Character rendering and material development
These characters start in Character Creator 4. I use them as a test bed for rendering in Founder Engine: RTXCR skin scattering, eye shaders, strand-based hair, hair physics and the way those materials respond to light. The work here is about integrating and refining those systems, rather than modelling every character from scratch. Skin has been a particular focus. Scattering can soften the freckles and complexion variation already present in the textures, while stronger normals can introduce an artificial surface pattern. I have been separating diffuse detail from the reflection response so that the skin keeps its variation without becoming excessively glossy or rough. Hair brings a different set of problems, from converting source cards into a groom to retaining fine coverage under real-time reconstruction. I am also developing a reference-matching workflow in Character Studio. A reference image is used to guide changes to the character's existing materials and lighting, with saved camera context and reversible iterations. It is still one of the most experimental parts of the engine. The first pass gave better results than I expected, but I feel I have only scratched the surface.
I first check texture channels, normal maps, material assignments and transparent eye layers. A strong texture set can still produce a poor result if roughness is read from the wrong channel or the skin and eye parts take different shading paths. Neutral light helps isolate those errors before I judge the character under a more expressive setup.
Close comparisons help me balance subsurface scattering, freckles, complexion contrast and reflected highlights. Earlier pore tests produced patterns that looked convincing only at one distance. The aim now is to retain the character of the source textures with restrained normal detail, then check the same material under studio and outdoor lighting.
Earlier iterations, material tests and diagnostic captures. Select a topic to follow the work behind the selected results.
RTXCR skin scattering has separate controls for diffuse normal detail and the reflection frame. Eyes need consistent handling of the cornea, wet layers and occlusion geometry. When those parts detach during animation, the investigation moves to the complete skeleton and imported skin palettes: a shader adjustment cannot repair an incorrect joint mapping.
Character Studio supports card-to-strand conversion, groom editing and guide-based hair physics. Fine strand coverage and temporal reconstruction remain active problems, so I keep failed tests alongside the better results. Reference matching uses the real character, its textures and editable lighting parameters, with checkpoints for comparison and rollback; it does not replace the rendered character with a generated image.
Characters and source textures were created with Character Creator 4. My work here covers rendering integration, shaders, look development and engine tools. The captures span different stages of development; older studies do not necessarily use the current hair or skin implementation.
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