what do you guys edit your texture maps in? I was trying to do the tutorial in the Poser 4 Handbook, where you change the texture map for the horse, but I can't grab the whole picture like the author wants me to. I have photoshop 5.5 as well as painter and painter 3D, ( the light one that came with poser I think). is that what you're using? Not trying to do Vickie, just want to stretch my wings a bit tonight. Hope someone can help.

Well there are whole college cources on Photoshop. For little touch ups I use Paint Shop Pro (www.jasc.com) Photoshop will definate do the job though.

Thanks! I was going to follow the tutorial that I found here too, but I have the same problem, can't select all of the texture, just what's in the window. =( Oh well, I'll figure it out on my own.

JASC - Paint Shop Pro is doing almost everything I want to my Texture Maps (Using the Plug-Ins of Photoshop also in PSP ver 6.00). Regards, Arye Guetta

Marque, just where is that tutorial? I, so far, have not found it, leafed through the manual and can't find anything about the horse and texture maps--- and don't know what you mean by 'grabbing the whole picture'. Why do you need to do that? I think most people use templates to create maps with--or start with the default texture map, rename it and edit it, etc. in Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. I suggest you look at page 248 in the manual to start with. Diane B

Not in the regular Poser manual, I picked up a book at Borders called the Poser 4 Handbook, Chapter 18 Customizing Templates, page 395 if anyone else has the book. He says to open painter, load the P3Horse.tif file from the cd rom created by Rober Saucier, (actually wasn't on the cd, got it on his web site. www.saucier-pages.com says to click the magic wand in a white area of the image, hold down the shift key and use the lasso to encircle all of the text lines. Under the selection menu, go to Invert. All that should be selected now are the actual templates. Nice idea, but I can't grab everything, the window in Painter 6.0 doesn't scroll down to allow that, so his idea doesn't work. Starting on page 248 of my Poser manual they start to talk about doing the texture map templates but I guess I'm just too stupid to figure it out, doesn't seem like a lot of info to me. I know how to apply them, I want to learn how to edit them and create my own. Maybe I need more coffee. =) I have to say, this manual is a lot better than the one that shipped with Poser 1.0, lol. I've had this program since then, but never worked with it, upgraded to 2.0, then waited til now to get the 4.0 and start seriously looking at it. These forums to help a lot though and I appreciate you lads and lassies. Marque

Weird .. the manual says if you do a complete install the texture templates will be in the Poser subdir, just found them on the content cd, no wonder I was going crazy trying to find them, it never installed them! I think Metacreations owns stock in Valium! GRRRRR =( I will delete this thread by the end of the day and go back to pounding the keys on this thing, I will learn this! heh =)

Oh, and Nerd, the closest college to me uses a Mac in their Photoshop class, so I never bothered to take it. Not that it's a bad machine, I just doubt that I will ever own one. I will just keep hitting the manuals and helper books, ( I have my own register at Border's now ) heh. Sorry if I ask too many dumb questions. Marque

try zoom to fit to put the whole templete on the screen then zoom to the area you are working on. I am teaching myself texture editing so what I do first is make a layer over the templete and work on that I really like Paintshop pro myself it is cheap and easy.I also have painter classic and painter3D but I find PSP easier. Marge

Once you get your templates into PS or PSP, you'll quickly see what you need to do. I use layers--using the template as the background (be sure to copy your template so you don't overwrite it), then paint on each successive layer--if you make the layer transparent enough to see the template as you work, its easier. I don't know about PS, but in PSP, you can just slide the transparency back and forth quite easily. When you are done, merge the layers, save with a new name and there you are. I think what he's suggesting is to be able to 'select all' with the magic wand. Why don't you use your magnifying tool to make the window appear smaller so you can see it all (NOT actually decrease the window size) and select the white, invert it and then the selection will be the texture map. However--using the templates, you don't HAVE to do this--in reality, it helps to go outside the lines a bit I think G. Diane B

Thank you! That is what I was hoping for, sometimes when peeps do this for a while they don't realize that some of us don't know those "simple" tricks, I didn't even think about the zoom. I appreciate your being able to drop to a real newbie level on this one. I have managed to scrounge the money to buy all of these programs, and now I finally have some time to learn them, but sometimes the text in the manuals tends to blur after a while..heh. Once again, thank you for being patient. =)

lol Picnic, already messed up the frog.tif, but I got it off the CD again, whew! Thank goodness some things can't be copied over. That's why I want to practice with some of these before I get crazy and start doing real editing. Watch out! Coffee is kicking in now and I'm catching up! =)

You're not the first one--I asked lots of questions in the beginning and still do. Simple is best. You don't know how stupid I felt with UV Mapper--and Steve Shanks explained it really simply and, voila', it all made sense.

