Hey man congrats for this work!! I was reading the entire thread and is really impressive the passes, i appreciate because im now inspired to work on my personal project for my portfolio. Impressive work as the others! cya
thanks for your reply bigguns… and for sharing your workflow process. I’d just like to add one more if i may… how did you add the nice rim of wetness across the bottom of the eyelid? Also are you using any type of anistropic specularity in the shader, or is this purely the specularity of the sss shader parameters?
Hello,
maybe I missed that part… but you wrote you textures by hand, and you didn’t use polypaint.
May I ask you, which technique you used to texture the head ?
thank you so much
@add:
I just really need to add something here…
first… please let me thank you for your wonderful artwork, and teh thecnique you have used… pushing the limits forward and sharing with us … highly appreciated…
second… I really must say, that Iäve never seen such an outstanding top notch photoreal artwork… I would say, it’s the world first hyper realistic work done with max and vray… this is really something I wanted to say… cause it is what it is… just outstanding…
of course, we all would be more as happy if you will ever have time to create a making of…
and last but not least… I was reading a lot about the render process… but what I really miss so far… is the fact… how you could paint such a photoreal texture map ?
you said, you didn’t use polypainting… so would you like to share a little bit in depth look in your technique… how you painted the difuse texture map ?
thx a lot for all your efforts…
Man, that’s incredible in every single aspect!
BIG BIG congratulations!
I’m your fan!!!
Hey thank you all for the kind comments.
capu and Grugi : thank’s man 
About the the textures, what I did first was tacking some part of the ref using it as a base color of the diffuse texture, then I blurred it(because I don’t need those skin pore that are in the ref image since I have them on displacement so they will not match togheter) and after I simply add variation tone in photoshop with some brush, adding red veins on the nose,etc. In fact the texture is pretty simple, what helped a lot was the fact that I had the skin pore modeled and also I extracted a bump map of these in zbrush, it was easy to do because I had all the volumes modeling on 1 layer, so I just had to deactive this layer and generating a displacement map, then use it for bump 
I also did some cavity map extraction, especially for the beard (and skin pores) since I wanted the dark dot of the beard beeing at the same place as the beard displaced.
Maybe I can do a little tutorial on it when I get time, cause now I’m kind of busy with freelance work.
KonginChains : I simply modeled a little edge extrusion around the eye socket and added the same shader as the one of the cornea. For the spec, I use the spec of the sss2 and added fresnel reflection with a blended vraymat.
zboot: If you want to add more specular weight, simply increase the output amount of your map. And about your shader set up, don’t put a map in the diffuse amount, you will kill you sss front scatter effect a lot.
Hi, This looks like a good place to ask people about this.
I can’t figure out why my bump map creates these black lines in some creases of the face and wondered if anybody here has had similar issues and knows a fix? I’ve tried mapping 16 and 32 bit displacement maps and normal maps into Vrays SSS2 bump channel but can’t get a result.
Any help appreciated.
SquareSunStudios : hey thank you!
RHudson: I never had this kind of weird render, but I guess you are using a normal map? try to not use it and redo a render to see if it does it again. and don’t use 32 bit with Vray, do not work for the displacement excepted if you used it in exr format. I use 16 bit, it does the job and weight less.
SquareSunStudios : hey thank you!
RHudson: I never had this kind of weird render, but I guess you are using a normal map? try to not use it and redo a render to see if it does it again. and don’t use 32 bit with Vray, do not work for the displacement excepted if you used it in exr format. I use 16 bit, it does the job and weight less.
zboot : Can you please remove your render from my thread please, it’s like it hijacked my thread I found. thank you
Big guns, I’m using a normal map in tangent space and it’s fine when I delete it.
I ended up reducing the contrast of the map where the dodgy shading happens. It’s not a proper fix but looks better than it was. Actually I get quite alot of unwanted shading from the normal in general so used a highpass filter to extract the tighter details and it looks to be ok for now.
Thanks anyway and your results are fantastic btw. Also, I’m trying to get better back scatter control using a blended material and wondered if you used a map for this or had any tips?
I can officially say I’ve been fooled by a CG model. I’d give you a prize if I had any money these days. 
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Hi there, thanks for the reply. I’ve been hearing that it may be better to use the sss shader as well for the eyes themselves. Did you also do the same for the eyes of this model as well? It just looks so realistic, that it’s hard to see it was done just from a normal blinn or phong shader.
KonginChains : Yes of course, you need to use it for the eyes too, you need to use it for organic stuff since it has sss occuring.
Sorry i am writing in this thread … Could anyone tell me the right settings for rendering displacement map in 3ds max 2011. [4 Character]
Thanx in Advance…
HI. I got a porblems . Do you know if there are some setting relate rendering size and sss scale.? I rendered a good result at a small size .but it became worse when I rendered it as a large size . dont know why the setting is changed by rendering size
sculptor.zb : Do you plan on using Vray as renderer or mentalray, cause it has some difference. But if you plan on using Vray and want to get all your details that are into the displace map, don’t use the max displace modifier… it’s only good for viewport visualisation. You need to use the vraydisplacement mod modifier, and on top of it, a turbosmooth setted at 2 ( since you don’t want the contour beeing jagged, one may be ok, but for close shot,2 is best)
Nest extract from zbrush a 16 bit displacement map, put it to the vraydisplacementmod, 2d subdivision mode ( you can increase the sampling if you have skin pre details sculpted, put it at 3k if you want all the details) and don’t forget to put in the offset of your displace map -0,5 since vray and Mr use black as the zero value, Zbrush use middle gray, so if you don’t do this, you mesh will be inflated like…
Hope that help.
zboot: just increase the prepass to 0, it should be ok, or 1, but don’t go more then that,cause you will see, rendertimes and much longer.
I may not describ my problem clearly . my problem is the big size of rendering casuse the result different. I rendered a 800x600 pic . the setting looks correct . but when I enlarge the size to 2048 plus , the setting looks wrong .it is like SSS scale changed . so I am comfused if there r some setting to control this .u never met the satuation before? maybe I need to check my setting .
Well Thanx Big guns for Explaing…bt i want to use 3ds max Mental ray…Here is the small tuto that i found http://www.pixologic.com/docs/index.php/ZBrush_to_3ds_Max#Introduction
i applied this method on a sphere n its workin fine.bt i have’nt try on any character yet… 
which one is better for using displacement maps 3ds max or vray??..i need ur little more help…i shallbe grateful to you… if you could explain me the whole process of sss skin vray rendering…or you can share a screen shot of settings n all… thank you !! Your portfolio work is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…Awesome… 
plz give me some tips n tricks for realistic sss skin rendering [ vray or mental ray]…
congratulations!
very good job