[djflod]

imho the skin is too red-ish ... esp. on the legs

[Half Life]

You may be right depending on the monitor you are using -- I am using a fairly good monitor that covers 98% of the adobeRGB gamut and it looks awful (over-saturated and red) when I am viewing in the adobeRGB gamut, however when I switch over to sRGB mode it looks as I intended it.

I had a great deal of trouble trying to find what would look best on these forums compared to what looks good on my system and skin tones are very fragile... more so than just about anything else. Since most machines only see in sRGB I felt it was best to stick with that -- however this is what looks "right" to me on my system in Photoshop (feel free to download and try it too).

V5_final_simulens_post.png

All that said, the legs are redder than other parts, but that was the texture map they give -- I made no changes.

I also notice that it is more saturated on my Windows XP machine than my Windows 7 machine and I would attribute that to color management because I use the same monitor for both systems (I just switch).

Best,
Jason.

[Half Life]

Here's a quick test of a character I bought on sale today: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=14121 -- I respect this persons work, and I think the detail of their characters will translate well to Maxwell.

naoki_test.jpg

I used pretty much the same techniques I learned from the previous tests -- everything worked the same except the full high-poly geometry got exported at the correct scale this time (even though I'm using the exact same export settings )... it might have to do with the fact that this is not the super-high poly version, I'll have to investigate that further. The ears have the same problem with needing to be triangle grouped in Maxwell Studio to use the correct texture... but since this was just a quick test I didn't feel like slogging through that. I also tried a different approach with the skin specular mapping but I'm thinking it is still a bit too "shiny" at this point.

Best,
Jason.

[Half Life]

Here's a new version:

naoki_test2.jpg

I did the needed triangle grouping for the ears/head and refined all the materials. I aslo adjusted the lighting a bit using HDR Light Studio and tweaked the camera angle -- I also used some Simulens effects and did some minor postwork.

I decided to keep the color profile AdobeRGB1998 which is the same as my monitor settings -- hopefully it looks as it should now.

Here's the raw version just in case:

naoki_test_raw.jpg

Best,
Jason.

[Half Life]

Just testing some more DAZ skin textures I made into MXM's -- this time it's Valerie, which you can see here: http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=13602

valerie.jpg

valerie_adobergb.jpg

There are some minor triangle grouping issues in this that I would have to sort out if I was doing this for real -- but I just don't have the patience/time for it right now. I saved out both color profiles and hopefully one of them looks right on whatever monitor you are using.

Speaking of which I've found that FBX files (exported from DAZ Studio) do keep the triangle grouping data in Maxwell Studio, but the geometry is completely unusable (looks like a bomb blew it up)... and I can't even test Collada files because Maxwell Studio crashes every single time I try to import one. So I'm stuck with OBJ files, which don't seem to keep the triangle groups... if anybody else has a smoother workflow for this let me know.

Best,
Jason.

[Half Life]

Here's "Valerie" again after some testing in different lighting scenarios to "dial-in" the material settings.

valerie2.jpg

I used the free sample from hdri-locations.com -- which I modified with HDR Light Studio. I'm not a big fan of heavy makeup, but I used one of the "makeup" variants for her face here (since I got it anyway as part of the set of textures).

I'm pretty well satisfied with Valerie's MXMs now so I'll move onto another character next time.

Best,
Jason.

[gotoxy av-media]

the skin looks very convincing, except her head!
will you share this skin-mxm?

munch

[Half Life]

I agree, but I guess that is in keeping with heavy makeup -- which makes "real" people look fake too... I'll probably never use the makeup variants in this skin texture set as a result.

I'm also less than pleased with the results I've been able to get from the "hair", which does not help.

I can share the MXM settings but since the textures are from a commercial package you would need to purchase them in order to have the MXM do you any good. However it is a basic technique that works for just about any skin texture set and it basically the same thing I show on the leaf here:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... 21#p337721

Best,
Jason.

[Rob_Lucy]

Sorry to hijack your thread Half Life, maybe I should have posted in a different one, but...

Here are something I did back in v1.7, I never had a new opportunity to get my hands on v2 since then (switched to a new job), but now I'm back in a studio that owns a Maxwell license, so I could pick those scene up again and try to make something out of them.

[gotoxy av-media]

thanks for the info, jason!

munch

[Half Life]

Cool stuff Rob!

I never intended this to be "my" thread -- it was for general exploration of the possibilities when using DAZ Studio and Maxwell together.

Mostly my reason for doing this was to see what could be done in Maxwell and compare that to what is being done with Reality/Lux or Octane (in conjunction to DAZ Studio). Right now Maxwell only has one $99 "stand-alone" plugin (for SketchUp) and I think DAZ Studio would be an excellent target for another such plugin.

Anybody who wants to post renders and/or workflow tricks and tips is more than welcome.

Best,
Jason.

[Rob_Lucy]

Cool!
As soon as I find some spare time I will get those scenes back and see what I can do with v2.6.10!

edit: imageshack is bringing some of my images down...

[Half Life]

I converted a new hairstyle to MXM's -- Also I switched out the heavy makeup because I didn't care for it too much.

valerie_newhair.jpg

On the hair, I have some issues with this type of 3D "hair", which is primarily that I never seem to be able to get past the fact that it is just textures on polygons (and it looks obviously so) -- however, part of the issue here may be that the triangle grouping does not carry over from DAZ Studio into Maxwell Studio in OBJ (which is the only interchange format that will work at all for me) so the actual intentions of the artist may not be accurately represented...

Regardless "hair" has always seemed to me to be the most problematic area to achieve "realistic" 3D people -- which is why I have been so interested to try the new(ish) Maxwell hair. That said I think this new hairstyle is an improvement over the previous.

I have been playing with DAZ cloth dynamics and will soon be converting some clothes to MXMs as well... which should be interesting to see.

Best,
Jason.

[Aniki]

The face is much better on the last one!

[Half Life]

Thank-you... I'm taking a little break from DAZ right now and working on other programs, but somebody asked me about my skin MXM formula (in a PM) and I thought I should share it here as well.



Obviously the specific numbers in any given field will depend on the texture maps you have, but this configuration generally serves as a good starting point for me.

Best,
Jason.