TC wrote:

> Stunning picture. Great work of art.
> 
> Don't take nemesis's post to heart - he tries to live up to his nickname ;-) 
> I did not even notice anything wrong about the ear before he pointed it 
> out - in fact I did not notice the ear at all because the picture is this 
> perfect and lifelike. And IMO especially the eyes are captivating.
> 
> All I can say is: WOW!
> 

No problem, I asked for criticism, I got it and I agree with it. But off 
course your positive feedback is also much appreciated, so thank you ;)

-Ive

Post a reply to this message

nemesis wrote:
> Ive <"ive### [at] lilysoftorg"> wrote:
>> Here is my latest attempt: media based SSS and lot's of pigment_patterns
>> (for non uniform specularity and transparency), also the makeup is not a
>> pre-painted texture but created by various pigment_pattern maps that are
>> combined within POV-Ray and are made with the help of a friend of mine
>> who is makeup-artist at our local opera house.
> 
> procedural makeup.  Now I've seen everything...
> 
>> I had hoped it would turn out better but at least it is different to the
>> effect seen by most professional renderer as most people seem to use the
>> same skin shader there that gives this overdone and waxy look.
> 
> The skin is very well-done, except perhaps for the ear. 

Yes, there is something wrong with the ear and it seems to me there is 
no SSS happening at all. I might have messed something up with the uv- 
mapping and will check this out.


> But why not pov's new SSS feature?

This was my first idea, but it is in an early alpha stage and not 
working for anything that is more complicated than a simple wax candle 
and a point light. E.g. it does not work if *any* partially or fully 
transparent textured object is involved (like the hair, eyebrows and 
eyelids within this image). It also does not work when the light-source 
does contain a looks_like statement or the SSS object multi-layered 
textures.


> Hair could get a bit of an overhaul.

I'm quite satisfied with the hair and I tell you why: within almost all 
images from the "pros" I've seen so far the hair is either completely 
cut & paste from a real photo or at least heavily post-processed within 
photoshop.
I'm not a POV purist but I would like to have the hair rendered within 
POV-Ray and for what I see there are just two minor problems, the 
transparency map needs a bit more work at the forehead and the 
bangs/strands should be formed like a cross and not be just a plane (if 
you know what I mean) and both issues are quite easy to solve.


> I also believe some catch lights would do wonders for the eyes.
> 
Sure, but this is not a "beauty-shot", its only a skin test and not much 
more. The Chinese room and its lighting was already made for the TINA 
CHeP competition at
http://www.tc-rtc.co.uk/
and I simply did put the poser girl into various interior scenes I have 
done over the years to see how realistic the skin will look under 
different lighting conditions without adjusting anything else. In this 
case it just happened that there is just a wall paneled with almost 
black wood to be reflected in the eyes and this is the most unfortunate 
object to create a lively reflection ;)

thanks for the input
-Ive

Post a reply to this message

Rick Gutleber wrote:
> I think Nemesis' criticisms were spot-on.  The ear looked weird to me 
> too.  I think the strong light makes it look too washed out. And 
> although I didn't realize why, I also thought the eyes looked rather 
> lifeless.  I think her hair looks fine, though.
> 
> This is a fine piece of work and a real accomplishment, but it's not 
> perfect.  Don't let a little constructive criticism get you down.

No problem, I did post it to *get* some criticism, especially about the 
look of the skin. See my reply to nemesis for more details.


> The only criticism I have about the feather is that it doesn't seem to 
> go with the style of her outfit.  The shadow highlights the outline of 
> her face for what it's worth.
> 
> In any event this is a great picture.
> 

thank you
-Ive

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Rick Gutleber wrote:
>> I also thought the eyes looked rather lifeless.  
> 
> I did too, although I attributed it to the 1000-league stare. 

I've learned a new expression ;)

> Swivel the 
> eyeballs to point at the camera, as if there's actually a brain back 
> there in control, and it might look better.
> 
Are you insulting my girl? Then stand up and fight like a man!

>> In any event this is a great picture.
> 
> Seconded.
> 

thanks
-Ive

Post a reply to this message

Jaime Vives Piqueres wrote:

>   Great work, and very well researched as usual!
thank you!

>   Yes, your skin texture is really different, and more convincing than 99%
> I've seen... I too was thinking there was something a little wrong with it,
> but then, when I opened a newsreader window to write this message, the 
> upper
> half of the image got hidden, and suddenly the image looked like a photo:
> the skin looks beautiful, and the lips are just so real... the lower 
> part of
> the nose is also really convincing. So I think there is a problem with the
> eyes zone, but I can't say exactly what it is... Perhaps is the makeup 
> layer
> which is somehow occluding the SSS efect?
> 
This is very interesting and it is indeed very helpful to just look at 
parts of the face instead of the whole. Great suggestion!
And your mentioning of the lips brings something to my mind that was 
already rumbling back in my head somewhere.
The "lipstick-layer" uses fresnel reflection and no specular/phong 
highlights and I think to better model the oiliness of the skin there is 
also a fresnel falloff needed for the highlights. As this is not 
possible with specular some *real* reflection with a good normal should 
do the trick and would also work with radiosity-only lit scenes (or 
MCPov). Well, render time will sky rocket but lets see...

thanks for the input
-Ive

Post a reply to this message

Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Like Kenneth, I am interested in knowing how you applied your technique. It 
> sounds like fully procedural for creating the textures, but I imagine that 
> the final run is uv-mapped on the figure?
> 

Basically it is fairly simple and it is just about creating a stack of
partial transparent textures.
And for each of these texture the various properties (pigment & finish)
of the skin are controlled by uv_mapped grayscale images used within
pigment_pattern statements.
This technique to control not only the pigment but also apply variations 
within the finish is around since many within these newsgroups.

