This is part 2 of the Making Skin Pop with the Daz Studio Iray Uber Shader tutorial. Here, we address tweaking a chromatic skin. Part 1 provides an introduction to Daz Studio Iray skin shaders as well as how to convert monochromatic to chromatic skin. Visit Part 1 here.

Tweaking a Chromatic Skin

1. Open up a figure of your choice (I’m using Babina 8 for my example) in Daz Studio.
2. Open up the Surfaces tab.
3. You’ll notice that the SSS map slotted into the Translucency Color looks different this time – it would normally either be an exact copy of the Base Color map, or a lightened version of the Base Color map. (It is important to note that some skins might have a more in-depth SSS map that incorporates things like veins and vessels, but the vast majority are simple lightened versions of the Base Color map.) In the case of Babina 8, you will see the latter, a lightened version of the Base Color map.
4. (Optional) If the skin you are working with uses a copy of the Base Color map slotted into the Translucency Color, I would recommend lightening it slightly in Photoshop. For a generalized process, start with the color map and add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer with the following settings – Hue -5, Saturation -15, Lightness +20. This might need to be tweaked depending on the skin. Once you have a lightened version of the color map, load this new SSS map into the Translucency Color slot and move to the next step.
5. Change the Translucency Weight to .90 (you might need to play with this depending on the character).
6. Change the Base Color Effect to Scatter & Transmit Intensity.
7. Change the SSS Reflectance Tint to 0.79, 1.00, 1.00. (you might need to play with this depending on the character, but I like this color almost all the time).
8. Scroll down on the Surfaces pane.
9. Change the Transmitted Measurement Distance to .15 (you might need to play with this depending on the character).
10. Change the Transmitted Color to 0.95, 0.20, 0.10 (you can definitely play with this depending on the character and skin tone you’re going for).
11. Change the Scattering Measurement Distance to .015 (you can play with this setting too).
12. Change the SSS Color to 0.95, 0.45, 0.55 (you can play with this setting too. In fact, you will have to depending on the character and look you’re going for).
13. Change the SSS Direction to -.25 (I typically don’t mess with this and leave it set to 0, but using small negative values, such as -.1 to -.25, can be helpful if there is too much scattering effect. This can vary greatly on lighting).
14. Repeat these steps for the Lips and Ears (I often do them at the same time as the Face since they use the same maps).
15. Repeat these steps for the rest of the skin surfaces – Arms, Body, Legs, Fingernails, Toenails, EyeSocket, etc.

Again, play around with the settings! That’s how you’ll learn what you like and dislike and what different colors and numbers do. This is where you might think about tweaking the settings for Bump, Top Coat, and/or Gloss/Specularity. They all add up to the skin’s final results! And if you’re comfortable with Photoshop, you can even build upon the SSS map for more detail (blending tattoos into this layer can help immensely in making them look more realistic and less stickerific). Also note that I do not adjust eyes…you can easily slot in eyes from another character.

It looks like a lot of steps, but it’s really not when you get in the groove. It also really helps to save your go-to colors to the quick select in Daz. Please see the below comparison for Babina 8.

Middle face skin was made following the steps above. Far right face skin has changes to Transmitted Color and SSS Color to create a lighter skin tone.

And just like with above, these steps work with darker skin tones, as shown below with Millawa 8, who has gorgeous skin out the box to begin with. My first tweaks are very subtle, but upon close inspection you can see that changing the Base Color Effect to Scatter & Transmit Intensity enhances the toning of the skin (in this case I used a color of 0.37, 0.99, 1.00 which seems really bright but it’s subtle with Millawa’s skin maps).

Comparison of out-of-the-box Millawa 8 skin with multiple tweaked Millawa 8 skins.

And lastly, we have Celani 8, another character with gorgeous skin out of the box. I changed the Base Color Effect and altered the Transmitted Color and SSS Color slightly, and the effect is very subtle. I also included a shot with her under different lighting so you can see how lighting itself has a huge effect on the same skin and settings.

Comparison of out-of-the-box Celani 8 skin with tweaked Celani 8 skin in normal and altered lighting.

In conclusion, the best advice I can give is to not rely on using things out of the box. Don’t be afraid to roll up your sleeves and dig around in the surfaces panel. Play around with stuff to see what it does. What’s the worst that could happen if you end up with something you don’t like…just undo or reload! I hope this guide and these steps help get you started on achieving the results you want when it comes to the way skin looks, whether you’re a beginner or a grizzled veteran trying to get used to Iray for the first time. In time my goal is to write more tutorials in the future that take these steps even further and build upon them. Happy Rendering!

