Now, while skin is almost OK, I have several problems with this one:
Skin is coloured in a light grey, the lightcolour of the SSS stil has a rather orange tint. Can I change this in any way?
Played around with Cycles for good 3hrs, trying to create a shader that resembles “gum”, “tongue” and “teeth”. For this I tried to mix a bit of SSS with Glossy and Diffuse, played with the factors and intensity but nothing works quite well.
Since I am more into sculpting than into shading, I am pretty lost on how to tackle this other than playing around with the nodes for hours and hours. But nothing seems fitting. Any tips on how to approach this more effective?
I see a lot of artists fall into a trap where they keep tweaking one node for hours and nothing helps. The issue is not a technical one. Those gums are a uniform pink; take a look at your own gums in the mirror (or a dog’s gums if it will let you) and you will notice a distinct color pattern; they get lighter near the teeth and darker as the tissue transitions to the rest of the mouth. The skin on the face has the same issue, Nobody’s face is a uniform color. You need to do texturing!
I am no pro at 3D. In 2D I can say, the effect of gumflesh is primarly achieved through texturing or the colour gradient. With a texture, it got the optical illusion of blood density and it feels more vivid. In drawing you simulate the correct interaction of the surface with light through colours and different saturation/brightness. And this is what creates a material.
Now, my problem is: In 3D it is the shading which defines the interaction with light. If the gum is bright red or green, the surface will still looking like wet flesh, if the shading is correct. The colour or texture I can change anytime, but it won’t help if the shader is looking too rough or too sculptural… what it does.
I will texture the gum, but it won’t help with the look of the surface and how it interacts with the light in the environment
If you want to be working on the wetness, then you’re not previewing in the right way. Without offscreen geometry, gloss will never look realistic, because real gloss has a whole sphere of light to reflect. At the very least, put a high detail HDRI world in to give the mouth something to reflect.
I tried to put up glossy but then it simply looks unrealistic, like porcelain…:S maybe i have to follow some tutorials for that. but they aren’t as many as someone would hope.
