[Clothing design tips & tutorials] - Skin

[UubeNubeh DaWog 136]

Starting off with something used often but normally difficult to perfect.

 

 

Edited May 31, 2018 by UubeNubeh DaWog

[vsb 6171]

very useful

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

Show me that skin bby ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Kewlin 692]

Interesting, I'd like to see how this works on my. . . very different colored skin. I'll try and remember to try it out next time I actually have premium. (Here's to hoping we get better premium prices.)

 

For my criminal's torn clothing I just use a 2-7-14 base with a 2-5-5 gradient cloud at 26% opacity and it works really well, but Vivi is. . . very pale.

My tear symbol (not perfect, and not totally all-purpose, but decent.)

 

My fake double shirt with some real and faked tears:

 

Nice tutorial, I hope to get to try it out and make some cool stuff!

[Atarus 2]

Very useful, I was looking for this for ages

thx for sharing

[UubeNubeh DaWog 136]

18 hours ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

Show me that skin bby ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Points to profile cover picture.

 

/wink

Edited May 31, 2018 by UubeNubeh DaWog

[meow_ 0]

Nice simple tutorial!

 

The only thing I would add is that shadows on skin can look more realistic if they have a little saturation rather than being straight grey / black. For example, on light skin tones I usually use a dull-ish brown (with a change in hue to avoid a muddy finish), but really it's just another one of those things that you get the best result with if you play around a little.

[UubeNubeh DaWog 136]

5 hours ago, meow_ said:

Nice simple tutorial!

 

The only thing I would add is that shadows on skin can look more realistic if they have a little saturation rather than being straight grey / black. For example, on light skin tones I usually use a dull-ish brown (with a change in hue to avoid a muddy finish), but really it's just another one of those things that you get the best result with if you play around a little.

Thats the reason i usually use opacity on the "shadow" so that the skin colour naturally comes through instead of a artificial colour on top. Less work on either end.

 

Edited June 3, 2018 by UubeNubeh DaWog

[Kewlin 692]

6 hours ago, UubeNubeh DaWog said:

Thats the reason i usually use opacity on the "shadow" so that the skin colour naturally comes through instead of a artificial colour on top. Less work on either end.

 

I think he was hinting at the fact that sub-surface scattering can sometimes make shadows actually more saturated than the rest of skin, especially on the edge of shadows.

[meow_ 0]

14 hours ago, UubeNubeh DaWog said:

Thats the reason i usually use opacity on the "shadow" so that the skin colour naturally comes through instead of a artificial colour on top. Less work on either end.

 

 

8 hours ago, Kewlin said:

I think he was hinting at the fact that sub-surface scattering can sometimes make shadows actually more saturated than the rest of skin, especially on the edge of shadows.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough, my bad! I basically mean taking painting principles and applying them in-game.

 

Just grabbed an image from the net to show what I mean - as you can see on the left you get muddy-looking tones when a skin tone is simply darkened (APB equivalent adding semi-transparent black or grey) vs. when a hue differential is added between highlights, midtones and shadows on the right giving more life / depth (in APB, making the semi-transparent layer(s) slightly saturated in a shifted hue):

 

 

I could hop in-game to make an example if you want but I hope the idea comes across from this. At the end of the day it's all down to personal preference, though, of course.

[Zascha 47]

On 6/3/2018 at 1:50 AM, Kewlin said:

I think he was hinting at the fact that sub-surface scattering can sometimes make shadows actually more saturated than the rest of skin, especially on the edge of shadows.

Sort of... but not exactly. Subsurface scattering doesn't actually affect the shadow. It has to do with light in relation to the materials it is passing through and bouncing from. The actual effect you're referring to also only really occurs or is noticable when the source of the light is positioned closely or directly behind the core shadow with respect to the view point of the observer. Basically, put your hand in front of a flash light, and you'll see a redish corona tracing the outside of your fingers where the inside will be core shadow. To be fair, you probably won't notice that without some kind of controlled environment or something. But generally, that's the case. That isn't to say that light isn't typically its most saturated at the edge of the core shadow--it absolutely is.

 

For artists looking for authentic lighting models, this gets into Color Theory. It's kind of complicated, but it's not that complicated. Also, most of this theory really only applies to RGB stuff, though if you're working digitally, CMYK behaves pretty much the same way. You just have a much smaller spectrum to work with. With actual paints, you're dealing with real, physical qualities. Mixing color is a little bit complicated. But that doesn't affect anything we're talking about here for this examination. In APB, we're dealing with RGB only, so that's what I'll talk about.

 

Generally speaking, you'll start with the natural qualities of the light:

 

Hue/Color - Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta. You also have a range of colors in between those which is where you get your Oranges, Violets, Indigos, etc. The naming policy doesn't really matter. It's the hue that counts.

 

Saturation - Each hue has a range of Saturation that is pretty much constant across the entire color spectrum. In APB, you have something like 32 Hues, 8 levels of Saturation, and 16 levels of Light if I remember correctly. Zero is counted into those numbers as they are accounted for in the permissible spectrum--so whatever the numbers are. I forget. Saturation is basically how much or little light is affecting the hue. More light means the color is being move more to white. Less light means the color is being moved more to black. In the direct center of that spectrum resides the color's true hue. Both Black and White have an equal measure of non-effect on the hue.

