Hi all, I am new at creating custom characters but downloaded the DAZ animals and noticed there was a template dir with texture maps in jpg form. Inside the file the instructions are to paint the shapes to be applied to the model, but in the modeler room i don't see where the texture map is being used (everything is just colored) and i dont know how to attach the .jpg as a map. Can someone point me to a tut or explain? I am assuming i can just use photoshop to color the say chimptmp.JPG to suit, and somehow apply that to the stock character for Chimp? Well, thanks for your help!!! coocoo

Select the animal, and click on the Materials tab to go the the mat room.  Set the diffuse color to white.  Right-click on the blank area to the right and choose New Node--2D textures--Image map.  Drag from the plug icon in the upper left to the diffuse recepticle on the Poser surface box.  That should connect it.  Click on the word "None" and you can browse to the image you want to use.

Repeat for each material that uses the map.  Use the Materials drop down at the top to pick material zones.  When done click on the Pose tab to go back to the Pose room.

John

Quote - Select the animal, and click on the Materials tab to go the the mat room.  Set the diffuse color to white.  Right-click on the blank area to the right and choose New Node--2D textures--Image map.  Drag from the plug icon in the upper left to the diffuse recepticle on the Poser surface box.  That should connect it.  Click on the word "None" and you can browse to the image you want to use.

Repeat for each material that uses the map.  Use the Materials drop down at the top to pick material zones.  When done click on the Pose tab to go back to the Pose room.

John

John, that's awesome, thanks! btw, is it an acceptable practice to leave transparency in the image map and use the underlying diffuse color when coloring a character? (saved file as .png instead of .jpg) Thanks again for such quick help!!!

Quote - btw, is it an acceptable practice to leave transparency in the image map and use the underlying diffuse color when coloring a character? (saved file as .png instead of .jpg) Thanks again for such quick help!!!

 

I suppose it would work, but I've had bad experiences using pngs as textures -- I think their size causes memory problems.

Thanks for that aardvark, in this case the jpg is 216k and png is 256k...hmmm is there another way to get transparency in image maps then or should i just do everything using ps filters/layers?

I don't think the diffuse channel will recognize transparency as anything but white.  However, changing the diffuse color will have an effect.  Experiment with it.

John

I think you will need to plug in a transparency map to get transparency. A png plugged into the diffuse channel will simply have all transparency on the png turned to white.

However, as John says, I'd experiment some. I'm not 100% certain there isn't another way. :)

Silke, thanks for that. It does work on this mac. Transparent areas in the imagemap show thru the diffuse color. But now that I know how to do this, I am not having good results...actually my own maps look fine but the stock maps for DAZ animals looks like crud for some reason. See the lion in the attached. It's using the imagemap supplied by DAZ but looks very strange. The imagemap itself looks okay, but they sure didn't color within the lines very well. Maybe that's the problem, or maybe it's something else I can't figure out. The zebra is okay I guess, but the monkey looks real flat. I guess this all takes a lot of tweaking and I am not sure where to begin...thanks for any tips in advance!!! Contest Entry Draft... http://www.extreme-nepal.com/forumboards/DVD_Game_Cover.jpg

Well, the old lion you have in that image is from the Poser 1&2 Zygote era. :) And yeah the texture maps are kinda terrible for those.
You might want to look for some freebies in the freestuff area for those.

thanks silke, will do!