VSFX 757 Creature Look Dev part 2

Part2: Workflow documentation (head and eye)

1. UV's

I made the head and the horn UV in 1 UV set, separate from the body. I want them to be in the same shader but with different range of roughness and sub-surface value to gives the transition look from fleshy skin of the face to the dead old skin on the horn area. I also gives the eye its own UV set on the 0-3 UV range because It needs a different material.

the transition from dead skin to fleshy skin reference. (original work by Dominic Qwek.)

UV set of the head ( 0 - 1 UV range )

UV set of the eye ( 0 -3 UV range)

Models with grid texture to show the UV's distribution.

2. Displacement and bump maps.

The look that I am looking for in this project is a highly realistic creature look. Something that can be viewed close up on the face with skin pores detail. I also want to emphasize the character's scars, and blood veins in his body as this is an essential part to the character's backstory.

To get the amount of details, I decided to go for a 4096 x 4096 px resolution map to create all the texture. This is a reasonable size for performance and should be sufficient for the amount of detail that I need. I can always downsize the texture for smaller objects.

I choose to make all the details in Zbrush, since I have the basic model with UV's in maya, I can just import this model in zbrush and sculpt the details that I want.

Below is the sculpting levels I did in Zbrush. Since I am planning for a 4K texture map, I go up to 16 million polygons to get a high quality details appropriate for the texture size.

SubD levels in Zbrush

micro details sculpted in zbrush

I use reference from human skins to help me get an idea of the details. The tricky part is to determine the vein area where they pop out the most in an angry expressions. I use reference from the character Azog from Lord of the ring movie. The vein and the skin deformation helps me to sculpt the details.

Azog (Lord of the ring). Expressions and details reference.

After I finish all the details in Zbrush, I need to prepare the sculpt and export all the details as texture maps to use within Maya

In order to do this, I use the Zbrush multimap exporter tools because this mesh have multiple UV sets on a single mesh.

I turn on the displacement option to export the displacement map and the normal option as the bump map. I also set the texture to export 4096 px map size. Also, I turn on flip V because Zbrush and Maya have a different U and V axis. Flipping the V axis will match the UV axis in maya.

In the displacement option, I choose to export a 32bit channel so that I can get all the zbrush details in maya without having to adjust too many settings.

Below is resulted texture maps exported from Zbrush. The 32bit Displacement map is just solid black color and only readable in Maya, So I post the 16 bit map to get better preview of the displacement.

Displacement maps 32bit vs 16bit

Bump / normal map

All the texture maps in maya with basic white shader.

Below is the full breakdown of the bump and displacement texture and part of project 1.

3. Shaders & textures

Below is some reference I use to help me with creating shaders in maya.

(reference from Pinterest)

Eye materials

I made 2 layers for the eyes. The first layer is the eye ball with textures, and the 2nd layer is a reflective glass to give the eye some subtle reflection.

The first layer is more of a waxy shader with some sub-surface attributes. Since the 1st layer will be inside the 2nd glass layer, the color of the 1st layer dims down due to the reflection of the glass. So, I added a very slight emission value to bring back the color of the 1st layer.

below is the aiShader attributes of the eye shader.

For the texture, I use some procedural vines around the edge of the eyeball and make a slight bump to gives an evil and creepiness feeling into it. The texture was done using substance painter and photoshop.

Normal map and color maps painted in Substance painter.

below is the result of the texture maps rendered in Maya arnold with the aiStandard shader.

Face skin material

To get the realistic details on the skin, I breakdown the reference based on the details and the irregular color on the skin. Below is some area of the face that can help me with texturing and shading of my character.

Based on the reference I try to separate the area of the outer skin layer and the layer underneath which is the sub-dermal layer in Maya. I also note out the area where there is some irregular color and spec values. I notice that the yellow tint on the face appear on the edges and cavities of the face. Also, the red color is more saturated on the forehead area. This helps me to get better textures reference.

The skin is very rough and have very low specularity. I test out the Arnold aiShader and try to get as close to the reference. Below is the resulted shader in maya arnold without any color maps.

Since the horn and face is in the same geometry, I will input a custom specular and roughness map to get the material transition from flesh skin to dead skin on the horn

Texturing the skin

Before I start painting the texture, I decided to use substance painter to bake some texture information from the models; ambient occlusion map, Thickness map, and curvature map. I use these maps as a masking channel to help me paint the skin texture. Besides that, I also use some procedural noise available in substance painter to get some organic shapes such as the blood veins on the skin. Below are all the maps baked and the final color maps.

Maps baked from the high poly zbrush model in substance painter. Using all these maps as masking channels, I can make the skin colors more effectively.

Final texture maps made in substance painter.

Below is the resulted render in maya arnold with all the color maps.

Below is the shader node of the skin shader. I added some color correct node to adjust the Hue / saturation of the texture if needed. Some of the extra texture nodes was generated from substance painter to match the substance painter viewer. I follow the substance documentation here: (https://support.allegorithmic.com/documentation/display/SPDOC/Arnold+for+Maya).