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What do you think about Globalskin addon?

camilocamilo Posts: 20
in Blender Discussion

I'm not happy with how the skin looks in Blender after exporting with Diffeomorphic or Daz to Blender Bridge. Maybe it will look better with Genesis 9 characters, but for now I'm sticking with Genesis 8 because I don't want to buy more characters for now. There is this addon on Blendermarket that promises to work with Genesis 8 called Globalskin https://blendermarket.com/products/globalskin-ultimate-skin-shader. It looks promising but I still have one concern. The renders on the site look realistic, but at the same time they look like the author has overdone the bump maps and the skin looks too rough. Maybe it can be fixed by changing the values on some sliders, but I would like to know your opinion about this addon before I buy it. If you think that addon isn't worth it, I'll be happy to hear about other approaches to get a realistic skin with low effort, if they exist.

Comments

  • PadonePadone Posts: 4,001
    edited January 25

    Never used it, from what I see it seems good. Of course you will not get the same skin as daz studio.

    As for diffeomorphic be aware that the skin look also depends on lights and tone mapping. This is true for any material but skins are particularly sensitive to these factors, due to their volumetric nature.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • camilocamilo Posts: 20

    I did some tests with lights and tone mapping in the past with good results, see here one of my previous posts https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/604576/testing-diffeomorphic-1-6-2-materials-and-tone-mapping. I use what I learned for my renders, but from time to time I try to go further to get more realism. I would like to do the textures by myself like what I saw in videos and tutorials about achieving realism, but my time is limited to go down that road, so I'm still looking for a balance between better results and a reasonable effort.

  • LiliumVALiliumVA Posts: 26
    edited January 25

    I use GS for a variety of reasons. While I do love a lot of the skins that DS has, they don't go far enough with realism. That said, GS is still not the most profound tool you can use to approach realism. It is still one of the best I have seen thus far in terms of giving you great results right out of the gate for Blender. It also allows you a lot of adjustments. HOWEVER, it has it's own quirks and issues that the devs need to address when it comes to seamless application on G8 and G9 models, and their lack of support for 8.1. There's also the issue of their pre-created bitmaps and makeups that are super generic. You can adjust all this though, and you can even use Daz skin in place of theirs while still retaining the pores, imperfections etc.... Or use substance painter or something else like UCpaint.

    (CLICK TO OPEN TO SEE FULL VIEW)

    This is Victoria 9 and 8 in Blender, no adjustments at all.

     

    This is Victoria 9 and 8 with GS skin mostly out of the box. I reduced the specular, roughness, displacement and a few other things to my liking.

    When it comes to using HDR lighting in blender with GS, it can sometimes hinder the skin's overall realistic look, but it does a better job than Daz. The body skin itself I do not find to be the best compared to Daz does some advantage in that regard.Because you're not seeing private parts, or skins for said modified parts. It's the generic nipples and barbie bottom. Which, again, you can use Daz skin with GS.

     

    Personally, having used their Humanify (which sucked IMO), and now using GS, I am happy with it.There's also the added bonus if you use humanGen, Meta Human or CC4.

     

    Post edited by LiliumVA on
  • Singular3DSingular3D Posts: 605

    Thanks for the examples of GS. I thought about getting it, but also their Hyperrealistic Scene, as a good skin is a combination of the shader and the lighting.
    I plan to make a reference scene to be able to adjust the skin shaders before I put them into a scene with a specific lighting.

    The skin of the Daz characters is a good start, but I want to enhance it with additional pores and other shaders based on various noises.
    So, GS would be an interesting start to study their approach.

    My Goal are G8/G8.1 characters.

  • hardwire666hardwire666 Posts: 74

    The same people made https://blendermarket.com/products/humanify---one-click-realism with it they promised monthly new materials to be added. Then they basically abandond it and made global skin. I'm a bit mifed about it myself becasue I bought humanify to support what looked lie a good project. Eventually I switched to G9 so I get 8k normal maps that do just fine. So not getting what I paid for isn't really an issue. It's just the bait and witch they pulled that i don't like. But what ever thing s happen.

     The big part of the addons from what I saw is they have 8k displacment maps. Which.... takes a metric crap ton of geometry to use. I have a 4090 and I don't even bother with geomtry that intense. Personally I think the Daz normals are plenty fine. 

  • LiliumVALiliumVA Posts: 26

    hardwire666 said:

    The same people made https://blendermarket.com/products/humanify---one-click-realism with it they promised monthly new materials to be added. Then they basically abandond it and made global skin. I'm a bit mifed about it myself becasue I bought humanify to support what looked lie a good project. Eventually I switched to G9 so I get 8k normal maps that do just fine. So not getting what I paid for isn't really an issue. It's just the bait and witch they pulled that i don't like. But what ever thing s happen.

