UNIVERSAL HUMAN

Load the rig into Blender and select the Body object.
Set the Render Engine to Cycles, as the system may hang during the process if it is set to EEVEE.
Open the Shader Editor and delete the UV Map, Principled BSDF and Material Output nodes.
Append the Skin material from Skin-Shader.blend (File > Append, navigate to the Material folder).
With the Skin material (Slot 1) active, click the Material Selector button and select Skin.001, as per the image on the right.
Select All nodes and Copy.
Re-select the Skin material and Paste the Skin.001 nodes.
Connect the UV Map node to the Wrinkles node and its Image Texture nodes, and connect the Wrinkles node outputs the Skin node's inputs (see image below).

Material Selector

Be sure to set the appropriate Cycles Render Device in Edit > Preferences > System and select GPU Compute (if available) in Render Properties to maximise rendering speed.

For instructions on adding the pre-made Head or Arm Textures, see their respective documentation pages. To make your own, see the Creating Textures page.

Appending to the Body Rig or Arm Rig

Load the rig, select the Body Object and Append the Skin material from Skin-Shader.blend (File > Append, navigate to the Material folder).
In the Material Properties or the Shader Editor, click the Material Selector button and select Skin.001 as per the image on the right.

Appending to a Base Mesh

Follow the steps in "Appending to the Body Rig or Arm Rig" above.
Append the Geometry Nodes node tree from Skin-Shader.blend (File > Append > Node Tree folder).
Add a Geometry Nodes modifier, and move it to the top of the Modifier stack.
Click the Node Tree Selector button in the modifier and select Geometry Nodes.
In the output Attributes, enter "Compress" in the Compress field, and "Stretch" in the Stretch field.
If appending to a custom-made or third-party object, open the Shader Editor and select the object's UV map in the UV Map node.

Geometry Nodes Modifier

Appending the Tear Line Shader

Select the Body object and Append the Tear Line L and Tear Line R materials from Skin-Shader.blend (File > Append, navigate to the Material folder)
Open the Shader Editor and make the Tear L material active (Slot 2)
Click the Material Selector button and select Tear Line L
Repeat the process for Tear R, replacing its material with Tear Line R at Step 3

Additional Steps for applying to the Face Rig or Body & Face Rig - refer to the image on the right for further clarification

Select Eye Bulge 1.L in the Object field of the lowermost Texture Coordinate node (type "e" in the entry field to locate it quickly)
Right-click on the purple Factor value in the Mix node, and Edit Driver
Select "Armature" in the Object field
Repeat these steps for Tear R, selecting Eye Bulge 1.R at Step 5

Skin Node

The Skin node's colour properties are stacked like layers, with the Albedo Image overlaying a Base Color, which acts as an optional layer covering the base Skin Tone underneath. The top two inputs are for connecting wrinkle maps, and they can be ignored if you're not using the Face Rig, Body & Face Rig or Advanced Rig.

Unmute the Image Texture nodes by pressing M when loading images into them.

Inputs & Properties

Compress, Stretch, Wrinkle Masks, Pre-Displacement and Displacement

Input sockets for connecting the Wrinkles node supplied with the rigs. If you don't have the Wrinkles node, but you do have wrinkle displacement maps, you can load them into Image Texture nodes, set them to Non-Color, and plug their Color outputs into the Compress and Stretch sockets, and they will be automated with the Skin node's "tension" functionality (which is less easy to control than the dedicated wrinkles node). Alternatively, you can try making your own wrinkles node.

Albedo Mix

The Albedo image opacity. Lower values allow more of the Base colour or Skin Tone to show through, which can be useful for creating a more even appearance as with younger skin, or when makeup foundation is applied.

Tint

Adds a colour tint to the Albedo image. White = no tint.

Hue, Saturation and Value

The HSV of the Albedo image. Darker skin often works best with a low Value and slightly reduced Saturation. Pale skin can be made even paler by reducing Saturation rather than increasing the Value past 1.0.

Base

This is like an undercoat for the Albedo image. The selected colour fills in the transparent areas defined by the alpha channel (if present). If you're using an Albedo image without an alpha channel, setting the Albedo Mix to 1.0 will completely obscure the Base color.

Base Mix

The Base opacity. Lower values allow more of the Skin Tone to show through, and higher values override the Skin Tone. Use this for skin tones that fall outside the normal human range, or to desaturate the Skin Tone colour by setting the Base colour to a mid-grey and mixing some of it in.

Skin Tone Value

Like the Base property, this acts as an undercoat for the Albedo image, but is restricted to human skin tonal values. 0 = darkest, 1 = lightest.

Skin Tone Hue

Shifts the skin hue towards a warmer or cooler hue. 0 = coolest, 1 = warmest.

12 Skin Tone values from 0-1, with a variety of hue settings

Pigmentation

The paleness of the palms of the hands, fingertips and lower lip, more often found in darker skin types. Works best in conjunction with a very low albedo value, which darkens the knuckles, back of the hand etc, while lower Pigmentation values allow the lighter Base colour to show through.

Subdermis

The colour beneath the skin surface. This is the Subsurface Radius setting, but replaced with a colour picker (you can still enter the Radius values by entering them in the colour picker's RGB fields).

Subsurface

The Subsurface Scattering depth. The default setting remaps the greyscale Subsurface image (if present) to appropriate values. 0.02 works well for lighter skin, and 0.01 for darker skin. If using the Age control, you may want to reduce this to as low as 0.005 to account for the scale reduction.

