Grooming and Shading for VFX

Michael Cauchi was with us for a 2 hour and 15 minutes grooming and shading masterclass in the form of a breakdown of his latest personal project. Mike is a senior lookdev and groom artist working in VFX, his knowledge is considerable and of use to anyone working in any 3d industry that deal with character art. We discuss in detail:

• Sculpting a face and using tertiary (skin pore) detail maps from 3d Scan Store (Not sponsored).
• Using UDIMS vs traditional unwrapping.
• Understanding skin shaders and discussing optimal subsurface and roughness values.
• How he created the smoke transition on the coat.
• Creating fabric fuzz and microdetail tileable maps.
• Using Yeti in Maya to create eyebrows and beards.
• Everything you ever want to know about hair anatomy and hair shading.
• Extremely detailed exploration of CG eye construction and eye anatomy.

References

Mike’s Artstation page
Mike’s Website
Mike’s Youtube page
Limbus Anatomy
Iris Anatomy
Astigmatism