Had a bit of time free here and there over the last month so been taking another swing at my skin shader. Also, expect a max viewport bloom shader for max8 soon(ish). 2009?
Haven't finished it up so no release yet.
new features are a micro detail overlay map, new soft light blending algorithm, and independant colour inputs for hemaglobin and melanin layers hack.
big image...
http://server2.uploadit.org/files/jistyles-skin_softlight_small.jpg
hehe, I understand that reaction - the amount of digging through research papers and feeling like it's a completely different language has been a pretty big learning curve -- basically hemoglobin and melanin are the main things that give visual pigmentation to skin. Here's a pretty good paper on the subject:
http://www.mi.tj.chiba-u.jp/~tsumura/Tsumura/projects/Siggraph2003/Tsum…
it's way over the top of what I'm doing, they're doing crazy stuff like light analysis and image synthesis. Still explains what it's all about if you just check out the pictures though. My method is an absolute bare bones of layer combining in a way to hack the general look of it togethor for real time, using the basic theory behind it.
quick note, released an initial version
grab it off my site under the hlsl area
http://www.jistyles.com
copy+paste: Just a note too, the micro detail map is a tileable normal map, but with the blue channel taken to 50% so the overlay works. Just the same as doing a photoshop layer overlay for a normal map.
I'll probably get another update soonish with source files for a head or something, just for example settings.
Ben's got a good tutorial on his page on how to apply viewport shaders -- check it out here:
http://www.monitorstudios.com/bcloward/tutorials_shaders1.html
for a look on what people are doing with it, check out mr. eq's thread here:
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=120096&page=0&fpa…
"emaglobin and melanin layers" lol! I had to read that line twice, sounded like you made that bit up, but I'll take your word for it ;) But seriously, mind giving a quick explainiation of what that means?!?
Whilst I have no idea about that, I do know that the end result youve posted looks super sexy :)