How to make a cyberface (the graphical side)

I originally posted this at nbalive.org when somebody asked about how to blend... thought i'd post it here to help anybody who wants to know.. Could you make this post a sticky, Andrew?

Well, i've never tried dividing the photo face, but i've seen some faces where the patcher used that technique and most of them look like shit.

Ok, i'll tell what my technique is...but for the patchers out there...i don't want any of you thinking "well duh", ok? this is for n00bs only..

I might aswell make a small tutorial... I'll use this Amare Stoudemire patch i'm about to make as an example... I don't know what you use, but I use Adobe Photoshop 5.5, Most people probably have Photoshop 7, but they're somewhat the same, except 7 has more features.

Firstly, Before we start blending, we have to get the shape of the face in the photo to match the shape of the face in EA's bhed. What i do is get the face on the photo to be the same size as the face on the EA bhed and make a lasso around the face on the photo, as you can see in THIS PIC.

After you lasso, push CTRL + C to copy the image in the lasso, then go to the EA Bhed and push CTRL + V to paste...as you probably already know. It would look LIKE THIS.

Now we need to get the mouth, eyes and nose to match up to the mouth, eyes and nose on EA's bhed. So we're going to use a tool called "Free Trasform" to get the photo more so like the face on EA's bhed. So push CTRL + T to get the Free Trasform tool up (yes, that's right, it's free!) and a square like thingy will come up. With this, you drag the corners and sides untill you get the image just the way you want it.
Mine turned out LIKE THIS. It may take a while to get it just right, so experiment with it. There's a high chance that it wont match up to EA's bhed very well, (unless you used the same player pic as EA) so don't stress.

With my patch, the eyes matched up, but the nose and mouth didn't. This is because he was slightly tilting his head to one side. So i'm going to cut some of the photo and move it somwhere else. This will be hard for me to explain, but easy to do, so bare with me. (Note: Always save as you go. In case you make a mistake soon, you can just revert back to the saved one.)

I'm going to lasso through the nose and down the sides of the face ({click}), then push copy, then push paste. ({click}) Then push left, right, down and up to nudge it around, and also use Free Trasform tool to rotate it to fit the mouth and nose of EA's bhed, so that it all matches up. ({click})
Now, even though i matched up the facial features, the nose looks a little crooked. so i set the eraser tool to 90 and erased the top of the nose, and down the middle. ({click}), i did a pretty half-arsed job, but when you're making a tutorial, you can't be bothered perfectionating (if that's even a word).

Now, we've matched up the facial features, so we're up to blending! Matching up the facial features is the hard part... Lets go down the home straight! (by the way, at the moment i have 3 different layers of the face, i want to merge them all together before i start blending. I push CTRL + E to merge down.)

The face so far, looks to be a potentially good looking patch. when everything matches up, that's always a great sign. But if don't blend well, things can get DISASTEROUS! Colour is also an important thing. So follow my lead skip13...

In this case, the face is lighter than EA's bhed, so we'll try to get the photo face to be darker, but at the same time, we don't want to loose quality in doing so. This Picture looks pretty desaturated, so i'll add some saturation, also, i'm going to make it darker, obviously. So i clicked on 'Image > Adjust > Hue/Saturation' I lowered the hue by 1, lowered the saturation by 6 (even though i thought it needed more, i found that it looked better when it was down, see, there's a good example of good patching for you. Experimenting is good.) and lowered the Lightness by 20. ({click})

Ok, it seems the colour looks okay to me. Some other things you could use are 'Image > Adjust > Brightness/contrast' or 'Image > Adjust > Color Balance' or 'Image > Adjust > Selective Color'. Well, these are the ones i use. some other patches might be different.

Ok, we've done the color, now we'll blend.
This can vary a lot with different patchers and their difference techniques, but i don't know of anybody who does it the same way i do. I discovered this method myself when i was experimenting around with different tools, so it's a pretty big deal that i'm sharing it with you.

Ok...There is a tool that's called 'Cloning tool' or 'rubber stamp tool'. It is VERY handy. What i do with it is clone the edge of the photo ALL around. (You use the tool by hodling ALT then click. then let go of alt, then click somewhere else, and it will clone the area that you clicked on while holding alt, don't understand? experiment. experiment. experiment. You'll get the hang of it.) Then i erase around the edges afterwards to make it smooth. Kind of hard to explain.

(In this pic, i've just cloned the around the edges. It looks dogdy at the moment, but we'll erase around the edge and it will look better. Set the rubber stamp to 70 opacity.)

