Texturing Forum now open

[Rumour]

I don't know about anyone else, but it feels like a much longer time than a week since IT went down. What a relief that it's back up and running again! :D So let's get this show on the road once more and open up the texturing forum.

[A3DLover]

Most of my textures are made by me in paint progs. I know size, dimensions, layering matters on the final image.
I like to use jpg's because they are lighter on kb's but often read people use .bmp image files which are very "heavy" making renders happen slower and final images heavier.
I learned mostly from D_Fast at gmax forum
http://dfast.gmaxsupport.com/
I use anim8or 3d ware the ui is much the same as many high end wares as s the material editor and uv mapper.
But my question is which is better for 3d textures .bmp or jpg?
And how do prevent "tileing" a big prob for me with out suggesting some expensive software?

[Rumour]

I've never used bmps in my 3D texturing, only jpg, tga and png. The last two because in Photoshop, jpg and gif are blended with another colour, usually white or black. This makes no noticeable difference to the picture, unless you have any transparent bits, in which case you'll get a white (or black etc.) border around the edges. tga and png don't do this, and with these two formats you're also able to include an alpha channel, which is very useful to me in my 3d program, that being Lightwave. It will accept all 4 types of formats, but it likes tga the best.

But back to the question... really it comes down to not what format it is but how close you're going to get to your model. If you are going to zoom in really close then obviously you don't want it to look pixelated and so you make your texture map really large, and I don't think it matters which format it is, but obviously a 4000x4000 bmp will be larger than the same sized jpg and will impact on the rendering time. If you're not going to get close to the model at all, then a low res texture is perfectly fine.

To prevent tiling, you can either employ some software plugins to do it, (and not all are expensive - there are some free paint programs out there) or you can do it by hand. I've seen a tutorial out there somewhere, and I'll try and locate the link, but basically what you do is take your texture and offset it by half it's width (assuming it's a square) and you should see your texture seams. Then you can use a clone or healing type tool to merge the seams by hand which should fix most of those issues. It can be a long involved process, but take your time, you'll get better results that way.

Photoshop (http://www.whosyourdaddycool.com/tutorialps01.htm)
GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Tileable_Textures/) - which is a free 'look alike' version of Photoshop.

[A3DLover]

Seeing how you prefer tga's( I had to resize and format my jpg textures to tga to work in UED) which are rather chunky, you can't hardly get away from that image format for game level editors like unreal tournament uses and star trek level editors.
My 3d ware doesn't recognize png's only bmp,jpg and gif.
But thanks for the tips.
A3Dlover

[Rumour]

Like I said, Lightwave prefers tga's and has a lot less errors cropping up with them, but that doesn't mean all programs will respond the same way. If I don't use tga's I use jpg (since I tend not to have transparent areas in them), and find they work equally as well. I've never designed textures for a gaming environment, so I really have little experience there. My recommendation would be to see what other users prefer and why, and base my decision on that.

[venux]

None can help texturing bodies in Poser 5? I know is kinda asking for the sky, but trying did never hurt someone lol

Thanks :)

Barbara

[Rumour]

I know some about texturing for Poser, though I must say to get skin looking right is tricky at times. How can we help? Are you looking specifically about skin, or clothes?

[venux]

oh geez you answered and I didn't come because haven't got the email saying there was an answer (probably I haven't checked the box).

First than all, ty so much for answering. I would badly wish to create my own textures for the skin. Many people say is so hard. Hard or not, I would like to learn it. Any help will be really appreciated, thanks again!

Barbara

[Rumour]

I've not had a go at texturing human skin before, and this is a bit of a technical explaination of how to make your own, rather than step-by-step instructions, but I have seen that one of the best ways to start making your own is to use high resolution photographs of the appropriate (or similar) body area you want. To do it right, you'll need to use several images: 1 for colour, for the textures, the specularity, translucency... Another common complaint I have heard about skin is the translucency (or rather, the lack of it).

First off I'd suggest that if you have a camera (digital or otherwise) take some pictures of some skin, on you, on a friend - doesn't have to be anything great, it could even be your own hand. Take pics from as many different angles as you can, or, if you don't have a camera or sone you can borrow, search the internet for ones you could possibly use.

