Skin material
 

I've posted this on a couple of other forums, but I really want to get as much crit on this as possible.....

A skin texture (this one is specifically for the arm - all the renders are on a simple cylinder)

http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin_8.jpg

Do, please, rip it apart as much as you can - I want to know EVERYTHING that feels wrong about it.

Previous versions can be found at the following links:

http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin_7.jpg
http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin_6.jpg
http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin_5.jpg
http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin_4.jpg
http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin_3.jpg
http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin_2.jpg
http://www.brokenpipefilms.com/maya/skin.jpg

Hi,

I think its looking great so far. Especialy the frecks, and color. I'm chewing on making skin-shaders myself at this moment, and know its hard work to get it right.

I'm having a lot of help with a textureworkshop-book by Bill Flemming, it only costs about 18 bucks, so not a bad investment,and really set my of in the right direction.

Chris.

Looks good. Something does not look quite right about the veins though. Maybe the edges are a bit sharp, you can see this more clearly in pics 2, 3 and 4. Maybe you can find a way to soften the edges. Looks good though.

If the streaks are veins, then I'd like the veins to be not just running in one direction, but also braching in some subtle way.

it's a nice start man.. those veins should be more naturally placed.. like undseth suggestion.. some branching somewhere..
keep it up!

Hehe - it's nice that you've all noticed the one thing that I'm not happy with!

sdch1000: The change that I made between pics 4 and 5 was that I smoothed off the veins.

Incidentally - I had to do this by tweaking the Marble texture (that I'm using for the veins) - does anyone know if there is a way to just blur a channel? It seems like the kind of thing that would be really useful, but I can't find any way of doing it...

As far as the direction of the veins goes... I was trying to make it 100% procedural, but I have since decided that I am going to do an image for the path that the veins will take - that way I'll be able to make it a lot more realistic... I've been thinking specifically about how to do the back of the hand (that'll be fun!)

Are there tutorials out there or great books in making organic textures?
 

Hi,

Just wondering if there is a tutorial or book out there to make human shaders or human textures out of looking at the photos?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

JL