Facial Skin Layered Mapping
Part 4.1 – The Bump Maps:
Finishing the Wrinkle Map
Before You Begin
Have your work file (SkinFrontSectionWork002.psd)
and your reference files open in Photoshop.
In your work file have only the Bump layer set and the Grid2 layers
visible. Have your model open in A:M and hide all but the Front Section group. Have the modeling window open.
Introduction
Whether you used reference images to create your
base layers or created these from scratch you’ve now merged back into the
common path of the map creation. The
detail we add here will be needed by both methods. No matter what the age of your character
model, in some cases we will add enough detail to age the model depending on
the final opacity of the layer. Mainly
we do this because it’s easier: easier to see what your are doing with
darker/lighter more contrasted details and easier not to have to try and guess
at what contract and sharpness we do need.
Which we would not get right anyway: you always have to adjust the
opacity of the layer or the map percentage in the end! However, as a secondary advantage to doing it
this way, we can later come back and create new layers that will allow us to
make the model older or younger! Our
virtual actor can now play parts of any age.
I’m sure you’re already thinking we can do this with skin color
too’! Yep, but for now we’ll just focus
on one age (whatever your character happens to be) but bringing this up
underscores the need to maintain your work file and the control over the layers
within.
The Wrinkle map really ‘makes’ all of the other
maps to a very large degree, it is the most important map and, it is perhaps
85% of all the work. So, this is a long
section.
It covers:
Between the Eyes and the
Forehead
- First we will work on probably the most important area of the entire character: the eye areas. The areas under the eyes are nature’s natural sunglasses: they diffuse the light that reflects into the eye. These areas contain the highest degree of texture detail in not only the face but usually the entire model. Create a new ‘Overlay’ layer above the Wrinkles layer and name it ‘Lower Eye Area’ (to create an ‘Overlay’ layer, fill it with 50% gray and set the Blend mode to Overlay). Also, if you need to, set the opacity of the Grid2 layer down around 7% so you can just barely see it. Hide the Wrinkles layer then select the new Eye Areas layer and zoom in on the eye area. Figure 4.1.1 shows the area we’ll be working on (outlined in a dotted red line).
Figure 4.1.1
- The details we’ll be crafting are hard to see unless you have a very high resolution image and/or the light is hitting them the right way (or, you look in the mirror). The bumps below the eyes and the ridges above can just barely be seen in Figure 4.1.2.
Figure 4.1.2
- Select the Dodge tool with a brush diameter of 3 and an exposure of 40%. Now create a line of small white bumps along the top of the lower lid where the eye opening is (Figure 4.1.2).
Figure 4.1.2
- Now continue to fill the rest of the area randomly with bumps of various shapes and sizes as shown in Figure 4.1.3. Randomness is key to realism so don’t think, squint your eyes and do things quickly… bing, bang, boom.
Figure 4.1.3
- Now select the Burn tool, brush diameter=3, exposure=20 and paint between the white bumps. Be careful not to paint over the same area too many times as it will start to darken quickly and we want mild creases not harsh ones.
- Next reduce the brush diameter to 1 and paint a few random dark cracks. Usually the outlines or patterns of these random cracks can be seen already if squint your eyes… the random pattern you’ve laid down will define these for you. Finally using the Dodge and Burn tools, fade the bumps out around the bottom. You should wind up with something like Figure 4.1.4.
Figure 4.1.4
- Now do the other side keeping both sides similar (but not exact… no cheating and duplicating!!).
- Now
we’ll do the upper eye lids which are tricky because the skin is very soft
and porous when the eyes are closed (as our flattened model’s
are) and display subtle wrinkles when open (refer back to Figure
4.1.2). The subtle bumps we create
on the upper lids will compress when the eyes open to from these
wrinkles. Also, like the lower lid
the edge has small bumps but subtler (and we’ll control this with the
layer’s opacity). The area we’re
concerned with is the upper lid shown in Figure 4.1.5. Hide the Lower Eye Area layer and create
a new Overlay layer and name it Upper Eye Area. Using the same tools and settings used
on the lower lids, create a line of bumps on along the lower edge of the
upper eye lid slightly further apart than we did on the lower eye lid.
