Attached Link: Same ole thing.

Alright people, Ive been trying my darndest to create texture maps for figures for months(In Painter 3D and micrografx picture publisher) Anyway, I guess I'm confused about everything.. I've downloaded the example templates files from freestuff and Poseworks and still don't get it. Ive tired ever tutorial here too. (bitches about his stupidity) -Matt

Shit - the link is http://www.crosswinds.net/~digitalartist

Ok. Let's get you happy. I do all my textures and images in Painter3D. What exactly are you trying to do and tell me step by step how you are currently trying to do it. Be real detailed please. I'll help you through this.

Thanks alot! I just paint the wireframe with the bucket tool...but the meshes all fill in one by one. I'd lasso the damn thing but I suck at that.. When it comes to the eyes - I don't know what to do with thoes. I want a different color than brown or whatnot, but I always paint over the iris..and I can't seem to make realistic tewxtures. I've tried using photograpical ones with the straigh on look for the face - but that doesnt seem to work for me either. I hope this is enough detail.....this is about all I do to make em. I basically want to grasp the body part of the map before I go on to the face. Would it be easier to export a figure and then import into painter for texture mapping the wireframe? I know I'm doing something wrong - I just don't know what. thanks for your help.

Painter 3D hasn't been a blessing to me, I ONLY have used it when I had to paint detail over the seams as with ahir on the head. Item one: When you open the template Cut the mesh image and paste it to a new level. Now paint on the background or any layer below the layer with mesh... turn down the mesh opacity when you need a better view of what you are painting. Item Two: Irises, dark ring around iris (even in light eyes, dark ring where iris meets white (even in light eyes. Now you have thre rings of color., quite thin dark around pupil, quite wide lighter around that, and very thin dark around that before white. Put random flecks of color in the wide band. Pull straiations through wide band to outer dark band in a radial pattern using fine brush on smudge tool. Now pull striations from inner dark band into wide light band in radial pattern (this is very important). Now if you like you can "dodge" upper left area of striated wide band and "burn" lower right, use medium soft brush. Now use sharpen tool to make striations sharpere. Now add 7% noise or such if you like (I do). You can put moist catch lights in the pupil and at upper left of midle ring of iris, but I use eye props loaded up in Free Stuff under Moist Eyes. Item three: Placing photo etc on template, again make a wireframe layer and paste image on another layer over that at low opacity, scale and place, bring to opacity 100%, deleat wireframe layer, flatten. If you are using old or cheap software it should let you play with opacity before pasting. Since I only have Photoshop LE since my Mac died I have to scale each element in a seperate image, try pasting it, undo if the scale is wrong, change image size of source image and tra again. Tedious! but works. Hope all this helps. And please don't be offended if you already knew this, but the mesh on the templates is to guide your drawing only, it must be painted over or deleated from the image when your texture is done, you shouldn't be paintbucketing into it :)

Lasso them. Look at other peoples textures, no one bothers trying to "stay within the lines". Poser just ignores color that fall out side those pixels mapped to the mesh.

I don't get it... sidebar of my image? I'm talkng map painting not post-processing Poser preview image exports. I thought we were talking about the mesh lines on the Poser texture map templates, I didn't know if to assume our suffering coleague knew they were to be painted over or erased on the map, that they are there as painting guides for us and are not required by Poser itself when importing the map... Still, I grant you I may not be making sense. Thanks in either case though :)

Well - Ive reworked some textures just to get started and yeah I did know that but no harm done. Guess that's what I was fowling up LOL. Thanks Momo!

You make perfect sense Momo...I think I'm gettin the hang of it LOL thanks everyone!

heya; i thought momo meant like in photoshop. that's what i do, either paint the skin in layers over the black lines, or sometimes paste the template to a new layer in darken mode, with low opacity. and in my painter 3d the 'show mesh' option is on the menu bar under.. um... something in the middle. canvas? (actually, i think the sides of my texture window are usually under the 3d model view window. :) )

Ok this is what I do. In Poser, 1) Load your figure, prop, or whatever into your scene. 2) Export as wavefrontObject 3) deselect universe and then select figure. 4) Export as one group and 'weld seams' 5) Save into a new folder in Painter3D named "imported figures" 6) Save obj as "FemaleTexFigure". In Painter3D 1) click Import wavefront obj 2) Browse to new folder and import "FemaleTexFigure" 3) Make window 400 by 400 or larger 4) Select paintbrush and click on figure 5) Load texture map prompt appears 6) Click new image, make it 1000 by 1000, implicit mapped Now pay attention 1) In the upper right hand corner of the texture map above the scroll box, there are some little icons. Click the one that looks like a black and white mesh. 2) Presto, Painter now creates a projection of the template onto the map. You can turn it on and off by clicking that icon. 3) Now it is upside down so click the rotation tool in your toolbox and click onto the middle of the texture map and hold down the button as you click. 4) You now see an arrow inside a box 5) Rotate the arrow so it faces the opposite direction and release Do not paint in the model window if you don't have to. 1) now you can make your texture 2) Before saving choose 'orientation>flip verticle. This way the map fits in Poser. 3) Save If you are not handy with the selection tool you are in trouble. It sound like you are not handle with image editing programs. Painter3D is a very powerful program and deserves some respect. People just don't know how to use it. Read the manual and tutorial included with your software on the CD.

Yeah, I was talking Photoshop... shoulda said that. For some reason Painter 3D chokes on my CPU even though Poser and Photshop run fine, so I avoid Painter 3D when I can despite the cool tools. Also, I somehow have never felt that the "Add Water" tool truly is the counterpart of the Photshop Smudge tool even though I use Painter 5 (2D) alot. As for when I use Painter 3D, only difference from what Anton says is I grab the figure straight from Poser/Runtimes/Geometries and then when I click on an element and get the map dialog I load one from Poser/Runtimes/Textures then do "Orientation>Flip>Vertical" and then paint (flipping again on the way out). I try to remeber to save the map under a new name first thing before starting to paint... but painting on to that default map really helps me personally though I do Adjust Colors to desaturate the over-saturated default texture.

Can you guys explain what you mean by "Lasso"? I've heard this helps get rid of that annoying streaking problem Painter3D does. But I'm confused about the term "Lasso". and what you are actually doing. Thanks. ScottA

Scott: Lasso is a tool that selects a portion of a image, then you can texture or color in the pre designated area. (this is how I define it anyhow) Anton - Thank you so very much :D this'lll do wonders! I've read the PDF docs and got a little info from them too. thanks again! -Matt

Thanks DA. I thought the "lasso" method was more than just using that tool. I guess I should try concentrating on painting on the image. And not the model. But that sorta defeats the whole purpose of the program. ScottA

Sure no problem - thats about the only thing I don't know how to do is a custom texture map. Thought I'd give it a shot. -Matt

Thanks Anton. I only use PSP and Painter Classic because I've never been comfortable with Painter 3D--mostly because I've never taken the time to use it since the other 2 worked pretty well for me. I AM good with the selection tool ( I use teeny tiny little blocks that have to be entered, selected or moved in my weaving programs so I've gotten really good with a mouse and now since I have a Wacom Intuos, its pretty much a breeze), so maybe I can use this program as an even better tool. I've saved this for a 'tutorial'. DB