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How do you pimp the skin of your character?

ps2000ps2000 Posts: 278
in The Commons

Hello,

I try to improve the skin of my characters. I read some threads but I am a bit overwhelmed. There are so many products (N.G.S., N.G.S. 2, Altern8 etc.)

I bought skin builder for genesis 3 and ulimate iray skin manager some time ago and I am still playing around with them. 

I want to achieve a more natural and a little bit more glossy look. 

What product would you recommend?

Before/after example renders with settings would be highly appreciated.

Best regards 

Comments

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,843

    Altern8, it has settings to add various levels of shine to the skin and lips

  • ps2000ps2000 Posts: 278
    edited July 2018

    But how well does it work with genesis 3 (especially the presets for the characters, I know it works with genesis 3 on general)? I don't plan to upgrade to genesis 8 anytime soon.

    Post edited by ps2000 on
  • Charlie JudgeCharlie Judge Posts: 13,251
    edited July 2018
    FSMCDesigns said:

    Altern8, it has settings to add various levels of shine to the skin and lips

    + 100. yes  

    Post edited by Charlie Judge on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,973
    FSMCDesigns said:

    Altern8, it has settings to add various levels of shine to the skin and lips

     

    Charlie Judge said:
    FSMCDesigns said:

    Altern8, it has settings to add various levels of shine to the skin and lips

    + 100. yes  

    Awww Thank you for the product recommendation guys! You put a huge smile on my face! :D I'm glad you guys like it enough to recommed it - that makes me happy to hear! :)

  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,973
    edited July 2018
    pschroed said:

    But how well does it work with genesis 3 (especially the presets for the characters, I know it works with genesis 3 on general)? I don't plan to upgrade to genesis 8 anytime soon.

    Altern8 has 14 presets for specific G8 characters but they're also usable on G3 characters - and it comes with a lot of adjustment settings to accommodate a wide range of characters and skins. 

    If you have a specific character in mind that you'd like to see a before and after of, let me know and if I have it I'll see if I can do a quick before and after.

    Post edited by 3Diva on
  • deathbycanondeathbycanon Posts: 1,227

    I used Altern8 on Raoul - G3M- I just forgot to add it in the credits, sorry Diva, I'll fix that. :) 

  • ps2000ps2000 Posts: 278
    Divamakeup said:
    pschroed said:

    But how well does it work with genesis 3 (especially the presets for the characters, I know it works with genesis 3 on general)? I don't plan to upgrade to genesis 8 anytime soon.

    Altern8 has 14 presets for specific G8 characters but they're also usable on G3 characters - and it comes with a lot of adjustment settings to accommodate a wide range of characters and skins. 

    If you have a specific character in mind that you'd like to see a before and after of, let me know and if I have it I'll see if I can do a quick before and after.

    Well, Victoria 7 would be nice.

    Thanks

  • The Blurst of TimesThe Blurst of Times Posts: 2,410

    Another good thing to have is Sickleyield/Fuseling's Beautiful Skins products. 
    There are products for Genesis 2, 3, 8 here at the Daz store. Also, there's a Genesis version at Rendo.

    These are hardly the only products.

    The reason for Altern8 or Beautiful Skins or the like is to give a common platform for all skins across all PAs. Their settings vary a lot, and unless you are good at editing Iray surface details, fixing all the skins for your render settings can be a complicated task. If every artist used similar skin settings, you wouldn't need this kind of product to create a stable default platform for skins.

    If all you want to do is add gloss, then delete any Top Coat or Spec/Reflectivity map... go with a no-map/pure white map, and tweak the variable. It's the heavy grey/blacks in the maps that blocks the gloss.

  • outrider42outrider42 Posts: 3,679
    edited July 2018

    Pimpin' ain't easy!

    Anyway, there is also Iray Smart Converter, I like it and think its a bit underrated on the forums. The Smart Converter has several different gloss options, and has a feature to increase or decrease gloss in steps, which is convenient. Each step adds or subtracts 0.1 glossy weight in the surface settings. However, if its just gloss you want to play with, its really pretty easy to do this on your own. It may seem overwhelming with so many different glossy settings in the surface settings, but many are kind of redundant. You can group them in different categories. There is the original glossy weight, which is pretty universal. Then you have top coat weight, metalicity, and the new dual lobe settings. Dual lobe was introduced in Daz 4.10. That's 4 different groups of glossy settings!

    If dual lobe is anything other than 0, then dual lobe will override any other glossy setting, no matter what they are. So this is very important to keep in mind.

    The bigger settings would be glossy weight, reflectivity, and roughness. These appear in all the different groups I mentioned above, and are pretty self explanitory. How strong these are depends on the maps used. Basically the whiter areas will have more gloss. A black area will have little to no gloss, even with the glossy weight cranked very high. If there is no map present, then the setting assumes everything is pure white, and that results in a shiny and flat look when rendered.

    If you want instant gloss without dual lobe, then simply switch the top coat weight mode from "reflectivity" to "weighted". Magic will happen. From there you might want to turn down the gloss a bit. But with the right balance, top coat weight can do wonders. So can dual lobe, but I personally prefer top coat weight.
    Post edited by outrider42 on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,973
    edited July 2018
    pschroed said:
    Divamakeup said:
    pschroed said:

    But how well does it work with genesis 3 (especially the presets for the characters, I know it works with genesis 3 on general)? I don't plan to upgrade to genesis 8 anytime soon.

    Altern8 has 14 presets for specific G8 characters but they're also usable on G3 characters - and it comes with a lot of adjustment settings to accommodate a wide range of characters and skins. 

    If you have a specific character in mind that you'd like to see a before and after of, let me know and if I have it I'll see if I can do a quick before and after.

    Well, Victoria 7 would be nice.

    Thanks

    Here's Victoria 7 with her default settings:

    Victoria 7 has really great mats, imo. She's just a bit on the "orange" side, imo. 

     

    Here's Victoria 7 with the Altern8 "Karyssa 8 - No Maps" and "SSS Tint M" settings:

     

    Here's Victoria 7 with the Altern8 "Victoria 8 - No Maps" setting:

     

    There are also quite a few additional settings - you can make the skin tones warmer or cooler, you can adjust the skin shine to make her more shiny or less shiny, 8 translucency settings, and lots of adjustment settings to adjust skin tints and colors. Altern8 also comes with some render settings and scene adjustment settings. And all the skin settings have matching Gens settings for the gens.

    I hope that helps. :) 

    Post edited by 3Diva on
  • ps2000ps2000 Posts: 278
    edited July 2018

    Thanks.

    That certainly looks a lot better than the original character without changes.

    Do you still plan to make a version of Altern8 for genesis3 (it was mentioned in the support thread somewhere) or is that off the table now?

    Post edited by ps2000 on
  • 3Diva3Diva Posts: 11,973
    pschroed said:

    Thanks.

    That certainly looks a lot better than the original character without changes.

    Do you still plan to make a version of Altern8 for genesis3 (it was mentioned in the support thread somewhere) or is that off the table now?

    I still plan on making it. It's likely still at least a couple months off though. 

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