CMFF Skin Work In Progress

Holy hell Chip, that's amazing!

All I can say is Wow! You have done an excellent job with these!

Thanks you guys! I'm really proud of how it turned out. Torley, I completely agree about the eyes. I just grabbed the only brown pair I had to do the shots with and they're not very good.

So as not to have this thread turn into shameless self promotion (which wasn't my intent) I'll share a few details about the techniques I used to create this skin. All of my skins are done from photographs but usually end up about 50% photo, 50% hand painting, mostly due to the challenges of avoiding visible seams. I would do most of the work by adjusting the photos to fit the SL template using PS's liquify filter. Due to the amount of distortion necessary to warp to fit the templates, much of the detail would end up getting blurred.

This time around I approached it differently. Instead of taking each photo and warping it to the templates by hand, I created new UV mapping on the av model for each photograph. If it was a profile shot I'd create a planar projection from the side and output a template for it, then warp the photo to fit that planar projection. The photos required much less warping because the shapes were already close to each other. I'd then take that custom uv and bake it to SL's uv mapping, letting it do the major warping for me. I did this for each of the photos I used (about a dozen)... created a cutom UV projection from the angle of the photo, output template, warp photo to fit, then bake to SL's UV. I then took all the baked parts and blended them together to create the final textures.

The real advantage to this method was that the blend areas were no longer at the template seams, so when I finished the blending my seams were already about a 98% correct match. As a final step I touched up the seams by hand in 3d paint. The only big downside of this method is that it requires very high quality photographic source material, shot specifically for this purpose. I wish I could paint well enough to do that kind of realism by hand, but alas my technical skills far outshine my artistic skills

Very interesting method Chip. Stunning results! Drop me an IM if you still need eyes for her.

Thanks Namssor I almost ran over to your place last night to buy up all your eye textures. I've been meaning to do it for ages. Yours are among the best out there. I'll definitely be making a shopping trip to your place soon!

she is amazing!!! wtg Chip!