(I've erased around the edges, and i realise that the cheeks are too light compared to the rest of the face.)

(Using the Magic wand tool, i select the light area that is out of wack with the rest of the face.)

(I then go to 'Image > Adjust > Hue/Saturation' and lower the lightness by 7...and up the saturation by 2.)

Then we're done! It turned out Like this! This patch isn't perfect, i'll probably touch it up a bit before releasing, but atleast it gives you a feel for how to blend.

Now, this just my method. I'm sure everybody has a different method of doing things. I've always been curious to know Tony's method, he always produces top notch stuff.

I hope you learned something! Because this tutorial took me 2 hours To make!!

It is done.

Although, I knew most of the information--this is a great tutorial man, Thanks. I'm sure you have just inspired some new patchmakers out there.
Good lookin out!

marvelous, if I had photoshop I'd try out the tutorial right now, but I don't.

Wee, great tutorial Nick!
Although i already knew much of it, it still gave me some good tips.

But what i do, instead of using that "cloning tool", is to use some feather (i usually set it to around 6 or so), when selectin´g the face part from the original image. That method is soo good and easy in my opinion.

I've never heard of the Feather tool. Are you using Photoshop 7? That's probably why.

I've never heard of the Feather tool. Are you using Photoshop 7? That's probably why.

I think Psychopaticola means feathering the selection made with the lasso tool...which I'm pretty sure is available in Photoshop 5.5. If you make a marque/lasso selection and hit CTRL+ALT+D you should get the feather selection option...

Nice tutorial...I think it is definitely a "must read" for anyone just starting out in face patching .

I've never heard of the Feather tool. Are you using Photoshop 7? That's probably why.

I think Psychopaticola means feathering the selection made with the lasso tool...which I'm pretty sure is available in Photoshop 5.5. If you make a marque/lasso selection and hit CTRL+ALT+D you should get the feather selection option...

Yeah, exactly!

Ah, ok.

Well, why would you want to use the feather tool instead of clone tool? that seems kind of silly. Just selecting the area wont blend it. I don't understand.

Smudge brush and Scratch remover work well too................... to each there own.

can sum1 pleaz get me tha pictures 2 tha tutorial it only sayz this page appears to be missing PLEAZ HELP

Go to www.nbaliveturkey.tk There are tutorials for everything there.

I know that website but I also wanna know if those are the techniques you use to make your excellent cyberfaces

Help me guys. What's the best way to pack pasted bskn and bhed files when saving in EAGEditor tool?

- Number of Mipmaps.
- Packing mode: LZ...DXT....I don't remember the choices....
- 160, 80,......dpi
- Etc...

Many thanks in advence.

Doesn't matter. Just save it.

I don't agree. When I save files with 5 or 4 mipmaps and any form of compression...the game crashes or shows black or multicolor bodies!!!. I have to save them in a regular size: 256x256 (bhed) or 512x512 (bskn). However, when adding tatoos bskn files turn up to 700kb and that's a problem when uploading your patches.

Help me please boyz!!!!

guys how in the hell do you guys get your cyberfaces to blend together so realisticly any tips pllleeeeaaseeeeeeeee.

First of all you need to learn Photoshop or another image editing tool. This software allows you to blend and modify pictures. Once you know how to use it, the rest is just patience and work.

all the links in that tutorial are dead and i really don't like the tutorials on nbaliveturkey, i was just wondering if this same tutorial is available elsewhere?

very well explained and understandable

so...i could put my own faces (like MY OWN) with this?

awesome!
but hey...i can't see the pics...
can someone please help.
i'd like to do this for a school project.

_chris

I originally posted this at nbalive.org when somebody asked about how to blend... thought i'd post it here to help anybody who wants to know.. Could you make this post a sticky, Andrew?

Well, i've never tried dividing the photo face, but i've seen some faces where the patcher used that technique and most of them look like shit.

Ok, i'll tell what my technique is...but for the patchers out there...i don't want any of you thinking "well duh", ok? this is for n00bs only..

I might aswell make a small tutorial... I'll use this Amare Stoudemire patch i'm about to make as an example... I don't know what you use, but I use Adobe Photoshop 5.5, Most people probably have Photoshop 7, but they're somewhat the same, except 7 has more features.

Firstly, Before we start blending, we have to get the shape of the face in the photo to match the shape of the face in EA's bhed. What i do is get the face on the photo to be the same size as the face on the EA bhed and make a lasso around the face on the photo, as you can see in THIS PIC.

