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Some personal thoughts on the examples in my large G3 comparison above. Let me know what you think if you have time.
Bethany 7 is a decent texture, lip specular needs fixing though.
Ceridwen's eyes are really detailed, but the skin could probably benefit from better SSS and maybe some Skin Builder details.
Disappointing how similar Elisse and Hannah are, I do like Elisse's face morph though.
Joline has some nice details, but I have no idea what's going on with her nose. Crazy normals or intentional?
I like Lien's eyelashes and it's a pretty good Asian morph too.
Marianne is a good very pale texture, but those starburst eyelashes may have to go. ;)
I think Olympia looks too pink by default, but I really need to check and see if she has a custom SSS map that lets more light in on the ears, hands, and such than on thick skin. That could be very useful on other characters.
Tara has good eyes, need to try the other colors.
Are Victoria 7's earlobes supposed to be that crinkly?
G3 male renders are done (I only have a few of them), working on G8 male renders now)
Well now my already expensive cart has Ceridwen, Lien, Phoenix and Song added to it as well as a few other Saiyaness characters. If anyone in charge of what goes on sale wouldn't mind poking through my cart and discounting the fully priced stuff and bring back the discount for "Everyday" items from Maclean until tomorrow, I would be a happy boi. Thanks
Haha, hope they go on sale soon. :) Ceridwen comes with some very nice fantasy skins and it's a texture that I hope to be able to try and tinker more with in the future.
I did the G3 and G8 Males (will be assembled soon) and am working on the G8 Females now...I'll be honest though, a lot of them aren't really impressing me. Official DAZ characters seem to be the most reliable safe bets, but I hope someone will use my render settings and show me some examples of textures that I don't have. You can never really tell when everyone else is using different lights and such, which is partly why I'm doing this.
I figured I'd add my contribution for Victoria 8. It's the first time I've worked with her skin and I think it's a good first attempt. I've been playing around with skin for a while trying to get more photoreal results and what I've learned is that there really isn't one setting that works across the board for all skin types and lighting situations. I'll find some settings that work wonderful for one scene that oftentimes need to be tweaked after a lighting change. However, there are a couple consistencies I've noticed pretty much across the board. G8 skins contain virtually no subsurface data. Yes, there are SSS maps, but they are often enough just lightened copies of the color map. Sometimes there are added veins but there is so much more to looking -through- skin than veins. That...fleshiness...I guess that is the word...is missing. Here are the changes I've worked up for Victoria 8 -
Color Map - unmodified
SSS Map - blended in Photoshop with Victoria 7 for Victoria 8 SSS map as well as blood vessel maps found on DeviantArt (obviously this is for my own use)(Victoria 7 for Victoria 8 maps are just Vicky 7's translated to the base G8 UV map so they match up perfectly)(I didn't touch any SSS colors as that's largely personal preference and will vary depending on end-user needs)
Specular Map - unmodified
Bump Map - unmodified (overall bump turned down)
Normal Map - all but removed (dropped down to .25)
Displacement Map - this was created in Photoshop by blending the bump map with the normal map and creating a height map (this would largely take the place of the use of normal mapping and is much more realistic as it reacts to light rather than using fake baked shading)(note that displacement will add to render times)
Top Coat - used specular map here
HD Add-On - set to 200% (SubD 4)
Eyes - I swapped in one of Muosso's eyes (I believe it was from Sylvian) and then I just manually added back V8's iris textures (in shaping I also added Corneal Bulge to 100% and Natural Eyes HD Iris to 100%)
In my example render, I used the same HDRI as the OP with the same dome settings. Tone Mapping was default. I don't use spectral rendering as I've never grown to appreciate the look (everything looks dulled down to me, but that's just my own artistic choice). Render time was approximately 25min on my 1080TI @ 2000px which felt long, but that displacement and HD Add-On are heavy...they really wouldn't be needed for something other than a closeup. The biggest takeaway is SSS. That's the key. And that's what 90% of the skins out there on the marketplace are missing. Individual desired results will of course vary depending on what look the end-user is going for.
*Note that I did not modify anything but her head, so for the neck area you can see the contrast to the out-of-the-box skin*
*Edit* I went ahead and tried a spectral render with some tweaked SSS values (.4 Transmitted Measurement Distance and .08 Scattering Measurement Distance) and changed the Base Color Effect to Scatter and Transmit Intensity. Really digging it.
Thank you Melissa for the detailed settings and explanation. :) So you combined the blood vessel maps (the AJ ones for V4-G2?) with the SSS map in Photoshop? There's an Asian artist on dA that also combined them with Skin Builder maps and other odd textures that no one else can track down to make a very realistic skin. I do know that adding Skin Builder's detail maps on top of an existing texture can make quite a difference.
They're actually the ones from here. (The person notes that they did not create them, and sadly I have no idea who did...but I don't sell any textures I use so I only use them in my own artwork.) To create my own SSS maps, I take the Color map and Vicky 7 for Vicky 8's SSS map along with the blood vessel map and set each to varying transparencies over the Color map in Photoshop. Transparencies vary by character, but I use this same technique for all characters I've worked on, even the boys. (Some blending is needed to make the maps fit with the male UV map, especially when you get to the torso and arms.)
I've played around with some of Skin Builder's stuff but haven't gotten too heavily into it. So far I've mainly just played with the freckles. I do blend a lot of Daz skins into other skins to build them out and add in more detail. G3 skins for the most part, in particular Vicky 7, Olympia 7, and Monique 7 are all wonderful resource bases. I have a couple custom characters who use complete and total "frankenskins" as I call them, lol.
I've attached an example of a "frankenskin" that is a combination of Monique 7 and Monique 8 with custom blended SSS maps (she's using the Monique 7 UV map on a custom G8 figure). Unlike Victoria 8 above, she's using the old glossy reflectivity rather than dual-lobe. I tried both, but couldn't manage to get the details to pop as much with the latter...that and the skin had hotter highlights. I also opened up the original scene file to play with spectral rendering and I got it close, but I couldn't get it to look quite as good. Lastly, I tried out the same technique I used for Victoria 8 to create displacement maps (as above) and it didn't work out. Just goes to show how different skins need to be treated differently and sometimes even the same skin needs to be treated differently in different lighting/scene situations.