Hello,

I have Michael 4 for Poser 8. I’ve created a texture that I've applied to his jacket. There is a shoulder patch on the texture that distorts when I reposition his arm. Is there a way that I can stop this distortion?

Thanks

Hello,

I have Michael 4 for Poser 8. I’ve created a texture that I've applied to his jacket. There is a shoulder patch on the texture that distorts when I reposition his arm. Is there a way that I can stop this distortion?

Thanks

Not easily, no. The graphic for the patch is just following the underlying geometry. It is mapped to specific coordinates and it will follow that placement, even if the geometry deforms. There isn't any easy way to prevent this behavior with applied texture maps. (Note: Think of a texture map as being nothing more than "paint." When an object deforms, it doesn't grow surface area, it stretches and shrinks the original geometry. So, the painted image, laying on top of it, your "texture", grows and shrinks in proportion to the underlying geometry.)
You could, however, make a prop and use the patch as a texture for it, with a transparency map to remove the background, and then parent that to the jacket in the spot where you want the patch to be. The patch will follow a specific point on the geometry, but since it is a parented object, it won't be subjected to the deformers that are deforming the jacket geometry. This would be suitable for distant renders, but probably not any close-ups, as it will be difficult at that resolution to make the patch look like it's actually part of the jacket. (Though, this sort of thing would be very useful to simulate a "badge" or "pin" that has been placed on the jacket.)

First, using a graphics program, like Photoshop, cut out the patch from your jacket texture and paste it as a new graphic image. Position it roughly in the center and clean up any edges. Save the image.

To make a transparency map, just make everything you want to show up (like the patch) as white and color the rest black. Save that as a new file. (Don't overwrite your patch image file with it.) That will be your transparency map. Black = Transparent, White = Not Transparent :) )

Note: The original texture and the black and white transparency map must match up to each other, proportionally. But, they don't have to be the same image size. They just have to have the same image ratio. (Though, it's probably better that they're both the same size for your purposes, since that's easier and more intuitive.)

Go to your Props library. Scroll down to "Primitives." Select the High Res Plane primitive. It will load into the scene.

Enter the Material Room with the primitive selected.

Right-Click in the main node area of the window. Choose to "Add Node" -> 2D Texture -> Image Map and select your patch image and attach this node to the Diffuse channel.

Right-Click in the main node area again, Choose to "Add Node" -> 2D Texture -> Image Map and select your transparency map image and attach that to the Transparency Channel. Set the value to 1. 

Go back into the Pose area and the High Res Square plane will have your patch texture on it and the parts you don't want to show, like the areas outside of the patch, will be transparent. Scale this object down to whatever size you wish, but make sure to scale both x and y axes to the same size, to prevent distortions. Move it over to the jacket and position it where you want the patch. Parent it to the jacket and it will move with the jacket, without deforming. It would be a good idea to turn off shadows, for the High Res plane, so the patch doesn't cast shadows.

When your jacket deforms, you can scale/rotate/manipulate the transmapped plane in order to try to make it look like it's really part of the jacket.