smokeydots

Development Tech Talk

Added 2021-11-26 12:08:51 +0000 UTC

Technical Talk

As I've talked about earlier that I've begun developing my own skin textures and shaders, some of which I hope to use on my next game. The real estate agent is the first prototype. As I was doing the Thanksgiving render I noticed that these new skin shaders don't work well with traditional light setups that I've been using, due to them being more physically accurate (mostly with SSS and transmitted color to give the illusion of multiple layers of skin/blood vessels)

So I did a bit of experimenting and I think I found a way to use a completely new lighting setup specifically for these skin shaders. I believe from the results of the test render from the last post, I have for the most part cracked the code on how to light these new batch of skin shaders.

Here's the comparison between the two lighting setups:

Old Lighting:

New Lighting

The old lighting setup doesn't work well with the new skin, I believe, because it is "absorbing" too much of the white light making it look pale and unrealistic. The new lighting uses a boarder spectrum of light colors to give a more full look, as it is "absorbed" into the skin.

A lot more experimentation is needed still when it comes to darker scenes, but I will work out a solution to it when the time comes.

I'm quite happy with this discovery and just wanted to share all of you.