In Poser, you can apply a texture to an object--let's say Vicki--but you can also apply a color. By applying the color, you're putting a tint on it, which is why you can apply a texture for a caucasion female to Vicki, set the color to a shade of brown, and you'll get a render of a black female. Can you do that in Bryce? I've tried different combinations, but with no success. It's either a color or a texture, I've found. I've tried applying the texture to another channel, but nothing looks quite right. Any of the pros know something I haven't found yet?

I don't believe that this is possible. You can make some changes to the cast of an image-based texture by putting a solid colour in the ambience channel, but this dilutes the image, and may have other unwanted effects (because this is not what ambience is for). If I'm wrong I'd be interested to hear the correct answer myself.

Yes, you can. You put the texture into the first channel (A) and create a procedural texture that's just color and put it in channel (B). Then select AB mode and it will blend the two. Review how AB and ABC blending works in the Bryce manual or in RealWorld Bryce to get a better sense of it. I only just figured out how to do it myself and so I'm a little sketchy... TomD

Hmmm - I don't have the manual with me right now, but I must be doing something wrong. The added colour does not blend smoothly over the whole object. Will have to work on this.

::nods:: I'll try and take a closer look at what I did ...like I said I only just got it working and am a little sketchy on what I did - I hope it wasn't a special case solution... TomD

Yup - that works. See the attached image. I took a file that I had and brought up the skin texture for the face. I then added a procedural material on the B channel, and changed it to pure color (bluish). I then selected AB mode. Note that the procedural material has an alpha element (the triangles) that's left over from the random material that was created. Its not referenced or used so it doesn't matter. Note also that the sphere preview implies that the coverage is uneven, when its not in the final render (the inset image). Hope this helps! TomD

Hey! That's pretty cool. See, I haven't quite got the handle on procedurals yet so I tend to shy away from them. But that makes sense. I'll have to try it. Thanks TomD!

Actually, I don't think it is OK. The problem is that AB blending is based on altitude. Bryce does NOT superimpose the texture and colour in the way that Poser does, it grades from texture A (bottom of object) to texture B (top) - as you see in the sphere (I've checked the manual). It doesn't look too wrong on Vicki's head largely because (I'm guessing) the eyes, eyebrows and lips are textured separately. Try the same trick on a whole body texture and you will get a different result. What you could try would be ABC blending, where texture C is just an alpha channel with alternate pixels black and white. But I think a better solution is to take the texture and tint it in Photoshop or similar and then apply it straight.

Just to follow that up - here's what happens if you try to make a European complexion into an African one as JetM wanted to do. I've taken a model and duplicated her - the version on the left is the original, the version on the right has a very dark brown colour mixed in as an AB blend with the skin texture as TomD suggested. It darkens her face a little but has not much effect on her legs.

After playing around some, you are correct sir! Thanks for pointing out what I was missing, Phantast. By applying the same procedural color into both the BC channels and selecting ABC you get a much deeper, more even tone (I tried it on the entire body). The reason you would do something this way is to save texture space. If lets say I had many objects all using the same basic texture map I could alter their color without having to do a new texture map for each. I'm in the video game busisness and we do that all the time... But I agree, for maximum control you want to tint the texture map. TomD

Remember that only the alpha information in the C channel is relevant, not the colour.