Portrait of a Woman (WIP)

Varaga · March 22, 2015, 07:37:31 PM

Hi everyone, I recently started to use Keyshot and I'm amazed by the speed and quality it produces. So this is one of my personal projects that I decided to give a shot with Keyshot and its fun so far. At the end I want to pose her and do some stills but for now I'm trying to maximize the quality as much as possible so I decided to share with you. The model is made in 3ds Max. Textures are handpainted in Photoshop (I don't own ZBrush yet) and she's wearing a beanie because I absolutely hate working with hair and fur inside 3ds max. I'm planning to to add more details in the textures and will post some renders here but for now i really want to listen to your opinions and advises (especially from evilmaul

).

May 7th update:
The 2nd picture is an update. I put the new render on my first post too so you can see the difference.

Josh3D · March 23, 2015, 03:44:38 AM

I was going to mention Marco's post

This is a great start and welcome to the KeyShot forum.

Varaga · March 23, 2015, 04:02:12 AM

Thanks Josh, his self portrait inspired me to start 3d about a year ago when I knew nothing about 3d world except the name of "3ds max" software

.
I don't know why but it seems like there's very little try to do some realistic portraits in keyshot (besides Marco of course). Or maybe I didn't use the search well?

Josh3D · March 23, 2015, 04:20:56 AM

He's certainly shown what's possible and still the best example, imo. Check out some of his sculpts in other threads as well.

Speedster · March 23, 2015, 04:30:48 AM

I agree- Marco's the best! I'm honored that he is also a great friend! It was really funny to watch the crowd in the KeyShot booth at SIGGRAPH, when his self-portrait went up on the huge screen, and then they turned around and he was standing right there. I've seen 'double-takes" before, but these were over the top.

You would not believe the gallery work he's doing now in bronze and marble- a truly classic sculptor. Check out http://evilmaul.cgsociety.org/. He's the reason I just got a seat of Zbrush- but I have many years of work ahead of me to reach his caliber of work, if ever.

Great start! Perhaps the skin is a tad bit "waxy", but the basics are there- tweak away! We're all here to help you...

Bill G

Varaga · March 23, 2015, 04:49:31 AM

Thanks, I checked all of them already

He has one of the best if not THE best cg human renders in internet. I was saying that other Keyshot users here besides Marco are not trying to render some realistic humans. There's a lot of them done in mentalray or V-ray for example. Its interesting for me because Keyshot has all the capabilities to achieve great results with sss as Marco already proved.

Thanks Speedster, thats why I posted here, to get some help making this to look a little bit better. Gonna do some tweaking in the shader and add some skin and eye texture details.

evilmaul · March 23, 2015, 02:56:42 PM

well, first of all thank you guys!

I am glad that my portrait (cant believe it's already been 2 years since) still hold up and motivate ppl to experiment and discover KS.

I go straight to the point. First is this based on a real person? if so can you tell that the likeness is there ? Can you compare the 2 and tell yourself what's different?
If its not based on any specific real person I highly suggest you to stop trying to 'make a better render' and go all the way back to modeling/sculpting. Sorry if I am that direct but it is important, and I always stress on this point, that if you dont have a good foundation (in the structure and forms) no detail, skin pore, peach fuzz, best skin shader, will make of it a good image.
Get an anatomy book and study the skull and the muscles of the face.
Pointers: the nose looks like is stuck on an oval that resemble a face (and i can def see the extrusion steps you took to model it) look at noses and see their planes, how they meet and blend into each other.
eyelids too thin and there is little recollection of the orbital socket and the other major bone landmarks of the skull. Also the mouth, same issue as the nose, too simple , the lips are just stuck on the face. I know you were waiting mostly for KS tips but it's not the shading/rendering side of this pic that doesnt make it as successful as you want it to.

PS I read that this is just a 3d the model with no sculpting involved. I think its time to do some with either zbrush or mudbox. Ah and dont forget the overall proportions of the head. now you can hate me

Varaga · March 23, 2015, 03:43:13 PM

She is based on a real person, the model has body too. I totally agree with you except the head proportions which is one of the few things that I got right

. I will try making her more interesting but I dont think it will become very realistic, because as of now I dont have any sculpting tool in hand. I just wanted to challenge myself to see if I can make a human to look at least a little bit realistic without using sculpting tool. Thank you again Marco, I needed your advises very much so I'm definitely not gonna hate you

. Gonna do lots of tweaking, will do some updates here after a few days.

edit: Are there any human renders that are "ok" looking and were't sculpted in zbrush or mudbox?

evilmaul · March 24, 2015, 08:49:15 PM

perhaps then you should post the reference pics of the real person that we can look than together and compare.
Not sure if these days ppl relays only on polymodeling for organic shape such as a human head. I mean you can definitely build a good poly cage with most of forms in it but I think it's easier to sculpt it.

E.Sirbu · March 25, 2015, 05:40:15 AM

Nice!

Jslowsky · March 25, 2015, 03:51:46 PM

I would accept EvilMaul's suggestions. The under-structure of the face is missing most of the planes that should be present. You have merged a number of them together and eliminated quite a few. Adding the planes of the face into your structure will transform your portrait into something remarkable. This model was designed by fine artist John Asaro, to help the artist break down the sometimes difficult-to-assess planes of the human head. You may find it useful in your endeavors.

Varaga · May 07, 2015, 06:35:11 AM

So here's a huge update since my first (and quite crappy) render that I posted before. Tweaked the model a lot, changed the maps completely and added a sweater. This render is a beauty pass with ambient occlusion on top of it, no other retouching other than adding a little vignette. I know theres some work that needs to be done on her but its getting there I hope. Bear in mind please that I didnt use any sculpting or 3d texturing tools so dont be too harsh

. My pc is quite old so I will need some time to render in different lighting in good quality to post here. Planning to add fur on sweater and beanie, and some peach fuzz on her face.
Any feedback and suggestion is welcome.
(I know the bump is too hard but when I noticed that the render was almost finishing. I know about the stretching on her chin too so dont bother mentioning that

, will fix it later)

And a question to skillful users who might know - there's some green color happening in the transition from light to dark on her face, especially on beauty pass (before I put ao on top of it). I know the way to get rid of it in mentalray but how to get rid of it in keyshot? thanks in advance.

Varaga · May 07, 2015, 06:40:53 AM

By the way she's based on her, I'm not the best artist on catching the resemblance but its not bad in my opinion, considering that I did lots of tweaking on the model after the modeling phase was done.