NEED EXTREME REALISM: my model looks crappy cartoonish!

noobfor3d

How do I get extreme realism? 

I scuplted this in zbrush, also fine scuplted the surfaces...

then baked them onto low poly retopo model in substance paitner.
imported to blender and then aplied the basic textures like normal, diffuse and spec idk if it was spec I think so...or glossines I don't remember.Occlusion map maybe as well but not sure maybe occlusion was a real occlusion otion while in unreal engine I used to apply occlusion.

Either way it looked like crap like this.

REsult: this thing still looks cartoonish/glass.

What can I do? 

Client wants extreme realism, not some disney looking ugly bone.

JamesBrisnehan

Take a deep breath. . . and try to chill. . . it's not that bad.

Your sculpture looks pretty good, you just need to touch up a couple of things in your texture to make it look more realistic. To me it doesn't look cartoony, just a bit like plastic, which can be fixed.

The first thing is to figure out if you are in fact, working with glossiness or roughness. It may sound like a minor thing, but it's pretty important in Substance Painter. If you are working in the glossiness workflow, remember that the lightest values in your gloss map will look the shiniest, and the darkest values will look the most matte on the model.
more on that here: https://academy.substance3d.com/courses/the-pbr-guide-part-2


Now, comparing your skeleton to some real life skeletons, yours is too shiny. The real skeletons look much more dry and rough. Getting the glossiness (or roughness) values correct is a big part of making materials more realistic.
Next, add more color break-up and ageing to the bones. Notice how some parts of the real skeletons are a little more pale, while others are a little darker. There is variation throughout. You can achieve this by creating variations of your material, adding black masks, and paint or use generators to get the different textures where they need to be. Reducing the overall yellowness of your material's color might help as well, they shouldn't be bleach-white by any means, but somewhere in between.


I hope some of this helps, good luck

teodar23

First off, what are your references?
I am asking because bones are not shiny unless they have been coated somehow.
Its not clear what you used to render, unreal or blender. Can you tell us what is the reason behind using one render over another? If you dont know what maps you used then maybe you are not proficient enough with the workflow/tools.
Maybe look up a tutorial on how to use the maps in your specific renderer, then ask for help on a particular issue. Saying that you need extreme realism is not an issue anyone can help with. Its like asking how to be smart. Its something that you need to train yourself at.
Best of luck!

Edit: if you exported roughness from substance and your render uses glossiness, just invert the map.

noobfor3d

JamesBrisnehan said:

Take a deep breath. . . and try to chill. . . it's not that bad.

Your sculpture looks pretty good, you just need to touch up a couple of things in your texture to make it look more realistic. To me it doesn't look cartoony, just a bit like plastic, which can be fixed.

The first thing is to figure out if you are in fact, working with glossiness or roughness. It may sound like a minor thing, but it's pretty important in Substance Painter. If you are working in the glossiness workflow, remember that the lightest values in your gloss map will look the shiniest, and the darkest values will look the most matte on the model.
more on that here: https://academy.substance3d.com/courses/the-pbr-guide-part-2


Now, comparing your skeleton to some real life skeletons, yours is too shiny. The real skeletons look much more dry and rough. Getting the glossiness (or roughness) values correct is a big part of making materials more realistic.
Next, add more color break-up and ageing to the bones. Notice how some parts of the real skeletons are a little more pale, while others are a little darker. There is variation throughout. You can achieve this by creating variations of your material, adding black masks, and paint or use generators to get the different textures where they need to be. Reducing the overall yellowness of your material's color might help as well, they shouldn't be bleach-white by any means, but somewhere in between.


I hope some of this helps, good luck

INCREDIBLE REPLY! Thank you so much!!

However I asked the client specifically about this because I wanted to make them more rough and dirty etc.

He said : "no."

" a real bone never looks like that. those are bons from museums and dug out from the dirt. A real dissected bone is very bright, even color usually and often wet looking".

So... hmmm
That is the problem

HE wants sharp looking image photorealistic one and that requires true expertise. It's not just easy to cover it a little bit with mud and make some extruded surfaces more bright and scratched and worn out.

So. Here is an example of how a real bone looks like:

This is not gips nor plastic. This is a photo of a real bone dissected and muscles dissolved using some procedures. As you can see, surfaces are very clean, fresh new, healthy. This is a real bone.

But what the hell? How do I model something like this.

Are there some technical procedures I could use, for example I realized my bones have no subsurface scattering. That for sure can add to the realism.

Are there more technical things I could read into and also of course are there more artistic details I could pay attention to to get this?

As for the guy who asked what is my reference, my reference is simply some bone images I found online. 

