What is the best way to make a realistic bump for close-ups of skin textures? Secondly, should I use the standard P4 textures and convert to greyscale or create a new one in Photoshop?? Please help, my boss at work is considerinf hireing me to do a few graphics for him.

I've always thought it best to convert the original texture to greyscale, increase the contrast on it a bit, and use varying shades of darker greys to make the bump effect. If you're wanting to make a skin bump for things such as pores, try doubling the dimensions of the texture, and adding monochromatic noise (just a touch!)Increase the contrast to make the "noise pixewls" stand out more, if you want a more "rough-hewn" skin texture. Also, play with the bump map slider in the Surface Materials section of Poser. Hope this helps! Jon

Ok I've posted this before but I have to tell you if THIS gets out and others read it ...it could spell disaster to the poser forum as we once knew it! This is a trick used by a few high end gaming companies to create REALISTIC textures for skin: You will need, 1 jar of blackish NON-TOXIC goop. (any goop will do..just don't ask me what kind or where you can get it...you'll have to visit the art store for THAT one) several sheets of stock paper with a thickness just shy of bristol board. They need to feel almost like an index card but not so stiff...and they must be WHITE. Go to the bathroom and wash your face VERY WELL. Facial hair will NOT due so if you have any SHAVE it off. You can find the MACH3 shavers at your local WAL*MART. Dry your face and apply the Black goop to it. Take the sheet of paper and press it firmly to your skin taking heed to NOT move it around. Wait a second or two and then remove it straight off (no sliding it off!) What you will have left on the paper is a sorta of impression of YOUR skin in black and white. You can now scan this in (once the goop has dried) and you will have REAL skin as your textures base. It's eerie if done right! Also a big plus...if you have the MAD acne...it will work for making moon crater textures! A big plus! Hope that helps and I hope you get the job! It's good to know that someone out there is giving an artist a break! PAN~ Still working for the Magic box and getting NO credit.

Euuuwww! It would be interesting to see what such a texture would look like, but to use it on the whole skin surface would require a dang big map to preserve such small details. And in any case, other than for closeups, it wouldn't give you much. Other than on your hands, most skin creases aren't visible from more than two feet. It might be neat to try for hand modeling though... PV

Actually you would simply use it as a complete texture for every part of the skin. No need to goop the nose, the eyes, the neck, etc. Just a portion of your skin for sampling, to get the overall texture of real skin. All you need is your cheek, which ones you use is up to you. Then you just apply it on the computer and enhance it from there...I also agree it's useless unless it's for closeups but I've seen some nice shots of the head or faces and it's come through pretty nicely. PAN~

Thank you everyone, I'm slowly working on it but from here I guess it's trial and error.If everything comes out right I'll post it so you can see the results. Now if I can just get the fur for the wolf right......