     The big part of the addons from what I saw is they have 8k displacment maps. Which.... takes a metric crap ton of geometry to use. I have a 4090 and I don't even bother with geomtry that intense. Personally I think the Daz normals are plenty fine. 

    I just want to say, as someone that did get Humanify too, contact BlenderMarket and get a refund. The honored my refund, even after the time allowed, because the devs have not done what they have agreed to.

  • camilocamilo Posts: 20

    Thanks for the sample images. There is another addon that looks promising https://blendermarket.com/products/humanpro, but I think I'll test with a Genesis 9 character before taking a decision about buying a Blender addon for the skin. The only downside is that I already invested in Genesis 8 characters.

  • Singular3DSingular3D Posts: 605

    camilo said:

    Thanks for the sample images. There is another addon that looks promising https://blendermarket.com/products/humanpro, but I think I'll test with a Genesis 9 character before taking a decision about buying a Blender addon for the skin. The only downside is that I already invested in Genesis 8 characters.

    Looks promising, but I would use it as well with G8 and G8.1. According to the information at the product they plan to extend it to other generations. Let's see what comes next.

  • Hurdy3DHurdy3D Posts: 1,073

    camilo said:

    Thanks for the sample images. There is another addon that looks promising https://blendermarket.com/products/humanpro, but I think I'll test with a Genesis 9 character before taking a decision about buying a Blender addon for the skin. The only downside is that I already invested in Genesis 8 characters.#

     

    $60 for a single skin? Sounds a bit... expensive.

  • camilocamilo Posts: 20
    edited January 30

    Found a comment about Global Skin in a video that summarized my main concern about the addon (see the video and comment below), on every render I saw from the vendor and from others using it, the skin looks too rough. What I like about humanpro, is that the skin looks softer and younger, but I agree it's a bit expensive for what it offer for now.

    Well I decided to get the G9 version and was pretty disappointed that there's only 5 texture sets, which also aren't exactly meant for 20yo or so character figures.

    They have a ton of hard-baked in imperfections from the actual photo scans, which should be optional from the software skin building menu, there's even beards visible on pretty much all of them, so not good for making a young female figures.

    The texture set specific displacement maps very clearly emphasize that the scans are probably based on, well, not 20yo individuals. There's also a universal wrinkle/pore displacement map, but the problem with using it that it goes over the set specific displ. map and as a result the final product looks like a mess with different pore or wrinkle patterns cutting into each other. If you need to make AO maps from it, the problem becomes more prevalent.

    Then there's the fact that a lot of the textures have low resolution sections stitched on some areas, while others have shoddy seams in the middle of the UV island outside of the UV seam (even spotted some UV padding patterns somewhere.

    It's an alright addon for a scene containing a ton of characters that need to be put together hastily and are covered in a lot of clothing. But if you need to make main characters that are viewed up close, that's where it falls apart, especially when every character inherently looks 50 years old.

    Maybe someone some day makes a procedural skin building generator that allows you customize each detail down to the letter.

    Post edited by camilo on
  • Hurdy3DHurdy3D Posts: 1,073

    camilo said:

    Found a comment about Global Skin in a video that summarized my main concern about the addon (see the video and comment below), on every render I saw from the vendor and from others using it, the skin looks too rough. What I like about humanpro, is that the skin looks softer and younger, but I agree it's a bit expensive for what it offer for now.

    You can always reduce the bumpmapping/displacement

  • camilocamilo Posts: 20

    Hurdy3D said:

    You can always reduce the bumpmapping/displacement

    That's what I thought, but I'm sure others have thought so too and yet I haven't seen a render that doesn't have that roughness. I'm going to buy it soon, but if after reducing those parameters it still looks bad, I'll ask for a refund.

  • Singular3DSingular3D Posts: 605

    camilo said:

    Hurdy3D said:

    You can always reduce the bumpmapping/displacement

    That's what I thought, but I'm sure others have thought so too and yet I haven't seen a render that doesn't have that roughness. I'm going to buy it soon, but if after reducing those parameters it still looks bad, I'll ask for a refund.

    Just let us know. Thanks.

  • LiliumVALiliumVA Posts: 26
    edited January 31

    camilo said:

    Hurdy3D said:

    You can always reduce the bumpmapping/displacement

    That's what I thought, but I'm sure others have thought so too and yet I haven't seen a render that doesn't have that roughness. I'm going to buy it soon, but if after reducing those parameters it still looks bad, I'll ask for a refund.

