Quote - > Quote - > Quote - I am always looking for ways to increase the realism of scaling and rough skin textures. Any suggestions?

Welcome to the forum! Are you looking at creating your own textures, or increasing realism through rendering? What softwares are you using?

The short answer to that is... both! I would love to know how to get the most out of existing textures through render settings (I am self-taught and have never used "bump" which I suspect may be important) and I would also love to create my own textures since I always have specific ideas of what I want scales and rough skin to look like (as I'm sure we all do). I am using Poser 9 and Photoshop cs5 extended. Though I did take advantage of the free software downloads offered at Daz3D of Hexagon, Bryce and Daz Studio I haven't delved into them as of yet.

When It comes to texturing bump is really useful.

Even better still is getting to grips with displacement.

Though I started with poser I mainly use  Daz studio now, haven’t used poser for a good while. I really like the way displacement works in Daz Studio now I’ve got to know it. I assume its similar in poser but the settings are probably different to get the same effect.

The main thing is to not have it too high or the mesh explodes all over the place. In daz studio I use between O.20 to 0.60 and -0.20 to -0.60.  The size of the dinosaur/model makes a difference as does  the size of the part. For instance a small part like the claws may need the lower end and the skin the higher end of those settings though as I say this may work differently in poser and you will have to try different settings.

Another thing I find important in bringing out the skin texture is lighting and the balance between light and shade. I tend to go for quite a dramatic look myself :)