Q&A | Realistic skin shading

Q&A
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Submitted by Martin Dona ldson, via th

QUESTION OF THE MONTH

e forums

CINEMA 4D

How do you create a believable skin shader in Cinema 4D?

This issues question is tackled by Adam Watkins, the Director of Computer Graphic Arts at the University of the Incarnate Word (www.cgauiw.com) in San Antonio, Texas system currently allows for Fusion and other inner-material layering techniques, being able to layer Luminance channels via two materials provides much a quicker way to rene the effect. The second feature is subsurface scattering (SSS). Subsurface scattering is the phenomenon in the real world where light is able to penetrate a surface and scatter beneath it. This provides an inner glow to such diverse materials as marble, milk and skin. Although there are some limitations to C4Ds SSS implementation (it doesnt work with global illumination, for example), its still a pretty snazzy tool to use and gives skin a visual volume and depth. Because you pay a rendering price for activating SSS, however, you may choose to go without (we will also look at ways to do this); but if you have the processing power, the results are worth it. Flat skin is a problem with most 3D applications and a challenge for animators who have moved beyond the got-the-shape-andcolour-right stage. Even a lot of high-end 3D produced for lm has this base-heavy look. Effective channel manipulation and material layering can bring skin tones to life, and make your renders appear to have more depth. For the illustration above, weve applied the technique to a simplied, cartoon-style model. This is not supplied on the CD, you should substitute your own.

FACTFILE
FOR Cinema 4D DIFFICULTY Intermediate TIME TAKEN One hour ON THE CD Full-size screenshots Completed skin shader Final animations QTVR of nished scene ALSO REQUIRED N/A

with most materials built into Cinema 4D is that they act as opaque surfaces that provide highlights that are not based upon reection, but on the often fake-looking Specular channel. The results as can be seen in left-hand image above have a dead look to them. True, the various parts of the face have good surface colour (the lips are coloured differently to the cheeks, for example) and the lighting helps to dene the form. But the result still looks as if the colour was spray painted on, or as if the model has too much makeup on, obliterating the glow that makes skin look alive. There are two main features of Cinema 4D that will enable you to create good skin materials. The rst is its capacity to layer materials effectively. The plan here is to work with multiple Luminance channels for a single surface. Although C4Ds materials

etting skin to look right is tricky. It might seem as though it should be an easy task its just a bit of orange, tan, olive or brown together with some good lighting, right? Well, not quite. The problem

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Realistic skin shading | Q&A

STAGE ONE | Scene set-up

Import your head model. Remember to make good use of C4Ds HyperNURBS capabilities and do not use any more polygons than are needed. The more polys you have, the more UVs you will need to ght with later; and although this is about constructing materials, having a good UV map to begin with goes a long way. Be sure to name your objects effectively.

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Because we are going to be using SSS, C4D will work best with surfaces that it sees as closed. In this screenshot, we are looking at the bottom of the neck an open neck. To close areas like this off, select the edges around the opening and use Structure > Close Polygon Hole. Watch for spots you could miss such as the bottom of the neck and the nostrils.

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Establish several rings of ll lights (illustrated here with white circles). Keep the intensities low. You could also do this with global illumination but with slower rendering results. You can use alternate lighting schemes that match your scene as well; this is just one good soft layout set-up. Create one more key light called Highlight Light. This will be the hottest light source.

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STAGE TWO | Basic material set-up

Laying out well-spaced UVs can be tricky, but it is absolutely necessary to create clean textures that do not stretch or pinch across the surface. How to do so in BodyPaint 3D (C4Ds sister application) is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but you might try the UV Unwrap in the demo version of modo, or various other UV modication tools (many are available free to download on the internet).

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Using either BodyPaint 3D or Photoshop, paint the colour on your UV layout. Do not worry about painting in highlights, or simulating any sort of SSS just do the basic colour. Remember to vary the skin colour across the face for best results skin is never monochromatic. Import this image into the Color channel of a new material (labelled Skin Base in the scene le on the CD).

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A good bump map for the face is important and will add visual interest to the SSS. Remember that the texture of the face is very different across the cheeks than it is across the nose, eyelids and ears. Import this into the Bump channel of Skin Base and adjust the Bump Strength to your taste. Take several quick renders at this stage to get that bump just right.

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STAGE THREE | Highlight material set-up

Create a new material (named Skin Highlight on the sample le). Activate Luminance and Bump and turn off all the other channels. Later, the Luminance channel of Skin Base will use the SSS capabilities. The Luminance of Skin Highlight will enable us to make specic adjustments to how the highlight of the surface will work.

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Open the Material Editor for Skin Base. Click the Bump channel and click the triangle button next to Texture input. Choose Copy Channel. Select Skin Highlight in the Material Manager, and in the Material Editor, choose Bump, click the Texture triangle and choose Paste Channel. This ensures both materials share the same bump.

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Back in the Skin Highlight material, go to the Luminance channel and click on the Texture triangle button. Choose Sketch > Cel from the drop-down menu. You wont be creating a cel-shaded look here, but this will allow you to have control over how the luminance of the surface moves across that surface as the lighting changes.