Roughness

Uniformly lightens or darkens the Roughness image map, to make the skin appear more glossy or matte. This value, as well as the Roughness map itself, also affects the intensity of the procedural micro displacement

Displacement

Adjusts the intensity of the Displacement image. Reduce this for a quick way to achieve younger skin.

Albedo, Subsurface, Roughness, Displacement Inputs

Inputs for the respective image maps and Albedo alpha channel.

UV Map

Select the desired UV map in the UV Map node and connect that node to this input.

Outputs

Shader, Base, Subsurface, Subsurface Radius, Wrinkle Masks, Pre-Displacement

Connects to the Makeup node's respective inputs.

Displacement

Provides an option for bypassing the Makeup nodes and connecting the displacement result directly into the Material Output node.

Makeup Nodes

A chain of six identical makeup nodes overlay the output results of the Skin node. Each node has a different greyscale image connected, which acts as a mask, confining the makeup to the lips, fingernails etc. The masks can be edited as per the instructions in the Customising Makeup Masks section below.

Glitter properties are all grouped together above the "Glitter" colour selector, and they overlay the rest of the properties below it. Makeup nodes can be enabled or disabled by selecting them and pressing M.

Inputs

Shader, Base Color, Subsurface, Subsurface Radius, Wrinkle Masks, Pre-Displacement

Input sockets for connecting the Skin node or an adjacent makeup node.

Displacement

Connects the last makeup node in the chain to the Material Output.

Density

The quantity of glitter flakes. Note that the object will render black if more than five makeup nodes have a Density value higher than 0, or more than four if enough Color Mix values are also higher than 0. As a workaround, combine multiple makeup masks into a single mask image.

Flake Size

Makes the glitter flakes larger or smaller

Glitter Roughness

The reflectivity of the glitter.

Coarseness

The displacement amount of the glitter, resulting in more focused or scattered glints.

Dispersion

The amount of chromatic dispersion (or "rainbow" effect) that is applied to the glitter.

Glitter

Applies a colour tint to the glitter

Clearcoat

Adds an additional reflective layer to the makeup.

Color Mix

The makeup colour opacity. If you want to change other properties while retaining the original skin tone (e.g. to just add glitter or roughness), set this to 0. Note that when used in conjunction with the Density value, the mesh will turn black under certain conditions (see "Density" above).

Color

The colour of the makeup.

Metallic

The metalness of the makeup.

Roughness

The reflectivity of the makeup. Tip: for lip gloss, try blurring the lips on the Displacement map, and paint the lips on the Roughness map completely black to eliminate the micro displacement.

Subsurface

The subsurface scattering depth. Reduce for more opaque makeup.

Image Texture

Input for connecting the mask that defines the shape of the makeup.

Outputs

Shader, Base Color, Subsurface, Subsurface Radius, Wrinkle Masks, Pre-Displacement

Output sockets for connecting to an adjacent makeup node.

Displacement

Connects the last makeup node in the chain to the Material Output.

Makeup applied to the Female Head Base Mesh with Head Textures (hair not available)

Additional Notes/Troubleshooting

Tension Maps

The Skin node includes Geometry Nodes-based tension mapping for adding dynamic texture-based wrinkles and other effects. On the rigs, this is configured to only affect the hands and arms (face wrinkles use a different setup). If proportions are adjusted or a shape key is active, this will activate tension even in rest pose.

There is currently no easy way to correct for this when using proportion controls, so if the hand or arm proportions have been changed (including via the Age control) you'll need to turn off tension by disabling the GeometryNodes modifier.

To keep tension maps working properly with shape keys however, you can use the following steps:

Ensure the rig is in its rest pose, with only gender and/or custom shape key(s) active (i.e. at a value other than 0).
Select the Basis shape key.
In the Shape Key Specials dropdown, select "New Shape from Mix".
Re-select Basis, enter Edit mode and select all.
Press Ctrl-V > Blend from Shape.
In the Shape field of the panel that opens, select the new shape key (e.g. Key 227).
Disable the gender or custom shape keys that were active at step 1

If you want to revert the Basis to its original shape, repeat steps 4-6, and at step 6 enter -1 in the "Blend" field. Then re-enable the shape keys you want active.

Customising Makeup Masks

The Skin Shader includes six makeup masks. To replace them with your own designs, follow these steps:

Select one of the mask image nodes.
Enter Texture Paint mode (the mask image should appear on the object).
Paint white to add to the makeup, or black to subtract from it.
Save the image as an 8 bit.png when done.

Adding Makeup Nodes

To add more makeup, duplicate a makeup node and insert it into the chain, and replace its Image Texture with a new mask. The Displacement output of the last node in the chain should be connected to the Material Output's Displacement input. Nodes later in the chain will overlay earlier ones, which can be leveraged to create layered colour gradients.

Textures Not Rendering

The model will render black if all six makeup nodes have a Density value higher than 0. This is reduced to five if enough Color Mix values are also higher than 0. As a workaround, combine multiple makeup masks into a single mask image.

Nails Glitter Stretching

Lengthening the fingernails by scaling the thumb rig control will stretch the glitter and any additional mask that's applied to them. To prevent this, you'll need to select the Basis shape key, enter Edit mode, select the nails, Ctrl-V and Blend from Shape. Then select the Fingernails shape key in the Shape field and enter a Blend value to set the length.

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