| Tackeling
the Textures  Disclaimer:
The point that I am trying to make with this tutorial is sort of conflicting with
how I actually did it.
I wrote this tutorial to help with the new technology,
but it was applied to a model using old technology. Let me clarify. In the near
future we will not be shading any volume in the diffuse map, only giving it color,
same way we do in hi poly art. Then the normal map, and eventually geometry, will
put in the shadows to show volume. This tutorial is to help with getting good
skin tone, but because the character was not normal mapped, I still put in shadowing
information. This is an incomplete tutorial, as it does not show my skin all the
way to completion, but only shows a technique for skin tone.
There
are a great number of texture tutorials out there. Having watched a great number
of them, I have come up with this method for skin. I am not going to really focus
on anything but the skin, because all the other parts were created using similar
methods to all the other tutorials out there. The Hair was done using Adobes
method, which works quite well. The
reason this method is different is that it combines the best of both of the main
methods. I am speaking of painting all one one layer, where you have a pallette
of colors that you pick from and paint all of them together. This allows for great
results, if you are a great painter, but for most it can quickly lead to a muddy
mess. It also doesnt leave room for much tweaking as everything was done on one
layer. The second method is to paint all in greyscale, and then overlay a skin
color. This method provides great tweakability, but doenst have that extra life
that real skin has. My method allows you to have multiple layers, work only in
greyscale so you can take your time, and still come out with a realistic looking
skin. This allows you to revisit and tweak your volume layer (the greyscale) to
your hearts content, and not worry about the colors getting all muddy.
|
First
arrange your lights in the positions and color that you want to be on your character,
then bake a light map using Tex porter or texture kiln, or whatever bake to texture
plugin of choice. You need this to help you determine your light sources. On my
model, there was enough detail in the geometry that most of the muscles and deformations
were already formed by the tex porter bake in this map. This map will be referred
to as "light map" you cant paint this entirely by hand if you want to
as well. this should only have the large scale detail in it, such as biceps, pecs,
calves, that sort. Anything finer, like the striations in a muscle, or the forearm
muscles, save them for later. I will get to them, but it is important that this
map only have about 60% of the volume information. 
Adjust
this layer, and blur to taste, so that it doesnt show all the evidence of the
vertex based lighting. I will explain later, why this layer has a slight color
cast to it, it is no longer pure greyscale.
Next,
create a flood fill layer of your skin color of choice. You will not touch this
layer other than to adjust the overall color. this is where many people stop when
creating a skin map. The create the volume in a greyscale layer, and then overlay
a skin color. As you can see the results are good, but not yet looking like real
skin. it lacks variation in color. 