I have just purchased the International Beauty package from Daz. I have loads of 'pale white' skins for Vicky 3 & Steph P but was lured by the promise of quality Asian and black skins. Well the skin that is actually called African does not look that good to me. I have a number of friends of African origin who have beautiful dark skin, but they all have much lighter palms and soles. Similarly their skin tone varies on different parts of the body. The new Daz texture appears to me to be a pale white texture with a darker base. Am I being stupid, are there loads of black ladies out there who have palms the same shade as the back of the hand or have Daz just cut corners and not created a realistic texture. Is it too much to ask to have a skin that looks like the ones I see on real people? After all, they seem to have got the white woman texture down to a fine art. Or are a lot of black skins really 'dark white skins'?

That's been one of my pet peeves as well. The soles and palms have next to no melanin, so they are always essentially the same color across the skin tone range. The same mistake gets made with suntanned textures.

Almost no one gets the palms and soles right on darker skin. I don't know if they just don't realize that palms and soles are always pale, or if they are just too lazy, and are using a white skin and Photoshopping it darker. It is very annoying.

go look at Steffy's "Kelma/Suelma" http://www.zs3d.com/Storeprod.asp?id=20

Message edited on: 07/16/2004 09:13

There are a few who have tried to get it right: Vicky: Papu - Dacia ?? -Audra V3: ?? - Darcia mutedbanshee - Nyota Mike: Visual Silence - Zere ?? - Yanneh ?? - Dion2 M3: (none yet)

I also find that pretty well all the "African" skins I have seen are mid-brown in colour. Some of my African friends are black, and I mean really black. But of course, they have paler palms.

Message edited on: 07/16/2004 09:53

Have to second movida. Suelma is one of the best skins available in anywhere.

IMO it's those kind of little touches that really sell the realism of a texture. I'd certainly like to see more of those kind of details in the future.

Anybody remember the episode of the 60s tv series The Invaders where the aliens, who posed as humans, were discovered BECAUSE they didn't notice the lite palms of dark Skinned African Americans when they assumed their form?? Perhaps THAT is the answer: DAZ is ran by Invaders.

Attached Link: http://www.mazak-grafikwelt.de/animation/Suelma_Enhanced.mpg

Perhaps THAT is the answer: DAZ is ran by Invaders.

LOL! That would explain a lot...

Come to think of it...it may be easier to find space aliens in Utah than African Americans. At least, ones who are willing to be photographed nekked. ;-)

I was wondering if all the texture packages were just the Light one with the hue and saturation changed.. If they are, thats a bit of a cheat really... And leads to this very thing, inacurate representation of ethnisity in skin tones.

They aren't just hue and staturation changes . They are very different skin sets

Another thing I've noticed, African-Americans seem to have much more variation in the direction of European white skin than the Africans still in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though there are also variations within Africa. I don't know if DAZ have got things wrong, but they probably don't cover the variation there is.

The pics are Condi Rice and Kobe Bryant. Condi isn't even that dark, but the undersides of her hands are still noticeably paler than the rest of her. Notice also how the creases in the palms and fingers tend to be much darker than the rest of the skin. This is barely noticeable in a white person, but quite distinctive in people with darker skin.

But neither of them are African, they're both Americans. Unless they denounced their citizenship and moved since last I heard... :?

I don't see what difference that makes. Doesn't even have to be African or black, anyone with dark skin has pale hands. Even a tanned European.

There is a wide variation in skin tone, even in Africa. Everything from cafe au lait to blue-black. And no, it's not a matter of interbreeding with whites or living in sunnier climates. Often, you'll find tribes living in the same region, with very different skin tones. Anthropologists believe it's a result of sexual selection. Basically, aesthetics. Different tribes have different ideals of beauty, and it's ended up encoded in their genes.

It would be cool to have some very dark, blue-black textures.

I didn't realise the variation in Africa was on that scale. Like, er, wow!

Attached Link: Behemoth

Good points. I see what you mean. I will have Les keep that in mind the next time he does a non-white texture. Thanks for the input :)

"randym77: anyone with dark skin has pale hands"

I'm sorry, I might be out of place, but the whole "every one" and "anyone" or "all people of darker skin" in this post is not completely acurate. Of course I'm no bio major but, my wife is of asian origin and her palms "are" the same color as the back of her hands, a light tan coloration; but I would agree that on the MAJORITY of cases the lighter palms would be correct.
-just my 2pennies worth :)

If the backs of her hands are the same color as her palms, then she's not dark-skinned. Asians, like Caucasians, can be quite pale, and their skin tends to darken with sun exposure. (I'm of Asian descent myself. From Hawaii, where you see very clearly that palms don't tan. :-)

Message edited on: 07/19/2004 15:33

Originally, I wasn't going to join this thread but now I feel differently... (Background:) I'm not a professional artist. I use Poser to create scenes for my own (and friend's) amusement. I got P5 about 2-3 years ago. I found R'osity (& DAZ etc) soon after. (end of background). About 3 months after I got P5 I started looking for "proper" African textures (including pale hands/feet). I couldn't find any. I tried creating my own textures (for Judy, V2 and V3), and realised that one of the reasons why these textures are so rare on the ground is probably because the UV maps make it VERY hard to get a consistent colour graduation between the top of the hand/foot and the bottom. My results usually ended up with a sharp line. One texture that I eventually found was "Kiana" (by Jennifer Morris?) - that managed the blend rather well (but I had to buy the whole character to get it). But I still find it rather disappointing, that after all this time, there seems to be so few realistic non-caucasian textures available.. Ahh, well, such is life I suppose. Cheers, Diolma

I tried creating my own textures (for Judy, V2 and V3), and realised that one of the reasons why these textures are so rare on the ground is probably because the UV maps make it VERY hard to get a consistent colour graduation between the top of the hand/foot and the bottom. I'm glad you posted! That makes a lot of sense. I've never tried to texture anything as complicated as a human skin, so that had never occurred to me.

randym77,
True I can see where you are coming from with the tanning part. No, palms don't tan. But I would have to say that my wife isn't light skin nor Dark skin, She has the avereage medium toned skin. Compared with my classic blinding white skin, she is dark...LOL. ;)

Attached Link: Link in Product Showcase