Creating a Super Girl Character: Part 9

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

1. Texturing the Eye in Photoshop

Step 1

Open Maya. With the eyeball selected, open the UV Editor, go to Image > UV Snapshot. Alternatively, click on the camera icon for shortcut.

Step 2

Select all the UVs, change UV area to Range, since the eyeball UVs are in the V 1.0~2.0 area, you have to change the V min and V max to 1.0 and 2.0 accordingly.

Step 3

Search for a HD iris photo as the eye texture.

Step 4

Create a new document in Photoshop with resolution 2048x2048. Paste the eye texture into it.

The reason why Photoshop is used, but not Substance Painter, is because you need to touch up the texture before fitting it into the eyeball UV. You're not able to make it in Substance Painter.

Step 5

Press M for Elliptical Marque Tool, select the iris and delete the unused texture.

Step 6

There is some reflection from the eye, touch up the reflection and specular by duplicate the eye layer and rotate 180°, using eraser to erase the specular and reflection.

Step 7

Press Ctrl-Shift-Alt-E, change to Multiply. Erase and leave only the top part.

Step 8

Copy the eyeball UV on the top of layers, press Ctrl-I to invert the colour, and change to Multiply.

Step 9

Adjust the size of iris and fit into the iris UV.

Step 10

The pupil is not at centre, press Ctrl-T, activate warp mode, adjust the pupil to centre.

Step 11

Duplicate the layer, scale larger until the pupil texture fit in the pupil UV. Erase other texture from this layer and remain only pupil texture.

Hide the UV wireframe, and save as targa file in sourceimages folder.

2. Shading in Maya

Step 1

Open Substance Painter. Press Ctrl-Shift-E. Go to Configuration and click + button.

Step 2

Click on the RGB, rename it to clover_diffuse_$textureSet

$textureSet means the UV area number (1001, 1002….)

Step 3

Drag and drop Base Color from the right panel to RGB, then select RGB Channels.

Step 4

Create a new RGB+A, rename to clover_roughness_$textureSet, drag and drop Roughness to RGB and select grey channel, repeat again and drop to A.

Step 5

Create again a new RGB, rename as Normal, drag and drop Normal OpenGL into RGB Channels.

Step 6

Create again RGB+A, rename as metal, drag and drop metallic.

Step 7

Go to Export tab, change the file location to source images folder and Configuration to the preset that you created just now, file format to TGA, and then click Export.

Step 8

Back to Maya, go to Windows > Rendering Editors > Hypershade.

Step 9

Under Arnold >Shader, click to add aiStandardSurface shader.

Step 10

Click on the presets, select Glass > Replace. Click on IOR and choose Cornea.

Step 11

Increase the number of roughness to 0.15, Transmission Weight to 1.0. Select both eyeballs, right click on the material and Assign Material to Viewport Selection.

Step 12

Untick Opaque for both eyeballs.

Step 13

Select the inner eyeball faces, right click and select Assign New Material. Select aiStandardSurface from Arnold tab.

Step 14

Increase Base Weight number to 1, click on the checker box icon from Base Color, then select File.

Step 15

Click on the Folder icon and select your eye texture. Press 6 to view textured material in viewport.

Step 16

Select the head model and repeat the process from Step 13-15, select diffuse_1001.tga.

Step 17

Repeat the process from Step 13-15 for Specular Roughness (rough_1001.tga).

Increase Subsurface Weight number, middle mouse click and drag diffuse_1001.tga file that we created in Step 16 into Subsurface Color.

Change Subsurface Radius to dark red.

Step 18

Repeat step for suits and collar model, assign new aiStandardSurface material, assign textures for Base Color and Specular Roughness with 1002 textures.

Open Hypershade, select the suits material and click on Input and Output icon. Search and add a aiNormalMap.

Step 19

Click on the icon from Input, select File and assign normal_1002.tga.

Step 20

Change the colour space to Raw.

Step 21

Click on Out Value green dot from aiNormalMap and drag to suits material’s Normal Camera green dot to connect them together.

Step 22

Repeat step 18-21 for accessories with assigning 1003 textures including metallic textures.

3. Lighting and Render

Step 1

Create a skydome light from Arnold > Light.

Step 2

Assign a HDRI texture to skydome light Color. Increase the Exposure to 1.0.

Step 3

Find the light source from the HDRI, rotate to a desirable angle.

Step 4

Click on the Render Settings icon, change the image size presets to HD_720.

Step 5

Turn on the resolution gate which represents the rendering resolution.

Step 6

Click on the Render View icon and start to test render.

Step 7

Create a spot light, rotate and move to the position of light source. This spot light will act as key light.

Step 8

Increase Cone Angle number to increase the radius of spotlight.

Increase Penumbra Angle and Dropoff for a softer light edge. Increase Intensity and Exposure (under Arnold tab) for stronger light.

Tick Use Color Temperature and adjust the Temperature to cool color.

Step 9

Test render again.

Step 10

If you found that the model doesn’t have specular or weird specular, try changing the connection of Roughness map from Out Alpha to Out Color R. Then change its Color Space to Raw.

Step 11

Try rendering it again and it should work fine.

Step 12

Create a new spotlight and position it to the opposite side of the key light. This spotlight acts as back light. Change the Temperature to warmer colour to create contrast.