH Follow NURBS, every next plugged NURBS surface has a precedence, it will 'eat' inputs bellow, if they overlap. Next compound in the stack will work in the same way. ' Is active ' output is there if you want to isolate effect of compound, for example modifiers later in the stack, or delete points that aren't affected.

There are three parameters that limits the effect of kH Follow NURBS:
- Cutoff Distance to emitter - keep it small for better performance
- Angle between emitter's normal and direction to closest location on NURBS surfaces - keep this 'Angle Limit' small for better look
- Closest location on U (X) of NURBS surface, just play with this to see what's happen.

Compound is designed to work together with all kH nodes.

I've also changed kH Emit Guides a bit, calculation of initial Up Vectors is simplified ( you won't need them there, kH Follow NURBS takes care of that), so it should be faster for now.

I'm planning to put these additions/fixes into the small update, somewhere in plug-in thread, one day.

Cheers

[kali]

Helo, izze! i like your head, can you up, Maps SSS Shader, to see?
I'm doing my head, and I have some doubts with some maps, thanks!

[izze]

Thanks Mathaeus. These are all so very handy. I am finishing up a hairstyle that I hope to have rendered by Monday. I am currently at 42 point clouds! Really its not to slow. It is manageable. I have one more hair style that I need to finish for a project at work, and I plan to use the plugins the way they were meant to be used on that one. Your updates are very helpful.

Kali, here is some information on how I set up the skin shader. I paint all my maps separately. Then combine and color adjust in XSI. The lighting is very, very important to getting good results from the shader as well. Also make sure there is something for the skin to reflect in the scene. Be sure to use Photographic Exposure as well. That's all I can think of right now. Just let me know if you want more specific info. Larger image is HERE

[Hirazi Blue]

Wow, that's a nice and thorough "one image tutorial"!
Thanks...

PS Do you paint in 2D or 3D?

[kali]

wow has served me well, thank you very much!, if not too much to ask could see the configuration of the specular and some light? thanks

[shushens]

I would like to say something about the shading though. When I see the render of the girl (full body), seems like exposure control has been too overpowering. The natural feel of light that I see in your bust render is not really present in that one. I think you should kill the lens shader and try with photometric lights once more. I am well aware that advising against exposure control is considered very amateurish these days, but it has given me a lot of great results in the past, so I have reason to trust in the old school methods

As soon as you brighten up the light source as if she was actually lying under a fairly strong area light, a lot of skin shading issues will be revealed that are not being properly seen now.

Click here: Warning - Nudity

In this image probably Lee has used exposure control, but it is not as overpowering as it is in your body render. A lot of contrast is showing. And that contrast is helping us to see where scattering is happening where light would not reach if this was an wooden statue.

[Hirazi Blue]

Some credits (and probably a nudity warning, which I added) would have been nice!!!

[izze]

Hey Hirazi, I always use Zbrush for my painting of organic surfaces. Zapplink and 3dsk for this bust model.

Kali, I think you are asking for a spec pass?


Shushens, I was playing with turning on Gamma for textures in the Color Management settings, but have to agree, it really blows out the image. I no longer have them turned on. I still rely heavily on photographic exposure though.

Lee does some top notch studio lighting. I am still learning how to get this type of setup. For my renders, I reached for an outdoors/ambient lighting. I have been working on the lighting, and think it might be more to what you are looking for. I am still learning how to light correctly, so I enjoy the feedback.

[shushens]

The tone is more skin-like now. But the lighting condition is kind of strange. For outdoor lighting, even for overcast sky, the source has to be a lot brighter. There will be large dull highlights on the skin. Probably you have killed all overexposures, that's why it is not showing. Are you using HDRI and PhysicalSun? If not, give it a shot. Turn down the intensity of the sun a lot so that you don't need tonemapping right off the bat. When the result is presentable intensitywise, render EXR and do the fine tuning in Fusion/Nuke.

Hirazi, I sincerely beg your pardon. I completely forgot about the nudity warning thing. I thought for artistic renders the issue of nudity is disregarded. Sorry again.

For those who are wondering, the renders are done by Lee Perry Smith, whose talent in human skin shading requires no introduction.

[Hirazi Blue]

No problem, I think the solution was simple in this case.
The whole "artistic nudity" discussion is one I'm expressly trying to avoid here. I myself am not easily offended, but we're trying to maintain a community that tries to take worldwide tastes and preferences into account.

BTW - @izze - maybe "we" should open a new thread for your new WIP...

[shushens]

Thanks man!

I wish I could do some skin shading here parallelly. But I am not being able to find time to put together a topologically good model. Still stuck at the head. Shall I start posting it here and making a trial and error based effort here? Will you give me a hand, izze?

[Hirazi Blue]

Just go for it!!!

[izze]

shushens, I think it would be fun to work on topology with you. I have been using the same base mesh for about three years now. Every project I would update the topology (from lessons learned on each project) until I was satisfied with it. Now I just re use that mesh for every project I start. it's not the best in the world for sure, but it works great for me.

Per your advice....I will turn on physical sky and FG see what results I can come up with on my posed model. And then start a new thread, Hirazi

Cheers!