Hyper Realistic Character Rendering | Tutorial

[@artofjhill]

Thank you for watching. You can see the final renders on my Artstation www.artstation.com/artwork/6bBJ6W

[@TJ-cy6rk]

Please please please make a series making yourself!

[@bakani2218]

Such mind blowing work... Done with ease... 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[@Wenedi]

That point when you’re watching J’s tutorials during your uni lecture because its more useful than the lecturers :) money well spent

[@GuestOfGregoryHouse]

I'm a student too. Honestly you're better off learning on your own. What you're paying for at uni is time.

[@nilexh3476]

True, it's better to support J on Patreon than Uni lectures LoL, you'll learn more from his tutorials for sure

[@marlom.5081]

Same. I was studying abroad outside of the states for about a year and a half at a uni and I wasn't happy. Literally something simple like learning the differences in file formats, there would be a long complex lecture about it for a full semester, not even joking, we even had tests and long essays for it, which I still didn't understand ANY OF IT until I left and decided to become self taught. Literally that same topic, with these amazing people like J and many others, I was able to understand the topic in just 5 minutes rather than a whole flippin semester. I learned more here with these online courses than at an expensive university....way faster too. seriously I think uni's these days are a full on scam. 🙃

[@kaikayoru1316]

@@marlom.5081 I'm sorry you had a bad experience at uni, although they aren't all like that. The uni I go to is quite in depth and also well paced with their hands on experience. Majority of my class time is actual hands on and not lecture based. Sure they give lectures here and there but they let you go on your own and if you have questions about how to do stuff they come back and pick your brain on how to find out or they just show you how to do it. I guess I should be grateful that I have professors that I have. It makes me sad to hear that other universities are like this.

[@shana_dmr]

@@marlom.5081 Universities basically everywhere are most helpful when trying to learn fundamentals, not techniques - it's a warning sign if an university advertises that you'll be able to use program X after finishing the course.

[@Keji839]

install Maya trial. if your only learning to use the software and not creating commercial work, keep reinstalling the trial till you can AFFFORD to buy the software. Maya is the standard and if you can master what you see in this video you will be getting jobs in no time. this quality of tutorial is never free. good work jhill

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@omarcastillo122]

This must be one of the greatest contributions to 3d community ever. Thx J, this Is gold!

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@game.art.101]

can you make a video showing how to render, light and setup skin shader for a realistic character/portrait in UE

[@artofjhill]

yea I think I'll make a video on that

[@game.art.101]

@@artofjhill that will be great, thanks

[@tlilmiztli]

Love your videos man, exactly what I need! In the age that everybody and their mother is making videos for Blender your channel is a goldmine for cool stuff for Maya. Thank you so much! Greetings from Mexico!

[@artofjhill]

Greetings! Haha thank you man I’m glad you like it

[@walleater]

Instaliked. Dude may I tell you once again how much I appreciate everything you do. For the past 5 years you were the main source of my inspiration and you continue to be to this day. I wish you would never stop. This is top quality content for me. Thank you!

[@artofjhill]

Thank you man. Really appreciate that and I’m glad you like my work and videos. Can’t stop won’t stop.

[@vfxexpert1425]

If i'm correct, you can use ainormalmap and attach your normals to the input, sometimes you have to adjust the scale.

[@maiwandhimmat1779]

When I was a beginner I used to not watch any video related to software that I don’t use but now I see the principle is the same you can get these lights in any 3d render like blender cycles thank you for your nice tutorial. 😊

[@enasahmed31]

Hello J, Thank you for the amazing tutorials you always post. I learned a lot from you. As for connecting the normal map, it will work perfectly if you create aiNormalMap node. Connect the OutColor of your normal map to Input, then connect OutValue of that node to Normal Camera. As for the color space it will be like how you do it, set to Raw amd Alpha is Luminance. I hope it will help.

[@jorgesilvafortes]

You're an absolute legend J, thank you for this!

[@waymanharris1284]

Oh, how I miss pouring hours into my artwork! Great job!!

[@artofjhill]

Thank you so much 😀

[@vedanttiwari6287]

That nightclub light setup is so cool I watched it like 10 times, I usually struggle a lot to get a cool look like that, also I have faced an issue when using displacement maps with hair caps, that it distorts the base mesh but since the hair cap mesh has no displacement assigned it would just sunk the hair inwards, so it had to be assigned on both the mesh. I am gonna experiment with the light and makeup setup learned from this tutorial and will post it in the discord art gallery. Thanks J for such a nice video, always grateful.