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Q&A | Realistic skin shading

STAGE THREE (Continued) | Highlight material set-up

Click on the Cel button (which is now located in the Texture input eld). This opens the attributes of the Cel Shader which will eventually control your luminance. In the lower half, deactivate Camera, and activate Lights. Then, in the Use Lights section, choose Include and drag your Highlight Light from the Objects Manager into the Lights section of the Material Editor.

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Expand the Diffuse section (of the Luminance channel). Change the Diffuse settings to approximate those shown in the screenshot (pink to blue) with added colour knots. Change the Interpolation to Linear. This will vary depending on the complexion of your character. If you have a darker-skinned character, you could use more brown in the olive colour palette.

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Assuming you have already applied Skin Base to your model, apply Skin Highlight to the same surface (drag from the Material Manager to the object in Objects Manager). Click on the new Texture Tag in the Objects Manager and activate Mix Textures. This will allow the colour of Skin Base to show through, but will mix the settings for the Luminance and Bump maps that the two materials share.

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STAGE FOUR | Working in the SSS

Double-click Skin Base in the Material Manager. Activate Luminance, and choose Effects > Subsurface Scattering from the Texture drop-down menu (triangle button). This will make the skin glow as light penetrates it. Although the settings can be a little tricky to get right, this is what gives your skin its inner glow.

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Subsurface scattering is rendering intensive, so to help speed up the test renders, create a sphere and resize it to approximately the size of your head. Ensure you put it in the same space as your head, and then hide the head. Apply the Skin Base material to the sphere (do not apply the Skin Highlight for now).

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For the kind of renders were doing now, there is no need for things like antialiased edges. Open your Render Settings, and in the General area turn the Antialiasing to None. Also, turn off Transparency and Reection. Be sure to leave Shadow set to All Types so you dont have extra light travelling through objects.

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Take a test render at this point to see what the default settings do to your sphere. The settings for SSS can be a little tricky to get the hang of, and will vary from scene to scene, depending on the size of your model. You will be able to tell immediately if things are not right in the test render. From this point, you can start making adjustments.

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Open Skin Base and, in the Luminance channel, click the Subsurface Scattering button. The Absorption Filter denes the transition from the colour of the surface (left) to the colour of the deeper layers of skin (right). Change the tab on the right to a colour slightly more saturated than your main skin colour. Change the colour on the left to blue for light-skinned characters and a greener hue for darker-skinned characters.

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Now its time to adjust the Absorption. This will vary according to the size of your model, as Absorption indicates the depth at which the light is completely absorbed. For this rendering, it was set at 10m for a sphere that is around 450m in diameter. Adjust and tweak as needed, and look for the start of a healthy (although maybe slightly purplish) glow.

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Realistic skin shading | Q&A

STAGE FOUR (Continued) | Working in the SSS

Time to adjust Scattering Length. This setting denes exactly how far the dispersed light scatters across the subsurface. Too deep, and things get too washed out across the surface; too shallow, however, and you dont really need SSS in the rst place as you wont be able to see the results with the naked eye. For this shot, the Scattering Length is set to 10m.

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Notice that with SSS, the render can quickly get completely washed out. While you want glow, the overexposed look should come from the Skin Highlight material. Reducing the Strength to somewhere around 30% will still give you the pretty effect youre after without blasting the skin apart. Tweak this setting to taste, based upon your lighting scheme.

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This is where you assign Skin Highlight to the sphere and mix the materials. Do this by dragging Skin Highlight from the Material Manager on to the sphere, and then click Mix Textures and render. You will want to do some tweaking here within your materials to get the right look. Again, performing test renders on the sphere will speed up the process as you dial in different settings.

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STAGE FIVE | Finishing up

Make sure that both your Skin Base and Skin Highlight are assigned to your face (or other body surfaces) and unhide the face. Take some small test renderings to see how your work is shaping up. You may nd areas like the nostrils look transparent, in which case youll need to turn down the Scattering Length. Adjust the other settings according to your desired results.

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Open your Render Settings again, and turn your Antialiasing back on (probably to Geometry). Reactivate Transparency and Reection. This will slow your renderings somewhat but will provide the considerably crisper results that you will want for your nal output. Take some renderings at a smaller resolution to see if everything still holds up.

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Because this technique is light-dependent, you can make all sorts of adjustments along the way to get your nal look. Remember that things like the Absorption Filter are dependent upon the colours being visible in the light scattered from the skin, so whiter lights will provide more reliable colour results. You can move, adjust and animate the lighting set-up: view the movie on the CD to

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see animated lights in motion, how the SSS holds up and how the highlight moves across the skin. If you are on a tighter render budget, you can cut corners by leaving SSS turned off and still get a nice highlight. You can also get quick results using ChanLum, a free C4D channel shader available at www.happyship.com/lab/chanlum/chanlum.html, but SSS is still a great tool to make beautiful realistic skin.

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