Figure 4.1.5
- Next pant the rest of the upper lid with larger slightly elongated bumps that become more elongated and fade as they reach the upper part of the lid. You should wind up with something like Figure 4.1.6. Note that if you were to apply the Wrinkle map to the model now the eye lids might just about right as far as the amount of texture goes however, once the color, specular and diffuse maps where applied – each adding their corresponding effects – the model would look older. For a younger character, the opacity of these layers will have t o be reduced.
Figure 4.1.6
- Now
repeat this process on the other eye and save.
- Nothing adds realism to skin like hair follicles (I mean what mad 3D artist would go to the trouble!!). Just a few under the eyebrow – mostly at the ends… but, where exactly is the eyebrow. It’s now time to figure that out. Save your work file and then hide your Bump layer set and make your Color layer set visible. Create a new layer called Eyebrow Guide and using red and a small brush as well as Guide2 to judge where the splines run, look at your reference images and make your best guess and draw it in. Try to place the eyebrow right on a spline – this will make it much easier to animate. Once you done that, using black and the pencil create vertical markers on your red eyebrow (see Figure 4.1.7).
Figure 4.1.7
- Now hide the grid2 layer and re-create the color map (duplicate, flatten, save as <model>/Maps/Head/SkinFrontSectionColor.tga.
- Switch to AM, refresh the image and do quick renders comparing where your red eyebrow marker actually falls on you model. Use the black vertical lines to help you judge how much to cut off or add to each end.
- Once you’ve figured out exactly where your eyebrow will go, move the Eyebrow Guide layer into your Bump layer set just under the Noise layer. Hide the Color set, unhide the Bump set. Duplicate the Eyebrow layer, flip horizontal and create the eyebrow guide for the other side. Then merge the two eyebrow guides into a single layer and turn down opacity until you can just barely see the guides.
- Reselect the Upper Eye Area Layer and select the Burn tool with a Brush diameter of 3 and paint dark spots under and around the eye brow – keep it subtle.
- Now select the Dodge tool with a Brush size of 5 and paint light spots around the dark spots to soften the tissue.
- Now go back to the burn tool and select the predefined Brush #1 and go to the Brush Pallet and turn off Shape Dynamics. Set the Exposure to 100% and using a mouse (not a drawing pad) place the mouse pointer over the center of the dark areas you painted earlier and click 3 to 4 times to create a dark dot. Do this 2 to 3 times on each end of the eyebrow. Now add a few along the length near the edges. (see Figure 4.1.8).
Figure 4.1.8 – Want to kiss this babe on the eyes?
- At
this point, save. If you want,
create a new test map (tempwrinkletest.tga) and
go to AM to see what it’s looking like so far (don’t forget to refresh the
image in AM). Remember your model
is going to start looking older and if you want younger we’ll need to play
with the opacity of these layers.
Between the Eyes and the
Forehead
- Next
well knock out the wrinkles between the eyes and above the nose. My character has a very smooth face and
only the slightest trace of wrinkles in this are so what I do for this
area will be very subtle. If your
character needs more, just make then make this layer darker and/or more complex. Create a new ‘Overlay’ layer above the Upper Eye Area
layer and name it Upper Nose (by now you should know how to create an
‘Overlay’ layer).
- Zoom
in on the area above the nose and between the eyes and using the Dodge
tool with a Brush size of 21 paint the rises between the wrinkles you want
for your character.
- Now
using the Burn tool create the depressions between the raised areas. From now I’ll mostly leave it to you to
figure out Brush sizes and exposures for the Burn and Dodge tools unless its unusual. As
I said my character is on the young side so this area was very subtle for
me (Figure 4.1.9).
Figure 4.1.9 For an older
character the area between the eyes would be more pronounced and complex.
