After downloading a number of textures for V3/M3, I'd like to have a go at making my own. After seeing a previous post in the forum I've downloaded SnowSultan's seam guides, but also can use UVMapper OK. The thing is - I'm not sure just where to start! I've got PSP8 - use that for any post work. Also, how do I make transmaps. I'd be grateful if you folks can point me to some almost idiot proof tutorials! TIA

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if you want to make textures that you can share with other people (by selling or free), then you have to use the uv maps that are provided by daz, or the seam guides that snowsultan has created. If you remap a figure in uvmapper then those maps will only work with the copy of the model that you remapped (and you can't redistribute models). there are several tutorials available for tips and tricks on how to paint your own skin textures, here in the tutorials section, and at other sites like daz and runtimedna. a transmap for a character texture is usually just used for brows and eyelashes. (they can be used for other things too though, especially in clothing), so you would use the uv map for the brows and lashes provided by daz, and everywhere you want the hair to show up, you paint white. everywhere else on the map you paint black. use layers in photoshop. a trans map sort of works like a negative image. anything that is black will be invisible in a render. gray areas are simi transparent and white is fully visible. Hope this helps. E.D.

Just a quick correction ED if I may: you can make your own templates with UVMapper if you want to, without necessarily remapping the mesh. SnowSultan's seam guides are more useful, but not available for everything. If you do want to remap something, then your changes can be freely distributed in the form of UVS files (again, these are encoded and decoded by UVMapper).

thanks for your help - there is much to learn, I know. I've tracked down a few tutorials, and d/l Snowsultan's seam guides, etc. I mainly want the resulting tex's to be for my own use.