If I have a good photograph of someone's face, front-on and upright , I can use Windows Paint to cut out the background etc. But how can I apply the face to (say) the Poser 4 man's head so that his face looks realistic from various directions?

I have found how to hide his head, put a square plane (parented to his head) where his face should be, texture the square with the face as the diffuse image, mask off the background, and move the square to the right place; but the his head only looks right if seen from straight forward.

Here I have got Lloyd Bridges / Mike Nelson into the uniform of my (fictional) Sea Patrol.

Not as simple as it seems, Anthony. Because the image is planar, you'll never get it to look right unless you're prepared to get into texturing. For realism - or an acceptable substitute thereof - you'll need at least a profile shot, too. Composite them in your image editing app (Photoshop, Gimp, et al) so they match up with the figure's template. Be warned, you'll get distortion, though. Lots of cutting, pasting, resizing and blending involved to get a good result. Why d'you think I no longer make skins? :D

The texture is only part of the story, though. I am firmly of the opinion the texture is just the icing on the cake; the underlying mesh has to resemble the person involved, otherwise it will always look wrong.

Have fun. ;)

More good news for you...

You're also going to have to paint out or otherwise adjust shadows and highlights, because there's nowt worse than baked in stuff for playing merry hell with realism. In Photoshop, judicious use of the Clone Stamp, Color Burn and Color Dodge, plus a bit of plain ordinary painting are the tools to be using. It's tedious, very tedious.

And here is my attempt at Sea Patrolman Jacques-Yves Cousteau :: it is a good thing for sport scuba diving that HE didn't develop that sort of mentality when scuba diving started, although he started as a naval man.

Your signoff "Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum." :: what is it supposed to mean?

I have never gotten this to work, which is why I went into modeling to begin with. Well, that and a wife who won't let me burn money on this hobby. But Sam is right... if the original mesh doesn't resemble the person you are trying to use, it won't ever look right.

I managed to make a morph that makes the Poser 4 Man's face look more or less like my face. I had to make a morph that brings the wings of the nose down until they are level with the bottom of the nasal septum.

As it is the P4M, the face room doesn't work with that figure, bad luck.

You would be better off creating your own representations of living or deceased individuals if your renders become public displays. Actual photos could get you in trouble with celebrities, family members or the actual photographers you took those images. What you do in private, is your own business, but once released publically without the right authorizations, you may be subject to lawsuits.

'Creae perspective UV' in the group tool was fixed a few years ago.

Set your face photo as texture on a large panel aft of the figure, panel perpendicular to camera. Parent the panel to the camera Scale viewport to let it match the image exactly.

Move camera (and panel), and morph figure such that main face fetaures of the figure line up wth the same points on the image. (wireframe view may help) In group tool select the face/head of the figure and hit 'create perspective uv's'. The face of your figure now should have uv-mapping such that your photo can be used as face texture.

Anthony Appleyard posted at 8:11PM Fri, 28 September 2018 - #4336802

And here is my attempt at Sea Patrolman Jacques-Yves Cousteau :: it is a good thing for sport scuba diving that HE didn't develop that sort of mentality when scuba diving started, although he started as a naval man.

Your signoff "Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum." :: what is it supposed to mean?

It means "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke". :D

Anthony Appleyard posted at 8:11PM Fri, 28 September 2018 - #4336802

And here is my attempt at Sea Patrolman Jacques-Yves Cousteau :: it is a good thing for sport scuba diving that HE didn't develop that sort of mentality when scuba diving started, although he started as a naval man.

Your signoff "Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum." :: what is it supposed to mean?

It means "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke". :D

Apologies for the double post. Buggered if I know what happened there.

FVerbaas posted at 7:14AM Sat, 29 September 2018 - #4336811

'Creae perspective UV' in the group tool was fixed a few years ago.

Set your face photo as texture on a large panel aft of the figure, panel perpendicular to camera. Parent the panel to the camera Scale viewport to let it match the image exactly.

Move camera (and panel), and morph figure such that main face fetaures of the figure line up wth the same points on the image. (wireframe view may help) In group tool select the face/head of the figure and hit 'create perspective uv's'. The face of your figure now should have uv-mapping such that your photo can be used as face texture.

Cool! I had no idea.