Glad you figured it out haha.
First you'll have to convert and export your fibermesh as geometry. Once that's done, you'll be able to bake it in maya or xnormal for example.
Just bake it to your texture flat? You could generate it in a flat manner like you had for your original texture, then bake it into position, no? That way nothing changes but the texture content.
First clear draft of the hair right now. Still needs work, but I'm not really sure what this is missing. All I know is, it's not looking as soft as it should be Not sure what to do from here.
I could keep layering though to get the rest of the hair volume.
tl;dr:
ideal set up is dithered alpha, skin shader for softness/translucency, aniso (instead of Blinn, I believe), make sure Aniso has a secondary gloss (they go over why in the video). I suspect this will help.
Also, cover up the hair so you can't see the sides of your cards. Seeing the sides of your cards like this breaks the illusion.
Edit: It could also use a few smaller stray strands, and of course, her bangs.
it aligns the normals of the cards to the master surface...
its often used for leaf cards on trees, would it work on hair cards also so they appear
more round?
A quick rejig of placement/proportions with the Liquify tool:
Paintover to correct some lumpiness, incorrect plane changes and missing planes
Redline for clarification.
Compare the plain liquify one with your original screen directly, they should fit over the top of one another.
Also, for reference on how that normal stuff works for foliage: http://simonschreibt.de/gat/airborn-trees/
It basically makes it so you dont get those harsh shadows on the underside of your cards. It might work!
I've gotta say, JadeEyePanda, you're really taking all of this critique in-stride. Definitely handling it the best way possible right now
I noticed that the head sorta sits on the collar of the space-helmet, whereas in the reference the head is almost perfectly centered. This may also give the illusion of her looking shorter than how some of the commenters would like.
I actually don't know, technically, what causes what Pyr's picking up on. If I could tell you how to fix it I would, but all I could do was liquify it until it looked right to me. A contributing factor is the length of the face, though. Bring your chin up a bit, make your mouth a teeny bit smaller, and maybe round out the bottom of the cheeks? Again, if you overlay the Liquify onto your screenshot it might become more apparent what I mean by "bring up the chin", etc.
What you have now looks better, but there's still somethin' a bit off here. The eyebrows are a little shapeless and sharp, making them a little less harsh (try copying right from a Jinx splash) might help. In the splash you're reffing, they're a bit more like... Maybe this.
Or this
You know, subtle curves, tapered at the end.
Additionally, while you're doing this, there's something we haven't seen for a while. That's your side profile at current, can we get a shot of that again?
But you're close, real close, and the edits you're making are really helping it along. Keep on moving!
It'll be a combo of sculpt and polypaint to nail the eyebrows, I think.
The Elvgren paintings. I really like the style they're going for, but I'm basically just ignored the apple cheeck shapes they've made because of those prevous issues of "she looks old." Which I didn't feel was the case.
I've resolved to just use explicitly younger faces for photo reference now.
Hopefully the sculpt reflects that. I am hesitant to make the cheeks any more prominent by popping them out.
The shape of her eyebrow looks too sharp. They also seem too thick at the moment. You need to make the brow arc more. It also seems like her mouth, her lower lip is too full to be Jinx. Jinx has a thinner lips.
Space Age Jinx WIP 17
Resculpted the face. Issues regarding perceived age, along with too wide-set eyes, long face fixed to better fit Jinx's age / features.
Yeah, I wouldn't say to make it all flat out, but I tend to keep female faces with very subtle features/protrusion. Personally I have very very little fat and my upper lip muscle thingy transitions into the cheek area very smoothly. Though my dentist says I have pretty obvious upper-bite.
Lookin noice. Have you tried bringing the head up into the center of the helmet yet? It might look disproportionate, but I reckon it's worth a shot. The hair really looks rough as well. Take the time to work on that, as it's a big aspect of the piece. As a final piece of critique, I'd suggest making the pink colours on her clothing a little less vibrant. If you look at the concept art, it's actually more of a darker pink. I feel like oversaturated colours can really neutralize the overall work, but see what others say. Might just be my monitor.
Head proportions fixed. Purple on clothing sightly desaturated. Helmet moved down to put head smack dab in center. Additional wear and tear details done on main body.
So, right now my main concern is what to do to fix the hair. Right now it looks clumpy in many places. and not feathery where I want it to be, and I'm not sure if just adding more hair planes will fix it.
Does anyone have any technical solutions to what I am looking for?
tl;dr:
ideal set up is dithered alpha, skin shader for softness/translucency, aniso (instead of Blinn, I believe), make sure Aniso has a secondary gloss (they go over why in the video). I suspect this will help.
Also, cover up the hair so you can't see the sides of your cards. Seeing the sides of your cards like this breaks the illusion.
Edit: It could also use a few smaller stray strands, and of course, her bangs.
Sorry to nag, but you never did address this, theoretically could fix your issues with it not looking softer/more feathery with these techniques. Apologies if you did already try them and it didn't work, but you didn't mention how it went, so...
