Joan of Arc - Part 18 - Procedurally texturing the skin

A procedural texture is a texture which is calculated at the time of rendering of an image, its principal advantage is that it does not need mapping co-ordinates which cover any surface or form in 3 dimensions.

It's principal disadvantage is that it can have periodic repetition and it especially appears more monotonous than a traditional bitmap texture.

But it remains irreplaceable in the very difficult case such as an ear object polygonal model.

With max (2.5 and 3.0) and its excellent Material Editor we can get so good results...

When I am working on a model, before it is finished, it is pleasant to have a procedural skin texture.

No concern for mapping, just apply the material and it is Practical!

In the Material Editor each texture channel (diffuses, bump, reflection...) can be a different type and standard max 3 offers so much in procedural, effect or bitmap. Digimation one of the best creators of plug-ins for max distributes a collection of procedural textures that very interesting supplement the list opposite.

But for the moment we use what we have...

When using procedural textures it is necessary to learn how to use them, also we should not hesitate to test them one by one, by modifying the default settings.

Then we can have fun mixing them, amalgamating them to obtain others from them...

Below some examples (splat, marble, smoke, checker and cellular linen).

Of course it is not with these basic materials that we will make a little credible texture of skin. We need to mix between them.

One thing that should be known, it is that a procedural texture has a size, this works with objects on the same scale.

If we wish to apply a procedural texture to two objects modeled in different files, we will have to take care that they have the same scale ratio if not it will be necessary to modify the size of each procedural texture to make it "stick" with the scale of the model...

To start we initially will create the Diffuse part of texture, i.e. the color of the skin. We select Speckle as the type of texture for the Diffuse channel.
The first thing is to put texture on the model for scale.
To see the material we regulate the colors of texture with black and white the Defaults.

We can change the texture at the place of the colors (Maps frameworks). This is what we will do to simulate the texture of skin, pile up several procedural textures...

d_image1.gif

d_image1.gif

Before going further, we replace the black and white colors with "human" colors.

d_image7.gif

d_image7.gif

This time we use Smoke. The Smoke Procedural texture replaces the black color in or in this case the bottom slot. Opposite are the adjustments of Smoke.
It creates slightly pink spots.

_image6.gif

_image6.gif

Now, we use the Splat texture in the top slot.

This creates small very irregular brown spots.

_image5.gif

_image5.gif

Styliziing_Toons

Styliziing_Toons



Now we activate two under-textures at the same time.
We obtain a texture of skin with interesting nuances and small imperfections in the pigmentation.

Of course, such a texture is not photo-realistic but it looks good.

A convincing texture comprises of three obligatorily channels.

The Diffuse channel gives the general color of the material.
The Bump channel, which gives a relief to material.
Finally the Specular channel or Glossiness to vary the way in which the texture reacts to light.
In the case of the skin texture procedural we quite simply will copy the Diffuse channel into the Bump and Specular.
That makes it possible automatically to reflect the modifications made to Diffuse towards Bump and Specular Level...

When you copy the channel select instance...

Bump + Diffuse.

The dark parts of Diffuse are hollow and the clear ones are bumps.

Specular + Bump + Diffuse.

The dark parts of Diffuse show less light, the clear ones more...

Now the model with procedural texture.

Of course we could make different procedural textures for Bump and Specular Levels but for our needs on this model under development it is a little superfluous...

Another procedural skin texture with a different structure reveals virtual beauty spots.

In the development of the final texture, we can use a mixing of procedural textures and bitmaps. We use Bitmaps for the characteristic details (make-up, lips, scars etc...) and the remainder is the procedural one which takes care of (above of cranium, ear, nose...).

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