I may be barking mad here but it seemed reasonable in my mind...

I really don't like the V4 mapping at all.  In fact, the only template I really liked was the Mill 3 people carpet.  Even then, I don't care for the separate head but it's sort of necessary, due to the relatively low res that would ensue if the head were attached.  Or would it?

How about this...

Start off with a template of  6144 x 8192

Drop the DAZ style people carpet body onto it, at double the normal size.

Attach the head texture at (or near) the usual size.

Use the spare room to fit eyes, teeth, inner mouth, transmaps etc.  In fact, it may be possible to attach the hands to the arms.  If not, no real biggie.

Cut the whole thing into quarters, each 3072 x 4096.

The resulting mapping should leave 4 templates: Upper left, Upper right, Lower left, lower right, all within acceptable sizes for Poser.

Texture makers could fit the templates together for making the skins, then cut 'em up again for distribution.

I don't have the mapping skills or tools to do this but I really can't see why it wouldn't work.

Opinions?

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uv maps are square

what might work better for some textures is a single grouping for body, including hip,torso, arms, legs,hands,feet atc. That would be one map to load. 

I think someone did a V4 to V3 remap.

Mark - they may start off square but they can be resized and stretched any which way.  V3 maps, for example, usually have a body map of 3000 x 4000. 

I kinda explained myself badly above, what I meant to say was, map the head and body in the same way as on the originals, but not split apart.  Then, during the mapping process, divide the thing into quarters.

I'm not specifically looking for a V4 to V3 remap; I'm trying to think of a way to get the best res and ease of texturing combination.

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Sorry Sam, but you're barking mad!
Aside form the eyes, the Innermouth and Tongue are already on the V3 Head Template, while the eyes are have a completely separate template all to themselves, that allows for remarkable detail.
And to fulfill your idea completely, would be to destroy the territorial integrity of of the V3 body map. 
The V3 style is probably the best that I've seen, maintaining integrity of texture, while allowing for detail of certain body parts, such as the hands and head.
dph
PS: I've already remapped Vic 4.2. and you can see examples of her in my gallery, along with my other remaps.

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Quote - Sorry Sam, but you're barking mad!

 

Gee, nobody's ever told me that before.  

Anyhow, I'm not mad.  I'm just misunderstood.

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I'm with you on this one Sam Therapy. Less is more.

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Quote - uv maps are square

what might work better for some textures is a single grouping for body, including hip,torso, arms, legs,hands,feet atc. That would be one map to load.

This is all possible, but the truth is that the SkinFeet, SkinForearm, SkinHand, SkinHead, SkinScalp, SkinHip, SkinLeg, SkinNeck, & SkinTorso were all done to facilitate 2nd skins by just making localized option variations to the main texture map.  Thus one could create black gloves by setting both SkinForearm and SkinHand to black in the Mat Room; same with Stocking by doing the same with the SkinLeg & SkinFeet MAT zones.  This is also why MAT poses were developed in order to automate the process of texturing a figure.

Quote - I think someone did a V4 to V3 remap.

That would be me.
dph

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DPH, I don't like to disagree with you, since:

a) you know a lot more about mapping than me
b) you're a jolly nice chap

but... I think I can make this one fly. 

Tomorrow, I'm gonna have a play with UVM Pro and see if I can Frankenstein an approximation of what I mean.

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Quote - > Quote - Sorry Sam, but you're barking mad!

 

Gee, nobody's ever told me that before.  

Anyhow, I'm not mad.  I'm just misunderstood.

Sorry Sam, but you're the one who suggested the phrase 'barking mad'; I'm just the idiot who took you up on it. 
-and no, I've never thought that you were ever barking mad, but I could resist the opportunity to poke a little fun.
dph

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Sorry Sam, but you're barking mad!

 

Gee, nobody's ever told me that before.  

Anyhow, I'm not mad.  I'm just misunderstood.

Sorry Sam, but you're the one who suggested the phrase 'barking mad'; I'm just the idiot who took you up on it. 
-and no, I've never thought that you were ever barking mad, but I could resist the opportunity to poke a little fun.
dph

Yeah, I know.  I don't mind in the least.  No offence taken, I assure you.  :)

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Quote - DPH, I don't like to disagree with you, since:

a) you know a lot more about mapping than me
b) you're a jolly nice chap

but... I think I can make this one fly. 

Tomorrow, I'm gonna have a play with UVM Pro and see if I can Frankenstein an approximation of what I mean.

I've no patent on remapping figures, but I will state this: Your concept has both merit and demerit!  While possibly facilitating texturing in the Pose Room, it'll destroy the facility of ease to Create new textures.  And ultimately, it has very little to recommend it above that which is already in currant use to texture V4.
dph

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Dear Sam;
Check you mailbox, I've sent you a PM.
dph

  STOP PALESTINIAN CHILD ABUSE!!!! ISLAMIC HATRED OF JEWS

Seen it, read it, replied, email sent.

And now, off to get some sleep.

Goodnight! :) 

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Dear Sam;
While I'm not completely  in favor of your idea, I will do whatever I can to support it.  It's at least worth a try.
dph

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I loved the single texture for Posette, even the transparency was on the single map and with renders under 2048x2048 a single map of say 4000x4000 provides an excess of data.

A variation somehow of the standard V3 layout but placed on one texture plane would be great since the V3 uvs are nice and if it was done right a very simple Photoshop action could convert any existing V3 textures to the new layout.  Basically the V3 head map items could be stacked as-is over the body to make a simple layout. Just have to fit the eyes and teeth/gums somewhere like above the neck between the arms and leave the existing transmaps I guess.