- My character has an absolutely smooth forehead but for kicks and tow show you how I’ll give her forehead wrinkles. I suppose I could but this map on a pose and perhaps I will. Create a new Overlay layer above the Upper Nose layer and name it Forehead. Forehead wrinkles vary from person to person – use your reference pictures as a guide. I’ll just create a generic set of wrinkles – you can improvise to match your model’s needs. Using Dodge with a Brush of 65 I’ll draw 4 lines that follow the contours of the skin. Then, using Burn/size 17 I’ll paint in the creases (Figure 4.1.10).
Figure 4.1.10
- If
your character is older using Burn/Size=16 add dark cracks down the middle
of the dark areas and also some horizontal cracks then, with Burn/5 create
some random pores.
- Next
come the lips.
Create a new Overlay layer above the Forehead layer and name it
Lips. Line up reference material
what shows the role model’s lips – you’ll try to make the same type of
wrinkles. If fact if you have a
high resolution image you can just cut and paste and de-saturate then
increase the contrast and touch it up.
Or you can cut and paste and use as a guide to draw the
wrinkles. Or, like myself, just
look over at it and try to get the same pattern. Considering my subject (Figure 4.1.11),
yours will likely be less involved then my example here.
Figure 4.1.11
- First I’ll create a mask to make life
easier. This will allow me to paint
very quickly with worrying about going outside the area of the lips and this
will allow me to get the proper degree of randomness. Using the Grid2 layer as a guide, select
the pen tool, zoom in on the lips area and carefully draw a path around
the lips. Then in the Paths Pallet
drag the path you’ve created to the ‘Load Path as Selection’ icon at the
bottom of the Path Pallet. The path
will become a selection.
- To
get enough contrast for these wrinkles select the Burn tool and darken the
entire area considerably (Figure 4.1.12).
Figure 4.1.12
- Using
your reference image and the Dodge tool size=13 (that’s the standard size
used for this but use the width that’s best for type of lips you have to
craft… actually for mine its 5) paint in the bulges between the cracks in
the lower lip. I’m sure you know
the drill buy now. After you paint
in the raised areas use the Burn tool to paint around these for the
cracks. These will be very high
contrast wrinkles (Figure 4.1.13).
Figure 4.1.13
- I am skipping some areas that 65 year old
plus characters would need – there would be wrinkles above and below the
lips, by the side of the nose and on each cheek. We are not doing characters this old but
if you were you’d place wrinkles in all these areas. The next area of concern for us is the
neck. Create a new Overlay layer above
the Lips layer and call it Neck.
BTW, in case you didn’t notice when you do <ctl><shift>n
to create a new layer and you get the New Layer dialog box where you name
the layer, you can select the Overlay blend mode and check the 50% gray
checkbox for ‘see through Overlay’.
Now would also be a good time to save if you haven’t done so lately
(wouldn’t want to lose those lips I just created!).
- Checking
my reference images, my character does not need much for the neck – some
basic ‘neck type’ softening is all.
However, I’m going to do one wrinkle as most characters have at
least one and yours very well might.
I’m not going to do it but it is probably a good idea to use the
Note layer to sketch in the location of the wrinkle(s) following the
contour of the neck and using your reference images as a guide then, map
it on the model in AM to check the location and length as we did for the
eye brows. When you know where you
want it be sure to select the Neck layer again then select Burn/17. If you are using a mouse I’d use an
Exposure of 40% and go over it a few times to get it dark enough the use a
soft brush and paint 50% gray to taper the ends. If you select the standard brush 17 to
get the softness right and you are using a graphics tablet the pen pressure
is set to control the size of the brush (you may like this but I don’t and
‘normally’ switch it to control the Exposure), however for this particular
case you’ll want to have both Exposure and Brush Size being controlled by
the pen pressure and you may do better with an Exposure of about 80%. Now paint in the wrinkle fading and
tapering the ends.
- Now
using the Dodge tool with the same settings draw a light area above the
crease tapering and fading in the same way (Figure 4.1.14).
