Your image is really outstanding, and technique very interesting, but unfortunately the tutorial you’ve refered to seems to not exist anymore 
So, could you tell me how to get the depth mask?
I have just noticed that the lady on your raw render has parts of fur here and there and after depth masking and separation/color maskin you get final image where the lady is naked. Interesting technique. 
Does it work in real life too? 
Sweet piece of work MonkeyFarm 
I can see what you mean by the miniature look but there are ways around that.
Once again very nice. I can see now why you ignored comments about the lumpy breasts
How did you get the Seperation/Layer mask ? through photoshop?
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Sweet piece of work MonkeyFarm I can see what you mean by the miniature look but there are ways around that.
Once again very nice. I can see now why you ignored comments about the lumpy breasts
How did you get the Seperation/Layer mask ? through photoshop?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
What are som eways around it in ZB. In another application, I would have done it with a more complex lightin gsetup, but ZB’s light pallet leaves A LOT to be desired. I tried positioning a point light behind the creature to get a rim light to make him pop a little more, but the specularity from that light was too pronounced with the materials used that looked good with the key and fills. I know I could have gotten a better lighting setup eventually, but I just got really tired of fighting the lighting tool’s limitations. I know I could use a radial, but it lights everythign and ignores shadows so it creats a wierd glowing look.
The layer mask was created by using flat color material on a simple brush stroke drag square alpha, and on each layer in ZB, I applied it with just MRGB and no ZADD/SUB so each layer was painted with a diff color, and it was set up so each layer in ZB had various elements I wanted to keep seperate. Because ZB does not do edge antialiasing, in photoshop it was a simple matter of magic wanding each color and CTRL+J on the layer to cut the color to it’s own layer to use as a mask to grab the appropriate parts from the raw render.
Outstanding image. Rich in detail, color and story. The impact is amazing.
Flippin 'eck!!
What an AMAZING piece of artwork. You’ve got a great skill there, well done!!
You shouldn’t give away too many of your secrets though…
MUCHO RESPECTO
x
Sorry for the late reply MonkeyFarm, I forgot to check back. Also thanks for the Seperation/Layer mask info
When I said there was ways around the miniature look, it was just a reflection based on my own experiments. It does take some fine tuning of the lights and especially the diffuse curves of the materials, so a fair amount of tweaking. But there are some things I am not sure if you have tried yet.
:large_orange_diamond: 1 Regarding the backlights. I don't know if you do this already but try NOT enabling zmode shadows for backlights and only use Sun lights for the backlighting. Set Shadow Intensity to 100 and Shadow Length to 10 (The lowest value), adjust the shading depth with the lights Intensity Curve.
I am not 100% sure what conspires to create the miniature look but it is not a single factor. General back lighting across the scene is one and the diffuse curve of the materials is definetely the second. There are other factors such as DOF that has to be very carefuly applied.
:large_orange_diamond: 2 Have you tried multiple renders on a single document, within Zbrush? For example, the eel. Duplicate the layer the eel is on and hide that layer. Merge the other layers, do a render as usual and bake the layer. Now you have a standard render with the eel casting shadows onto the rest of the scene. Select the previously duplicated eel layer and you can apply a whole new lighting setup to it, one which complements the eel much better. As the duplicated eel layer occupies the same Z-space as the original it will override the previous layer as long as it is selected. The shading onto the other layers of course stays intact.
And an alternative to the above and my favorite. I am pretty sure Pixolator does something similar to this after getting the general lighting settled.
:large_orange_diamond: 3 Merge all the layers, render and bake at Layer :small_orange_diamond:Bake Blend Amount 99%. Press Escape to abort the next render and enable Preview Render. Right now it all looks out of wack, but you can load the Flat Color material into the material slots of the scene elements you wish to stay the same (as a normal render would) and adjust all other materials. I tend to start with loading the BasicMaterial into the slots I wish to edit/amplify.
With this method you would want to get all your Bump mapping resolved during the initial render as the post adjustments in preview mode gets twisted if using Color Bump (your applying Color Bump to an already Color Bumped image). Initialy you should focus on adjusting the diffuse/specular curve(s) so the on screen pixols resemble the initial render. Then just play around with the materials and lighting to achieve a more user defined render. Big emphasis on lighting here, your initial lighting setup most likely will only amplify what you already have on screen during a normal render. So play with that.
If you need to do an additional Best Render then turn of Render 
Shadows. The shadows are already there, and some materials are Flat Color (don’t receive shadows) and some are ‘live’ materials so additional shadows will only cause incosistencies within your scene.
The live materials benefit from an additional best render. Various material modifiers do not show up until you do a best render (Metalicity f.ex. and Reflectivity shows its best during a best render).
I know the above sounds like a complicated and convoluted way of achieving what you want. But IMO it is a bonus ability that should be exploited. And yes, I do wish for an easier on screen representation when making GI like scenes. It would be nice if the rendering engine did not require the Diffuse curve to be so extreme as to prevent the Preview Render from showing its true colors, so to speak. Next version please. Pretty please, with sugar on top. 
Are poses & expressions (move tool) layerable? Like, can you add moves to layers and pose and unpose the ztool with a single click? (… if you know what I mean)