And speaking of the skin shader, I have been experimenting with the normal maps that the shader requires, especially since it is using the mipmaps that make the skin softer. But after some tests (and waiting for Alloy compile my changes), I have some ideas and inputs that will make the shaders much better, and especially artist friendly. So here it goes (and please bear with me).
Exhibit A (Unmodified normals): In this shot, I am using the original normal maps that came directly from Zbrush with no changes to original source. Though the slider reads .8 for Bump Blur, the skin still feels hard to me artistically and modifying my normals is an ardous process.
Exhibit B (Modified Normals):
You probably can’t tell in this shot, the change is so slight, but the results speak for themselves. The skin is starting to feel softer and closer to wax (not ideal for human skin but the lighting itself looks so much better now) and for translucent materials this is a very important step. And when you pull the camera back, the skin is definitely softer.
How I did it:
In the first graph, using the unchanged normals. No need to explain this one. But…
To modify the normals, here are the steps.
1). I extract a copy of the skin normal map with a Blend Node set to Copy and use a mask just for the skin parts of your mesh. (You can make this in Xnormal or paint it in photoshop)
2). The strength is increased with an Overlay node (Lowering the opacity to something like .4).
3.) I then split up the RGBA channels into their own channels (RGBA Split is used) so I can carefully modify them at will starting with 2 Contrast nodes for the Red and Green Channel which makes the channel stronger (will remove this later since it is not necessary anymore).
4.) At this point, it is too crisp so I can blur it a bith with a blend node. Use smaller values until you are happy with the results.
5.) Using the RGBA merge and plugging everything back into it, your new normals are ready for use. Drop 2 blend nodes (make sure the blending mode is set to copy) after the RGBA Merge exactly as you see it in the graph below. Lastly, normalise the changes with a Normal Normalize node.
This setup works great for things like candlewax and makes the skin look softer. And I am hoping in an update for the character based shaders, we can have the ability to blur the normal maps per channel (it will get TEDIOUS fast to keep doing this setup in Substance Designer) especially for artistic control.
It can be just like the bump blur, 0 is unchanged and 1 is completely blurry (it is up to the artist to get the look they way). And since red scatters the most, the red channel is the blurriest, the green channel is weaker than red, and blue is unchanged since it is the depth of the normals. Hope this makes sense.