Figure 4.1.14
- Due to the neck bending all the time it
has a unique texture. Hide the Neck
layer and create a new Overlay layer above it and name it Neck2. Zoom in on the center of the neck (vertical
and horizontal) until you have an area roughly equal to a square inch (or
pick a patch that looks about this big, zoom in on it then move down to
the neck area) then using Burn/5/40 (Brush Size 5, Exposure 40%) paint a
patch of light random curved lines similar to those in Figure 4.1.15.
Figure 4.1.15
- Now
using the Dodge tool same settings paint white areas above them (Figure
4.1.16).
Figure 4.1.16
- Not
that is way too uniform. Return to
the Burn tool (Shift o cycles through this tool group) and then dap, slash
and dot this pattern about a dozen time randomly. Now go to the Smudge tool (r) and do the
same thing. That should stir it up
enough (Figure 4.1.17).
Figure 4.1.17
- Next
zoom out until you can see both ears.
Select the Clone tool with a Brush size of 100 and an Opacity of 100%.
Make sure that Aligned and ‘Use All Layers’ are both
UN-checked. Also make sure that all
Brush dynamics are off (no pressure sensitive settings). Now sample the area by placing the brush
over the area (adjust the size if need to for it to fit within the area)
and <alt> click. Now start
clicking (or dabbing the pen) to extend this pattern in a curved arc to
each ear (Figure 4.1.18).
Figure 4.1.18
- Now
reset the opacity to 50% and fade the edges of this pattern above and
below and under the ears (Figure 4.1.19).
Figure 4.1.19
- Next
the ears. Create an Overlay layer
above the Neck2 layer and name it Ears.
Zoom in on one of the ears and using Burn/13 paint some random dark
lines along the main splines circling the ears (Figure 4.1.20).
Figure 4.1.20
- Next
change the Brush to size 5 and paint some dark spots on the earlobe.
- Finally
using Dodge/13 we paint white areas around the dark areas. Don’t be too neat – stir it up a
little. All this is just to soften
the ears a tad (Figure 4.1.21).
Figure 4.1.21
- Now
do the other ear.
- The
chin is a porous area that stretches a lot and also gets a lot of
sun. To add this element create a
new Overlay layer above the Ear named Chin. Consult you model in AM and determine
the middle of the chin. Back in
Figure 4.1.21.1
- Now zoom in on it as far as possible and
using Burn/1/40 with both Shape and Other Dynamics unchecked use your
mouse to create random small dark areas.
Click 7 to 8 times in the same area to create each one.
- Now using the Dodge tool, same settings
paint circles of white around each dark area. If needed switch back to the Burn tool
and re-darken the middle dark areas (Figure 4.1.21.2).
Figure 4.1.21.2
- Now
zoom out and using Clone/20 (or one that will just cover the area you’ve
just painted)/100% and with Aligned and Use All Layers UNCHECKED extend
the area outward as shown in Figure 4.1.21.3.
Figure 4.1.21.3
- Now reduce the Opacity to 50% and fade
the pattern out as shown in Figure 4.1.21.4.
Figure 4.1.21.4
- Now
duplicate this layer, change the original one to Regular Blend mode, link
the two and do Merge Linked. We do
this because creating features this small rarely gets us the contrast we
need and this will increase that contrast.
Also, later we will create a separate ‘Pore’ map and we do add a
few things in this area here too but, I’ve found doing these details in
this map rather then the Pore map seems to work out better.
- Finally,
if needed rename the layer back to Chin.
You can quickly test this new addition to your model in AM – as
with most of the bump map layers, the degree to which this shows up
depends on your character. Fade the layer as needed or, duplicate to
darken.
- Create
a new Overlay layer above the Chin layer and call it… guess… Nose.
- Using
Burn/5/40 paint random indents over the nose area.
- Then
change the Brush diameter to 1 and paint several lines down the length of
the nose (Figure 4.1.21.5). Note
that subtle details like these will not show up until they propagate their
influence to the Color, Specular and Diffuse maps and even then it will be
subtle.
Figure 4.1.21.5
- Next,
using Burn/35/40 darken the cheek on each side of
the nose.