After you lasso, push CTRL + C to copy the image in the lasso, then go to the EA Bhed and push CTRL + V to paste...as you probably already know. It would look LIKE THIS.

Now we need to get the mouth, eyes and nose to match up to the mouth, eyes and nose on EA's bhed. So we're going to use a tool called "Free Trasform" to get the photo more so like the face on EA's bhed. So push CTRL + T to get the Free Trasform tool up (yes, that's right, it's free!) and a square like thingy will come up. With this, you drag the corners and sides untill you get the image just the way you want it.
Mine turned out LIKE THIS. It may take a while to get it just right, so experiment with it. There's a high chance that it wont match up to EA's bhed very well, (unless you used the same player pic as EA) so don't stress.

With my patch, the eyes matched up, but the nose and mouth didn't. This is because he was slightly tilting his head to one side. So i'm going to cut some of the photo and move it somwhere else. This will be hard for me to explain, but easy to do, so bare with me. (Note: Always save as you go. In case you make a mistake soon, you can just revert back to the saved one.)

I'm going to lasso through the nose and down the sides of the face ({click}), then push copy, then push paste. ({click}) Then push left, right, down and up to nudge it around, and also use Free Trasform tool to rotate it to fit the mouth and nose of EA's bhed, so that it all matches up. ({click})
Now, even though i matched up the facial features, the nose looks a little crooked. so i set the eraser tool to 90 and erased the top of the nose, and down the middle. ({click}), i did a pretty half-arsed job, but when you're making a tutorial, you can't be bothered perfectionating (if that's even a word).

Now, we've matched up the facial features, so we're up to blending! Matching up the facial features is the hard part... Lets go down the home straight! (by the way, at the moment i have 3 different layers of the face, i want to merge them all together before i start blending. I push CTRL + E to merge down.)

The face so far, looks to be a potentially good looking patch. when everything matches up, that's always a great sign. But if don't blend well, things can get DISASTEROUS! Colour is also an important thing. So follow my lead skip13...

In this case, the face is lighter than EA's bhed, so we'll try to get the photo face to be darker, but at the same time, we don't want to loose quality in doing so. This Picture looks pretty desaturated, so i'll add some saturation, also, i'm going to make it darker, obviously. So i clicked on 'Image > Adjust > Hue/Saturation' I lowered the hue by 1, lowered the saturation by 6 (even though i thought it needed more, i found that it looked better when it was down, see, there's a good example of good patching for you. Experimenting is good.) and lowered the Lightness by 20. ({click})

Ok, it seems the colour looks okay to me. Some other things you could use are 'Image > Adjust > Brightness/contrast' or 'Image > Adjust > Color Balance' or 'Image > Adjust > Selective Color'. Well, these are the ones i use. some other patches might be different.

Ok, we've done the color, now we'll blend.
This can vary a lot with different patchers and their difference techniques, but i don't know of anybody who does it the same way i do. I discovered this method myself when i was experimenting around with different tools, so it's a pretty big deal that i'm sharing it with you.

Ok...There is a tool that's called 'Cloning tool' or 'rubber stamp tool'. It is VERY handy. What i do with it is clone the edge of the photo ALL around. (You use the tool by hodling ALT then click. then let go of alt, then click somewhere else, and it will clone the area that you clicked on while holding alt, don't understand? experiment. experiment. experiment. You'll get the hang of it.) Then i erase around the edges afterwards to make it smooth. Kind of hard to explain.

(In this pic, i've just cloned the around the edges. It looks dogdy at the moment, but we'll erase around the edge and it will look better. Set the rubber stamp to 70 opacity.)

(I've erased around the edges, and i realise that the cheeks are too light compared to the rest of the face.)

(Using the Magic wand tool, i select the light area that is out of wack with the rest of the face.)

(I then go to 'Image > Adjust > Hue/Saturation' and lower the lightness by 7...and up the saturation by 2.)

Then we're done! It turned out Like this! This patch isn't perfect, i'll probably touch it up a bit before releasing, but atleast it gives you a feel for how to blend.

Now, this just my method. I'm sure everybody has a different method of doing things. I've always been curious to know Tony's method, he always produces top notch stuff.

I hope you learned something! Because this tutorial took me 2 hours To make!!

can this also be done for NBA Live 05?
PS: freakin fix your links!! they are down like everybody else's who has made a tutorial like this

First of all, look at tutorials in the NBA Live 2005 section. Secondly, don't expect this to be updated. This was made 2.5 years ago. Thirdly, don't quadruple-post.

Images dont work...