I screwed up the businessman and casual girl texturemaps.haha I have been trying to transmap the modhair that came with Zygotes costume CD the back looks good but the bangs don't seem to want the effect. Oh well back to the drawing board. :) Marge

picnic....now you blew it! lol I know just who to go to when I start playing with the UV Mapper! ;P~

So Allerleirauh, you would say that Painter isn't a program you can just use out of the can? lol You're right about the menus, and I do need to read the manual, but I need to let it air out, it smells really strong of ink. I got it because I knew it's a great program and I wanted to buy it before metacreations sold it to whoever, (Corel). As a matter of fact, that was the catalyst that made me upgrade my Poser, photoshop, and buy Carrara, Canoma and Painter. Now that I have time I want to learn them all at once..lol. I do have another question though, probably stupid but I pulled in the shorts to photoshop and messed with them, now they won't render on my character. The ones I did in Painter do, any suggestions on saving these, or what I may have done wrong? I did save it as a .tif out of Photoshop.

Marque: PhotoShop supports alpha channels (usually saved masks) in .tiff format, BUT, Poser doesn't!!!! Pull the texture file back into PhotoShop and check the Channels menu and make sure there are only 4 channels(rgb, r, g, and b). This should solve your problem. The clue that you have a problem is when you try to load the texture into the materials editor and it won't load in. Also, make sure your picture is 24 bit RGB - NOT grey scale or CMYK. -Jim Moore

Marque: Here's a tip for when you are working on a texture. Poser will accept extra alpha channels AND multiple layers IF the file is in PhotoShop format (.psd). So there's no need to continually convert back and forth to tif, bmp, etc when you are developing a texture -- just leave it in .psd format and you're all set. BTW, any layers that are turned off (click on the little "eye" icon next to the layer) will not show up in Poser. This means you can try out different things on your texture on several layers and just turn on the one you are interested in (be carefull, though, each layer means the file size is bigger and Poser may run out of memory if you have to many layers). Note: This works on the Mac version of Poser, so I'm assuming the Windows version also supports .psd files. -Jim Moore

Marque: Traveler has posted some tutorials on using PhotoShop for making textures over at his Morph World site (see side bar under member referrals). He has also asked for suggestions/requests for additional tutorials. He is one of the moderators for the PhotoShop forum, so if you have questions or suggestions, post them there and he will get back to you, Several of us check in there from time to time and will attempt to answer your questions, too, if we can. -Jim Moore

Do I ever feel like a dope now. I never knew poser would read PSD files. Now that's gunna save a bunch of time! I sure am glad I stayed tuned in on this thread. Thanks Jim! Nerd

LoL...didn't work in photoshop but I got it to work in painter 6.0...whhhhooooooooooohoooooooo! Marque is dancing around her den now....she sees a light at the end of the tunnel and it's NOT a train! Thanks everyone, I knew someone here would help out, and look how many folks came to my rescue. Now lets see, the purple frog with the red dots out in my garden....heh

Be careful when using the templates that come on the Poser4 content CD: some of them are wrong. If memory serves, the template for the Poser4 nude male is a case in point. Completely different! Rather than using any of those, I'd play safe and get templates by using UVMapper on the actual OBJs.

(Mumbling to myself--I didn't know it would read .psd files either). Now--I wonder if it will read them from PSP--where you can save in .psd (in fact, that's the format I save in for Bryce when I'm making a texture to use in the material lab with an alpha channel). Diane B

lol..look what I started! so you can use UVMapper on the poser model to get the exact template? Seems like that would work to keep from using a bad template on a good model

Well, you'll know real soon if it is a bad template--it just won't fit and you'll get seams, mismapped areas, etc. THEN--you'll have to create a template with UV Mapper. Most of the things on the CD are correct--think maybe one of the tops for the P4 Woman and maybe the nude male as someone said. However, UV Mapper also allows you to map the model differently also. For instance, a dress I did awhile ago from Steve Shanks was mapped planar (2 flat pieces that just look like stretched out front and back) and a cylindrical map worked better for that particular thing. BTW, you can't hurt a model with a bad template--it may just mean more work for you. When I remap something, I paint different parts of it with different colors, save it and apply it and see how the map works. That's saved me some time. If I like how the map works, then I do the 'real' texture.