Darth Rey UE4 Human Skin R&D Project
This is one of my fist attempts to create a realistic character using a real time render engine. And I have to say that I was quite impressive with the quality that I was able to achieve with the new features of the Unreal Engine. Everything was done in about one week using only my spare time.
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The main goal of this exercise was to improve the original asset using a VFX workflow, not caring much about performance but focusing on the final render quality. I mainly work on the Lookdev and Light on this project, but I also did a bit of textures, modelling and grooming, my focus was on the skin and eye shader. In this page you can find a little bit of how was my process to finish this very fun project.
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For the next project I want to focus more on the skin sculpt and hair! So, stay tune for more in the future!
Darth Rey UE4 Human Skin R&D Project
In order: Diffuse color; Roughness; Normal Map (R and G channels)
This is the original asset that I use. This preview was rendered in Maya using Arnold.
The main parts of any project: the references.
Those are the final textures that I use. The one on the top left is the Diffuse colour, this one I modified version where I added the scars, bruise and blood spatter. Everything done in Photoshop using photos of real scars.
This is the shader network for the skin. This is a modified version of the Mike file from UE4 official asset. At this point I basically re-make all the textures created by the Epic games team.
This was the first WIP. Here I was still using the triangulated original mesh with tessellation on. At this point I had no ISOs to control the roughness values.
This is the mesh after been quadrangulated in Maya and after a quick sculpt pass in zBrush were I added the scar and the new expression.
This is the face hair that I did using Maya with xGen.
For the eyes I used the Epic Games shader, which the refraction is simulated in the material. It give us a very good result with a very simple geometry.
3D Printed version with my CR-10S and painted with a rub'n'buff spanish copper colour.