[@artofjhill]

Glad you liked it. Looking forward to seeing what you make! The hair cap issue makes sense, I think I would just bury the hairs a bit to cover the difference in case

[@gyorgyviktorradnoti6068]

I’d be happy to see an introduction to Maya tutorial series or course from you

[@marcusk9483]

More pure gold. Just finished your amaizing Xgen video and then I find this. Thank you J.

[@artofjhill]

glad you're liking it. Hope it helps with your stuff. enjoy!

[@prof.rogerhss]

some people maybe has born to broke all paradigms... Classic lectures is worth? The truth everytime worth! Congrats, man... your serie is insane. #love #kissesfrombrazil

[@seanakima50515e]

Thank you for this Its crazy how theres SEVERAL tutorials out there that tell you to use both base color and subsurface. Using juat subsurface and then masking the nose and inner ear while leaving everything else grey is pretty much perfect

[@RafaMad3D]

Ey this videos of yours are awesome, high quality Maya tutorials. Congrats!!

[@nykoedits]

Love the videos man, you've taught me so much! I'm writing this comment at 26:00 so if you address this later in the video, then my apologies! For me the aiNormalmap node, I set my map colorspace to Raw, then plug rgb output from the map into the "input" on the aiNormalmap, and then take the rgb output from the aiNormalmap and plug that into the normalCamera on the aiStandard. For the "normal" input on the aiNormalmap, from my understanding, it is for if you want to layer normalmaps. You can plug the output of another aiNormalmap into it, or even the output of an aibump2d if you want to use height data without displacement. Hope that helps!

[@artofjhill]

Thanks man, I'll try and remember that for next time I use a normal map in Arnold. Cheers dude

[@alexpurkhalo711]

the final render is just crazy, I love it so much!

[@artofjhill]

Thank you!

[@newnengates3764]

Final project is absolutely stunning.

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@xtam55]

Like your mood in this video, one hour was like a couple minutes. And final renders Ohhh! I watched it hundred times! Thx for video, now I go watch patreon full demo:) Peace

[@artofjhill]

Thank you

[@justcommenting6127]

Can you please make a video on hypershade and maps? Your videos are amazing, thank you for your hard work!

[@PotassioD]

Wow this is beyond amazing! I've learnt so much just watching a couple of your KZbin videos! Thanks for sharing!

[@artofjhill]

Happy to hear that

[@eberriera1]

I wish teachers could watch and understand your content, man! And get a tip or two hahaha so well explained. Amazing stuff

[@aleksandarsavic395]

All information and answers I looked for in terms of rendering a portrait with arnold i found here. Thank you so much for this video!!!

[@artofjhill]

Glad it was helpful!

[@tejaspatil5421]

Sir you have no idea how much you have taught me... you're a huge inspiration. Thank you so much

[@artofjhill]

you're welcome. Keep learning and growing

[@dandawes9617]

Fantastic video as always, J. Thank you for putting up such great content. I'm not a Maya user myself, but quality content like this demands to be watched. For the record, I'd love to see how you'd go about bringing this character over to Unreal Engine 5. Likewise, how you might go about making the hair game-ready.

[@Kinkoyaburi]

Amazing tutorial. The difficulty spiked up when the custom masks and the layer node were introduced, but overall it quite good information. To be honest, most of Arnold's nodes are a a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma to me, but people like J Hill help to unveil the fog.

[@artofjhill]

all the good things are on the other side of the fog

[@jac8941]

Give this man a crown! Thank you so much for sharing!

[@cinematicfilm6559]

this is like fastest and most effect tutorial so far I have ever seen in my fooookin life. I was struggling to get fastest way to get more effiecent details. This tutorial is on point. Thank you.

[@artofjhill]

💪

[@ilSignorLimone]

Wow! great video as usual J, dope content all around. Absolutely love the neon light setup at the end❤‍🔥

[@Nachoalonso_]

i was waiting this for so long!