Tucson, So went through the video, made the slight adjustment they mentioned (though ysalex, I really want to know how you made those direction map textures), and here's what I have now.
Thank God, it looks a lot better. But still looks off in a lot of ways
Looks heaps better! I think if you have some smaller, looser cards/strands, it'll make it look a bit more natural, and maybe if the hair is a just a little bit less golden yellow. Maybe try to clean up some of the side cards from clipping through each other by varying height just a little more?
But yeah, maybe a few loose strands coming around and tucking behind her ear, some stray bangs, a little fuzz off the top and it'll look sweet.
JadeEye, could you take some screen caps of your marmoset settings for your hair? Also, do you have sRGB checked on your normal map slot? If so, uncheck it. (it toggles when you click the options button).
I ain't no ysalex, but I tried making an anistropic map a while ago for a character I did, there's probably other ways to do it but here's my result. The alpha was hand painted too.
Replies
First you'll have to convert and export your fibermesh as geometry. Once that's done, you'll be able to bake it in maya or xnormal for example.
Ehh .. . . I'll deal with the busywork.
I could keep layering though to get the rest of the hair volume.
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/character-setup
tl;dr:
ideal set up is dithered alpha, skin shader for softness/translucency, aniso (instead of Blinn, I believe), make sure Aniso has a secondary gloss (they go over why in the video). I suspect this will help.
Also, cover up the hair so you can't see the sides of your cards. Seeing the sides of your cards like this breaks the illusion.
Edit: It could also use a few smaller stray strands, and of course, her bangs.
Does this look any better, at least more youthful?
(http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/normal-thief)
it aligns the normals of the cards to the master surface...
its often used for leaf cards on trees, would it work on hair cards also so they appear
more round?
and again its a max script
Paintover to correct some lumpiness, incorrect plane changes and missing planes
Redline for clarification.
Compare the plain liquify one with your original screen directly, they should fit over the top of one another.
Also, for reference on how that normal stuff works for foliage: http://simonschreibt.de/gat/airborn-trees/
It basically makes it so you dont get those harsh shadows on the underside of your cards. It might work!
I noticed that the head sorta sits on the collar of the space-helmet, whereas in the reference the head is almost perfectly centered. This may also give the illusion of her looking shorter than how some of the commenters would like.
The eyes are ever so closer together right now, because it felt REALLY separated before.
Plane from cheek to nose bridge fixed hopefully.
Did some fixes on the lips, as well as doing that slight fat fold on the edge creases of the mouth.
What you have now looks better, but there's still somethin' a bit off here. The eyebrows are a little shapeless and sharp, making them a little less harsh (try copying right from a Jinx splash) might help. In the splash you're reffing, they're a bit more like... Maybe this.
Or this
You know, subtle curves, tapered at the end.
Additionally, while you're doing this, there's something we haven't seen for a while. That's your side profile at current, can we get a shot of that again?
But you're close, real close, and the edits you're making are really helping it along. Keep on moving!
The Elvgren paintings. I really like the style they're going for, but I'm basically just ignored the apple cheeck shapes they've made because of those prevous issues of "she looks old." Which I didn't feel was the case.
I've resolved to just use explicitly younger faces for photo reference now.
Hopefully the sculpt reflects that. I am hesitant to make the cheeks any more prominent by popping them out.
Looking good though. Hope you finish.
Resculpted the face. Issues regarding perceived age, along with too wide-set eyes, long face fixed to better fit Jinx's age / features.
/happy sobs
Also, not too sure myself, but... ?
Just touching my own face, there's flesh being rasied away towards my lips.
I'll get you a link, just so there's no confusion.
http://youtu.be/nSW6ALspyZI?t=5m54s
Feeling my own lips, I can definitely feel those "muscle fibers" moving towards the nose, creating that protrusion near the top lip.
---
Edit: As Pyr said, keep it subtle. The link should give you an idea anyway.
I have to admit, maybe it's the polypaint that made it look weird
You should really turned it down/do it manually to have more control over it
"Panda, smooth peaks your skin noise!" - Reminder
Where we are at right now in Marmoset 2.
Anyone have any critiques
Head proportions fixed. Purple on clothing sightly desaturated. Helmet moved down to put head smack dab in center. Additional wear and tear details done on main body.
So, right now my main concern is what to do to fix the hair. Right now it looks clumpy in many places. and not feathery where I want it to be, and I'm not sure if just adding more hair planes will fix it.
Does anyone have any technical solutions to what I am looking for?
Albedo
Gloss
Alpha
Sorry to nag, but you never did address this, theoretically could fix your issues with it not looking softer/more feathery with these techniques. Apologies if you did already try them and it didn't work, but you didn't mention how it went, so...
/curls up with warm blanket
Thank God, it looks a lot better. But still looks off in a lot of ways
Is it still a texture thing?
But yeah, maybe a few loose strands coming around and tucking behind her ear, some stray bangs, a little fuzz off the top and it'll look sweet.
I mean like this haha
Just an example, not necessarily something specific you need to do lol
Minigun update:
http://imgur.com/MBEjSM3