In case SSS is used even the ground layer is not fully opaque but e.g.
P_Face is based on an uv-mapped pigment_pattern "pigment" where the used
grayscale image should represent the distance of the scull bones from
the surface in the same way as a specularity map represents the oiliness
of a specific part of the skin.

The basic pigment might be one of the usual image maps for poser people
or it can be just procedural to add some freckles or it can be again a
pigment_pattern where the grayscale image represents e.g. brightness
variations or freckles.
The skin of the "Chinese lady" does not use any "image"-map at all.


#declare SkinColor    = <0.6, 0.5, 0.33>;
#declare SkinOiliness = 0.3;
#declare ...


#declare PP_Head = pigment{image_map{png "HeadBaseSkin" interpolate 2}}
#declare S_Head  = pigment{image_map{png "HeadBaseSpec" interpolate 2}}

#local C_Face_0 = rgb SkinColor * 1.05;
#local C_Face_1 = rgb SkinColor * 0.95;


#local P_Face = pigment {
   pigment_pattern {uv_mapping PP_Head}
   pigment_map {
     [0 C_Face_0 transmit 0.1]
     [1 C_Face_0 transmit 0.3]
   }
}

#local F_Skin_S0 = finish {
   ambient 0  diffuse 1
   specular 0.01 roughness 0.11
   phong 0.01  phong_size 2
   brilliance 1
}

#local F_Skin_S1 = finish {
   ambient 0  diffuse 1 - 0.1 * SkinOil
   specular 0.01 + 0.75 * SkinOil roughness 0.06
   phong 0.01+0.5*MyLin_SkinOil  phong_size 5
   metallic 0.4 brilliance 1.05
}

#local T_Face_S0 = texture {
   pigment {P_Face}
   normal {N_Face}
   finish {F_Skin_S0}
}

#local T_Head_S1 = texture {
   pigment {P_Face}
   normal {N_Face}
   finish {F_Skin_S1}
}


When the pigment_pattern statements are nested into depth the placement
of the uv_mapping statement is important as otherwise POV-Ray claims
that it "cannot layer over a patterned texture" even if it obviously can
- in this case.


#local M_Head = material {
   texture {
     pigment_pattern {uv_mapping S_Head}
     texture_map{
       [0 T_Head_S0]
       [1 T_Head_S1]
     }
   }
}

#declare M_Face = material {
   texture {T_Head}
   texture {T_MakeupGround)
   texture {T_MakeupRouge}
   texture {T_MakeupEyeliner}
   texture {T_MakeupLipstick}
   ...
   // for SSS
   interior {
     media {
       scattering...
     }
   }
}

to give you an idea but this is just out of my head as I'm not at home 
and in fact the source itself is really a mess as I'm currently just 
experimenting and testing. My final goal is to have full parametrized
control over the skin appearance only by declaring a for a few variables 
(or by using a macro) like e.g.

#declare SkinColor    = ...
#declare SkinTone     = ...
#declare SkinAge      = ...
#declare SkinFreckles = ...
#declare SkinOil      = ...

and then just applying the generated M_Face, M_Torso, M_Limbs and so on 
materials to the poser figure body parts.

hope this helps

-Ive

Post a reply to this message

Kenneth wrote:
> Really beautiful across the board, in lightng/texturing/composition.  Reminds me
> of your equally-stunning "Myrna Loy in Technicolor" image from awhile back (one
> of my favorite POV images.) The girl's dress pattern is quite nicely done as
> well.
> 
thank you

> How did you 'apply' or use all of those skin pigment patterns you speak of?  Was
> it done using uv_mapping? (Sorry to ask such a simplistic question--I'm *still*
> not familiar with that technique.) Or is it a procedural technique? (Or both?!)

see my reply to Thomas for a bit of explanation.

> I tend to agree with nemesis--a little bit of glint in the eye would be nice. In
> many behind-the-scene photos of 'old Hollywood', you can see a small light
> attached to the motion-picture camera, usually above it, to get just such an
> effect in an actress's eyes, especially in close-ups.
> 
Yes, I know and meanwhile I do regret that I did not put a little bit 
more work into such details but this was just a test for the skin and I 
didn't care much about other things. Sorry.

-Ive

Post a reply to this message

If and when you have some free time, it would be nice if you could write 
down some kind of tutorial about all this.... It would be highly appreciated 
by the Poser freaks in this community :)

Thomas

Post a reply to this message

"Thomas de Groot" <tDOTdegroot@interDOTnlANOTHERDOTnet> schreef in bericht 
news:4b2899b3$1@news.povray.org...
> If and when you have some free time, it would be nice if you could write 
> down some kind of tutorial about all this.... It would be highly 
> appreciated by the Poser freaks in this community :)

Ah! Just read your answer to my message below! I shall have to study that. 
Thanks.

Thomas

Post a reply to this message

Ive <"ive### [at] lilysoftorg"> wrote:

> Basically it is fairly simple and it is just about creating a stack of
> partial transparent textures.
> And for each of these texture the various properties (pigment & finish)
> of the skin are controlled by uv_mapped grayscale images used within
> pigment_pattern statements.

Thanks much for your detailed explanation.  I need to really study this to fully
understand it--a good exercise for my ol' brain, as your technique seems to be a
very powerful one, with many uses. Some of it I grasp immediately, which is a
good start!

Ken

Post a reply to this message