[DT3D] UDK Skin Shader

[migusan76]

http://www.digiteck3d.com/pages/sections/tools/dt3dUdkSkin/faceSkinLogo.jpg

DT3D UDK skin shader is a real-time multi-layered skin model implementation in the Unreal 3.x Engine. The shader is based on research from “Efficient Rendering of Human Skin (http://www.eugenedeon.com/efficientskin.html),” implementing most of the effects described in the paper including the multi-layered diffusion scattering in skin. Along with the multi-layered subsurface scattering the shader implements the physically based specular term to better capture the specularity of skin. This is a great shader for the artist that wants to push there characters to that next level. Also can be quite usefull for those artist using the UDK for pre-vis work.

http://www.digiteck3d.com/pages/sections/tools/dt3dUdkSkin/headShotMain.jpg

http://www.digiteck3d.com/pages/sections/tools/dt3dUdkSkin/shaderSkin_fullLayer.jpg

http://www.digiteck3d.com/pages/sections/tools/dt3dUdkSkin/docImage.jpg

http://www.digiteck3d.com/pages/sections/tools/dt3dUdkSkin/download.jpg (http://www.digiteck3d.com/pages/sections/tools/dt3dUdkSkin/DT3D_UDK_SkinShader.rar)

[PascalR]

Nice work Miguel:thumbsup: Any way to get this kind of skin shader to work in mudbox? I am no expert in this field but how tricky would it be to have it loaded as a cgfx shader in mudbox?

Cheers

P.

[migusan76]

:thumbsup: Thx's Pascal! You are correct, if mudbox takes cgfx shaders then this shader can be implemented into mudbox theoretically. I think I'll look into it and see if I can do it. Just need to brush up on my cgfx know how...

[sschoellhammer]

Hi Miguel,

First of all I haven't actually tried the shader as I don't have UDK installed here so forgive me if I'm misunderstanding things :)

I'm not clear why you need to blur the normalmaps. The paper is talking about blurring the radiance in an offscreen buffer. Is blurring the normal giving you a similar effect?

I had a custom fx shader working in mudbox but loading them in that way isn't supported that well to be honest - especially if you want the shader to have paintable maps (at least thats what I remember).
Still that's much easier than doing a "proper" implementation via a plugin.

In my understanding you also do need render targets for this technique to work - and I'm not sure if the "simple" way does support those.

I'd be interested if this works out for you!

Seb

[migusan76]

:( Sorry for the tremendously late reply on this, missed this reply!!

Seb the shader uses the normal mapping technique to convert the shader from the uv-space render targets into a normal map based solution. Since in the unreal engine shading networks don't have access to render targets.

I had actually took a few months time ago when I orginally posted this and looked into developing a sss shader based on this Screen Space SSS (http://www.iryoku.com/sssss/) but when I got down and dirty into mudbox's API to develop the shader I got huge set backs with setting up render targets. There documentation on some of the usage made no sense to me and when I finally got a hold of an autodesk developer his only response was that the render targets are broken and you have to do some insane work around that I never got to work and didn't make sense. So ultimately at the time I had to just drop developing the mudbox shader cause if not I was gonna go crazy! Maybe with 2012 they fixed some of the issues, but I haven't had a chance to get back on it.

I did also look into just loading an FX shader like you described, but found out the hard way also that render targets are not supported or passes weren't supported or something of those natures stopped me as to why I pursued actually building an API shader.