Illustration 5: RMTharyn after changes shown on right
This image is a comparison shot of RMTharyn before any changes were made and after. The other image shows the colors and strengths I used when setting her up.
Most of the other changes you might want to make are changes to single areas. Areas to check or that you may want to give special attention to are:
▪ Lips: You may want a higher gloss on the lips for example. You can use a lighter color, a higher strength and or a lower glossiness percentage. Try a few different settings till you get an idea of what you like. As I mentioned before, ideally you would have a separate specularity map for lips. This would prevent having a sharp edge where the different gloss setting for the lips meets that of the face. However, this is seldom if ever done and the best option may be to create one yourself to use with all your characters when you set them up.
▪ Lachrymal:You should check the lachrymal and see if the gloss setting is too high there (glints of moisture not over all gloss). Some creators include a bump map for the eye area. If so you should add it to the lachrymal to break up any gloss you put there.
▪ Tear: The tear is a thin area just at the bottom of the surface for the eye. It is intended to give the illusion of dampness or that the eyes are tearing up. In some cases the gloss on this area will be to prominent and a distraction. Lower the specularity setting or darken the color.
▪ Sclera: Also known as they "whites of the eye". Some content creators put to much ambient on this area and others use colors that make the eye look "off". Check the settings and be sure they have not made the area to gray or to bright.
▪ Eye surface: Ideally there is a bump for the eye surface so you can use specularity on it and it will be broken up properly like it would be on a real eye. To get a glint in the eye on this surface use a bright highlight color that has a very high gloss setting so that there is a tighter shine.
▪ Finger and toe nails: These should have the same base colors as the skin for diffuse and ambient unless you are coloring the nails. Natural nails have a wide low gloss so the glossiness would have a low percentage and the strength would be somewhere near the middle. Painted nails can be created by using any diffuse color, a white gloss with a high glossiness percentage and a high strength percentage.
Illustration 6: Settings used above
There is no way around doing some experimenting yourself and trying different settings due to how
variable the textures and maps you get with characters can be. But, you should at least now know what to look at and potential changes you can make to get better renders with just the simple surface settings.
When your all done you will not want make the fixes over again every time so you should save the file when your finished. The simplest thing to do would be to create a file in the studio part of your contents to save all of the characters you have changed the settings on.
To save all of the settings at the same:
Be sure that you have the figure selected in the scene.
Click the little plus sign at the bottom of the contents tab while your in the folder you want the file saved into.
Record all will save all of the settings and apply them in one click.
If you only want some parts saved then change the selection to "record custom" and select the body part or parts that you want saved.
