Reply To: Why do you use “mesh from curve/meta/surf/text”, instead of applying the subdivision please?
@theluthier , thank you very much for your effort to continue this conversation! Regardless of the content, the simple action from you to continue to write your response in this thread means that you are a brilliant instructor, because you are open-minded and do allow the diversity of opinions from students.
Like I’m afraid that me answering with “I don’t know the ideal multires quality value” will disappoint you or leave you scared to use that setting.
No, not disappointed. I am very happy to read your answer, because a honest answer reveals so many truths within 3D art design and learning process. Also, being honest is a basic requirement to be an instructor.
Yet, am I scared to use that setting?
I am very sorry that if I had misled you to believe that I was over-cautious to handle any of my projects. Here, please allow me to put it clear: I am bold and like to experiment all my projects with different settings, except on one project. By playing with the settings and using different techniques, I always can learn something new. However, that one project, which is called “Porject Naiad” and has already taken me for more than one year, is a different story. After more than one year, the project is currently and still in the sculpting phase and the change of the basic facial structure, which may or may not finish anytime soon. If I am bold to play with settings for the “Porject Naiad”, then maybe it will take an even longer time to finish, because I had already learned several hard lessons.
Let’s look at one of my lessons:
To build some believable skin material for the “Project Naiad”, initially I was playful and decided to use the node of the Ambient Occlusion (AO). I do not really understand how the AO works, even now. But after my initial experiment, I was exciting at my rendered result, like the following comparison from my screenshots:
However, the AO can also increase the intensity of the shadow, which under certain lighting condition is unwanted and ugly shadow. But I was not aware of this problem. Instead, I suspected that the unwanted and ugly shadow was caused by my poor sculpting skills. So, for those following 3 months, I was desperately busy to change her face in the Sculpting mode. Everyday, I came to my office and sculpted days and nights. I strongly believed that sculpting a better base mesh could remove the unwanted and ugly shadow. It turned out that I was wrong – turning off the AO immediately removed the ugly shadow. After turning off the AO, all faces I had sculpted during these 3 months were actually worse in the shape and looking than the one when the problem was firstly spotted. By experimenting the AO on the “Project Naiad”, I had wasted 3 months, which may not be a long time to some people. But to me, wasting 3 months was disastrous since at that time, my income was low due to COVID 19, until I decided to borrow money.
The AO can also cause another problem, which even baffled a technical artist (7+ years experience):
Without the AO, the unwanted shade from my screenshot will not be shown in the viewport. Of course, the shade can be hidden by unchecking the “Show Emitter” if the AO is used.
Well…now that you phrase it that way, I’m really only 90% sure about this method.
Based on my hard lessons, if you are only 90% sure AND the user manual does not say so , then I will not use this method on the “Project Naiad”. But I may use it on my other projects which can be finished within a month. Seriously, let’s consider the following statement:
The rendered result from the “Project Naiad” looks bad, because I have used “mesh from curve/meta/surf/text”, instead of “applying the subdivision”.
Can anyone prove the above statement is false? Can anyone prove the above statement is true?
I believe no one can disprove or prove it, until the one seriously compare the source code, and really understand what these two options do in the source code level.
However, the reality is that in many causes I will not even know the true cause of the bad rendered result. I will be very busy to ask other experts to help me find the cause. Nonetheless, asking in a forum may end up with wasting more time. According to my observation, at least 60% questions from Blender Stack Exchange are unanswered or unsolved. If the true cause can not be found, then the “Project Naiad” may take one more year or many years.
I know from experience that I like the subsurface radius material setting to be 1(R), 0.5 (G), 0.2(B) for human skin. I always start around these values but I rarely leave it there.
Thank you! Very useful information!
That being said, I love to do experiments for those projects which can be finished within one month. By experimenting, I always learned something new and valuable. Thank you again!