JamesBrisnehan

If your client is looking for wet bones then that's another matter. If the bones are covered in liquids like blood, acid, or a formaldehyde solution, then yah, they're going to look glossy. But I think that any bone that's left to dry out for more than 5 minutes is going to look . . . well, dry. Admittedly, I am not a medical expert, but whenever I have chicken wings or pork ribs or something, the bones dry out pretty quickly. And every photo reference of "real bones" I've ever seen, including the one you just posted, looks pretty dry to me. Not a single specular highlight to be seen. If your client wants wet bones covered in blood or something, in the middle of a dissection like some kind of cross-over between Mortal Kombat and Surgeon Simulator, then I guess that's what you'll have to give them.

As an artist working in unfamiliar territory, all you can really do is make art to match a reference. Maybe ask your client if they can provide a reference image of these "bright wet bones" they are looking for, then do your best to match that reference. If the client allows it, perhaps you can share their reference image with us as well, so we can help.

noobfor3d

JamesBrisnehan said:

If your client is looking for wet bones then that's another matter. If the bones are covered in liquids like blood, acid, or a formaldehyde solution, then yah, they're going to look glossy. But I think that any bone that's left to dry out for more than 5 minutes is going to look . . . well, dry. Admittedly, I am not a medical expert, but whenever I have chicken wings or pork ribs or something, the bones dry out pretty quickly. And every photo reference of "real bones" I've ever seen, including the one you just posted, looks pretty dry to me. Not a single specular highlight to be seen. If your client wants wet bones covered in blood or something, in the middle of a dissection like some kind of cross-over between Mortal Kombat and Surgeon Simulator, then I guess that's what you'll have to give them.

As an artist working in unfamiliar territory, all you can really do is make art to match a reference. Maybe ask your client if they can provide a reference image of these "bright wet bones" they are looking for, then do your best to match that reference. If the client allows it, perhaps you can share their reference image with us as well, so we can help.

you are absolutely right.

the reference I posted as well is indeed very dry.

Still have no clue how to get that type of surface in zbrush.

Maybe some brush suggestions which would make it easier? 

birb

Before anything: Avoid playing mind reading games with clients. If a client really really wants to do this then charge a hourly rate.

It's frustrating, it drags a project out, and the time you wasted in the back and forth could have been invested in a different project. This helps no one at all. If the client knows exactly what they want that's great!, ask for references. If they don't know, then factor in the time and effort you'll spend chasing a vague idea down into your rate calculation.


Now, about that reference you showed, @JamesBrisnehan advice still applies.

- That bone has color variation not only due age but because all organic things have color variation. As a rule of thumb anything that doesn't have the bare minimum hue variation is man-made or artificial; and even artificial stuff ages.

- It also has a subtle roughness variation. Roughness is a major factor that makes or break realism. You need to pick a baseline value correctly then apply variables like material and surface variation, crevices attenuation due dust, etc.

- Bones also have subsurface scattering. To achieve realistic results you'll need a map to control variation because it's tied to the thickness, region and surface finish. If you take a close look at that ref the yellow areas have more SSS than the white ones, almost as if the white were opaquer due corrosion or a coating.

noobfor3d

birb said:

Before anything: Avoid playing mind reading games with clients. If a client really really wants to do this then charge a hourly rate.

It's frustrating, it drags a project out, and the time you wasted in the back and forth could have been invested in a different project. This helps no one at all. If the client knows exactly what they want that's great!, ask for references. If they don't know, then factor in the time and effort you'll spend chasing a vague idea down into your rate calculation.


Now, about that reference you showed, @JamesBrisnehan advice still applies.

- That bone has color variation not only due age but because all organic things have color variation. As a rule of thumb anything that doesn't have the bare minimum hue variation is man-made or artificial; and even artificial stuff ages.

- It also has a subtle roughness variation. Roughness is a major factor that makes or break realism. You need to pick a baseline value correctly then apply variables like material and surface variation, crevices attenuation due dust, etc.

- Bones also have subsurface scattering. To achieve realistic results you'll need a map to control variation because it's tied to the thickness, region and surface finish. If you take a close look at that ref the yellow areas have more SSS than the white ones, almost as if the white were opaquer due corrosion or a coating.

WOW an eye of an eagle!!!

Thank you so much. Indeed really insightful analysis!!!

noobfor3d

Are there more technical procedures such as sss or similar things I could implement? 

I am using blender

I am already modifying the colors as JamesBrisnehan, birb have suggested.

I also will work on implementing sss appropriately.

What would help me a lot is some brush suggestion to edit surfaces. I currently us a standard brush. It's not really easy. Maybe I am just a noob. Lol of course I am. But I can imagine that some brush would help me.

If anyone has more suggestions like these.. 1. practical technical suggestions 2. or artistic suggestions like this previous one

PLEASE keep them coming I am super thankful.

I think I will already have a more realistic model soon

JamesBrisnehan

The type of brush is not the problem, it's the base value for the roughness channel.

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