Luxus Skin Settings

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  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    I made up this chart for myself a few weeks ago, based on the textures that I currently own. It features a sampling of the torso skin color for each character, then the inverse color to achieve that shade in the absorption color channels. I hesitated to share it since we all own different skins, but really there are so many variations that an exact match doesn't matter. Just pick one close to the tone you are trying to achieve and plug in the values.

    I hope this comes in handy. Cheers.

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  • Michael GMichael G Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Ariana elite texture test. For an elite texture set the eye textures are poor or I have done some thing wrong with the set up.

    1000 0,255,255 absorption
    250 255,188,182 scatter

    0.0001 bump scale.

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  • SylvanSylvan Posts: 2,681
    edited December 1969

    Since I don't have an indepth sence of Lux, this discription is a riddle to me:

    Then apply the attached settings to each material zone. Use the texture maps associated with each area.
    A: is the head, torso, limbs texture. I used Andrei for F5 by Morris.
    B: is the specular map
    C: is the bump map
    X: is also the specular map, but this section is not activated so you don’t need to put a map in here, nor do you need to set the color. I had it set during my tests, but ended up not needing it. When I turned on “One Sided”, this section became inactive. I just forgot to delete the map.

    Where can I find A, B, C and X?

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited May 2013

    Estroyer said:
    Since I don't have an indepth sence of Lux, this discription is a riddle to me:

    Then apply the attached settings to each material zone. Use the texture maps associated with each area.
    A: is the head, torso, limbs texture. I used Andrei for F5 by Morris.
    B: is the specular map
    C: is the bump map
    X: is also the specular map, but this section is not activated so you don’t need to put a map in here, nor do you need to set the color. I had it set during my tests, but ended up not needing it. When I turned on “One Sided”, this section became inactive. I just forgot to delete the map.

    Where can I find A, B, C and X?

    In the images I attached, I have put an A, B, C and X in the spots where texture maps should go. Do you not have the screen grabs?

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    Post edited by Slosh on
  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Michael_G said:
    Ariana elite texture test. For an elite texture set the eye textures are poor or I have done some thing wrong with the set up.

    1000 0,255,255 absorption
    250 255,188,182 scatter

    0.0001 bump scale.

    I don't like any of the Elite textures eyes, with the exception of Amy, perhaps.

  • SylvanSylvan Posts: 2,681
    edited December 1969

    Oh dear, I missed the numbers...Thanks for clearing that up!
    Running a final render now, curious what will happen...
    Your tut just gave me a whole new insight on LUXUS and its settings!

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Cool, I'm glad they helped. I really should consider doing an update, since I and many others have found better settings since this was originally posted.

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Michael_G said:
    Ariana elite texture test. For an elite texture set the eye textures are poor or I have done some thing wrong with the set up.

    1000 0,255,255 absorption
    250 255,188,182 scatter

    0.0001 bump scale.

    I forgot to mention, before, that I really like this test render. Her face, especially. The gloss on her torso might be a bit high, just a bit.

  • SylvanSylvan Posts: 2,681
    edited December 1969

    As I said I had a lot of new insights today thanks to your info.
    And I am so grateful!
    Skin is looking wonderful realistic but I can't get the hair look right.
    Tried several tutorials but I can't find a specific one that has an indepth description about hair in LUX such as your skin tut.

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  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Estroyer said:
    As I said I had a lot of new insights today thanks to your info.
    And I am so grateful!
    Skin is looking wonderful realistic but I can't get the hair look right.
    Tried several tutorials but I can't find a specific one that has an indepth description about hair in LUX such as your skin tut.

    Agreed, the skin is looking really good in both of your renders. April Glyn does not have the best transparency maps, but you can get some good results on the color. I have included a very quick render with hair settings that I use frequently. If you look at the screengrab of the material pane, you can see that I like to put a darker version of the texture in the transmission channel. I set the material to glossy translucent, by the way. Also, try putting a color in the glossy absorption channel. Just remember to go with the inverse of the color you want. That's why mine is blue... the resulting color is a medium brown.

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  • CrystalNovaCrystalNova Posts: 20
    edited December 1969

    Great thread!

    Thanks once again to MichaelG for pointing it out to me, I'd given up on SSS under Luxus after spending days on it.


    Two questiosn though:
    1. I'm not really seeing any speed or quality difference using "Renderer:Sample with Sampler:LowDiscrepancy" vs "Renderer:Sample with Sampler:Metropolis" I get a little over 30 kS/s for either of them.

    2. A lot of the Elite texture sets and some others as well now days, have TL maps and some also have SSS maps, where if at all, should they be used?

  • Michael GMichael G Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Slosh said:
    Michael_G said:
    Ariana elite texture test. For an elite texture set the eye textures are poor or I have done some thing wrong with the set up.

    1000 0,255,255 absorption
    250 255,188,182 scatter

    0.0001 bump scale.

    I forgot to mention, before, that I really like this test render. Her face, especially. The gloss on her torso might be a bit high, just a bit.

    Yeah I was having trouble with the skin.

  • Michael GMichael G Posts: 0
    edited May 2013

    Great thread!