[@Solo_3d]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn that last render hits haaard J….. wow … iam kinda sad tbh, coz i just finished my Hardy project couple days ago following ur tutorials without this amazing video about render, but wow bro.. iam speechless.. flakes, alligator… bruhhhh. No lie ,I did lost u later with nodes and sht , but iam watching it again for sure! Final render is so dope just as a character J! U r beast my man! U art is killa and what u do with those videos is huge! Iam a big fan bro! Thank you so much for what u do! Ur channel is super underrated!!!! But i bet ull get what u deserve my man!!! Lets go J !!! Certified3dkilla

[@artofjhill]

haha thank you man, I appreciate it

[@inuyasha561]

super nerd for Life! love what you do Jhill very awesome work man!

[@artofjhill]

Thank you man. Nerd power

[@ChaosWolfNinja]

Woah! This is such a kickass tutorial. Thanks J!!!

[@SanArtStudio11]

Really well made artwork with perfect details. Hope you have a safe and wonderful day.

[@ashleysparling]

Hey J, this is awesome thank you for doing this, I have always been rubish at rendering in Maya, but this is really well explained and donst look as complicated as the old mental ray way. Thanks again buddy.

[@artofjhill]

Way easier and better than mental ray

[@berkilter4556]

Dude you are just awesome!!! This is an amazing render and also thanks for making these videos. It makes me so happy to see your videos like this. Because in your all videos i am learning something and also you are doing with passion that is why keep going!!!

[@artofjhill]

Thank you, glad you like it and keep going!

[@Twisted_Feet]

Great content as usual. About the aiNormalMap, it kinda weirded me out too. But what I did and it works for me is that I set my normal map to raw, and connected the Out Color to the Input in aiNormalMap. I don't know about the details on this but I hope this helps. Thanks!

[@artofjhill]

Cool. Which input on the aiNormalMap node does it go into?

[@Twisted_Feet]

@@artofjhill All of it(rgb). I connected the "Out Color" directly to aiNormalMap's "Input". And then the "Out Value" to the Normal Camera.

[@CG_CAKE]

Legend.

[@yobased2872]

Hey at 16:40 do you export the Zbrush disps with Adaptive turned on? If I remember correctly you did the skin detailing with HD geometry right? Aren't you supposed to check adaptive on when exporting HD subds as displacements?

[@artofjhill]

Pretty sure I always have that on. Why not

[@fourtyfiftynine]

this guy defo needs 100k

[@Uriel333-j1z]

thanks my G masterpiece🙃

[@OmarElshamy]

I watched 56:28 mins of this video .. every second has a new information! .. can't wait for the Unreal Engine version

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@holotaice2308]

Hi J! Just found your channel and have been really enjoying the whole series. Was wondering if you would make any tutorials on what your workflow is towards retopology if dynamesh is used. Would also really love to know how you set up the UV's to prepare the model for texturing and lighting. Then again, I appreciate the work you are doing!

[@DRD4forlife]

Sooo unreal 🤯

[@Simili84]

I left every video of this serie telling myself '' I know Kung-fu'' ....good stuff!

[@matheussilveira1000]

Legendary video J as always!

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@Luke_wp]

Thanks so much for these videos! You are a Godsend man. With the aicomposite node being depreciated what is the best way to combine the displacement and noise?

[@artofjhill]

Glad you like them! I’m not sure but it’s said it’ll be depreciated for years. Until then, keep using it :)

[@GabrielPerna-f7e]

watching this video for like the 3rd time. love it!!! I always circle back and re-watch your stuff. I always marvel at how much I forget between viewings! you mentioned several times during the video, that there was a video you made rendering this girl in marmoset. where I can I see that? thanks, as always!

[@artofjhill]

Hey thanks. I’m glad you find the videos helpful. Might have been mentioning the first scene I made which was shown in the texturing video

[@GabrielPerna-f7e]

@@artofjhill right on and thanks!

[@empire4760]

amazing work, where are you getting the notes for arnold lighting from?

[@artofjhill]

Not sure what exactly you’re referring to but Arnold has good official documentation online and I have my own notes on the subject I’ve added to over time

[@empire4760]

@@artofjhill the official documentation, i cant seem to find it for some reason, kindly can you guide me to it

[@roxtube123]

Always excited to see a new video from you , thanks for sharing ! :D

[@yobased2872]

Also, do you ever use ACES in Arnold? I have a hard time going from Mari to Arnold and knowing what is actually going wrong with my colors and values. Like when the skin in my renders comes out too dark or too light, or incorrect in color/chroma, it's hard to tell if it's lighting or the diffuse maps that are incorrect, then throwing in ACES on top of it just complicates the issue even further. From what I understand color grading with Nuke can resolve this issue but I wouldn't know where to begin with that. I would love to see a video by you on this subject at some point.

