Specific Request for more realistic character models - Fiber mesh eyebrows and eyelashes
linvanchene
Posts: 1,386
While browsing the Zbrush Central I just stumbled upon an extremely realistic portrait created by jwillust
Portrait of Syliva
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?191358-Portrait-of-Sylvia
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What inspried me was that the artist showed in detail how he achieved that kind of realism.
While some parts of the mesh certainly are extremely high resolution there are some elements that I would hope to see more as well on characters released in the DAZ store.
- real fiber mesh eye lashes
The good old transparency maps were very funny for a quite a long time. Now its time to say goodbye and start to create realistic fiber mesh eyelashes.
What currently could be done for Genesis 2 based characters may be to hide the geometry used for transparency map lashes and add unique fiber mesh eyelashes custom designed for specific character shapes.
For Genesis 3 based characters an advanced option would be to include fiber hair eye lashes by default with many morph presets to create unique looking variations.
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- real fiber mesh eye brows
For models standing in the background the painted on eyebrows certainly will do the trick.
But whenever we render out images at 3840x2160 or even larger the painted on eye brows just destroy the illusion.
For female characters you may still get away with it. Many models actually paint on fake eyebrows.
Nevertheless for male characters those painted on eye brows just destroy the illusion of any render that tries to achieve realism.
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- displacement maps for fine face and skin details
We now had time enough to try out those HD morphs and by now it has become obvious what works and what does not.
One of the main ideas of the Genesis generation is to mix and match different shapes.
This works to some extent with HD morphs but in many cases different HD morphs created on the same topololgy just cancel each other out.
For that reason I hope to see again more displacement maps for face and skin details.
@ mixing normal, bump and displacement on the same surface.
While we are on that subject of maps:
Bump and normal maps are welcome for background models when high detail is not necessary.
But for up close portraits it really would make sense to use displacement maps to give the user the option to have realistic shadows cast by the displaced areas.
For non game characters it does not anymore make any sense at all to have the finer details in the face being created by bump or normal maps that do NOT create realistic shadows.
Some people argue that this difference is not noticeable. At 4K resolutions and up it is.
From my point of view this habit of mixing bump, normal and displacement maps is a relict of the time when you had to struggle for each bit of processing power. This may still be important if you are creating games that should run in real time or if you are trying to create animations.
But for creating high resolution still images - and as far as I understand it that is what DAZ content is most used for - displacement maps are the option that will offer more realistic results.
Just to understand this right:
I did not say stop including bump and normal maps in your products.
What I am saying is:
- Include one version with extremely detailed displacement maps for models intended to be used in still images
- Include bump and normal map versions for models that are intended to be used in the background, in games or for animations
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Those are the most important points.
You can also get some more ideas by looking at the "Portrait of Sylvia"
- LAMH fur presets for clothing
- very fine fiber mesh facial hair also for female characters
- High resolution version of clothing with modeled detail
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I think we have now A LOT of toon like characters in the DAZ store.
I really hope to see some more realistic solutions in the future.
As always anyone can do and create whatever anyone wants to.
Those are just the things that I would hope to see more in the future.
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Comments
I couldn't agree more. I'm trying to learn fiber mesh in zbrush currently but I have a long ways to go.
Understand you are asking for a higher resolution model with more options, flexibility and one that will be unusable by a number of Studio users who do not have sufficient HW to support this type of creation.
The model you saw was developed with a $3,500.00 software package, then zbrush, mental ray and photoshop, I didn't see if the thread specified Photoshop for texturing or post-work, this in itself the multiple software packages are critical to this artists workflow, I myself use Reality, LuxRender and Photoshop because I have not figured a way to get the most realism I can without these three packages acting as one destination for my final product. The limits of my HW (i7, 12GB RAM, 1GB GPU) make it far quicker for me to address my systems shortcomings in 3D by fixing and adding clarity in postwork and I if I had to guess I would place myself in the "upper middle class" of Hardware used by a 3D artist on these forums. Keep in mind this was also a model of a bust, so hundreds of thousands of pollys below the neck that did not need to be taken into account.
Not saying it's impossible or improbable in the near future, but what would you be willing to pay for a model with the features you request that would developed by Daz3d that would likely not be usable by a number of artists here for a number of reasons
...fibremesh eyebrows, due to their small coverage area, should not be a huge drain on hardware resources. The benefit is that they would allow one to match the brow colour to the hair, something that is a bothersome process with "painted on" brows.
Light blonde, red, or white hair with dark brown brows makes it look like the character has used hair dye..
I highly doubt that adding fiber mesh eyebrows and eyelashes will cause any problems for any system purchased in 2013, 2014 or 2015.