    Thanks once again to MichaelG for pointing it out to me, I'd given up on SSS under Luxus after spending days on it.


    Two questiosn though:
    1. I'm not really seeing any speed or quality difference using "Renderer:Sample with Sampler:LowDiscrepancy" vs "Renderer:Sample with Sampler:Metropolis" I get a little over 30 kS/s for either of them.

    2. A lot of the Elite texture sets and some others as well now days, have TL maps and some also have SSS maps, where if at all, should they be used?

    Best to use is metropolis with bi-directional and a multi volume integrator not single, bear in mind that glossy translucent with volume will be a heavy burden to render.

    Post edited by Michael G on
  • CrystalNovaCrystalNova Posts: 20
    edited May 2013

    Michael_G said:

    Best to use is metropolis with bi-directional and a multi volume integrator not single, bear in mind that glossy translucent with volume will be a heavy burden to render.

    Ok thanks, those are more or less my default settings anyway. And yeah I've noticed about a 2/3 drop in render speeds.

    Edit: Actaully the speed hit mostly came from using more than one light, switching to my normal one light setup I'm only seeing about a 10% drop in render speeds.

    Post edited by CrystalNova on
  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    Michael_G said:

    Best to use is metropolis with bi-directional and a multi volume integrator not single, bear in mind that glossy translucent with volume will be a heavy burden to render.

    Ok thanks, those are more or less my default settings anyway. And yeah I've noticed about a 2/3 drop in render speeds.

    Edit: Actaully the speed hit mostly came from using more than one light, switching to my normal one light setup I'm only seeing about a 10% drop in render speeds.

    Originally, I liked lowdiscrepancy because there was less of the scatter "glitters" to get through during render. They went away much quicker with lowdiscrepancy. However, I also noticed a quality hit vs. metropolis. The reflections especially seemed to lack, so I have gone back to metropolis as my default sampler. It takes a little bit longer (or at least it used to. Seems to have improved, somehow), but it's worth it in the end.

  • Michael GMichael G Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Testing the infernal behemoth.

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  • simon_3f3af8b4adsimon_3f3af8b4ad Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Is there any chance someone could record a screencast and put it on YouTube on how to use Luxus to apply this SSS effect to skin? I'm reading these threads and muddling around but I'm getting results that are way off like skin that looks like its snow.

    I think I'm missing some basic steps somewhere :)

    I would greatly appreciate it!

  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    simon said:
    Is there any chance someone could record a screencast and put it on YouTube on how to use Luxus to apply this SSS effect to skin? I'm reading these threads and muddling around but I'm getting results that are way off like skin that looks like its snow.

    I think I'm missing some basic steps somewhere :)

    I would greatly appreciate it!

    I wish I had the software to do that! I would love to record some tutorials, since I love to hear myself talk. Maybe I will buy Camtasia or something after I become a PA. Soon, I hope.

    The snowy effect might be your specular settings, unless I am imagining it wrong. Make sure if you use specular maps like DAZ materials do, you don't want to use IOR with it. If you don't use the maps, set your IOR to about 1.45 and your roughness in either case to be about .45 to .65 Maybe that will help. If you mean that your render looks grainy, then there are other factors not necessarily related to the skin settings. Let me know, we'll figure it out!

  • simon_3f3af8b4adsimon_3f3af8b4ad Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Slosh,

    I've heard a lot of people talk about Jing. Apparently the free version can capture up to 5 minutes for free.

    I'm really not sure what to do after I load my V4 character and apply a texture. Then I need to enable a Luxus material, I've tried messing around with that but I'm not really sure what the next steps are. Sometimes it looks like I lose my texture when I do it.

    I think I'm doing something completely wrong :)

  • M F MM F M Posts: 1,388
    edited June 2013

    Slosh said:
    simon said:
    Is there any chance someone could record a screencast and put it on YouTube on how to use Luxus to apply this SSS effect to skin? I'm reading these threads and muddling around but I'm getting results that are way off like skin that looks like its snow.

    I think I'm missing some basic steps somewhere :)

    I would greatly appreciate it!

    I wish I had the software to do that! I would love to record some tutorials, since I love to hear myself talk. Maybe I will buy Camtasia or something after I become a PA. Soon, I hope....


    Camstudio is free... just make sure you follow the FAQ advice for adjusting the settings before recording:

    If you're recording yourself demonstrating something on your computer, these settings will be sufficient:

    Set Keyframes every 30 frames
    Capture Frames Every = 50 milliseconds
    Playback Rate = 20 frames per second
    Video codec: CamStudio Lossless codec
    Quality: 70%

    Post edited by M F M on
  • SloshSlosh Posts: 2,391
    edited December 1969

    I will check out both of those programs. I can't promise anything, but I will see what I can come up with. So, simon, are you looking for a demo of how to convert a skin to Luxus, then how to adjust the settings? How "in-depth" should the video be? In other words, do I need to explain the decisions for why each choice was made, or just make the setting and briefly say what it does? I tend to over-explain sometimes, so the former would be a pretty long winded video, but the latter could be useful.

