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Hash, Inc. Forums _ Tutorials _ Skin Tutorial

Posted by: noah brewer Apr 18 2006, 09:59 AM

Before we start, I posted two examples of my skin textures in my gallery:

http://www.hash.com/stills/index.php?cat=13313

Feel free to use these textures however you like.

Now, if you'd like to start from scratch here is my process:

1. Pick a color in Master that you want to use as your skin color, and write down the RGB values, so that you can get the exact same color in photoshop. If you set this color as the default surface color of your model, then if you don't decal some areas of your model, then the borders of your decal stamps won't be that noticeable.

2. Make a new photoshop file, and fill the bottom layer with the RGB color you picked in Master. The size of this document will depend on how close you want to see the texture in 3D. In my case, I have four main textures for my character. One for the face (1000x1000), one for the torso and legs together (600x1000), and one for the arms (800x400). However, just make your texture according to how you flatten your model.

3. If you look at the gray skin texture file that I posted, you'll notice that it is a repeating pattern. I made it by making a poka-dot pattern first (for skin pores), then connecting many of the pores together by hand with the brush tool in a mostly horizontal direction. This part takes some trial and error, because visually you want to have an even, overall feel - no area should be lighter or darker than any other when you zoom back from it, or it will look weird when used in 3D.

3. ALTERNATIVE - if this drives you crazy, and you can just make monocromatic pixel noise with a filter, and stretch it horizontally. This gives a similar look, but its kind of generic.

- Around this time, you can bring in a screen capture of your flattened mesh as a reference if you need to specialize the flow of skin wrinkles to your model.

4. Once your done, copy this gray pattern layer that you made onto 2 new layers. Set one of these layers as Luminousity, and the other as Color. Having these two layers will give you more precise control over the contrast, and color of the skin separately. Drag the opacity slider for each layer down to anywhere from 3% to 20%, depending on how it looks to you. If you look at my color skin texture example compared to the gray one, you can barely see the pattern in it. On your Color layer, use the Curves window, or some other color adjustment tool to make the light pixels more blueish-green, and the dark pixels more reddish. This will give it a slightly realistic look, but again, is very subtle because the layer is only about 3% to 7% visible.

5. OPTIONAL - you can add another layer of (much) larger blothes (again red/green opposites) set to about 3% opacity, to add some more variation to the texture if you like.

6. Once you've tweaked the layer opacities until you're happy, save a copy of this file, and flatten it. Desaturate the texture to generate your bump, specularity, and reflection maps, if you need them.

Thats it!

If you have any questions regarding this process, please post them here.

Good luck!!

Posted by: luckbat Apr 18 2006, 10:00 AM

I never thought this day would come.

Noah Brewer, I salute you.

Posted by: UNGLAUBLICHUSA Apr 18 2006, 10:12 AM

Dude,
This may come in handy with the character I am working on now - I expected to put in about 13 hours doing the skin tone, even if I just follow your instructions and do it myself it will be a time saver. Much thanks -

Posted by: Eric2575 Apr 18 2006, 10:58 AM

Thank you Noah

Posted by: MMZ_TimeLord Apr 18 2006, 11:43 AM

Thanks for the tute Noah... I'll save it in my 'Tutorial Archive'.

Posted by: blakindigo2 Apr 18 2006, 12:51 PM

Thank you, so much Noah. Your work is among many that I show to friends who are 'curious' about A:M.
Usually, they're response is "That was made in A:M?! Your kidding?" <Sigh>

Anyway... thanks again...

Posted by: noah brewer Apr 18 2006, 01:16 PM

My pleasure. This forum is a wonderful!

And sorry for the typos in my posts; I try to correct them when I notice them, but sometimes I don't...

Posted by: trajcedrv Apr 18 2006, 11:40 PM

Thanks!

Posted by: Markk Apr 19 2006, 08:51 PM

Wow! That's some really good pics you created!

Thanks for the tute.. man this place is a gold mine of info for beginniers like me.