Study these closely to see what they are made up of, not just the colours and tonal vatiations, but how the skin reacts to the light, how much of the light is spread and reflected back. How the hairs react to the light also, the texture of the skin, while it may not be seen in detail unless your camera is closely zoomed in, will still affect the final image. The challenge comes in trying to recreate these maps for your model. Simply putting the photo over the skin goes a long way, but still falls short of making your image look realistic.

If you've looked online for skin tutorials (doesn't matter if it's not for Poser, a tutorial for another program can be just as useful in getting the image maps you want) and haven't found any, my next suggestion would be to head on over the Poser gallery, find a pic you really like and ask the artist how they did it. They may even send you their own maps to get you started. Engel47 is the Poser mod, and she's really friendly, she does a lot of Poser people and finds her textures from other people, so she'll be a good person to ask.

Hope this helps!

[venux]

Thanks, you're been much helpful yes. I have got photo references for starting but I don't have any map, so am a bit lost and when I try to get my photo into the face camera of Poser the position of the face don't fit as would have (I real miss of a map).
To ask in the Poser world is easy, to get a right answer is a bit harder. Easy to find the way to use the program itselves,each one does help for this; not easy at all to find an answer about the way to create things by yourselves.
There's too much business in the Poser world, which is what I don't like about.
Is okay there are vendors, but if we need of stuff to go on we must spend too much money, and this is forcing myselves to learn all I can to go on with my own stuff.
awwwww magical 2D world!!! Where each one shares! ;)
Thanks for your big help, I'll go trying to ask to Engel47.

Thanks a lot,
Barbara

[Rumour]

The way I'd go about creating a skin texture would work (I think) in Poser or any other 3D application. I've used maps enough to know that they can be complicated. I do recall now at one point having a go at creating a map for V3 I think, but I never got past the colour stage because it had been so time consuming up to that point.

I think there'd be what I consider to be three (essential) types of maps to do skin well, and possibly more to do it REALLY well. (I'm not an expert in that area by any means, so don't take my word for it, other people may have different opinions.) They are the colour map, the specularity map and the bump/texture map. Often the bump and spec maps can be the same or fairly similar, which helps.

I searched online and found a tutorial that might be of use to you in making your own maps. Let me know if it's of any use.
Part 3 - Texture Maps for Poser/Bryce (http://www.iaw.on.ca/~jspirko/texture_maps.htm)
Engel47 might also be able to direct you to more like these as well.

[venux]

From what I've read there (thanks for that tut, is helpful and very well explained) the work is fully done over the map (this with bryce at least I suppose). Then the face room of Poser is not needed to get the textures in. I must looking for a map, want having a try. Mustn't be that easy to pick up colours from the original photo and working with the map, not at all; but if there are people creating figures with skin so fast there's must be a faster way also. Or may be they have some trick they have learnt from time.
I need a map. May be Engel will have it (I truly hope it!)

Barbara

[Engel47]

so am a bit lost and when I try to get my photo into the face camera of Poser the position of the face don't fit as would have Thanks a lot,
Barbara

Barbara are you trying to do this in the face room of Poser 5? From what you said above it sounds like it. The face room only works with Poser 5 native figures, i.e Don and Judy. for the face room you need 2 photo's only, 1 full face and one taken in profile. You subject, male or female needs to scrape all their hair back off their face and you need to take good close up shots. When you take these into the face room you can adjust the "fit" to Don or Judy at certain points like ears, nose, eyes, etc so that it maps easily onto the face. It has been a long time since I ventured anywhere near the face room as I have to admit that I hate Don and Judy and never use them. But if this is what you are trying to do I will gladly load 'em up and talk you through the process. :D

[venux]

Thanks for the kind answer Engel :)

Yes, that is what I tried to do, then after times and times I've understood that was only for the natives of P5. Not only, but I hate that way to work. Photos I have taken (in the right way) never fit to that room; and I don't like to play with those things there trying to adjust it. Is an heck of work LOL! So I gave up ahahahhaha :)

Barbara

[Engel47]

I gave up too. I did not like the finished effect - although I did manage to get my own facial photos onto a morphed judy!! Gad it was awful :D

[venux]

I honestly don't go crazy neither creating those maps like seam suggests. Is impossible to get such a work done in a few, and there's real too much to do when we create something in Poser and we want making all ourselves. No way gawwd..... I shall become crazy lol

Barbara