ZBrushCentral

Different Map types: Opinions needed on which for most realism.

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

So I’m a bit of a noob when it comes to 3D but I’ve watched tons of digital tutors and other assorted videos (especially sub surface scattering) in my quest to figure out how the best artists get their renders looking so realistic.

I’d like opinions, please, on which maps are the most important for realism?

My own amateur opinion is the following:

Initially I thought it was all about the color map/diffuse map because using some of the automatic tools to create a head from a couple of photographs look passably like the person in the photograph even if not realistic - so I thought the diffuse texture was most important. So I was looking for the highest possible number of pixels on the UV to paint the color/diffuse map on using e.g. spotlight for a photograph. But my efforts look noobish. That obviously wasn’t it.

So next I dove into subsurface scattering and they seem to use another couple of maps deeper down than the diffuse map - the epidermal and subdermal which kind of sort of relate a bit to the structure of the actual skin anatomically (e.g. cutananeous, subcutaneous etc) but not quite. But that doesn’t do it alone: just pluggin in a diffuse map, an epidermal and a subdermal it looks better but not realistic. In fact, it’s quite easy to get better results by using the polypainted diffuse/color texture exported from Zbrush and just rendering it as a MISSS material in maya with the standard settings (just flat colors) for epidermal and subdermal. So what’s missing?

Well I concluded that it’s about displacement/bump/normal maps because all of the really realistic art seems to have one or more of these. Not clear, however, on what the difference is: just it seems to be that you need to get the actual geometry itself looking like the original reference material even with no texture whatsoever on, then creating a displacement/bump/normal map from that and putting it on. In my experiments however, that works better but it’s still not 100% realistic.

I guess it must have something to do with shadows and lighting. Which I think means occlusion/cavity for shadows? and specular/gloss for lighting?

This is as far as I have gotten in my studies. Anyone care to chip in $0.02 with an opinion on which are most necessary for realism?

#2

Nobody have an opinion?

I thought that would have been an interesting topic LOL.

OK I’ll get together some screenshots then and post and see if maybe that can generate some discussion.

#3

Don’t forget about specular maps or any sort of actual reflection; those can usually make or break the look of a material.

#4

Thanks Cryrid for weighing in. Do you have an opinion on the relative importance of the different maps or is it basically all or nothing?

#5

No opinion; I focus more on real-time rendering and printing (and when I do wind up working on something that needs to be rendered to frames the project is often stylized), so I don’t have a lot of experience setting up photo realistic renders of people. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a combination of various maps however. If you can, try to find some threads and posts where people show the various passes they used when creating such a render. Then you’ll get an idea of what each map and element is contributing to the final result.

#6

Ding Ding Ding!

Light goes on. Thank you very much that makes total sense to determine which maps are of relative importance.

Thanks a million.