Cant get skin material right
ubergamer62
Posts: 16
in New Users
I'm having a really hard time getting the materials right
it keeps looking like he's sunburned. the lips come out too red. he looks fine in normal mode but when I look in render or in blender its the opposite. Nothing i tried works.
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Iray render in Daz Studio? Normal meaning Texture Shaded? Are these your own material settings or are they a preset from a product? Which character is it?
Blender has a different render engine and the shader should be adjusted within Blender accordingly, so I won't touch on that aspect of your post. Making realistic skin in Daz Studio's Iray is a contentious topic in some respects.
If you are not familiar with creating a skin shader in Daz, you could choose a character (a purhcased one from a marketplace or one of the default ones) whose materials you like as a starting point, before tweaking further.
If lips and skin are too red, it could be due to a variety of factors; the texture maps being too red (Translucency Color or Base Color) or Translucency Color values being too red, tint values, or SSS settings. There are too many variables, so I think it is best to start from a baseline you are happy with before adjustments are made to maps or settings.
I don't know, I did the presets myself to customize it and the character is just base genesis 8 male with materials and stuff on it
I tried blender but I dont know what to do with it. the results are not what I wanted
If I do anything to the lips or skin it gives me the opposite. I tried to make the skin look caucasian (I was even given materials by a friend so it was my base) and it comes out looking like a simpson. The lips no matter what I do end up standing out from the rest of it. the skin and lips have proven to be IMPOSSIBLE to manage. I just can't get the results i'm after. its almost unusable. I can turn translucensy off and just say screw it to custom skin color but then the skin looks a little mix of caucasian and grey and not what im looking for. So no matter what I do it just won't work.
I'm stuck in a dead end.
I can't get the skin color the way I want it. A friend provided me with a models skin texture. I'm trying to modify the color but he ends up looking bright, the lips are too red and stand out from the skin. It looks like it was just placed on the face. It doesnt blend at all. I somewhat got it to the shade I want but it still wont blend in. I turn off translucency for everything and it looks normal but the skin is still a bit grey. I want the color to look more caucasian but no matter what I do to it it just progressively gets worse and worse. I haven't found any tutorials to help me. I looked at the courses on daz but they didn't help me solve my problem at all, just made things worse. So many colors are wrong and not the colors I want for the skin. It looks unrealistic. It gets worse when I port it to blender. Colors are still wrong, some parts look so dark it looks like the part was stuck in a furnace and his flesh is burned. The nails look unrealistic and are light grey. The eyes look like glass, you can barely see the pupils.
No matter where I put this thing or what I do to it, the thing gets worse and worse. I haven't made a single improvement. I can't find help anywhere. The reddit wants karma which I dont have cause I dont use reddit so I cant get help there. There's no discord server, no youtube videos, no people to help me and so far the forums here are extremely slow.
I'm lost and confused and my situation continues to regress instead of improve and I considered on numerous occassions on just flat out giving up on daz3d entirely but due to needing this model I can't quit as much as I want too but I cant get ANYWHERE with this thing! Nothing makes sense and no one will help me.
Heck, the preview looks better than the render! It's the closest thing to the results I actually want.
In the files the face is how it started, the second one is where I got it but it's still not how I want and the render mode and blender dont look anything like it and I looked at the shaders and literally nothing can be done. No matter where this thing goes it doesnt have the results im after and NOTHING worked so far.
Is there ANY support here?! Or has daz been abandoned?
It is not clear what you are trying to do. Are you trying to make your own skin preset?
And posting some images, will help understand what you are observing (just be aware, no nudity, if there is skin material).
Good, as mentioned I was not going to touch on that aspect of your post in any case.
If what you are doing is the opposite of what you intend, you could try doing the opposite of what you are doing? It is unclear what that is from your descriptions so far.
When you say materials, do you mean a material preset that has already been set up with a skin shader and correctly adjusted for Daz Studio, or by materials do you mean texture maps?
It is not clear from the information provided thus far if we should entrust your friend is good at Daz Studio and has created a good realistic shader as a baseline for you to make adjustments. Hence why I suggested using one created by Daz Studio or purchased from a store as a baseline, as those will likely be a better starting point than from scratch.
Which figure are you using (Genesis 3, 8, 8.1, 9 etc)?
Genesis 9 does not have a dedicated lip material slot/surface, and therefore lips should be adjusted using a mask.
Genesis 8 on the other hand, does have a dedicated material slot. As the boundary of the material slot is a sharp line, changing settings on this material slot will likely have a sharp line. Therefore, to avoid a sharp line, I would suggest maintaining the same skin settings on the lips as on the rest of the face. Any adjustments should be made to lips using masks to avoid sharp demarcation between the rest of the face.
You must keep translucency on for realistic skin. Translucency weight should be around 0.8 to 0.9 generally for caucasian skin.
Again, repeating myself, but it sounds like are not fully familiar with the shader settings yet and therefore I think it would be advisable to start from a baseline skin material which Daz or a vendor has set up for you (rather than your friend).
If you want someone on this forum to explain the full process for setting up skin material from scratch, which seems to be what you are actually asking, I think it is probably advisable in that case to consult documentation about the specific shader you want to use. Within Daz, there are many different shaders. The common shaders which people use for skin are "Iray Uber" or "PBRSkin" shaders. The settings on those shaders are fairly similar between both shaders, and the names of the paramaters are also used across 3D industry. If there is a parameter on the shader which you want to know more about, you can consult references online specifically for Daz Studio about the shader, or refer to definitions used in other 3D software (as the terms will be the same, more often than not).
Some guides:
Iray Uber:
Omni thread:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/703161/omni-surface-shader-test/p1 ;
Diffeomorphic usually does a good job converting materials to blender, but some skins can be difficult no matter what. If you need a precise control on the skin you can use a native blender shader or simply the principled shader.
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/shader_nodes/shader/principled.html
Threads merged.