MRL Mutations. Mihrelle 2016

Transcription

1 MRL Mutations Mihrelle 2016

2 MRL Mutations This product is all about expanding possibilities. MRL Mutations is a toolset designed to enable you to push the boundaries of what is possible with Iray Character Shaders. It's designed with lots of options to help you to explore, experiment and play... The product contains skin bases, shaders to overlay colours and 'part reveal' options using transparency and layered image presets. With these 'part reveal' options you can create your mutant, have a human skin combining with a mutant skin or even combine 2 mutants. There are also tattoo options including flaming tattoos. Quick Tip If you hold your mouse over the information thumbs, the pop up will provide a helpful hint on how to use these tools. Also, if a thumb has text on it, there may also be further information on the pop up image. Quick Start What do you want to do: If you just want to add a full Mutant skin to your Genesis 3 Female character, then these skins can be found in the 'Skins' folder. If you want to have your mutant reveal your character's skin underneath, then this is done by applying the outer shell from the 'Shell' folder to your already loaded and selected character. You then apply your choice of mutant material to the outer shell, then the transparency from the appropriate folder. The transparency needs to be applied to the outer shell. Note you need to make sure you're selecting the correct item from the scene tab. The geometry shell loads already conformed to Genesis 3 Female. If you load the geometry shell from the '01 Skins' folder, it has been adapted to hide things like the eyes and mouth. It loads with the name 'Blank Genesis 3 Female shell' and you need to expand Genesis 3 Female base in the scene tab to see it.

3 If you want to have one mutant skin over another i.e. Metallic over Flames, then it's basically the same technique as above but with the inner texture being applied to your character instead. There are also base shaders that you can apply to your Genesis 3 Female character and your mutant skin. These can be used to create many more combinations and they can also be used to help your character's skin merge more with your mutant skin when using a partial transparency. Also included are various tattoos and image overlay options (see below). Explanation of the enclosed folders: 01 Skins This folder contains the materials for full skins. This material can be applied to your Genesis 3 Female character or the outer geometry shell depending on the effect you wish to create. 02 Skin Materials This alters the shaders for the skin only i.e. not including the eyes and mouth, these are dealt with separately. It alters the shader without altering the underlying texture maps so you can get additional colours and effects when applied over the 'Skins' settings. Equally you can also apply these shaders over your chosen character's MAT, for example if you want to turn your character's skin blue or give it an iridescent sheen, and can be particularly useful when used in conjunction with the transparency options.

4 03-05 Eyes, Mouth, Nails These folders contain the material options to apply the eyes, nails and mouth MATS separately. With the eyes and mouth you need to make sure it is the character you apply this MAT to, not the shell. With the nails, you may need to hide the shell nails to prevent overlap with the Genesis 3 Female's nails. You will notice that the eye options contain a folder for hiding and revealing the shell and the Genesis 3 Female eyes - see additional information below for more details. 06 Shell transparency These folders contain the 'part reveal' options to allow one layer to show through another. Some are simple cut-out maps whilst some also contain layered image materials like the flaming tattoos. Each folder works slightly differently: 01 Full Body- First apply your choice of skin, then add transparency, then if required choose opacity (opacity won't change the cut-out maps just the intensity). If the face is clear, then you have the additional option of adding skin lips at the required opacity. 02 Part Reveal - This folder contains the settings for individual body surfaces like the arms or torso. It uses cut-out maps like the folder above. First apply the skin to the shell, use 'clear shell' (to make it invisible) then use one of the Part Reveal options contained in the folder. These can be used to give a character metallic tattoos or snake arms for example. 03 Flaming Tattoos - Load the flame skin to the shell, then clear it (to make it invisible), then apply the tattoo (s) of your choice. This folder contains layered image materials. As the effect varies according to lighting there are two tattoo intensities (see 04 below) and an option to double the Flame brightness. Please note layered materials are complex and will take slightly longer to load. 04 Flaming Tattoos Darker - As above but darker versions 07 Scales Just an extra bit of fun, an extra outer layer of texture to add further interest. These can add the finishing touch to a snake or flame mutant for example. 08 Miscellaneous This folder contains a couple of morphs and those little extras that don't fit anywhere else like the 'add bloom to render' setting which looks good when used with the full flame skin. Additional Information: The eye folder contains a subfolder with options to hide and reveal either the shell eyes or the Genesis 3 Female's eyes and lashes. Hide Lashes: Show Lashes...Why? The included Blank Genesis 3 Female shell loads with the lashes hidden and most of the time this will be the correct setting. However, the 'full body' transparency options 6 and 7 reveal the skin very close to the

5 eyes on the shell. As the shell is slightly larger than the Genesis 3 Female, this means that the lashes are not positioned correctly and this could potentially show up on close-up renders. In this case you would reveal the shell lashes and hide the Genesis 3 Female lashes. Note that the Genesis 3 Female hide and show is also MAT file so once your shell lash is revealed, the MAT can be used to add a texture to the shell lashes. A lot of these shaders use specularity settings which change according to light. This makes light settings particularly important. I've personally found that I have excellent results with lights by Sveva and Khory. Khory in particular also includes the render settings with her 'Shanghai' and 'Scintillant Portrait' lightsets, which is especially useful for getting the best results. In all probability though you may prefer to tweak these shaders to your own personal taste but they make a useful starting point. There are options to adjust the glow intensity of the Flame skin in the Miscellaneous folder. These vary from the adjustment in the flaming tattoo folder as they are for the full skin and also contain settings for eye moisture and nails. You can use them to adjust the flame intensity when using the flaming Tattoos but you will need to reapply any nail options used. Useful tip to fit clothing over the geometry shell. The geometry shell fits over the Genesis 3 Female figure. It's therefore slightly larger, so for the clothes to fit, they need to be slightly larger too - but scale alone won't always work, it can add distortion. You need to use the 'Expand All' morph instead. To locate this, first activate the little drop down menu at the top of the parameters tab and tick 'Show hidden properties'. Choose 'All' in the parameters sub groupings and in the search box look for the 'Expand All' morph. Move the slider to fit the clothing over the shell. If this morph isn't in the clothing item, select the Genesis 3 Female, find the 'Expand All' morph in her, move the slider back and forth slightly and this will transfer the 'Expand All' morph into the clothing. Then use this new morph to fit the clothing over the shell. Note that the more layers you add, the longer the image will take to render. Useful tip on Lighting. This is just a general tip I find really useful. If you render a scene and you find it generally too light or too dark, then instead of trying to alter your lights (and perhaps disturbing the balance between the individual lights) just alter instead the 'Exposure Value' on your Iray Render settings. Far easier, faster and just half a point either way can make all the difference. Please note that this pack is not a merchant resource. Have fun!