I did a quick test:
Without investing much time and effort I created a pair of rudimentary eyebrows with 36'024 active points in zbrush.
This really is something ANY system can handle and will add the following benefits:
- Viewed from the side the fiber mesh eyebrows create a visible extension.
- The fiber mesh eyebrows cast a subtle but noticeable shadow on the skin
- The fiber mesh eyebrows can have a different material setting from the skin that can be adjusted on the fly
as Kyoto Kid allready pointed out.
Now keep in mind that fiber mesh eye lashes would even use less geometry.
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As far as I understand it everyone has access to the free basic LAMH plugin in the DAZ store.
If it is not an option for content creators to purchase 700$ software like zbrush it IS an option for every PA to purchase the LAMH plugin from the DAZ store for 49$.
DAZ 3Delight users then have the benefit of LAMH curves based eye lashes and eye brows.
Users of other render engines could convert those curves into real .obj geometry that is also readable by other render engines.
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There are a lot of solutions and possibilites.
I guess it is just a matter of some artists at DAZ to be the first to provide new solutions then others will realize how much the quality could be improved with just a little bit of extra effort and breaking old traditions that are not anymore needed.
I know users of who do them already with LAMH or Garabaldi, well as renderman curves but could be exported as mesh props or even conformed with transfer utilty for octane too
I have fur and beards adding morphs in the options and using autofollow
A mesh prop would work until you change a facial expression. The eyebrows need to adjust to the any movement in the brow, beards and mustaches don't really change with expressions.
Well linvanchene
I have to say it sounds like a good idea to me, I would probably buy it, and there is nothing stopping you from putting together an eyebrow, eyelash set and submitting it yourself.
http://www.daz3d.com/community/community-publishing
I agree with the OP, I'd very much like to have proper eyebrows too for my figures, especially the male ones.
Fingers crossed someone is willing and able to make a nice set with some styling options.
Cheers!
Erik
..if they re parented to the brow region in the face, they should move with facial expressions just like the painted on ones do.
Oh, I can create new brows that match the hair and character quite simply with Skin Builder Pro. The rub is if I want to use an existing skin map, I still have to get rid of the painted brows first as the Skin Builder is an overlay which uses the LIE. This means going into and having to remove the painted brows for each makeup/skin variant the character has which is extremely tedious.
The only other solution would be for content creators to make eyebrowless maps for all the facial variants which would mean a lot of work on their part. Fibremesh would be the simplest option.
I think it's a pretty good idea, don't think it would be abhorrent to render time, but might slow things down a little. Of course this would mean that character creators would need to make the mesh that way, so not sure how workable it is in pactice...
I prefer a more universal solution which would be to have the character sets come with a 'blank/bare' texture with no hair at all on eyebrows or head, so that we would could add our own. I know there's the LAMH add on for Studio though I admit I don't know much about it, but for me personally I already know I can easily and quickly add Carrara dynamic hair that to those areas that would be a physically correct strand-based solution that would work great for either animation or static renders, however I prefer to have the area 'clear' of underlying drawn on hairs and don't want to have to spend a lot of time and trouble in gimp scrubbing them off (which can lead to patchy looking skin anyway, as inexpert as I am with postworking textures...)
The problem with Fibrows (what I call it) is that it will only work with sets that have no brows painted on the texture or you will get strange results. It can work fine for products like SkinBuilder, but what about all the other texture sets out there with baked brows? It can be easily made, but the problem is compatibility with the majority of skin sets. Unless every user knows you to manually remove eyebrows on texture sets in photoshop etc, it is a problem lol.
Creating a set of eyebrow props and then adding them to all figures is NOT what I am suggesting.
We had something similar allready (just without fiber hair):
http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-eyebrows
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The issue with that solution was:
- the "overlay" brow prop to hide the underlying painted on eyebrows would add some visible distortions based on the morphs / shapes you used and the specific skin texture.
and the biggest flaw:
All character renders would then start to showcase the same brow types over and over again.
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Eye brows and also eye lashes are something very individual that add a lot of personality to each face.
Each character creator could develop their own style of creating fiber mesh eye brows and eye lashes.
That way each face then looks unique...
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@ parenting fiber hair and facial expressions
When considering the challenge with the facial expressions it is even more important that character artists create custom fiber mesh eye brows and lashes that are optimized for the specific shape of the character.
In addition then the eye brows and lashes can have unique morphs created with the specific character shape in mind.
For Genesis 2 generation shapes some issues may remain when mixing different shapes.
When DAZ deceides to create a Genesis generation 3 figure some smart bone placements could offer a lot of new creative soltuions to support detailed facial expressions that support the movement of fiber mesh eye brows in a more optimal way.