Probably the most useful figure now would be a V4 17K LOD mapped to a single texture like that. There is really no reason to use V4 instead of the V4 17K LOD converted to Poser. 17K is plenty mesh resolution and the figure would use the new clothes out now while most people have plenty unimesh textures that could be easily converted. There was even a tutorial here I used successfully to make a lo-res M4 from the V4 17K mesh. It would be simple to shape the V4 LOD to V3 body shape with the V4 to V3 mesh and from there even to V2 or Posette if you want since there exist V3 mesh in those shapes.

Anyhow... just me dreaming.

Now that I look at it maybe side by side is more efficient and gives more resolution to the face. A Photoshop action could easily convert standard V3 textures to this layout and only the lashes would be separate.

A V4 17K LOD mapped this way would be cool but I don't expect there would be any money in it for David.

What I did was used the V4 17K LOD that was free in DAZ Studio and exported it to Poser where I used the standard V4 rigging and the V4 and V4++ morphs converted with the Morph Clothes. I actually used a V4 rigging with all those hidden magnets ripped out and it still poses fine. The M4 17 K was made by creating an M4 morph for V4 and using Morph Clothes to load that on the V4 17K LOD mesh which then takes the M4 rigging and the M4 morphs converted with Morph Clothes but unfortunately it only takes V4 Male textures. A V4 17K LOD that took unimesh textures would give you both male and female characters that are nearly as light as Posette but take all the new clothing, poses, and dial-spin characters but would take all the old M3 and V3 textures.

DAZ really should have released V4 and M4 Reduced Resolution in my opinion... Stephanie Petite and David too for that matter. I nearly all cases you can render a Reduced Resolution figure side by side with the default and no one can see the difference. For firefly renders it is the poly-flow more than the mesh density and in fact making morphs for the lower mesh is easier. I have read the opinion that the standard V4 was sub-divided after the modeling had been done already. For high res you can always bake the geometry as a posed prop and sub-divide it then but why you would need to I can't imagine. 

Remap V4....... -AGAIN!!??  (shudder!)
dph
PS: I might be willing to entertain the above idea, but only if someone can tell me how I can FIRST use a uvs generated from my present remap of V4.2 to remap the V4 LOD to standard V3 texture layout; and only THEN would I have to start fitting everything 'side-by-side'.
I am NOT going to undergo a second time the pain and frustration of converting that figures 'Sow's ear' texture mapping into a V3 'Silk purse'!
dph

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There is no way to convert the V4 remapping to V4 17K LOD I wouldn't think other than just redoing it by hand. As for making a side-by-side for the standard V4 anyone could do it in about ten or  fifteen minutes with UVmapper Classic if they own your remap. I long ago made a single texture "stacked V2" layout and that took about two minutes.

Sam,I think i did something similar for using V4 in 3dsmax in a more "efficient" worklow. I ended up with 1 bodymap and 1 eyemap. The one "bodymap" is made for an easy way to get V4 in zbrush for displacement and normalmaps. I made a layered psd template file with a "color select" layer so you can easely select a color and paste youre texturefiles. Maybe an idea to use?

I don't think I did a very good job of explaining myself. :(  I'll try to post some pics of what I mean but  meanwhile, the general idea is this:

Forget V3 as a specific model.  I just mentioned that one because I like the skin layout.  What I don't like is that the head and hands are separate from the body.  My proposal is to have them joined on but, in order to preserve the res of the usual head texture (or keep it similar) and increase the res of the body so everything is easier to work on, separate the resulting UVs into quarters, or maybe even sixths, so you can get around Poser's 4096 size restriction.

There'd be no problem with seams because one section would dovetail perfectly into the next.  Actually, it would sit directly alongside it.  Texture makers can load the templates in side by side to create a skin, then split them up once the texture is made.

DPH is right about it destroying the territorial integrity of an existing model, so I'm throwing it out there as an idea for a new human figure.  Maybe V5?

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OK first off the theory that uv maps are supposed to be square and not rectangular is not true. in fact uv maps can be any rectangular shape you want and will work just fine. while some uv mapping programs will only show show maps in a square format that is only their display limitation, but that doesn't really mean that the map in it's final form must be square.

SamTherapy, your concept is sound, and it would be an elegant partial solution to the problem, though of course you still would have to deal with seams (even the bearskin method has seams to deal with) just not as many of them, and while bearskin mapping is certainly going to provide the least amount of seams it is also the method that is prone to the most amount of mesh distortion. the question I have though is that now that there are cheep solutions on the market for true 3D painting for fixing seams, such as 3D Coat, and Blacksmith 3D, is it really so crucial to have those old distorted bearskin maps anymore?

 Well... a whole other approach is to work on really good procedural skins with masking to provide for area variation. I did not to bad creating procedural skin, lips and eyes... BagginsBill has done procedural lashes and eyebrows I believe... add masking to that to deal with the texture differences such as palms, soles of feet, knuckles, knees, buttocks, nose and eye sockets etc and you would be able to do tremendous character differentiation without textures. Procedurals don't have to be quite as complex in the fancy optical effects as BB's... I was able to do procedurals that focussed on conventional diffuse, specular and displacement using just some of the fancy fresnel etc. demonstrated by Face_off. Moles, blemishes and all sorts of individual characteristics could be done procedurally through shader mixing. Really I have never understood the Poser obsession in some parts on "untouched" non-postworked renders based on entirely Photoshop photo-captured textures... it is easy to do a likeness of Marylin Monroe on a single sided square with a good texture but if the ideal is true CGI then why should the texture be photo-based instead of precedural?