Have you ever been frustrated with skin that looks flat in Daz Studio? Dull and lifeless? Rubbery with a distinct likeness to that of Gumby? (Google it if you’re too young to remember Gumby.) Or maybe it just needs a little bit of pop? Most of the time, any of these issues can be attributed to SSS, or subsurface scattering, and there are a couple easy tweaks that can be made to drastically improve the look of skin in Daz.

[Visit Part 2 of the tutorial which deals with Tweaking a Chromatic Skin.]

PBR Skin Shader vs Iray User Shader

Before we get started, I wanted to make a quick note regarding the new skin shader that was introduced with Genesis 8.1, the PBR Skin Shader (it can also be used on Genesis 8). ‘PBR’ is actually a technical term.

Physically Based Rendering, according to Wikipedia, is ‘a computer graphics approach that seeks to render images in a way that models the flow of light in the real world.’

Okay, well that was kinda vague. Both the PBR Skin Shader and the Uber Shader do this, so they are both technically PBR shaders. They use almost all of the same maps. So please don’t let Daz’s play at words lead you to believe that the Uber Shader is somehow lesser. It’s just different. While the PBR Shader has added a couple neat new tricks, it is also missing some neat tricks that will be made use of in this guide. Essentially, the PBR Skin Shader is a trade-off, and it’s up to the user to decide which they prefer. Please see the below comparison with Victoria 8.1.

Victoria 8.1 comparison of Daz Studio’s PBR Iray Skin Shader and the Iray Uber Shader.

It is so very much personal preference. Personally, I stick with the Uber Shader because it allows me to better control SSS. Now, if Daz were to update the PBR Shader to bring back the SSS capabilities that the Uber Shader gave us, then it would be the best of both worlds. But for the sake of this article, I will be sticking with the Uber Shader. (Another article may come at a later date that works specifically with the new Iray PBR Skin Shader.)

Spectral Rendering

One other item of note is Spectral Rendering. A lot of folks don’t know what it is and a lot of folks don’t use it. Personally, I do, and I don’t. It depends on the scene and the skin I’m working with. It is supposed to be more actuate in terms of how it bounces light around the objects in the scene, some scenes more than others. The downside is that it has a particular tendency to make skin out of the box look like muddy, green, flat…blech. The tweaks I will be going over won’t work with Spectral Rendering. Well, they will…but they require different SSS settings to not look like muddy, green, flat…blech. It also can add exponentially to your render times, even with the same exact lighting.

Is it really worth it? That’s up to you to decide. Like I said, I’ve noticed that Spectral rendering works better with some skins than others. For the purposes of this article, due to length, I will be sticking with basic rendering. If folks enjoy this article, I will do a write-up of my tweaks translated to Spectral Rendering at a later date. For comparison, here is an example with Vicky 8.1 with my Iray Uber settings.

Comparison of Iray Uber Shader with and without spectral rendering.

Okay! Ready to get started? Oh! I forgot to mention that if you want to follow along in Daz, I’m using this HDRI and no other lighting and default tone mapping.

My lighting setup – Just HDRI and no other lighting or default tone mapping.

Monochromatic vs Chromatic Iray Uber Skin

The first step is understanding what type of skin you are starting with, and that really boils down to SSS (subsurface scattering). To put it simply, think of subsurface scattering as the way light shines through the skin. Skin is translucent, so it’s only natural that we’d see things like veins and, well, meat beneath it. Older Iray Uber skins, such as those found on G3 and a very small amount of G2 characters, use a type of SSS called Monochromatic. Newer Iray Uber skins, such as those found on G8 (and G8.1) characters, use a type of SSS called Chromatic.

Now, what is the difference between the two? Well, I honestly couldn’t tell you, other than the fact that they behave completely differently, and that Chromatic SSS, when set up correctly, appears to behave more naturally in terms of light reflection than Monochromatic SSS. So how do you tell which is which? It’s really easy, but you’ll need to roll up your sleeves a bit and open up the surfaces tab (If you’re never looked at the surfaces tab, or are unfamiliar with it, you’ll be digging into it here!):

Monochromatic

You will see a greyscale map slotted into the translucency color. You’ll also see a rather tomato-inspired red set for the color itself (in most cases). And if you scroll down on the surfaces panel, you’ll see the word ‘Mono’ listed under SSS Mode.

