nice tutorial aricshow, I'll be looking at that one :)

its a hard call jramauri, maybe try out paintfx for a week or so and if its not going well revert back to the modelled approach (with a few paintfx hair bits added on top?)

good luck!

Thats a very nice tut. It's been online for a while I believe. Still, I reccomend the modeled hair approach. It's far less expensive renderwise, but thats my own opinion.

Thank you very much, guys!

Aricshow: Oh, I'm still forgeting something! I was so worried about hair that I forgot eyelashes. Don't worry, they will come.
I already knew this tutorial, I used it in my set/oct challenge entry. The greatest problem with PFX is that it should be rendered with default Maya renderer, and it won't give me a realistic look never. About the wind, I use it to adjust the hair I'm using. It's fun to use this kind of resource.

THX1138: I hate giving up. To be honest, I'd like to learn how to render Hair properly much than go to another approach. But in another hand, the time for this challenge is coming to the end, and I have to show good results... So, I believe I'll do what you are saying, go to the sculpted approach, and left the learning in Maya Hair for the future. I think it's the better decision by now.
I'm new in the rendering world. So I'm not sure what is happenning here. I'm using a HDRI image (a gray image), a three point like scheme, and PreviewFinalGather on my render settings. Also my model doesn't have a specularity map yet. I'll make a new render, without hair, and then we can argue about lighting.
My Ray tracing is coming good. It's a matter of time and adjustments, I believe.

t1ck135: PFX has those problems I said. I was trying to use Maya hair because it renders on Mental Ray. But while I don't know exactly the correct render settings, let's back for the modeled approach.

I reccomend using an actual HDRI "IMAGE" instead of a grey scale image. HDRI is the best way of getting the photo real look. I don't know how you have your lights set up, but it seems like all your light sources are at the same intensity and thats washing out your model in a sence. If your default light is still on, turn it off. As far as Mental Ray settings go " Preview Final Gather " is too low for really good quality renders. It's just a preview setting. Really good renders use a higher setting. Let me know if you need help on render settings.

Hey , THX1138, thanks for your help! It's seems there was something strange in my SSS settings. I deleted the previous SSS shader and made a new one. My key light has a intensity of 5 and linear as decay. I', m using two background lights, no dacay, 0.5 each one. And a fill light, linear, intensity 2.
This render was made using Production setting, with Final Gather enabled. I think the volumes are more defined now.

http://www.amauriilustra.com.br/CGTalk/Bjork_30.jpg

your SSS shader is not working right.
theres no scattering.

I think you have too many lights in your scene, and your not getting the benefit of the HDRI because of it. I reccomend just the key light with the HDRI. The production setting will not set anything for Final Gather. Try these settings and see how they work for you. Set your FG rays to say 500, and your sample levels at 10 for MIN, and 100 for MAX. Set your Multipixel filtering to Mitchell. Render out a scene. For the next render, up your FG rays and Sample levels. Always keep your Min sample level 10% from your Max sample level ( 30/300 for example ).

If you allready know how FG works, then don't bother following my example. Just trying to help you out. I'm not trying to tell how to do your project.

Thanks for your background, dudes. I read some tutorials about SSS Shader, and I think it's working better now. Unfortunaltely, I don't have a HDR image, so, I'm using an ordinary image of a room as my "HDR". For test purposes, I think it's good enough.
Hey, THX1138, I set the "production" setting, and then I active final gather manually. I read Maya's documentation, and I think I understood how FG works. Thanks!

There's something bothering me. I mapped the transparency of the "eyelashes material", but for some reason, there's a line in the contour of my eyelashes surfaces. Does anybody here could explain what is wrong? The texture is just an ordinary black and white image, with the shape of eyelashes, put on transparency section of a lambert.

http://www.amauriilustra.com.br/CGTalk/Bjork_33.jpg

she's shiny!

Still not perfect, the lighting, and mayb tweak the SSS mat some more, but the model is great!

man im glad humans have hair on thier head, look so strange without.

Finally, I did a specular map for her. So, her shininess was faded a little bit. Of couse this map deserves more work, but I will do this only when I finish modeling. I redid eylashes, this time using PFX. They look better now.

Matt the man: Thanks. I'll tweak these things slowly, until the end of this challenge.

jhubbard - Bjork appears bald in the "Hunter" song clip. To be honest, I like to see girls with short or no hair!

http://www.amauriilustra.com.br/CGTalk/Bjork_34.jpg

Really? :eek: I like the exact opposite! Opinions are opinions...

Hey, don't misunderstand me! I like girls in every way! ;)

:p

For some reason it looks like the eyes are too far apart.