Q&A | Realistic skin shading

Q&A SOLUTIONS / FIXES / ADVICE

QUESTION OF
THE MONTH
Submitted by
Martin Dona
CINEMA 4D ldson, via th
e forums

”How do you create a believable

skin shader in Cinema 4D?”
This issue’s 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
etting skin to look right is tricky. It might seem as
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 refine the effect.
The second feature is subsurface scattering (SSS). Subsurface
scattering is the phenomenon in the real world where light is able to

FACTFILE
FOR
Cinema 4D

DIFFICULTY
G though it should be an easy task – it’s just a bit of
orange, tan, olive or brown together with some
good lighting, right? Well, not quite. The problem
with most materials built into Cinema 4D is that they act as opaque
surfaces that provide highlights that are not based upon reflection,
Intermediate 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.
TIME TAKEN
One hour True, the various parts of the face have good surface colour
ON THE CD (the lips are coloured differently to the cheeks, for example) and the
• Full-size screenshots lighting helps to define the form. But the result still looks as if the
• Completed skin shader colour was spray painted on, or as if the model has too much make-
• Final animations
up on, obliterating the glow that makes skin look alive.
• QTVR of finished
scene There are two main features of Cinema 4D that will enable you
to create good skin materials. The first is its capacity to layer
ALSO REQUIRED
N/A materials effectively. The plan here is to work with multiple
Luminance channels for a single surface. Although C4D’s materials
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 C4D’s SSS implementation (it doesn’t
work with global illumination, for example), it’s 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-and-
colour-right stage. Even a lot of high-end 3D produced for film 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, we’ve applied the
technique to a simplified, cartoon-style model. This is not supplied
on the CD, you should substitute your own.

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TDW81.qa_lead 072 3/7/06 11:21:07


STAGE ONE | Scene set-up
Import your head model. Remember to make good
01 use of C4D’s HyperNURBS capabilities and do not
use any more polygons than are needed. The more
polys you have, the more UVs you will need to fight 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.
STAGE TWO | Basic material set-up
Laying out well-spaced UVs can be tricky, but it is
04 absolutely necessary to create clean textures that
do not stretch or pinch across the surface. How to do
so in BodyPaint 3D (C4D’s 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 modification tools
(many are available free to download on the internet).
STAGE THREE | Highlight material set-up
Create a new material (named Skin Highlight on the
07 sample file). 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 specific
adjustments to how the highlight of the surface will work.
TDW81.qa_lead 073
Because we are going to be using SSS, C4D will work
02 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.
Using either BodyPaint 3D or Photoshop, paint the
05 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 file on the CD).
Open the Material Editor for Skin Base. Click the
08 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.
Realistic skin shading | Q&A
Establish several rings of fill lights (illustrated here
03 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.
A good bump map for the face is important and will
06 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.
Back in the Skin Highlight material, go to the
09 Luminance channel and click on the Texture triangle
button. Choose Sketch > Cel from the drop-down
menu. You won’t 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.
September 2006 3D WORLD | 073
3/7/06 11:21:22
 Q&A | Realistic skin shading
STAGE THREE (Continued) | Highlight material set-up
Click on the Cel button (which is now located in the
10 Texture input field). 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.
STAGE FOUR | Working in the SSS
Double-click Skin Base in the Material Manager.
13 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.
Take a test render at this point to see what the
16 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.
074 | 3D WORLD September 2006
TDW81.qa_lead 074
Expand the Diffuse section (of the Luminance
11 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.
Subsurface scattering is rendering intensive, so to
14 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).
Open Skin Base and, in the Luminance channel, click
17 the Subsurface Scattering button. The Absorption
Filter defines 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.
Assuming you have already applied Skin Base to
12 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.
For the kind of renders we’re doing now, there is no
15 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
Reflection. Be sure to leave Shadow set to All Types so you
don’t have extra light travelling through objects.
Now it’s time to adjust the Absorption. This will vary
18 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.
3/7/06 11:21:25

STAGE FOUR (Continued) | Working in the SSS
Time to adjust Scattering Length. This setting
19 defines 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 don’t really need SSS in the first place as you won’t be
able to see the results with the naked eye. For this shot, the
Scattering Length is set to 10m.
STAGE FIVE | Finishing up
Make sure that both your Skin Base and Skin
22 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 find
areas like the nostrils look transparent, in which case you’ll
need to turn down the Scattering Length. Adjust the other
settings according to your desired results.
Open your Render Settings again, and turn your
23 Antialiasing back on (probably to Geometry).
Reactivate Transparency and Reflection. This will
slow your renderings somewhat but will provide the
considerably crisper results that you will want for your final
output. Take some renderings at a smaller resolution to see if
everything still holds up.
TDW81.qa_lead 075
Notice that with SSS, the render can quickly get
20 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 you’re after
without blasting the skin apart. Tweak this setting to taste,
based upon your lighting scheme.
Because this technique is light-dependent, you can
24 make all sorts of adjustments along the way to get
your final 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
Realistic skin shading | Q&A
This is where you assign Skin Highlight to the
21 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.
Contact us | Send your Q&A questions to 3dw.qanda@futurenet.co.uk
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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3/7/06 11:21:30