Monochromatic skin typically uses a lower translucency weight (.3 to .5) and the general rule of thumb is that it can be lightened or darkened by adjusting that slider (lower for lighter, higher for darker, etc). Monochromatic skin can be converted to Chromatic skin with some work, and that work does involve Photoshop (or another photo editing program that can use layers, such as Gimp). I will be showing you how to convert a Monochromatic skin, such as Vicky 7, over to Chromatic SSS and apply my tweaks. (I’ll try to stick with the super popular base figures that pretty much everybody has so you can follow along exactly.)

Chromatic

You will likely see either an exact duplicate of the base color map slotted into the translucency color, or a slightly lightened version of the base color map. The translucency color itself should (in most cases) be white (this isn’t always the case for spectral rendering, but again, this article will only cover basic rendering). And if you scroll down on the surfaces panel, you’ll see the word ‘Chromatic’ listed under SSS Mode.

Chromatic skin typically uses a much higher translucency weight (.75 or higher) and it is harder to lighten or darken simply by adjusting. This can be tweaked slightly, but if you need to lighten or darken a skin drastically, I would recommend finding a different skin that starts out where you want it in terms of tone, or go the direct route of editing the maps manually in Photoshop (advanced users). The reason for this is that Chromatic skin relies on the translucency color map, or the ‘meat map’ as I call it, to shine through from beneath the outer base color layer. If you try to lighten the skin by dropping the translucency weight, you’ll lose that ‘meat’ and the skin will end up looking flat. Chromatic skins out of the box are the easiest to tweak because they already have the necessary SSS map (though advanced users can go even further and build a new SSS map or tweak the existing one for even more detail, something I will cover in another tutorial).

Converting Monochromatic SSS to Chromatic SSS

(Beginner Level in Photoshop Required)

1. Open up a figure of your choice (I’m using Victoria 7 for my example) in Daz Studio.
2. Open up the Surfaces tab.
3. Starting with the Face, open up the translucency map in Photoshop (or photo editing program of your choice that supports layers). In the case of Vicky 7, this map is here on my system – DAZ 3D\My 3D Library\Runtime\Textures\DAZ\Characters\Genesis3\Victoria7\V7FaceMapSSS_1001.jpg. There are other SSS maps for Vicky 7 that are dependent upon any makeup you choose, but for our purposes, we’re only concerned with the base skin that loads with the character. You can always convert the makeup skins if you’d like later (I usually just use third-party makeup anyways).
4. Once you have the Face SSS map open in Photoshop (it should be greyscale with blue squigglies), take a look at the vein detail. It’s great! I really wish Daz kept these details on their newer figures but c’est la vie. Now open up the base color map, in this case V7FaceMapD_1001.jpg. We’re going to need both to create a proper Chromatic SSS map.
5. Next take the SSS map and copy/paste it onto a new layer over the base color map. You should now have two layers…one with the SSS map, and one with the base color map. The SSS map should be on top, currently blocking the color map from showing.
6. Change the opacity of the SSS map to 25%.
7. Now create a new solid color adjustment layer and pick a nice fleshy pink tone (205,165,165).
8. Change the opacity of the solid color adjustment layer to 20%. The pink layer will bring back some nice color to the map we’re building.
9. Go ahead and save this working file as a .psd if you want to come back to it later and play around (I would highly advise playing around…that’s how I learned!). Flatten the image or stamp visible if that’s you’re thing and save this new SSS map as a .jpg (the highest quality setting). You can save it in Vicky 7’s folder, or anywhere you’d like to save it if you want to set aside a special folder for your custom maps. I’ve saved mine as V7FaceMpaD_1001 – CUSTOM SSS.jpg.
10. Back in Daz, change the Translucency Color map to the one you just created. You do this by clicking on the map in the Surfaces tap and then going to Browse when the menu pops up.
11. Change the Translucency Color to white (you can absolutely play with this if you’re going for fantasy skin colors)
12. Change the Translucency Weight to .85 (you might need to play with this depending on the character).
13. Change the Base Color Effect to Scatter & Transmit Intensity (Vicky 7 is already set up that way, but if the character you’re working on doesn’t have it, go ahead and change it).
14. Change the SSS Reflectance Tint to 0.56, 0.98, 1.00. (you might need to play with this depending on the character, I usually start with 0.79, 1.00, 1.00 and adjust from there).
15. Scroll down on the Surfaces pane.
16. Change the SSS Mode to Chromatic.
17. Change the Transmitted Measurement Distance to .15 (you might need to play with this depending on the character).
18. Change the Transmitted Color to 0.95, 0.20, 0.10 (you can definitely play with this depending on the character and skin tone you’re going for…unlike with Monochromatic SSS, this is where you can go to fine tune the ultimate lightness/darkness and tone…to an extent).
19. Change the Scattering Measurement Distance to .015 (you can play with this setting too).
20. Change the SSS Color to 0.95, 0.45, 0.55 (you can play with this setting too…in fact, you will have to depending on the character and look you’re going for).
21. Change the SSS Direction to -.15 (I typically don’t mess with this and leave it set to 0, but using small negative values, such as -.1 to -.25, can be helpful if there is too much scattering effect…this can vary greatly on lighting).
22. Repeat these steps for the Lips and Ears (I often do them at the same time as the Face since they use the same maps).
23. Repeat these steps for the rest of the skin surfaces…Arms, Body, Legs, Fingernails, Toenails, EyeSocket, etc. All of these maps are located in the same folder where we found the Face map (in example, the body would be V7TorsoMapD_1002.jpg for Victoria 7).