[@artofjhill]

Yea it can be complicated. I did use ACES for this. It’s default now. I used Nuke to finish the images

[@reginaldarmah2381]

You need to setup ACES in Mari as well

[@yobased2872]

@@artofjhill Oh ok thanks my bad, I'm still on Maya 2020 until the student version for me runs out year and I gotta start paying lol.

[@GoktugGurellier]

Thank you so much for sharing your techniques. 🙏🙏

[@АбдуллаевГайратжон-о3й]

hi, tell me please ! how to properly bake and project texture and bake cards in Zbrush on Udimm. I tried projecting from high poly to low poly . when using these textures from Zbrush to Maya, the texture or scan is shifted, I can't understand what I'm not doing

[@Lakus231]

chef's kiss

[@JohnDowson100]

Terrific! Would you use microNormals and the cell noise in the Displacement un combo together or its one or the other?

[@artofjhill]

I’d just use displacement for offline rendering probably

[@JohnDowson100]

@@artofjhill Thanks. BTW, aiNormal works great for me. You got to plug in the color, not the alpha in this node though. Also if you export your normal from SP with the Arnold preset you don't need to flip nor switch any of the color channels. It's good to go. On top of that this node let's you lower the normal intensity. 😀

[@pslong9907]

Thanks useful and helpful like always

[@islandmin76]

Great Video! thanks for posting. Quick Q, i used vector displacement from zbrush. Does that work with this work flow?

[@lina6121]

you have to put an ainormal map plug plug the normal map with color in and then in normal camera

[@artofjhill]

Never works right for me

[@lina6121]

@J Hill maybe because of open gl / direct x ? or what is the issue u are having

[@anhellsay]

your videos are real gold, very useful and very well explained ❤❤❤, just one question, do you use ACES in that scene?

[@artofjhill]

yes I did. It's default now. I finished the image in Nuke and uses the ACES colorspace

[@olegcotuna]

Cool work! Love the results. Amazing!

[@artofjhill]

Glad you like it

[@lobsangdhondup4457]

Ai normal I think if you import from substance you need to the y value which mean g

[@biriani2855]

How do you get the noise map to show on the arnold render view? Its good to see what the noise pattern looks like.

[@artofjhill]

Render selection debug view

[@wacom8199]

every video is a knockout!! thank you!!!!

[@cellacyben101]

How short of a focal length do you use when trying to make your compositions more dynamic and not flat?

[@artofjhill]

for portraits I wouldn't go under 50mm most of the time unless I'm doing something more extreme

[@IGarrettI]

J, question. Does it matter what renderer you use? Aren't they all essentially the same result , the only difference being speed and user friendliness? Also, have u tried the houdini hair?

[@artofjhill]

they all will produce slightly different images too. Blender Guru made an interesting video comparing a bunch of renderers. I haven't use Houdini at all but you can do amazing stuff with it

[@IGarrettI]

@@artofjhill I wish he included renderman tho, that's the one I love :p too bad the free version is CPU only

[@corpthreemountstudio1918]

Hello, i very liking your your works. Good job). Im started learning Maya and x gen, please you make video tutorial about creating animals FUR with UV textures.

[@videoart1496]

That was interesting ! thank you. BUT , today with Metahumans in Unreal Engine looks like there is no reason at all to mesh with this complicated technique in Maya. Am I wrong ?

[@artofjhill]

Plenty of reasons. Depends on what you’re trying to make

[@spandanghosh9503]

Hey J, awesome video.. jst a little doubt, I exported my skin details from zbrush at mid value 0 but in substance painter i added some moles and displacement on them but idk how to export from substance at a mid value of 0, so is there a way to export from substance at mid 0 or a way to combine two displacement maps with diff mid values...

[@artofjhill]

there isn't a way to combine at different mid values. Idk how to change the Substance mid value so in your case, I'd probably just re export the map from Zbrush and make the mid value .5 then mix them

[@psygameboy]

Thank you. Awesome Tutorial and result!

[@kaziaoualwanis3819]

THE boss ! even i don't use maya , i found it so useful , thanks man :)

[@artofjhill]

Glad to hear that

[@Enz1612]

Another great video J!. I was wondering if the entire process for this portrait is in your Patreon? covering the clothes, accessories and such. Thanks!