Just another tought:
In other 3D applications you can actually parent objects or even instances (!) on a triangle created by 3 polygons...
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I would think that if we had a quality fibermesh brow set, that vendors would start to release characters with textures without painted on brows and it would possibly become the norm. I tend to look for textures with no brows painted on already as i have my own brushes and displacement maps, but would love fibermesh instead. i am surprised that I don't really see any free presets floating around for all kinds of hair with LAMH and garibaldi.
I am all for more realism in products! with more of a focus on unbiased renderers
Well it's certainly something for vendors to consider, I guess they'd have to guesstimate at the amount of market demand there would be for such characters vs their extra time to create, and also the opposite effect (meaning folks who expressly didn't want characters this way for fear of slowed render times or whatever and decided not to buy). Seems like someone who is enterprising out there would probably want to give it a shot to see how well it sells. Interesting idea, anyway.
...Gen 4 had a separate brow region that could be turned on and off. That went way with Genesis. Such a feature would eliminate the issue many of us are running into with having to manually paint out the existing eyebrows all the time.
I tried creating brows with Garibaldi and it is much more difficult compared to creating head, facial (beards/sideburns) or even body hair partially due to the fineness and shortness of brow hairs. One must also still paint out the existing eyebrows first the step I would like to see eliminated.
If makeup effects were done as an overlay using the LIE, then yes, a content creator would only have to supply two facial maps, one with eyebrows and one without. While this may work fine in Daz Studio, it will not in Poser which does not have a tool like the LIE. Therefore it would be back to having to create twice the number of facial maps, each with and without eyebrows. I'm not a content creator myself, but that sounds like a heck of a lot of additional work.
As I become more experienced with the Skin Builder Pro and Skin Overlay resources, along with SSS, I will pretty much be creating most of my own skins for my custom characters, however that is still a bit a ways down the road. However, not everyone will find doing this to be the solution for their needs.
I understand that it isn't difficult to accomplish this in Poser's Material Room.
You'd still need to remove the painted eyebrows to use fibermesh instead, wouldn't you?
Sign me up for some Fibrows.
I think users that would want them are willing to use Photoshop or GIMP to wipe out brows on existing textures.
For whatever it's worth, Luthbel's Horror Survivors Marius has fibermesh brows. Fibermesh brows, beard and hair, actually.
Depending on the character, they're somewhat usable with other characters with painted brows. For that matter, Marius himself has painted brows that the fibermesh conforms to. Color change is easy enough. The issue is that they're somewhat thin (overall shape, not the individual hair shafts) and a very specific shape. If they had morphs to change the size, length and attitude, they'd be usable with almost any character.
In terms of using them with characters with painted/photographed brows, the underlying brow serves more or less the same function as a hair cap. The fiber just provides added dimension and depth.
...then how do the painted brows move with the expressions?
The only other solution would be for content creators to make eyebrowless maps for all the facial variants which would mean a lot of work on their part. Fibremesh would be the simplest option.
You'd still need to remove the painted eyebrows to use fibermesh instead, wouldn't you?
...I think what we were discussing here is fibremesh eyebrows being included as part the character content, not the user adding them on later. At least that as my take from the OP.
A mesh prop would work until you change a facial expression. The eyebrows need to adjust to the any movement in the brow, beards and mustaches don't really change with expressions.
LOL you quoted me but you didn't read what I posted!!
autofollow enabled in parameters will enable it if done before loading the hair that was saved as a support asset
adding the morphs in transfer utility, I just do visemes and expressions (but it can and will add EVERY morph otherwise) will put them in the actual mesh,
I do this for export to iClone and move them in parameters to the head before applying the Reallusion facial animation duf without the figure loaded so it is baked in the FBX export for iclone to auto convert for facial expression, then add and conform to the figure and add the facial duf to that.
Heh, it's interesting that you can look at an image with some of the most realistic hair ever rendered on a 3D model and your priorities are the eyebrows and eyelashes. ;)
No matter how realistic the skin, brows, or even the clothing may be, transmapped hair usually spoils any attempts at true photorealism. I hope some sort of Blender or Zbrush-like dynamic hair is in Studio's future sooner than individual strands on eyebrows.
I think I must be the only person on the planet not in love with fiber mesh hair. =-) I'm okay with others wanting it, but it looks kind of funky to me, but maybe I'd like it more not on the scalp. =-)
Oh I agree, I think it almost never looks good unless the user really knows what they're doing. When it is done right though, nothing else comes close.
...not looking for "photo real' here, just a bit more "accuracy".
