by Chris_23 on Fri Jan 21, 2005 7:05 am
Well it doesnt look like what makes MJ. THis is what his skin looks like, as I said, I dont find the skin looking good. Its either overcontrasted, or color mismatched, or layered wrong. You should show the texture so I could comment more, but this isnt the way how real-time (or even on-real-time) engines can actually use the diffuse maps. Diffuse map is almost-max ambient in real-time games since most engines do specularity as well as shadowing in game (either object-to-object or even object-to-self which isnt the case in Live 2005 sadly). If anything, you should take a look at Live 2005's own textures and then compare. From lighting to shadowing to contrast/brightness, simulated/and-possible-ingame specularity, glow and color bleed (which can help very many textures especially in non-real-time engines, but it always depends). Cant really be more specific as what is wrong, but you have probably used programs automatic color/light adjustment on the texture which has made his lips purple and over-simulated specularity light very "much as it looks during moonlight.
And I repeat, its ok for diffuse maps to have specularity and bumps along with high-ambient (like cloudy days where sun doesnt have as much coloring effect as does the atmosphere) overall coloring, but detailed specularity is not the way to make details. This isnt done so in Live 2005, and this isnt done so in any industry project Ive worked on´. Bring out details on bumps and diffuse maps themselves and not in specularity, it makes it look face and unearthly, especially as it seems to have the light somewhere that never changes, making the skin look unhealthy.
Just some tips to help you in the matters of real time (and if interested then non real time, like 3ds max or maya). Your other works dont display such a problem and I like them alot, but youve overdone it in here.
Im not exactly sure of your techniques since its hard to tell on such a footage, but creating a texture isnt just balancing the reference material, stretching it and placing it on the bhed texture. Bhed texture should be brushed first, manually, and then added texturing (like small skin bumps if you are making a hi-res one). All this based on reference pictures. You should never just paste the ücture on bhed as many tutorials advise for beginners (for its common that in time even the beginners learn that it isnt the right way of work and start layering/dividing their work). THis wasnt the way how EA did it in the first place, and for quality textures, if nothing else, its good to follow their lead since in my opinion, based on personal experience with gamedev projects, is one of the few to place such an attention towards its textures. Im not really sure what went wrong this year with many headshapes themselves, but the texture quality is a way to follow.
If you intend to continue working on it, Id recomend starting again, since currently it seems like every step takes it more and more inside something where you cant pull it out from anymore. Yeah perhaps youll find a way to do that, but currently I hope you got a few good tips from my post.