Head mesh
 

Hi all

I got the head mesh from Turbosquid.

I textured this head's skin and eyes with Maya's misss_fast_skin and added a Brownian 3D displacement map. I then exported it to Photoshop CS3 and added the eyebrows and touched up on the eye edges, added eyebrows and changed the lip color and added stubles below the nose and mouth.

I imported the eyes as 2 separate meshes, textured with pupil Photoshop file, added fast_skin shader and added a reflection map.

Please can you give me input on how to improve this head. Many thanks in advance!

Sorry, here's the mesh
 

Sorry, here's the mesh!

To be honest I think the procedural displacement is a bit strong... try a bit smoother, but that's just my opinion.

Many thanks stwert. I agree (especially the nose, eyelids and cheek areas - the foreheads seems ok). I'll lighten the displacement map a bit. The original lips are the same as the skin color. I think I'll revert the lips back too. Not too happy about the black pupils. They lack that little bit of twinkle. I think I need to do do a bit more work... thanks again ! :-)

Place the lips in the write place - the texture is way off

Ok, tweetytunes. A million thanks! :-)

1. Will revert back to that original lips - I don't think I need to change the lip color

2. Will lighten the Brownian displacement (the bumps are too deep and glaring)

3. Will clean up that careless red stroke under the lips

Is that displacement or bump? Doesn't seem like displacement, and I think bump would work fine for pores and minor imperfections, also the SSS is way too strong, its weird seeing it in the neck.

Wow, either my gamma on my monitor is way off (which I doubt because I calibrate it regularly), or a lot of people have their gamma cranked to high heaven, because I can't see squat in most of these (on black background) renders posted in here.

For instance someone mentioned a neck, I can't see a neck, all I see is a silhouetted partial front of the face, from the middle of the left cheek and from the middle of the forhead the just below the lower lip.

Bringing it into photoshop and cranking my gama to the point where black becomes 50% grey, I concur that the bump is to strong and the textures are a little askew.

Re: Head mesh
 

hang on... come again.


btw, i the brightness,contrast, bias and gain are the things that you want to adjust for a monitor calibration. Gamma will always stay the same (2.2).

[@GecT : Is that displacement or bump?...]

Its Brownian 3D so its displacement. I really need to lighten it but at the same time I want to let the viewer that little bit of texture in the skin because it makes it a bit more realistic.

Not happy with the eyes still. I think I'll change the reflection map image to get that little bit more reflection. I think the cornea is a bit light - I might darken the ambience a shade. The eyes need just that little bit more work to be realistic. There is no "eye puff" - you know that double layer just above the eye. The eye edges need more work especially the eye brows, The eyebrows need to be a little bit thicker. What do you think if I use PaintFX? Or I need to add a bump map for the eyebrows...

If I can get my eyes and skin to pass the quality test, I think I'll be almost there. I will then work on the lips which I hope you all can give me pointers and tips!


[@GecT : SSS way too strong, a bit weird to see it on the neck...]

Thanks, Genny. I'll tweak it a bit or move the lighting :-)


[@hammer.horror : and eyes with Maya's misss_fast_skin]

Yup, you can get good results :-) ...read the lamrug tut.


[@ctbram : ...I can't see a neck, all I see is a silhouetted partial front of the face, from the middle of the left cheek and from the middle of the forehead the just below the lower lip...]

ctbram, are you sure you can't see a neck and you're only seeing silhouttes? I don't seem to have a problem with the other commenters but if you calibrated your monitor recently, maybe its mine that's off. That's bad because I don't want to be doing a whole lot of colour adjustments when I send it off for processing to a PP lab later,


P.S. >> On second look, the lips are not at their correct position. I need to retouch it from front view and rotate but I'm stuck to this angle because I'm working from an exported image in Photoshop CS3! (wish...wish...I could get CS4 Extended with the new 3D tools !!! :-) )


Thank you all for your comments!

Yeah I am "sure" I can't see a big portion of the image because it's too dark. You might want to consider going to camera attributes and setting the background to medium grey.

Black backgrounds and near black shadows means a big chunk of the image is lost in the shadows.

@HH: gamma, brightness whatever, all I know is I have to turn brightness or gamma up until blacks become greys to see the stuff that is in shadow. Black background renders with black shadows are hard to see.

I have my monitor setup so that black things are black not grey. But I can always bring the image into photoshop and brighten it up so I have a work around. But I think people run their monitors too bright.