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Instructor
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd May 2017 at 10:54 PM Last edited by k2m1too : 24th May 2017 at 8:43 PM.
Default Facial Hair texture issues (flatness?)
I am working on some beard and eyebrows for the game. I *think* i have at least the basics down on how to do the mechanical aspects of it. My issue lies with the textures looking a little distorted in game. I've attached a sample eyebrow and beard to illustrate.

In the case of the eyebrow, I'm getting weird angles that I'm not seeing in the texture. Also, the inner aspect of the eyebrow seems more crunched in than expected. In the case of the beard, I am seeing general distortion around the mustache area. I'm not sure what to do about either.

Also... I've been starring at these things for days and I really just don't know if they are even remotely good enough to bother uploading. I would really like someone to look at some of these items and give some pointers or critique on their quality/playability. I'm just not sure the best place to put that - here or Creator Feedback. I really want these to be good quality because they are custom for a series of sims I'm working on, but I also want them to be good enough for general use.
Screenshots
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 23rd May 2017 at 1:32 AM
The "distortion" in the eyebrows is caused by facial geometry; what you're seeing is simply the edges on the face model. There isn't a whole lot you can do about that, I'm afraid, but perhaps you can compensate for it by slightly deforming your texture in a way opposite to what the facial geometry is doing.
The beard situation is similar. In order to compensate for the distortion caused by the philtrum geometry, simply shift the beard texture slightly upwards in a curve that corresponds with the distortion caused by the geometry.

As for critique, the texture work looks good. I'd say these were EA textures if I didn't know better. The beard looks a little flat, though, so I suggest seeing if you can decrease the specularity or add a bit of bump to diffuse the shading. Hope that makes sense, it's the middle of the night and I may in fact be writing utterly nonsensical garbage here without knowing it.

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Instructor
Original Poster
#3 Old 23rd May 2017 at 3:32 AM
Ok, I'm replying equally as late, so i may be writing gibberish as well. First of all, thanks for taking a look. I do appreciate it. Basically, I just need to keep poking pixels around until it looks right? But at least I'm on the right track it would seem. That's a relief.

I had concerns about the "flatness" of the beard, but I wasn't sure what, if anything, could be done about it. I am vaguely familiar with speculars from doing hair re-textures (or I should say, attempting to do them, lol), and I know of the existence of bump maps with regards to clothing/accessories (though I've never directly worked with them). But I've not run across mention of either of them with regards to facial hair in any tutorials or in various other peoples' facial hairs I have examined (or even EA's for that matter). I've really only come across the textures and controls (and not always controls, particularly in the case of eyebrows.) I'm sure I could figure out how to make them, but not entirely sure how to add them to the beard? Or am I completely not following your meaning?

Duh and/or Hello!
(simblr)
Instructor
Original Poster
#4 Old 24th May 2017 at 8:45 PM
Uhm.. can anyone clarify what the previous poster was saying? It wasn't making a heap of sense to me. I'm really trying to learn how to do this "right".

Duh and/or Hello!
(simblr)
Instructor
#5 Old 25th May 2017 at 7:43 AM
If you're wondering about the use of bump maps, in my experience, only bump maps I could make work in game (using TSRW) are for clothing or accessories.

Maybe there is a way to add bump maps to other items? This remains a mystery to me, so I'm not sure you could use them for your project. Also the beard you're making doesn't have a mesh, correct? So I really wouldn't know how to implement a bump map, as I usually link it in the Mesh tab in TSRW, but maybe more knowledgable people will come our way.

However, I wonder how you colored your beard in the preview? If your color mask is already made so you have different "layers" to your beard, maybe you could accentuate that by really using more contrasted colors (example, highligths brighter than roots and base).

Or you can play some more with the color mask or your multiplier/diffuse and could add some more depth by really layering your color channels? And if you're familiar with hair textures, you can have 4 channels (base, highlights, roots, tips)

I think Simple Life made a great job with this, if you want to take a look. There really is a layering work if you look at the files both in the multiplier and the mask. Here's an example with Simple Life's Beard 7:



The base is really mainly stubble behind everything (blue), then you have the tips (green) that are used to give more shape to the beard. The highlights (yellow) and roots (red) are there on top and they're also used to accentuate certain parts of the beard.

You can see in their preview what effects you could achieve depending on how you color the beard:


Hopefully, this post does help you a bit?
Instructor
Original Poster
#6 Old 25th May 2017 at 9:43 PM
I think you confirmed what I was already thinking - that normal/bump maps and speculars go with ones that have meshes (mine doesn't). The non-mesh beards as best I can tell only have the diffuse?(texture) and controls that I have ever seen or read in tutorials. I did see one tutorial say you could add a custom specular, but then promptly didn't explain HOW and I haven't seen it done in practice.

As for the control, I do have one. It's not as detailed as SimpleLife's. I could swear I was using one of theirs as a reference, but now I cannot find the one I was looking at. This is what I have for that beard as it stands:



Quote: Originally posted by Blyss
Or you can play some more with the color mask or your multiplier/diffuse and could add some more depth by really layering your color channels? And if you're familiar with hair textures, you can have 4 channels (base, highlights, roots, tips)


I thought the multiplier/diffuse was grayscale?

Anyway... It would seem that I'm on the right track, but I just need to fine-tune it some more? Is that a fair assessment?
Screenshots

Duh and/or Hello!
(simblr)
Instructor
Original Poster
#7 Old 26th May 2017 at 8:46 PM
Okay, I've reworked the texture and control a bit and I think I've finally gotten somewhere. Thanks so much for the pointers.
Screenshots

Duh and/or Hello!
(simblr)
Instructor
#8 Old 27th May 2017 at 6:14 AM
The beard looks good! It seems like you've added some highlights?

And sorry about my previous post, my wording about diffuse/multiplier was a bit confusing maybe. You're totally right it is grayscale!
What I meant was that if you wanted you could try to edit it some more to add more depth, as in make some parts darker than others, so they won't be as visible, to better reflect the layering done in the control/mask? Like making or adding hairs on the edges that would be a bit more sparse?

In any case, you can definitely see the improvements already!
Instructor
Original Poster
#9 Old 27th May 2017 at 6:31 PM
Thank you Blyss! The first thing I did was adjust the brightness and contrast of my diffuse layer so that it had more variation to it. Then I completely re-worked the control to be more shaded/layered, like you suggested.

I think I get what you are saying about the diffuse layer and it needing to be more "layered". Rather than mess with my beard (I'm afraid I'm going to wreck the shape of it!), I tried working on a set of eyebrows and I got some good results from it. (ignore the 'stache on my sim... it's going to get re-worked too.) I got the "hairness" at the edges like you were suggesting. I'm going to go back and work on the beard now to see if I can get some of the same effect on it.

Anyway, thank you again! I'm relieved to finally be getting the hang of this. I was nearly to the point of scrapping the whole project.
Screenshots

Duh and/or Hello!
(simblr)
Instructor
#10 Old 27th May 2017 at 9:31 PM
I loved what you've done with the eyebrows, they look nicely detailed!
If you can get your beard to have that kind of little "hairy mess" here and there around the edges so it doesn't look so tidy, you'll get a more natural look.

And I completely get you on feeling a bit lost when starting projects and feeling like just wanting to start over at some point, but I'm pretty confident you'll get successful with this.
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