[@artofjhill]

Not these, no. Nothing too extraordinary about these models but I’ll probably do just a break down if the final scene to answer questions for Patrons soon

[@matthewjordaan5023]

Wow, you're incredibly talented

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@mahin2416]

Dear JHill, I am a little confused, why did you execute the hair shader in Unreal and get back to Arnold for the skin?

[@artofjhill]

The hair was made with XGen in Maya so it’s rendered in Arnold with the skin. Everything is

[@abpplays7061]

Thank you so much! your videos help me a lot to understand things very easily. you are a gem!

[@artofjhill]

Glad to hear that, thank you

[@3dsculptingtutorials]

Amazing tutorial!

[@artofjhill]

I’m glad you like it

[@Haznoo]

thanks for the guide!! Do you know if it’s applicable to Redshift? I really hate how slow Arnold is. Thank you (:

[@artofjhill]

You should be able to do most of the techniques, yea. IDK about skin shader SS quality in redshift for realism though

[@strangeloopproductions]

Hi J! Followed your fantastic tutorials! But with the settings in this one I have to set the values way off from yours. For example with the cellular noise, I set the scale to like 10 000 to get them that small. And even if I try to set the amplitude to 0.001 it's way too high. Same with the scale in SSS. I can't set it low enough for it to not be too strong. What is the issue here? Thank you for the effort you put into these great tutorials!

[@artofjhill]

Those would have to do with the scale of your model. My model is close to a real life size. You'd have to measure and get your model a more realistic size from the start. Cheers

[@strangeloopproductions]

@@artofjhill yes that was it! It was 1.8 mm haha. Thanks man

[@nilexh3476]

J is Genius no 🧢

[@artofjhill]

🧠

[@Konstantinos-Chtenelis]

Great as always! Really inspired by your productivity!

[@artofjhill]

ty

[@mudoglu]

At 23 min you mention a Ptex map. Im sure its just the standard texture. Arnold cant tender Ptex.

[@artofjhill]

Yea I meant .tx

[@selvakumaran4648]

oh god''maaan:)u r a great teacher.thanks for the tutorial 😊

[@manavgala2361]

The programs I use are entirely different from yours but the knowledge is still very relevant. Instant sub.

[@artofjhill]

Great happy to hear that

[@elektrokills4694]

Amazing, do you know c++? I wonder if 3d creator artists need to code or if it's more for environment and animation

[@artofjhill]

I don’t and my friends that are environment artists and animators don’t either

[@elektrokills4694]

@@artofjhill Thank you so much for your reply, Love your work !

[@ahsengilani658]

next unreal! awesome man

[@asismaharjan7431]

Goat🔥🔥🔥

[@BrentLeBlancCG]

You're a wizard J!

[@artofjhill]

🪄

[@City__Walker]

How you was learning on Maya , license is very higest price??

[@artofjhill]

Indie license. Student before that

[@MrSheduur]

The crazy thing is that Marmoset have done such a good job on their skin shading that it still almost looks better than the arnold offline renderer even with way more basic setup. I truly wish that the epic guys would try to partner with marmoset to incorporate their method of skin shading into unreal engine.

[@artofjhill]

For sure marmoset is super good

[@AerysBat]

Your tutorials are the best

[@artofjhill]

🙏

[@SamirMir]

Amazing tutorial!!! Thank you J !

[@artofjhill]

You got it, I hope it helps

[@owl5523]

Yet another amazing tutorial

[@ElijahMoore-Restfulnights]

Looks so good

[@artofjhill]

Thank you

[@GrimDuskEntertainment]

I'd love to see what you can do with Redshift

[@artofjhill]

Me too

[@joelsukkau7470]

hey hey, A hyper realistic character rendering video in unreal engine would be awesome aswell!

[@artofjhill]

Working on it

[@joelsukkau7470]

@@artofjhill awesome man, you've been consistently killing it for a while now

[@stephenwlodarczyk175]

How do I download your mind into mine. Incredible artist. Glad I found you. Thanks for the support

[@artofjhill]

The matrix. Glad you found it too. Cheers

[@stephenwlodarczyk175]

@@artofjhill 😂 I would believe you but we are in the matrix. Brandon keeps saying the economy is great 👍. And Trudeau is saying taking guns from law abiding citizens will end gun violence. But I’ll keep looking for the USB port I can plug into to acquire your knowledge. Cheers

[@lopsi6946]

Awesome !