 

Temperature - Temperature is not something APB records, but generally speaking, Yellow, Red, Magenta, and any mixture of those hues are warm colors. Green, Cyan, Blue, and any mixture of those are cool. This is one of the more important aspects in Color Theory that I think most people should really nail down in regards to rendering effective lighting qualities.

 

Value - Value determines the lightness or darkness of the hue in respects to a grayscale--not in respects to how light affects the hue. It's similar to saturation, but not quite. They work independently and simultaneously. To consider the difference, imagine a Light Red (Pink) and a Dark Red (Value) vs a Red that seems dull to a Red that seems to really pop (Saturation.) Each hue at its equilibrium, otherwise known as true color or maximum saturation, carries an inherent value. Of the primary colors, it goes Yellow, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Red, Blue. Yellow has the lightest inherent value. Blue has the darkest inherent value. The secondary colors, the mixtures, generally carry an inherent value that find an equilibrium between the two primary colors used. So if you mix Cyan (the second lightest) with Blue (the darkest) you'll get Indigo which will carry an inherent value similar to that of the Primary color, Magenta. You can experiment with mixing colors which rest on opposing ends of the color spectrum, but you're going to end up killing the quality of the hue. Basically, you'll end up with just some muddy gray--the equilibrium gray. This is not really that important for the simple examination below, but for advanced users, you can really get into this quality when picking your hues and such for lights and shadows.

 

The simple rule of thumb is, whatever the Temperature the object has in the light, you should use the opposite Temperature to render its shadow. In reality, if the surface of the lighted side is Red, you don't actually have to make the shadow Blue. I mean, you could if you wanted a real dramatic effect. But more realistically, you just move the hue more to a cooler temperature. Usually one or two hues is fine (depending on the inherent value if you wanted.) So for Red, you could make the shadow Orange or Yellow, or you could make it more Violet or Magenta. Point is, either option is a cooler temperature than Red.

 

The next part is you have to determine whether the Lighted area is high in saturation or low in saturation. And then, you simply reduce or increase the Shadow area's Saturation as needed. Basically, you're doing the opposite of whatever is going on inside the Lighted areas. If the lighted side is high in saturation, you want the shadows to be low in saturation. In real life, generally speaking under natural lighting conditions and assuming there's nothing weird-sciency going on, Shadows are more saturated than the Lighted areas. This doesn't have anything to do with subsurface scattering--it's just the way light behaves. And this is typically on any surface. Shadows are naturally more saturated... in Earth's atmosphere so far as we know. Also, all of this is measured against Sunlight. If our Sun was a different color star, everything, including our sky, and green leaves, would be a completely different color. Not important, but fun fact.

 

The effect you're speaking of, where the hue is more saturated at the edge of the core shadow is mostly just a natural occurrence moving from light to dark. It's because the hue is neither obscured by shadow nor is it washed out by light--thus saturation in at its purest measure.

[WitchQueen 316]

Great video. One thing I would add and you kind of hinted at it in the video is don't spend too long making killer skin straight onto the clothing. Doing it on the symbol can take a bit longer due to trial and improvement but in the end you can use it again and again.

Edited June 9, 2018 by WitchQueen
Getting sick of my phone's inability to handle apostrophes on this forum.

[Regenance 59]

Oh damn, now you thought me how to compare skin tones thanks mate. will be used in the future.

[Kewlin 692]

5 hours ago, Zascha said:

~snip~

 

Yeah, I haven't really personally delved into color theory or any of that, most of what I know is second hand, but that all makes sense. All I was saying was just from my small amount of experience working with CG.

 

Danke.

[Ohshii 215]

Good tutorial. It always surprises me how many veterans don't know how to make skin on clothes for outfits, but yah. Good video dude.

 

[Goabea 196]

Thanks for the tips! They're really useful

[UubeNubeh DaWog 136]

On 6/10/2018 at 3:19 AM, WitchQueen said:

Great video. One thing I would add and you kind of hinted at it in the video is don't spend too long making killer skin straight onto the clothing. Doing it on the symbol can take a bit longer due to trial and improvement but in the end you can use it again and again.

Thats true. I always try and make my symbols/clothing as easy as possible to apply which normally involves making a large symbol instead of piecing it together on the clothing itself. Another thing is that symbols made in the editor will keep their quality better than piecing them together on the clothing itself.

On 6/10/2018 at 3:33 AM, Regenance said:

Oh damn, now you thought me how to compare skin tones thanks mate. will be used in the future.

On 7/6/2018 at 10:13 AM, Ohshii said:

Good tutorial. It always surprises me how many veterans don't know how to make skin on clothes for outfits, but yah. Good video dude.

 

On 7/27/2018 at 8:14 AM, Goabea said:

Thanks for the tips! They're really useful

Thank you all.
Glad this was usefull, however you decide to work it