Again, play around with the settings! That’s how you’ll learn what you like and dislike and what different colors and numbers do. This is where you might think about tweaking the settings for Bump, Top Coat, and/or Gloss/Specularity. They all add up to the skin’s final results! And if you’re comfortable with Photoshop, you can even build upon the SSS map we created above for more detail (blending tattoos into this layer can help immensely in making them look more realistic and less stickerific). Also note that I do not adjust eyes…you can easily slot in eyes from another character.

I know it looks like a lot of steps but it’s really not so bad, and it goes quickly once you get the hang of it!

Please see the below comparison.

Comparison of out-of-the-box Victoria 7 skin with tweaked Victoria 7 skin.

The above steps can also be followed with darker monochromatic skin tones, as seen below with Monique 7 …the only thing I did different was bump the Translucency Strength up to .90 and change the SSS Reflectance Tint a smidge to give a more golden undertone rather than blue.

Comparison of out-of-the-box Monique 7 skin with tweaked Monique 7 skin.

Visit Part 2 of the tutorial which deals with Tweaking a Chromatic Skin.

Good looking skin need not be fully realistic. When I look at skin from the paintings of Boris Vallejo, the thing that jumps out at me is that it is many hued. This helps to create muscle definition on the body.

My goals for skin are as follows –

• I want to emphasize differences in skin hues, which will in turn accentuate body shape and definition.
• I want to emphasize creases and bump details on skin.

The Dragon and Girl image below gives a rough idea of what I mean. Full image can be viewed here.

Daz Studio Iray Skin Tutorial

The first thing I realized when I started playing around with skin shaders in Daz Studio Iray, is there is no one “right way” to shade skin. The way skin looks in a render will depend on three key things –

1. The skin textures used. This includes not just the base textures, but also the very important translucency, specular, and bump texture maps.
2. The scene lighting. Materials (including skin) interact with scene lights to produce the final render result. Part of getting skin to look good, is to light it well. This tutorial has more on how I light my Iray scenes.
3. The shader settings. This is mostly what people talk about in discussions of creating realistic skin and will also be the main topic in this tutorial.

However, shader settings interact with both textures and light to create the end result. This is why there is no single right or best skin shader. Different texture maps will likely require different skin settings and lights to get optimal results. Similarly, changes in skin settings may require different lights, and changes in light may require different skin settings.

The way skin looks in a render will depend on skin textures, scene lighting, and shader settings.

Daz Studio Iray Skin Settings

In this tutorial we focus mainly on skin shader settings, with a small discussion on lights. We will be using the simple portrait composition above to illustrate the different skin setting effects. Full skin tutorial image can be viewed here.

For texture maps, we use the Eva 7 base maps throughout. This is because there is nice detail in the translucency, specular, and bump maps, which are all very important in creating good looking skin. In general, I have gotten good results from Daz base figure textures, so those are the ones that I tend to use.

For initial lights, I use the Tropical Ruins image from sIBL Archives. I use the HDR version of the image , and I set the rotation to 220 degrees. I place a darker wall in the background to emphasize my figure’s face.

For shader settings, I start with the initial ones from Eva 7.

Initial render with Eva 7 skin textures and settings. Normal map is set to on and Translucency is set to high.

1. Translucency Weight

One of my key goals for Iray skin is to have greater differences in skin hues. To that end, I have found that Translucency Weight can be very useful. Currently, Eva 7 skin settings come with two translucency options (medium and high). Medium translucency sets the Translucency Weight to 0.5 and high translucency sets the Translucency Weight to 0.65.