  • simon_3f3af8b4adsimon_3f3af8b4ad Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Whatever you feel comfortable with. I think some basics would be great to get up and started and if you want to continue that with in depth descriptions of things that would be great too.

    Thanks for considering doing a video :)

  • CrystalNovaCrystalNova Posts: 20
    edited December 1969

    So I've been playing around with these settings and I'm a little confused. None of the volume settings change how the skin looks at all, I can set them to anything or even turn them off and the skin looks exactly the same (not counting light passing through an ear or something from a back light, I know that works). The only thing that affects how the skin looks is the Glossy trans Absorption settings.

    I was trying to make my skin a lighter tone, but at the moment I'm at a total loss.

    I tried using extreme settings from http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxRender_Volumes that would have made the skin almost clear or like wax or something.... but I get nothing.

  • HoleHole Posts: 119
    edited December 1969

    So I've been playing around with these settings and I'm a little confused. None of the volume settings change how the skin looks at all, I can set them to anything or even turn them off and the skin looks exactly the same (not counting light passing through an ear or something from a back light, I know that works). The only thing that affects how the skin looks is the Glossy trans Absorption settings.

    I was trying to make my skin a lighter tone, but at the moment I'm at a total loss.

    I tried using extreme settings from http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxRender_Volumes that would have made the skin almost clear or like wax or something.... but I get nothing.

    Transmission color seems to have a greater effect than the volume settings. If you have a map in that slot take it out and do some tests with greyscale values, white should be glowing. Once (...of if lol) you find a level you are happy with you can change the hue to color correct the skin.

    Hope this works for you, it's just a guess without seeing your settings.

  • CrystalNovaCrystalNova Posts: 20
    edited December 1969

    Hole said:

    Transmission color seems to have a greater effect than the volume settings. If you have a map in that slot take it out and do some tests with greyscale values, white should be glowing. Once (...of if lol) you find a level you are happy with you can change the hue to color correct the skin.

    Hope this works for you, it's just a guess without seeing your settings.

    Thanks, you pointed me in the right direction, I did have a map set in the transmission color as was suggested here as a way to not lose so much detail from SSS.
    After further reading though (http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxRender_Materials_GlossyTranslucent), if I'm understanding it right, setting the transmission color/map disables/over writes the volume settings, so you're not in fact using SSS at all, hence no lose of detail, though with a scatter settings of 100 or so, you don't really lose very much anyway.

    I'm still playing around with settings, but at the moment I'm moving towards disabling the glossy trans absorption color as well, as it generally gives a colored tint and darkens the skin tone and I'm not really seeing any benefit. It can also sometimes result in some very strong tint (sometimes looking like a strange redish shadow) when looking along a curved surface, such as the cheeks towards the ear, when looking face on to the model.

    Also turning on multibounce does seem to enhance realism in some situations, it adds a nice fuzz to skin, but I think it's more a matter of personal taste, skin type and what you're aiming for.

  • SylvanSylvan Posts: 2,681
    edited December 1969

    I am getting nice results with these settings and tinkering with them to my own preferences.
    One thing I've never understood though, is the use of transluscency on the skin.
    From what I've seen the results are much more realistic without it and doesn't make the figure look "waxy".
    The only time when I think transluscence looks good is when using very low lighting, or when light comes from behind the figure when making a silouette.
    So instead of choosing for "Glossy transluscent", I always choose "matte" as Luxus material and the results have a much more real feel to them.

  • SylvanSylvan Posts: 2,681
    edited June 2013

    *A few hours later*
    I baked up this the past night and as I mentiomned I am using no transluscence at all.
    By adjusting the gamma and RGB settings, I tried different shades.

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  • CrystalNovaCrystalNova Posts: 20
    edited December 1969

    Estroyer said:
    *A few hours later*
    I baked up this the past night and as I mentiomned I am using no transluscence at all.
    By adjusting the gamma and RGB settings, I tried different shades.

    I take it you don't like specular maps? :) Human skin is oily, some more than others, hence why every skin does/should have different spec maps and settings. And what's wrong with Glossy if you didn't like translucence?


    I fully agree that SSS shouldn't make the skin look like wax though, that's a Poser bandwagon that should have been derailed before it left the station, but I don't believe that's an issue here in this thread with these settings. I've actually tried to do it in Lux, to see how far in either direction I could take the settings, but I haven't managed to do it without the skin first starting to look like blue glass.

    Nice images though, even if he does look a bit matte :)

  • Michael GMichael G Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Nice job Estroyer but as previously said his skin looks dry, excellent detail though. I ahve a new image baking that uses glossy and spec maps, I will post it here once it`s done.

  • BarubaryBarubary Posts: 1,200
    edited December 1969

    Estroyer said:

    From what I've seen the results are much more realistic without it and doesn't make the figure look "waxy".
    The only time when I think transluscence looks good is when using very low lighting, or when light comes from behind the figure when making a silouette.

    Since, from what I understand, human skin kinda is translucent I would say "No, when it's well done, translucency does make skin more realistic."

    The waxy look skin seems more like a stylistic choice to me, and I have to admit, I usually kinda like the look. Depending on how well it is used.

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