...this is wrong, for the character is supposed to have natural white hair. The reddish brown eyebrows make it look like she bleached her hair. (click for larger)
As a general sentiment I can kind of agree, though it works for certain hairstyles the hairs I've seen on fiber mesh are just too thick to read realistic, still I find them a good deal more realistic than most prop/figure hair.
But are you referring the original render at the top of this thread? Because that doesn't look like fiber mesh hair to me (if it is, it's got to be one of the best I've ever seen). Looks more like actual strand based dynamic to me, just a glance. Maya has strand based dynamic hair, doesn't it? And he's listed Maya as one of the softwares used, so I would have assumed (but could be wrong).
Truly an excellent render, and the hair is especially good.
Agreed. Of course it is pointless to worry about fiber eye brows and lashes if the head hair would still be transmapped.
Nevertheless I am under the impression that there are now some more artists starting to create fiber mesh head hair.
One of my favorites:
http://www.daz3d.com/charlie-hair-for-genesis-2-female-s
I assumed we will see more of such hair solutions in the future so I tried to focus the attention on those areas that still offer room for improvement.
I guess the solution in general may be even more cooperations between different character artists.
Some may want to specialise in the fiber mesh hair part and start creating head hair, eyebrows and even eye lashes and work together with a texture artists to create specific custom characters.
Other character artists may want to stay independent and consider learning as new skill how to work with fiber hair solutions to complement the texture creating skills they allready have.
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After reading through this the real challenge seems not so much the parenting but how to deal with the painted on eye brows in the first place.
We can ask the artists to create a lot more options.
I do not consider it an impossibility to add an option with and without painted on eyebrows for EACH makeup option.
I assume most artists use photoshop to create the makeup options.
It is only a matter of copy and paste once they create a skin version without painted on eyebrows and '/ or a painted eyebrow version with alpha channel.
As a final step it is then a question of placing the presets into separate folders.
BUT
The solution really may be to add the brow surface zone again with the next generation of DAZ figures
or
to simply upgrade the current Genesis 2 base figures with an eye brow surface zone.
Having a separate surface zone for the eye brow area indeed would seem like a simple and efficient solution.
I assume the only reason why it was not present in the Genesis generation so far is because the technology to actually grow fiber hair from triangles and quads polygon face areas was not yet available at that time.
Now that DAZ Studio has hair curves with the LAMH plugin it would seem like an interesting option to push further in that direction and reinstate those surface zones again.
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...this is why, for Daz at least, I don't see an issue with providing just two face maps one with eyebrows one without and then using the resources of the LIE to create the different makeup effects as overlays.
This is how the Tattoo Parlour content works, it has preset designs that the user can apply as an overlay to the various body zones on existing skin maps. So yes, it can be done.
Shoot one could even go as far as to include a set of basic eyebrow colour overlays (black, brown, red, blonde, grey, & white) as well.
While I don't like the fiber mesh technique for human hair too much (usually the single hair is too thick, and the hair can't be used for close-ups - at least the hair I tried until now), I think it could indeed be great for eyelashes and brows.
hmmm. Well if the fiber hair is too thick it clearly shows that the artist wanted to make some unfortunate compromise.
There are also a lot of mixed solutions out there. Some thick fiber hair strands that then still add a transparency map on top of it.
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So when I talk about fiber hair I mean either
- curve based fiber hair that is not adding any stress to the RAM or VRAM because the render engine is able to read those curves.
Example LAMH
or
- Fiber mesh hair in the form of .obj that will need a workstation with a lot of RAM or VRAM
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When starting this post I assumed that almost everyone is allready familiar with what fiber hair actually is and how it is created and used.
I added some screenshots to give some further ideas and impressions that may inspire some people to give this a try.
- The example image of Charlie hair shows how the image looks like after 385 samples per pixel are calculated after only 16 seconds.
- In Zbrush you comb fiber mesh hair with the help of colored polygroups.
- In LAMH you work with fiber curves.
- You can transform the fiber curves into a mesh and export the fiber hair as .obj
- One of my early mixed results experiments with fiber hair.
The challenge is that probably all artists at first will create a lot of mixed results experiments when starting to learn how to create fiber based hair.
- at the beginning you may create insane models with 25'000'000 active hair points that hardly any system can handle
- then you may try to create some low quality fiber hair solutions that compromise too much
- then you realize that the solution may not be to create one huge mesh with only one type of fiber hair but different sub meshes for different areas that can be combined for the final result
In any case maybe in 2013 and 2014 it was too early to give fiber mesh hair a real try because a lot of people still would not be able to benefit from it. But now I am under the impression that it would be about time to increase some focus on more realistic solutions.