Facial Skin Layered Mapping

 

Part 9.1 – The Back to the Back

Before You Begin

Have your Front Section work file and the SkinBackSectionRawGuide0.tga you created in Part 3.2 open in Photoshop.  Have your model open in AM.  If needed open the Back Section flattening action.

Introduction

Unfortunately I make a slight mistake in the beginning of this tutorial and had you produce guides for the back section without aligning the splines to the front section but this isn’t too bad.  The must do to things so that there is no seam between the maps on the Front Section and the Back section:

 

  1. We must match the Back Section splines to the Front Section splines.
  2. We must bring each map from the Front Section directly over to the Back Section using the Clone tool.

 

If this were a more visible area we might also use gradient  blended alpha channels but these seams will be covered partially covered by shirt colors and/or hair and are also in an area that will rarely if ever been seen.

 

    1. In the FrontSectionWork[999].psd file (where [999] is the version number of your latest file) hide everything except for the Background (Figure 9.1.1).

 

 

Figure 9.1.1

 

    1. Do Image->Duplicate and flatten the duplicate.
    2. In the flattened duplicate use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the left side patches that will meet with the Back Section for two rows of patches inward (Figure 9.1.2).

 

 

Figure 9.1.2

 

  1. Switch to the SkinBackSectionRawGuide0.tga image and duplicate it.  Close the original.  Select the Move tool and drag your selection right over onto the duplicate of the SkinBackSectionRawGuide0.tga image.  This will create a new layer with your selection in it.  Name this layer Right Guide.
  2. The right side you selected will connect to the right side of the Back Section so with the move tool still selected move your selection to the right of the Back Section Guide (Figure 9.1.3).

 

 

Figure 9.1.3

 

  1. Before going further save this file to the Maps/Head/wip folder as BackRotoWork001.psd.
  2. Next we want to remove the background leaving only the mesh.  Hide the background then with the Right Guide layer selected and using the eyedropper tool select the background color then do Select->Color Range.  Adjust the Fuzziness until you can see the mesh and click okay (Figure 9.1.4).

 

 

Figure 9.1.4

 

  1. Firmly press <Delete> and then unhide the background.  You should still have the mesh selection.  If not use undo and repeat step 6 adding more Fuzziness.
  2. Control click the Right Guide layer in the Layers pallet to select all of the pixels in that layer and go into Free Transform mode (<ctl>t) and rotate the select until it is aligned and fitted next to the Back Section.   If needed resize the selected mesh (holding down the <shift> key so that the aspect ratio is maintained) until the ends of the selection mesh line up with the Back Section mesh (Figure 9.1.5).

 

 

Figure 9.1.5

 

  1. Repeat this process to line up the other side naming the new layer Right Guide (Note: when you select and delete the background only the new layer you are removing it from should be visible).  You should wind up with something roughly like Figure 9.1.6.

 

 

Figure 9.1.6

 

  1. Save.
  2. Select the Right Guide – this should be the top layer – and merge down (<ctl>e) so that you combine the Right Guide and Left Guide layers.
  3.  Now we want to color this thing so that we can see it in A:M clearly.  Select magenta (or whatever color will work for you) from the Swatches pallet  to color the guide splines in the Right Guide layer.
  4.  Control click the Right Guide layer in the Layers pallet to select all the pixels and the press <alt><backspace> to fill it with the foreground color.
  5. Hide the Right Guide layer and select the Background.  Using the eyedropper tool select the background color.  Do Select->Color Range and adjust the fuzziness until the mesh can be seen.  Click okay.
  6. Select black from the Swatches pallet and hit <alt><backspace>.
  7. Invert the selection (<ctl><shift>i).  Select red from the Swatches pallet and press <alt><backspace>.
  8. Save.
  9.  Unhide the Right Guide layer and flatten the image.  The crop the image down so that there is a slight boarder around the mesh.  You should have something like Figure 9.1.7.

 

 

Figure 9.1.7

 

  1. Save this in your wip folder as BackAlignmentGuide.tga.
  2. Close this file.  Close the flattened Work file duplicate without saving.
  3. You should still have the FrontSectionWork file open in Photoshop.  Go ahead and close this as well.
  4. Switch to A:M, select the BackSection and hide the rest.
  5. Open the Back Section Flatten action, go to muscle mode and zoom to extents.  Now set the zoom factor to the zoom factor you created back in Part 3.1.
  6. In the PWS right click on the action and select New->Rotoscope the select ‘Other’ and read in the BackAlignmentGuide.tga file.  It may go right into position – if not, move and resize until you have it aligned to the mesh then unselect it and make the rotoscope ‘un-selectable’.
  7.  What we need to do is adjust the horizontal splines so that they are lined up with their corresponding Front Section splines however we do not want to disrupt the vertical positions too much.  Select a row of horizontal spines and arrow up or down until the one side is aligned with its corresponding spline on the guide (Figure 9.1.8).  Using guides can help.  Hit ‘r’ to go into rotate mode and move the pivot point to the cp you aligned (Figure 9.1.9) and then rotate until the other side is aligned (Figure 9.1.10).   If you have to rotate the horizontal spline too much the mesh can become skewed too much and you may need to scale it horizontally and move it from side to side to get it within a reasonable position again.

 

 

Figure 9.1.8

 

 

Figure 9.1.9

 

 

Figure 9.1.10

 

  1. Proceed until each horizontal spline is aligned.  You should wind up with something like Figure 9.1.11.

 

 

Figure 9.1.11

 

  1.  Save the project file.
  2.  Now hide the rotoscope, zoom to extents (to center it) then plug in the zoom factor you used before so the scale will be right.
  3.  Do a screen capture and paste it into Photoshop.
  4.  Now as a sanity check well compare the size of the screen capture to the Front Section.  Select the background color using the Eyedropper tool and do Selection->Color Range.  Adjust the Fuzziness until the mesh barely shows and click Okay.
  5. Invert the selection (<ctl><shift>i) and place the selection in a new layer (<ctl>j). 
  6. Now open and switch to the SkinFrontSectionWork.psd and make only the Background visible and select it.
  7. Returning to the screen capture image select the Move tool and drag and drop the new layer into the SkinFrontSectionWork.psd image.  This will create a new layer above the Background.
  8. Using the Free Translate tool rotate and compare the mesh of the back section to the edges it meets in the Front Section.  If it is not the same size on both edges adjust it so that it is.  Once you have sized it rotate it back to the original vertical position and select okay.
  9. Using the move tool drag this back to the screen capture image – this creates a new layer.
  10. Flatten the image.
  11.  Now you need to use this guide to create a new work file.  You can either refer back to Part 3.2 and follow the steps or use the Photoshop action file for this or, you can adjust the BackSectionWork file you already have.  In either case you need to make sure that you have plenty of room on both sides of the guide.

 

Go to Part 9.2 – Cloning the Maps and Checking the Seam