     

    The examples I gave are more reduced compared to out of the box settings. There are 4 different displacement maps, and the micro pores. Threre's also specularity and roughness that can affect how the skin looks. I'll give a few examples.

     

    This is DS skin up close in blender, no modifications

     

    This is GS skin 2 with 0.25 micro pores and 1 for displacement map 1

     

    This is the same as above, except dispacement is set to 0.5

     

    Same as aboove but displacement set to 0.25

     

    This is skin from a DS character at 0.25 micro pores and 1 for displacement map 1

     

    This is the same as above, except dispacement is set to 0.5

     

    Same as aboove but displacement set to 0.25

     

    This is DS skin with different lighting, and displacement 1 at 1

     

    This is as above, but with 0.5 displacement

     

    This is above but 0.25 displacement

     

    I would adjust the specularity and roughness, but it all greatly depends on the lighting and skin. There are other modifications one can do to the skin that overall increases the realness look. However, as mentioned before, it does have some limitations and it's own quriks the devs need to correct.

     

     

     

    Post edited by LiliumVA on
  • Singular3DSingular3D Posts: 605

    Thanks a lot for the images. Look like 0.5 or 0.25 might be a good choice based on the overall lighting and distance from the camera.

    So, GlobalSkin might be useful. Humanpro 1.0 looks good as well, but is only available for G9 so far.

  • LiliumVALiliumVA Posts: 26

    Singular3D said:

    Thanks a lot for the images. Look like 0.5 or 0.25 might be a good choice based on the overall lighting and distance from the camera.

    So, GlobalSkin might be useful. Humanpro 1.0 looks good as well, but is only available for G9 so far.

    I would try the Humanpro, but it does seem very limited in terms of skins. Granted, I imagine it will be updated, and offer more in the future. I think any one of them, be it GS or humanpro(if they allow it), allowing DS skins to be linked in really widens it for both addons.

     

    I did want to also add what GS displacement maps look like with no skin(forgot to last night). They're all set to 1(100%), so setting them to 0.5 or less will look good depending on how close the model is and what the lighting is. The skins 3 &4 in GS are male coded too.

     

    This is 1

    This is 2

    This is 3

    This is 4

  • Singular3DSingular3D Posts: 605

    Love the details! The strength can be adjusted, and there are a lot of options for older characters.

  • LiliumVALiliumVA Posts: 26

    So I wanted to jump into HumanPro to see if it might be an alternative as it has a face rig, has a wider variety of eyeshadows etc... compared to GS. I am unimpressed, and going to return it.

    For one, it has menu items that are not at all related to what it says. One menu item shows 'Asian/European', as it may indicate skin tone ONLY on G9 models. However, what this slider does is adjust the skin detail, and does not at all change the skin tone. When it is set to '0' it produces an excessively displaced skin that in fact has eyebrows on it.  When setting it to '1' it is completely barbie smooth. I hid the mesh G9 eyebrows to show the displaced eyebrows. Even if one were to adjust the settings to be somewhat bearable, the eyebrows are STILL there.

    So I attempted to see if this too was an issue with G8. The G8 skin does NOT have eyebrows ingrained in the displacement map. HOWEVER, it does look horrendous. I then attempted to use the face rig, and oh boy... this is what it looks like using it, and rendered,

     

     

    I would not reccomend this addon at all in it's current state.

  • hardwire666hardwire666 Posts: 74
    edited March 30

    LiliumVA said:

    hardwire666 said:

    The same people made https://blendermarket.com/products/humanify---one-click-realism with it they promised monthly new materials to be added. Then they basically abandond it and made global skin. I'm a bit mifed about it myself becasue I bought humanify to support what looked lie a good project. Eventually I switched to G9 so I get 8k normal maps that do just fine. So not getting what I paid for isn't really an issue. It's just the bait and witch they pulled that i don't like. But what ever thing s happen.

     The big part of the addons from what I saw is they have 8k displacment maps. Which.... takes a metric crap ton of geometry to use. I have a 4090 and I don't even bother with geomtry that intense. Personally I think the Daz normals are plenty fine. 

    I just want to say, as someone that did get Humanify too, contact BlenderMarket and get a refund. The honored my refund, even after the time allowed, because the devs have not done what they have agreed to.
     

    Honestly it was so long ago I don't even care anymore. All I care about is that people beware of the developer.

    Post edited by hardwire666 on
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