sk3lly asked:
yeero answered:
Hey there sk3lly, I did a bit of post-production magic in photoshop to really make it look nice, but the basic jist of it is, I have the swimsuit model posed to fit pharah’s curves as well as possible, I then apply a Transparent node to the material setup, and use the Pointiness output on the Geometry node to mix it into the rest of the material. Pointiness basically generates a black and white image that has the geometry mapped out on it, so areas that are pointy are colored white, and areas that are smooth are colored black. You can use this information, to make the material more transparent in areas that are flat and smooth, and less transparent in areas that are pointy and clumped together.
Here is what the node setup looks like:

(The ColorRamp node is to adjust the black and white image that the Pointiness node generates, it’s optional, but it’s gonna give you more control over the final result)
And here is an example of what the render looks like:

This is one of the passes I did, I later used this image in combination with some other passes, to create the final look in photoshop. Here you can see the Geometry node at work, the little creases on the swimsuit, aren’t as transparent as the flatter and more “smoothed out” areas.
Next, I used the “Shrinkwrap” modifier on the swimsuit, to make blender fit the swimsuit onto pharah. This modifier isn’t always perfect, but for this project, it works nicely, because it can really get as close to the skin as possible, and really make it look like the swimsuit is “clinging” on to her body.

This is what the same node setup looks like with the Shrinkwrap modifier. It looks pretty good, but the problem with the Shrinkwrap modifier is that it also removes any and all creases the swimsuit has.
Now with these two passes rendered, we can combine them in photoshop! For this project, I also rendered a pass where the swimsuit was just a diffuse (no transparency) so I had more control over the transparency.
I hope this was useful for you, it’s a bit of a complicated process, and there are most likely better ways of getting such an effect, but this is what I came up with v( ‘ - ‘)v
(Posting this here in case other people are interested in reading a bit about what goes on behind the scenes) ~(’ - ‘~ )
You guys probably already know Yeero, but if not check him out. Also a cool dude for explaining this 👌