I really want to push skin contrast, so I set my Translucency Weight to 0.8. Since this is a portrait, I select the Face, Ears, and Lips surfaces, and increase the Translucency Weight parameter accordingly. Setting it to 1.0 will cause only the translucency map and color to show through, with none of the Base Map and color, which is not what we want. Instead, we want a mix of the two.

I really want to push skin contrast so I set my Translucency Weight to 0.8.

Note that increasing the Translucency Weight in this way, increases the skin contrast but it also makes the face look overly red. In addition, the face looks darker, so we may need to increase the amount of light.

2. SSS Reflectance Tint

One easy way to reduce redness of the skin is to reduce the “red” component of the SSS Reflectance Tint parameter. I right click on the first number, and reduce the red component to 0.7. I also increase the other two components to lighten my skin. In the render below, the face redness has been significantly reduced. This is something that you can play with to get the skin tint that you want. I prefer a more bluish tint, because I always warm up my images later in post (Photoshop).

Note that the SSS Reflectance Tint parameter will only appear if Base Color Effect is set to Scatter & Transmit.

Skin redness is reduced after setting “red component” of SSS Reflectance Tint color to 0.7.

3. Glossy Roughness and Glossy Layered Weight

I can further increase the skin contrast on her face by changing Glossy Roughness and Glossy Layered Weight. In particular, I reduce Glossy Roughness to 0.4 and increase Glossy Layered Weight to 2.0. Both of these, increase glossiness or highlights on the skin.

Further increase skin contrast by strengthening highlights. We do this by setting Glossy Roughness to 0.4 and Glossy Layered Weight to 2.0.

I greatly emphasize highlights here because it will later get reduced when I increase bump strength. In addition, remember that highlights (specular) will change based on light. More focused light sources, for example a spotlight, will bring out skin highlights, while a more diffuse light will have weaker highlights.

For more general cases where more of the body is shown, a Glossy Layered Weight of 1.0 is probably more appropriate. However, for a portrait, we may want greater contrast as we are zoomed in very closely to the skin. Be careful though, that overly high glossiness can make skin look unrealistic, and have a plastic feel to it.

4. Base Bump

Now that I have significantly increased skin contrast, I move on to increasing skin detail, through the Base Bump parameter.

I click on the wheel icon to open the settings pop-up window.

• First, I click on the wheel icon to the side and select Parameter Settings.
• This will open the Parameter Settings pop-up window. I uncheck the Use Limits box for this parameter.
• This allows me to increase bump to much higher values, and I set it to 5.

Emphasize skin creases and lines by increasing bump map strength. Here, we set face bump strength to 5.

Note that increasing the bump strength increases the roughness of the skin, which reduces the glossiness effect. Increasing the bump will also emphasize lines on our figure’s face, which ages her. I leave the bump value on my figure’s body as is, because it looks more natural with a lower bump.

5. Set Skin for Arms, Legs, Torso, and Nails

Once I am happy with skin settings for my figure’s face, I replicate those settings on arms, legs, and torso. I set everything to the same values, for otherwise, the seams may become visible where two surfaces connect. The only thing I set differently is the Base Bump strength. I have a higher value on my figure’s face (5.0), whereas I leave it at its default value (1.5) on the torso, arms, and legs.

For nails, I increase the Translucency Weight value by 0.15 (to 0.65), which is the same amount that I increased my skin Translucency Weight. However, the final value will be less than that of my skin. This is natural, as nails are less translucent than skin.

New Daz Studio Iray skin settings for face, body, and nails.

Daz Studio Iray Scene Lights

After creating my new Iray skin shader, I also had to change the way I light my scenes and do postwork. I still use my three point light system, but I have added another back light, and I combine lighting from multiple IBLs or Environment maps.

I like combining both cold and warm lighting, so I generate a cold light layer using DTSol-NightTimeE from Skies of iRadiance – Night Sky HDRIs for Iray, I generate a warm layer using DTSol-SunsetL from Skies of iRadiance – Sunset HDRIs for Iray, and finally one using the more neutral Tropical Ruins HDR.

The cold and warm lights help to bring out the different skin hues and also accentuates my figure’s shape and musculature. I also want there to be enough light to bring out the effects of my new Iray skin settings. This, I get with my Tropical Ruins HDR.

In postwork, I reduce my softening and glow effects, so that I preserve more skin detail. I have also started rendering larger images (minimum width or height of 3000 pixels). In this way, when I reduce the size of my image, I get a sharper picture with more details.

These are my current settings. I will continue to evolve my light setup and skin settings as I render more images, and learn more of what works and what does not.

Angel image rendered with new skin settings, 3 different Environment Maps, and 4 mesh lights.