Question Tips for creating ethnic (non-white) Looks with FaceGen

[Jocks3D]

I've been creating some white people Looks with FaceGen. I found that in FG if I set all the color to zero before exporting the morphs and textures I get better results in VaM. If I don't set the colors to zero, often in VaM the face will be brighter than the rest of the head and it doesn't look natural. Setting colors to zero in FG seems to solve this and give a uniform color and brightness to the entire face and head.

I recently tried doing an African American look and when setting the color to zero in FG all the blackness goes away and they're basically a white person. If I leave the color as a normal black person in FG I get that effect mentioned above of the brighter face.

Ideally I wish there was a way to adjust the color of face and body textures within VaM but since there is not (that I know of) does anyone have a workaround or tips for something else I can try in FaceGen to get an accurate black persons face? I assume this might also be needed for a dark skin hispanic person.

 

[VAMIC]

Ideally I wish there was a way to adjust the color of face and body textures within VaM but since there is not

Can you say more about what you mean by this? Do the sliders in Skin Materials 1 in VAM not work in this case or are you saying using them even when working from zero produces a lighter colored face? I find in general that getting precision in black skin tones and interactions with light can be a challenge, but sometimes can be accomplished by using a decent texture preset and playing with the skin materials sliders, but it gets tedious. Not sure if it's Daz Gen2 or VAM, but between the morphs and the textures, it unfortunately feels like it was made mostly with whites in mind.

 

[Jocks3D]

When I apply my custom textures created in FaceGen I do not appear to have any control over the color of the base body skin underneath, the FG textures override this. Do you get a different result?

I think I tried a long time ago just applying the face/head texture and not the limbs, torso or gens, but that didn't seem to work well. Also, to clarify, what I'm getting on the face is the actual face of a black person is a few shades lighter than the forehead, ears and neck. Sort of like a coat of light make-up, or a bright light shining just on their face. With white models I don't get that, their whole head is basically the same color.

 

[VAMIC]

When I apply my custom textures created in FaceGen I do not appear to have any control over the color of the base body skin underneath, the FG textures override this. Do you get a different result?

I think I tried a long time ago just applying the face/head texture and not the limbs, torso or gens, but that didn't seem to work well. Also, to clarify, what I'm getting on the face is the actual face of a black person is a few shades lighter than the forehead, ears and neck. Sort of like a coat of light make-up, or a bright light shining just on their face. With white models I don't get that, their whole head is basically the same color.

I see what you mean. I usually get the FaceGen result and then apply a texture preset that's close enough without warping things then modify that texture to get the best skin tones. If the face has particular characteristics like beauty marks or a certain facial hair pattern, this of course doesn't work, but it's what I've done. Maybe a good question for lookalike makers or texture makers as my experience with facegen is limited.

 

[VAMIC]

@cs2022 a decent workaround I found for this problem was using the Makeup masks and applying foundation to even out the faces. https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/layered-makeup-masks.12707/