i've nearly finished my first texture, a rough barbarian type person. not bad for a first attempt. the problem is, this barbarian has just been in a raging battle, lots of hand-to-hand,heads-off,disemboweling type stuff, and is now caked in blood and mud. Or, at least, they would be if i could figure out how to do it. my best attempt at bloodstains look like kiddies finger painting, and i`m not telling you what my mud stains look like ;) any ideas on how to get realism in here? i realise this is more a photoshop question than a poser one, but hell... any ideas/tips would be greatly appreciated thanks Iggy

I don't use photoshop, I use paint shop pro.. But I believe that this goes for photoshop also... I've tried several ways to make realistic bloodstains etc.. I think there's not an easy way to do it. I prefer just drawing those bloodstains and cuts. Use some blood-like color, pick a paintbrush which is something 2 pixels wide or something. apply some texture into paintbrush (I use asphalt in visibility of 50%) to make the blood look more realistic. Then just paint those cuts and wounds into your text map. To make it more "3D", you should then make a bump map out of the final picture. U know how bump maps work? If ya don't, read it from some tutorial (I'm too tired to write it here:) Anyway, then (in poser) set that bumpmap into your character's bump map (for example "malewarriorbump.jpg") I've done some pretty good graphics with that techinque... It needs practising to paint the blood realistic.

I'm definately no texture wizard, but I know that the lower resolution the map you're using, the blurrier the bloodstains will look. For sharper, crisper edges, use a texture map that's 3000x3000 or even 4000x4000.

I did this dried, caked on looking blood in Painter, using the liquid brushes, a wet eraser, a dripping watercolor brush, and a texturizing brush on a 3000x3000 victoria template. I find Painter (or similar paint tools, like Deep Paint would work also) to be the best for doing "special effects" like blood and makeup, easily. You can't see the cuts from this angle, but I had another piece open in Poser and I can't render a new one right now. ;)

Argh, a STEPHANIE template. I have a Victoria template open right now, and my brain is still foggy.

There are also places on the web where you can find medical photographs of bruises, cuts, and the like. They'll be low rez but they'll give you a good starting point you can use with the cloning tool to create yours. If you want to create something from scratch (so to speak), you can also try this: create a new layer. Use the path tool to create the line of the sword cut, then apply a thin pencil to it (depending on your final texture size, anywhere from one pixel to probably 6 max for a 4000x4000). Turn off the views for everything but that layer, then go to the channels and duplicate the one with the best density. Duplicate that channel and apply the blur filter to it, but only for a slight amount. Duplicate the channel again and apply the blur once more, but now for twice the amount. After applying the blur, select the original channel and delete it, creating a hole in the middle of your blurred field. Go back to your scar layer. Assuming you drew it with a black pencil, tint it back to about 60%, then open the hue/saturation window and colourize it, working with the sliders until you get a deep, deep red, almost a black but not quite. Select the first blurred channel, and dump a red into it. Don't worry about exact colour here; you'll work with that after the fact. Create a new layer and apply the second blurred channel. Dump in a colour that's between the red you just used and the skin tone surrounding it. Set this layer for "multiply", then merge it with the the layer above. Apply a small bit of noise to it (using the monochormatic command), just enough to give it a bit of texture. Now, turn on the views for everything else so you can see the newly made scar in situ. Give it a transparency setting of about 75%, then work again in the hue/saturation window to adjust the colour.

thanks everyone. food for thought and ill be practicing tonight. if i find a fool-proof way of doing it ill let you all know. btw - i think you misunderstood me somewhat. i didn't want cuts etc, just the kind of blood-splats and gore you would get covered in if you chopped someone up from close distance := yeah, i know. tv has warped my fragile little mind thanks again

Corel Painter has an ink splatter brush, that with a little filtering, makes great bloodsplashes. :) Message me a reminder, and I'll make a couple tonight. :) For mud look for pictures of crossterrain motorbike competitions - they usually have nice messy surfaces by the end. That'll give you some idea as far as type, texture ans splatter. Lyrra