Photographing people for textures

Kizza

Hi all, I'm looking to take some photos of people for use in character textures. I was wondering if anyone has any tips for taking good ambient lit photos for texture reference, for things like faces etc. Anyone on here doing it themselves, what's your light set up?

So far I know I want to take the photo from as far back as I can, and use the optical zoom as much as I can to get my photos as orthographic as possible.

And I'll likely use some white paper to create a bounce light.

Any tips?

bugo

Well, I never did that, but as far as I know I believe you have to capture only the albedo of the skin, or better saying, try to avoid shading and shadows. I believe those spots with paper on front of it very close to the skin will help a lot. Not sure how expensive are those tho. If you want to bounce the light, try bouncing all around. Not only from some angles.

TheSplash

If you can't get a good lighting set-up, you could try going outside on an overcast day since it's diffused light you wont get any harsh shadows or highlights.
Could be a problem if you can't wait for an overcast day.

If you are really desperate, maybe you could try early morning, just as the sun is coming up but isn't casting direct shadows yet, it's a small window of time but maybe that could work.

Good luck

Ruz

apparently if you go out in the moonlight, you can get ambient occlusion on your face

man_o_mule

TheSplash wrote: »

If you are really desperate, maybe you could try early morning, just as the sun is coming up but isn't casting direct shadows yet, it's a small window of time but maybe that could work.

wouldn't the same thing apply to right after the sun sets but before it has gotten fully dark yet?

bugo

Go to a mall store, those that have a lot of lights everywhere

JordanW

try making a ring flash!

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/09/super-cheap-diy-ring-flash.html

CompanionCube

one thing i think is important is if you can is to get the person to quickly wipe their face with a tissue because if their face has alot of oil, especially in the T-zone then you get a specular highlight in the photo which is more apparent on people with darker skin. this is why on TV/film they powder the face lightly which is also another option. its the only thing that bugs me about alot of the photos on 3d.sk. you have to clean up the specular in photoshop which is a bit annoying because it takes time up. so thats my tip

Gilgamesh

I a decent diffused Ring flash is the best idea for taking any texture shots. I got a hdd with around 40k textures now that I've collected over 5+ years mostly with my own camera.