Skin Shader in Blender Eevee (Beginner Tutorial)

hello everyone my name is Alex skin shading is something that always seemed like   a one of the most difficult things to do right but hey i'm going to show you how to create very   simple but powerful skin shader in blender eevee okay let's go I already have some basic tests seen  here let me give you a brief overview   so you can easily replicate that later say hello to my little friend Suzanne,  she willingly agreed to be a  test subject for our shader  I also have a classic three light setup i tried  to put lights to match environment map colors   this slightly bluish spot right here is a rim  light this powerful area in front is our key light   slightly reddish point down there is a fill light  let me show you my environment setup just in case   nothing fancy just a blurred hdr  slightly rotated with mapping note   and i reduced brightness down to 20 percent  okay now let's go back to our Suzanne   select it and switch shader editor to object  mode we already have a default material assigned   i'll resize this window so we can easily  tweak shader and immediately see the result   let's start by setting subsurface value to 0.7  wow it looks so fleshy now should we stop at that   but of course not let's add some image textures to  spice it up i have some prepared already okay let   me show you what i've just loaded let's go to  the image editor here it is this texture is so   creepy it makes me itch high quality textures is  a key to make a perfect skin material okay let's   return back to shader editor connect the texture  we've just added with the base color input we also   need to connect it with subsurface color because  now it's the main channel which affects colors   and with specular as well increase roughness up  to 0.8 now add second texture this time it's a   bump map let's go back to image editor and see  what we've just loaded okay this one so in bump   texture we have data about displacement of skin  features you can see that hairs are white on   this texture so they will appear sticking out  over the skin surface let's go back to shader   editor to put this texture into action now we  need to add bump node before we can apply it   connect texture color with height input and then  connect normal with the shader node now that's   way too bumpy for us let's decrease strength  down to 0.6 and distance to 0.15 much better   now let's give us some control over texture size  add input texture coordinate node next add vector   mapping node connect generated output  with vector input of the mapping node   we also need to change node type to texture now  connect vector output with vector inputs in both   texture nodes okay it looks quite distorted let's  change texture projection mode to box this way   we'll have it map seamlessly over any mesh and  good thing is that we don't need to uv unwrap it   anymore we can play with scale values of mapping  node to control size of the texture another way is   to go to object menu transform scale texture space  now drag mouse to change size of the mapping box   looks nice now let's give it more fleshy soft look  add color mix rgb note connect texture output with   the first color socket see how soft it just became  now connect mix node with all the shader inputs we   had before i'll drop that line which just jumped  over let's change color blending mode to additive   and set blending color to be almost white but  with bluish tint okay now that's too much we   need to add some kind of mask to control where  we apply this color add input layer weight node   and converter color ramp now connect  facing with the fak input of the gradient   and its color output with fak  input of the color mix node   let's change gradient interpolation mode to be  splined to make it softer now drag this handle   and see how it affects blending what we're trying  to achieve is to give soft look to those faces   which are facing away from camera decrease layer  weight blend value to make transition even sharper   okay i also forgot to switch bump texture mode  to non-color it makes it more precise let's also   increase blending factor to 0.5 this value affects  how seams between texture projections are blended   in we're still missing something can you guess  what there's one very important checkbox hidden   deep inside material properties let me show you  now it looks magnificent let's turn off viewport   overlays and enjoy the final result remember  i told that this shader doesn't require any uv   layout to look good but hey what else we can apply  it to let's try putting it on some meta balls   snap 3d cursor to the monkey and let's delete it  now go to add menu and add meta ball scale it down   to fit in the viewport now i assign skin shader  material see how good it looks let's increase   metaball resolution now good thing about meta  balls they come very handy in organic modeling   just duplicate it and watch how it behaves i'm  going to make another copy and move it down here   as i move one of the balls around it reconstructs  whole geometry and somehow looks so awesome   i just love how organic this looks with  this shader and it was so easy to set up   i mean who else doesn't like to play with meta  balls they look so soft and squishy i forgot to   mention that i also have ambient occlusion and  bloom effects turned on perhaps this gives such   a soft look to these balls but anyway there you  go best in the world skin shader in just a minute   don't forget to like and subscribe if  you want to see more tutorials like this

Channel: Alexey Lugovoy

Views: 10,211

Keywords: blender, skin, shader, eevee, material, realtime, realistic, sss

Id: DOl1xAS6Pbw

Length: 5min 54sec (354 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 30 2022