- Finally
using Dodge/same settings we lighten the center of the nose (Figure
4.1.21.6).
Figure 4.1.21.6
- My
model does not need any veins but I’ll add a few anyway… maybe I’ll keep
them They
do add realism. If you are modeling
an intense male (or female) character you will want to place these in a
separate map that you can animate (when the character is angry or stressed
the veins can pop out more… you can even pulsate them!). You know the drill by now! Create a new Overlay layer above the
last one and call it… what else?
Veins.
- Next
plan out where the veins will go.
Look at your reference images and also consult a map of the facial veins. It is best to use a Notes layer and
sketch these in red and map them on the model and make any adjustments to
place them correctly.
- Once
you positioned them, use the Dodge tool to paint soft, squiggle lines that
follow the veins (Figure 4.1.22).
Figure 4.1.22
- Save
and then follow these directions carefully. To add the final degree of softness we
add a final layer Outside the Bump Layer Set above the Backing layer and
then HIDE all but this layer.
- Set
the foreground color to RGB 160/160/160 and the background to 128/128/128
and then with this new layer selected select Render Clouds.
- Next
create a new layer above this and fill it with white and set the blend
method to dissolve and the Opacity to 2%.
- Create
another new layer above the dissolve layer hide the layer with the clouds
on it. Make sure the only layers
visible are the dissolve layer and the new layer you just created then do
Layers->Merge Visible. We do
this so that we can edit the dissolve layer.
- Now
make the clouds layer created in step 44 visible (but keep the other layer
selected) and do Filters->Blur->Gaussion
Radius 3.5.
- Now
do Merge Visible again and name this layer Softness Cap.
- Make
the Bump layer set visible, move the Softness Cap layer to UNDER Noise
layer.
- Change
the Softness Cap layer’s Blend mode to Hard Light with Opacity of 100%.
- We
are done with the Wrinkles map for now.
Save.
- It’s
time to get rid of the tmptestwrinkles.tga and
create the wrinkles bump map. With
all the bump layers you’ve just created visible (except any Notes layers
of course), duplicate the image then flatten and save as SkinFrontSectionBumpWrinkle.tga. All tga files will be 24 bit unless you
use an alpha channel which we should not need to do. Once you’ve done this, in AM replace all
references to the tmptestwrinkle.tga image with
this new image. Finally delete the tmptestwrinkles.tga file (as well as any other tmp files – we want the Maps/Head folder to contain
only image files used as head maps).
- Test
wrinkle map on your model in AM.
Don’t spend too much time on this at this point. Do not try to get the wrinkles looking
‘right’, just get them to look somewhat even so that all show up a little
and nothing stands out too much.
If you can not see one of the map’s major features (say the
forehead wrinkles), duplicate the layer with the wrinkle in question and
bring down the opacity of the duplicate to 20% and retry. If a wrinkle is too pronounced lower the
opacity of for that layer. You
should be able to see all of the major wrinkles. Some of the subtle stuff may not be
visible (like the neck cracks) and that’s okay. All of this stuff will jump out probably
too much once the other maps are in place.
- At
this point you should also carefully inspect the model in the modeling
window and make sure that all the patches are being affected by the
maps. If you see an area that is
not, check the action and see if this mesh is a) covered by other patches
or b) too scrunched together. If
you do make a correction to the flattened mesh you will need to redo the
stamp and this is usually simple to do: with the action window active and
the mesh completely in view, right click on the stamp and select “Recall
view/position” then apply. This
creates a second stamp: now just delete the first stamp. Sometimes this will not work and you
must reapply the decal completely: delete the stamp and re-stamp the decal
using the grid-guide image we created earlier.
- Finally
run a screen test on the model in the chor using the setup we created for
this. Let it ‘cook’ over night and
then sit back and view it. It will
not yet look too good but you can see if any of the wrinkles are too
strong or weak and make notes on what layers need to be darker or lighter.
- When
satisfied, save your work file to a new version. The hard part is over, you’re almost
there.
Go to Part 4.2 – The Bump Maps: The Pore Map