this is my first time so i hope this is in the right place.i have been trying to add a second skin to v4 it is a soap layer as a PSD file ihave tried to follow the instructions of the read me but the material will not appear in the material room the folder icreated to put it in is there but it shows as empty. looking in the materials that show up in other parts they seem to have a .MT5 file do ineed that and how do i make it? any help or an idiots guide to making second skin work would be much appreciated

I am not familiar with MAT poses, but you can load the texture manualy in the material room.

Open the material room and go to the advanced settings.
At the top of the screen you can open a list with body parts, if you select a body part you get the shaders which are attached to it.

Usualy the top one is the skin, here you can choose to use another skin.
Click on the texture name in the litle screen and you get a pop up in which you can search and select the texture you want to use.

Hmmmm, I hope this was a bit clear.

Maybe some one else can explain how it works with MAT poses, there is probably a easyer way than I do it :biggrin:

MAT poses are applied in the Poses section of your library.  It sounds to me that you just have a texture which can easily be applied in the Material Room as described by **Jestertjuuh. ** Afterward, you can create an MT5 in your empty folder by clicking the '+' sign on the bottom of your Library Palette in Material Room.  Whenever you want to apply the soap texture, select V4, enter the Material Room and click on your texture icon.  Hopefully this will answer your question.

ok thats put the soap in the materials room and the .mp5 has appeared but it wont apply when i click on the icon the soap image appears when i go to advanced tab in the material room but nothing hapens when iclick on it

We are in the advanced section of the Materials Room and I'm going to make a big assumption: are the image nodes connected?  I'm going to switch from my laptop to my main poser computer to get a 'visual'.

Now this is better.  Now where were we?  Okay.  I just quickly reread your post to get a little more insight to your problem. 
Firstly, you mention that this is a second skin.  Now I am assuming that when you look at the PSD file, you see a V4 texture plus the soap over that.  If you don't see that then the obvious has become perfectly clear to me.
Secondly, the file you received is a PSD file, a Photoshop file.  Although textures can be generated, and very effectively, from PSD files it is impractical because PSD files can be rather large.
Based on what you have posted, I believe you have a Photoshop file of soap which must be layered over your V4 skin texture in Photoshop.  This is generally creating a second skin for V4 that you must apply in the Material Room.  I'll await your response before we proceed. 

sorry for any delay getting back to you but it was 1:30 am here and i had to get some shut eye any way your assumption is correct i had a photo shop psd file that i resized to fit the as per the instructions in the read me with it. it said to make sure the soap was the top layer (which i did) and then to save (no mention of what type of file to save as so tried jpeg,png and psd )the folder i createde for it showed up in the material room but was empty . following your instructions i could get it to show in the materials but  clicking on it did not apply it .although i followed the read me that came with file ithink it must assume some knowledge that i dont have and so iwas not able to follow it fully

if it's possible to use overlays in P7 via various python/shader node tricks without
any need for APS, then perhaps these 2nd skin vendors could develop a larger
clientèle if they were to sell their items with instructions on how to use 'em without APS.

what is the cost of APS CS4, by the way? is it still $1,000 american for a new version,
and $349 to upgrade? 

Again I'm on my laptop while having dinner.  We will shift back to the material room advance tab.  I have a feeling that the image node is not connected to the Poser Surface.  Fortunately Poser 7 can read PSD files so you're okay so far.  I would flatten the layers, save as a high quality jpg and rename the file.  No matter.  In poser load your V4,  enter the material room and go to the advanced tab.  Once there, make sure that the object at the top is selecting V4 and the materials next to that some body part of V4 (Don't select the head).  Below there will be a Poser Surface window and a small image_map window.  If you only see a bar for Image_map, expand by clicking both icons on the right.  The first line of your text will say Image_source, left click to the right of that and another window will of open.  Hit the browse button and navigate to the folder containing your secondskin.  Once selected, click ok.  Now you have to repeat this for every body part, so highlight Image_Map, right click and copy.  Do not be tempted to select apply to all because it will apply body texture to your model's head.  Please do avoid. 
Go to the next body part and paste your new Image_map. (Right click and paste)  Once you have replaced the original skin with the secondskin, left click the + sign in your library palette and save your new material texture in the materials folder.  Next time when you want to use that particular texture with V4,  load her in the scene and go to the material room.
Next time, if you're curious enough, I'll explain how to make a MAT Pose for that texture.

Thank you so much for your time and trouble i have finally got it to work your help is much appreciated

We are glad to help.