Two things.

1. I am trying to learn the fundamentals of applying skin texture to a basic Poser 5 figure like Will. Each time I select the texture for Wills Head or body and click on the workspace to indicate "head" or "body" I then click the drop down menu and click "render".(note I am not assuming this is correct only my clumsy attempt to get some progress)

Even if I have only chosen "head texture" - the process renders all of Will.

If I click on the workspace then the entire Render disappears. Likewise if I move back to the "Pose" Room it's back to looking at the untextured Will figure for me. The manual is not helping me.

Can anyone supply a simple set of instructions on how to apply a skin texture to a figure. It would be greatly appreciated. And I would not say no to any tutorial link on the subject.

On the other subject - when seeking help - how do you members cut and paste the Poser screen you are viewing into your Message to show the dials and stuff.

Message edited on: 09/07/2004 00:20

Attached Link: My Homepage

Why are you clicking Render?! Apply the textures to will one by one, either click on all the bodyparts one by one with the eyedropper and then make sure the texture map is attached as a 2D texture map node in the diffuse channel (the topmost one). then exit the material Room and THEN render. A render will always render all of the image, there's no way in Poser you can do partial renders. To make a screencap (assuming you're on a windows PC), simply press the PrintScreen (prn scr) button (located next to F12 on the keyboard) then open any image processor (PSP or even Paint) and paste it to it. I have a beginner's tutorial for Poser 5 on my homepage. It doesn't exactely cover how to texture SKIN but it does show a few examples of the material room too. At the link above :o)

Great link However still not having success with the skin texture.Anychance of a screencap showing what the set up in the Mat room should look like and a step by step. I really want to get this right and so far I keep ending up with an albino head and textured body but I'm definately not getting it right. The body even has bruises and patches of dark grey on it? Beats me.

OK here goes. 5 pics in all. First the head, click somewhere on the head with the eyedropper.

Then body, click somewhere on the body and select the bodytexture (it IS applied on the default Poser people)

If you want another texture you can select it by clicking Browse. The P5 kids uses Victoria 2 textures or textures made for the mill. kids.

Be sure to attach the correct textures to each part of Will (or another character) - things like the tongue is on the BODY map, not on the head (unlike V3). The blotches you're seeing is probably caused by you applying a head tex to the body or something. :o) There is as you can see a lot of parts which all needs to be textured.

A little tip: Add an anisotropic shader to the "Lenscovering" part (called "cornea" on some other character) - it makes the eyes nice and shiny.

Excellent Ernyoka1 - thanks so much for your patience and assistance. I can certainly see where I was going off course (amazing how simple it all looks when you see it yet complex when trying to start from scratch) Wow - if only the manual was so helpfull. Again - many thanks.

One last question: Having applied the textures, moved to the Pose room and clicked on Render. My figure looks very realistic. But if i click on the Workspace window or attempt to move the figure - it loses it's texture and goes back to the original colour. I try saving before moving the figure around but my saved image goes back to original shade of pale white. What is the trick to retaining the render and working on the figure once you have mastered the above instructions?

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly so please bear with me if I'm not making sense L When you move your character it won't be rendered any more. You'll have to render it again to see it er... rendered. You won't need to render all the time, only when you're done posing and setting up the scene. Another possibility is that you're not seeing the character in Texture shaded mode. The little "balls" that is usually located below your workspace window determines how you will see the preview. click Ctrl 9 to make sure you're in texture shaded mode (I hope I'm right, I'm not at my Poser PC right now...) What you're expiriencing sounds MOSTLY like you're not using Texture Shaded mode for the preview. One last thing, not necessarily related to your problems, but... You do have the latest patch for your Poser 5, right? SR 4.1? Available from Curious Labs' site in case you haven't got it.

Hmm - that makes some sense. You know if you do not enter the Mat Room and go straight to the topolbar on top and click the Render option followed by "Render" - little Will gets instant (if a little crappy) skin tone. Yet I keep hearing the term "render" or "you haven't rendered" used a lot Now I am kind of lost to explain what "Render" means. I suppose it means adding the lighting and shade elements and playing around with the skin tone etc in the Mat room. Just wish I could get rid of those dam "mesh goggles" like Will has above. Caused by a Transparency Map? Ernyoka1 how do the Danes get rid of this Transparency Map Mesh goggle effect?

:o) When you Render a picture, it's like taking a photo of it. Literally it means to draw. Think of the person in Poser as a live model and you standing with a camera (with some obvious exceptiosn...) Once you've taken a picture and the model moves, you'll have to take another picture to capture THAT situation - make a change to the character and you'll have to render again. A transparency map is something that is .. transparent.. Like the lenscovering, it adds shine to the eye like a layer of glass. Poser shows transparent things with the little dots. Also a lot of the hair you can download looks "dotty" untill you render it. Render is something you ideally only do ONCE, when you've finished setting up the whole scene. Sometimes a shadow will fall in a bad way so you will need to move the light and render again. But there's no need to render over and over and over again. You will notice that shadows won't show before the picture is rendered. The "shadow" you see in preview is more a placement guide. It does NOT render. So, both danes and everyone else have to put up with the "mesh goggles" untill the picture is ready to be rendered. I hope this made at least a little sense? I feel I'm rambeling L

Now I'm with you. The lovely shiny eyes from the anisotropic shader effect are still there only symbolised by the mesh goggles. Once we decide not to tinker anymore finally render - it all works itself out then. Great. Or as Bart simpson would have said if he'd explained it so many times till it sank in "Duh!" Every day you learn something new on this site. this is great. Thanks Ernyoka1. Gotta find that P4 manual too.

Attached Link: Poser 4 manual

Yep! You got it now :o) Good news: The pdf version of the Poser 4 manual is still available from CL's site, it's a BIG file, 32Mb so ... if you're on dial up, better think twice... But otherwise it's available at the link above :o)