I can't afford clothim or clother, but I have found a few examples of clothes painted onto a texture...add it as a layer in Photoshop, save.

I want to customize some new clothes done this way, but cannot visualize the texture when it's wrapped around the character.  So I wonder if there are any general texture guides that could help draw different clothes to add to a skin texture.

I think what you are describing is what is called a template.  It is a map of how an image will be wrapped onto a 3D object.

Look in the marketplace where they sell the piece of clothing;  often a download link for the template will be on the page offering the clothing for sale.  Sometimes a template will be included in the zip pack when you buy the clothing.  Otherwise, anyone with a UV mapping program -you can get UV Mapper for free- can load the OBJ of the clothing item and then export a template.

The same applies to painting clothing onto a doll;  in that case, you want a template of the doll.

What I really think flibbits is talking about is 2nd Skin type clothes.

If that's the case, you can go to Daz and download all the templates for V4, M4, etc...**
**

Or download uvmapper free.
Create your own templates. And draw your clothes textures on those?

For size to save the bmp, use the same size as the origional texture.
You can use the origional texture in photoshop as a reference background, put the template in a layer.

And draw on a third layer.

Combine the origional texture and you own clothes in Poser?

The issue I have is knowing where to draw what.  For example if I'm drawing a "wife beater" t-shirt, where I think I'm drawing the arm "straps" ends up being a thin line going down the side.

If it's swimming trunks, when I draw it and think it's trunks it ends up leaving an opening in his groin, and I can't figure out where to draw that extra material to close that "hole".

I open a skin material in Photoshop, draw the "clothing" on another layer.  But I need guides to show "if you draw here, it ends up looking like this on the final figure."

Maybe the template of a similar clothing item to the one I want to draw can help.

None of the clothing I can find shows how to draw a similar clothing onto M4. In other words there's no guide that would help me place this type of thing (draw it) on a layer on top of an M4 skin texture.

How, for example. would a shirt be drawn (added as a layer) on his torso?

This is the question, and I've been looking but can't find the answer.

As for UV Mapper - WHAT!!!!???  I load the M4 OBJ and it looks like the devil made a spirograph.

How does that clarify anything?

Look for SnowSultan in freestuff. He makes very helpful seam guides for most of the popular figures (V4, M4, V3 etc).

Hiya... Cyberscape is defiantely right... if you download the SnowSultan free template maps of M4 and V4 from the link below, it will give you a 'map' of M4's body.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=856

They look a little confusing but it's best to think of them as if Mike's been skinned and pinned out flat :)

Snowsultan is a bit of a genius at this sort of thing, and the guides all have coloured markers along the edge to show where difficult spots line up - the torso, for example, also includes bits that run up over the shoulder and the back of the head.

If you imagine you clothing textures as if they were garments which had been cut up and laid out flat, the overlay them across the corresponding bits of the M4 template it should help to start getting things in the right place. Things often look wrong on the template and you can't imagine them fitting correctly, but they work when they're wrapped around the body. 

It's not easy to paint clothing directly and accurately, so please don't get discouraged - it's very much a case of 'tweak, tweak and tweak again' - I've only ever done a few painted body textures for my own use, but I know with any textures I create, I'll often end up with between 15 - 30 versions saved as I go through, change a little bit, save, reapply, and do it again to make everything line up properly. 

Unfortunately I can't think of any guides to show 'if you draw it like this it ends up on the final figure' but for me, I tend to go look at the files of work that I really like and admire when I'm trying to work out a difficult problem, just to get an idea of how it's been done. So if you have existing skin textures with things like, say, all over body tattoos or lingerie painted directly onto the skin (M4 ships with the body materials for a 'boxer short' look) it's worth navigating to the Texture folder and comparing how they line up with the Snowsultan templates - it should start to give you a bit of an idea as to what goes where. 

To get a visual idea of what goes where,  replace the doll's skin texture with the template.  Then you can move the pose camera around the doll, and see where the seams of the template line up.

It may help to clarify a term:  a seam guide is a template which has corresponding seam edge polygons color coded in order to help guide you in getting textures aligned where the seam edges meet.  Snow Sultan is famous for doing these.

Dimemsion3D has a very simple, free UV utility which might help you.

That's what I've been doing, using the seam guides and custom versions of them with marks I've made, to discover/learn how to visually interpret the unwrapped texture.  I've also found some second skin clothing which has helped in making other second skins.

Another issue that has arisen is that some 2nd skin clothing requires use of part of the torse, part of the upper arms, part of pre-set materials on M4, for example.

I need to apply different material settings to part of the torso, where a painted on clothing appears. 

How can this be done - separating the torso, for example, into two material parts/zones so I can handle them separately in the material room?

hi flibbits

I understand your challenge as do the other nice people here and have offered you advice.

I have also done what you have concerning 2nd skins and played around with seam guides etc.

I have also found lots of help leaning about displacement maps there are lots of tutorials in free stuff and bagginsbill has a mamoth amount of info about them.

using photoshop alone and the material room using displacement maps and your seam guides you should be able to get to a reasonable outcome for the figure you want to cloth.

Nothing will replace your own time into the project regarding learning. But I would like to say if your going to all this trouble to learn why not get hold of a free or sign up for blacksmith3d program and make your own figures clothing? Since your putting so much effort into this you can make your own stuff. Money should not stop you as so much is free.

The results are yours for the taking so to speak, I have found 2nd skins using displacement mapps are OK for such things as tight fitting swimware, or a jumpsuit, but a t shirt I have not seen one as a 2nd skin that looks ok to me. You can get a free nice t shirt that looks heeps better than a 2nd skin and use your skill to modify it with 2nd skins for holes or rips etc.

hope this helps Rowlando

Yup, the displacement maps are wonderful things, but they've got thier limitations (as does everything!) 

For good-looking clothing you'd also need specular maps, which tell the render engine how matte or shiny something should look, as cloth normally isn't glossy in the same way that skin is.

Specular maps work in the same way as opacity maps - they use shades of grey ranging from bright white to dark black, to represent how much specularity (basically shine) an area should have.

By painting one area in a light grey, you get a shiny effect, and by painting another area in a very dark grey, you get a matte effect - this can be very handy for making complex shapes (such as curly bottle lables, where you've got matte paper and glossy glass) without the limitations of where material zone polygons stop and start. However they're not very subtle and whilst they're great for comparatively simple surfaces, they can cause some odd effects when it comes to skin!

So to make a specular map, displacement map and possibly even an ambient (how 'glowy' something looks) map for a sleeveless shirt, you would not only have to create the map for the shirt area, but also for all the surrounding skin that the material zone affected.

That's pretty straightforward for, say, the abdomen area, where the t-shirt material may well cover all of an existing material zone, but for spots like the arm and neck where the cloth stops and the skin starts, it's a little more complex. Not impossible though :) It just may take a lot of tweaking and painting in different shades of grey to get to where you're happy with it. An awful lot also depends on how you want to render your final image. Something that looks terrible in a brightly-lit portrait may well be ok at a distance in a moodily-lit scene. 

The other option is indeed to use a separate modelling program (or even Posers grouping tools? - am not a Poser user beyond the basics, afraid I'm a Dazzer :) to create specific material zones that only cover the areas that you want to fill in with the 'cloth' material - you can then set the specularity and other settings for these areas without affecting the surrounding skin. However if you'll need to make sure you keep the names all correct on the original material zones too (so don't remove the SkinTorso area for example - create a new area inside that called something like 'shirtcloth' or similar' or your skin textures won't apply properly.

Best of luck :)