Does anyone have any quick guides on how to align across seams? I'm trying to place a high res image over V3's back as a tattoo design, but the rotations and nudges in Photoshop are forcing me to climb the wall, hang from the ceiling, and cry like a loon.

Any suggestions???

Please....

Hello Martin,

I did a full body tattoo texture for Jessi, I can say that I didnt find a fast or easy way.
I started to make a grit over the skin, or guide lines.
Lined those up at the seems and using straight lines you getting a pretty good idea where the skin curves and stretches with the body.
For this you also can use a layout from UVmapper.

Since the seems are along the spline I cut the tattoo in half and moved them to the edges.
Best way I found was flipping back and forward between PhotoShop and Poser a lot.
Adjust - save - go to poser - reload skin - back to PS - adjust, etc, etc.

Its a lot of work but I think the result is worth it.
Just ask if you want to know more

You find a render of my tattoo here

Would it help, if you could get the size, position and angle from within poser? I adjusted an mt5 to do this. You can extract the results from the one sided square and the front ortho cam.

Attached Link: http://www.blacksmith3d.com/

You could always try the free version of Blacksmith Paint (see link). Sort-of-like Deep Paint, you can paint directly onto the model and export the UV map. The free version is limited to 1024x1024, has some operational limitations, and is not very good for fine detail or delicate fading, but it can be used to create a template which can then be imported as a guide-layer into PSP or Photoshop. Which is much easier than trying to tweak in the twilight.. Cheers, Diolma

I think I go give the freeware version of Blacksmith a try.

Not needed for my girl anymore, but maybe for future projects

I made a simple grit first as a guide to prevent of tweaking in the twilight.
Its a transparent map, so I can use it again.

Thanks for all the suggestions

gmadone: I'll try what you suggested - but can this be done in such a way as to make the overlay shareable without needing to edit the nodes and shaders?

Likewise, I don't really want to go down the route of painting onto the model (regardless of app) if this means that I am exporting a new UV map that would be incompatible with the base figure I was working from.

Ah well...looks like I need to thank the person who mapped V3, V4, etc., for making things more difficult than they may need to have been - and from what I've read on the forums the G2 figures are a whole order of magnitude of order worse again!

Anyway...thanks all!
M

" Likewise, I don't really want to go down the route of painting onto the model (regardless of app) if this means that I am exporting a new UV map that would be incompatible with the base figure I was working from."

Blacksmith uses the same UV mapping that the model uses. The output is compatible with the existing textures. That's why it can be used as a template:-)

Cheers,
Diolma

diolma - cheers for that - I shall look into it further

gmadone - can you enlarge he screenshot so I can see how what connects to what a little better (I'm color-blind and struggle following the colored threads)

Thanks all...M

Change the file extension to mt5 and place in a materials folder.

I apologize if you don’t have the P5 flag, I know it’s a terrible choice, but something that I believe most of us have, it’s also easy to get an alpha from.

Replace the flag with your original image and the step with an appropriate mask (which may need to be connected like the flag). You can replace the simple color with your own skin texture.

The equations are derived from the formula at the attached link.

I added some nodes to make the left tat easier to position.

The nodes labeled centers are for centering the rotation around the center of the image.

The node M 26 is the horizontal center of the uv map. I think it’s close to .393 or .394 for V3.

Good luck with this, it is a daunting task. I hope this tool helps.

Gary.

Attached Link: spinning a texture

The link didn't come through. So here it is again.