I'm at a lost with the DAZ Costume CD, concerning what type of pants should be used with a tunic. Maybe this is a "no-brainer," since there is apparently one pair of pants with the entire collection?! But "mariner's pants" surely don't go with everything?!

By the way, I guess these clothes are too small for Mike? I've had a hard time getting a good wardrobe for Mike... There aren't so many freebies in that area.

I find often you can just increase the size of the clothes, and/or pose the clothes separately, don't conform them to Mike, just put them where they should go (this is for still images, of course, not animations). For the tunic, you could just color P4 dork's hips and legs a solic color on his tex map (and don't give him genitals, of course), which would end up looking like tights. More and more, especially with superheroes, I'm finding it's easier to just color the costume directly on to the skin. Mike

The costume CD has been around much longer than Mike and was created for the P4 man and woman. They're not designed to fit Michael. I would go with Mike above by coloring the legs, which will make it look like fitted leggings. This would be more appropriate under a tunic, anyway, rather than loose fitting trousers. Melanie

You are giving me more information than DAZ has. I appreciate that. I think they really should list somewhere that the Costume Shop CD most likely wouldn't work with Mike, etc. SO I guess I can't color leggings within Poser, so I'd need to load up an image/paint program to fake the leggings, etc?!

Or should I be using a Texture Map to color on? I know nothing about texture maps. I've seen them around, but don't know what to do with them.

Basically all you do is take the texture map your using now, load it into a paint program, and color the legs any color you want. If your character isn't going to be seen without the tunic, don't worry if you can't get the back and front exactly even -- just color them up to the point where the end of the leggings color will be hidden by the tunic. You can either use a single color for the legs (the easiest way), or -- what I do -- find a picture on the internet of someone wearing something close to what you want (to get a real fabric texture), save that picture to your computer, open it in the paint program, select a segment of the fabric color you want, copy it, paste it onto your figure's body texture somewhere in the area where you want it, then use the clone tool to spread the new color around to the area you want. Use a blending tool to smooth out the results. Believe me, I'm not really a texture map person myself. Included here is an example of what I'm talking about. The skin texture for this figure cam from a picture of a Halloween mask. I just copied and pasted segments that corresponded to the areas of the face I was working on and smeared the rest around to fill in the skin tone. Mike

And here's the picture of the Halloween mask. Mike

Thanks for the tips really. I never see a texture map. I click on a picture of Mike that says Michael Map, then I see a nude Michael... So this is where I am lost.

It's a good idea to get to know where your tex maps are. The Michael Map is probably in your C:Poser 4/Runtime/Textures folder somewhere, under another folder called "Michael" or under a folder that bears the name of the creator i.e. DAZ, Zygote, etc. I prefer doing skintight clothes this way because you don't have to worry about the figure ripping out of them. Mike

For my own edification, I'm posting two other examples. Here's a picture of Marvel Comics' Warbird done in the same way. The texture still needs work, but it shows that you can get realistic looking clothing this way as well. An important thing to remember is to save the new texture under a NEW name, a name different from the original, after altering it.

I saw one example...Warbird....All I can say is "Hubba Hubba." She looks real enough to.... ouch....I'd better shut up. I can't wait to see the one you forgot. So, I did find the Mike texture map...one said no genitals, which the other said it had them... I guess. I just wasn't sure if that's what you were talking about. So I paint wherever I want stuff to go. Wow, this is really exciting. Yes, I do remember enough to save the newly painted copy with another name, grin.

And here's 1960's Batgirl for Vicki (in front of stately Wayne Manor) adapted from Cage Drei's texture + props from 3D Comic Collective used on Vicki 2 with SteffyZ's Asia skin. Mike

Absolutely fabulous. I got brave and copied Vicki's texture map, loaded it in PhotoShop and tried a little primitive painting. I'm more familiar with Ulead's PhotoImpact, but I'm downloaded new stuff to work with that now. I thought I painted over Vicki's body with white. Well it wasn't a perfect coverage. I still have much to learn.

You probably did paint over the body with white, but don't forget when applying the new texture that you must either select the box that says "apply texture to entire figure", or select each piece of the body seperately. In this case, it appears the nipples remained uneffected by your new texture.

Attached Link: http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/iishadowcatii/website/index.htm

Back to the original problem one thing you may want to look into is getting "Bobby" Bobby is a combined figure with mike's head on dork's body, giving you the option of using mike's high quaility face, and the ability to use the P4 clothes. This is what I use and will continue to use until I get mike 2 (and they better include a P4 version as they did for vicky 2) Also poserworld has a good P4 item to use under a tunic, called the poet's pants, this item is leggings and boots as one conforming item. It does have a problem with reversed normals but this can be fixed with the grouping tool. Lastly I'll throw in a plug for my website that has beginner's tutorials covering texturing & dressing the characters as well as a download section (there are 3 mike items that I'm hosting)

This is a little off topic, but maybe somebody will help me. That tunic (the yellow one with the lacing at the neck) that ronknights has in his first post is just what I need for a project that I am working on. Is it included in the DAZ costume cd? Thanks! Jay

Yes, I chose that tunic just because it is in the Costume Shop CD. ($49.95) DAZ also has a Tunic Pak for $14.95. I don't know if they have an exact duplicate of the one in the Costume Shop CD...but it might be good enough. I have both the Tunic Pak and Costume Shop CD...

Getting any of the combined figures -- Pol or Bobby -- will still require the user to monkey with textures because you will have to adapt a P4 texture to a Millenium figure or vice versa, since the head is Millenium and the body is P4. Mike

Guess what guys? If the nipples stick out after you've painted the surrounding body, you want to select the nipples and apply the texture you used in your paint job. Remember that the head is separate from the body...Both those areas use different texture maps... as well as some other body areas. You don't want to choose to have the entire figure use the same texture, or you end up in this case with a white face, etc.....Kind of defeats the paint job I did on her torso.

Now here is Vicki's painted body. The nipples are the same color as her torso....But they are surely visible!!!

I made a female and a male "Romulan" shirt that actually can be used as a tunic. Pics of them here: 3D Gladiators The sashes can be trans'd out.

They look great for when I do some Star Trek characters. Where can we get them? Are they free?

I spent a lot of time, and literally painted a body suit on Victoria. I think there are a lot of imperfections. You can see where my brush strokes weren't entirely even. Perhaps I could have used a fill tool? At any rate, it is an accomplishment!!! I'm no longer afraid of painting bodies!

They aren't available yet.

Here's another shot of my newly painted Vicky Body.

And other pose.... I guess there are some imperfections here. I'm not sure what to do about bump maps, etc. Any suggestions or ideas?

If you know of a bump map that you like -- like Maclean's glitter bump maps from 3D Commune -- you can just adapt it by pasting and painting on a pre-exsting Vicki body bump map. Mike

Oh, now I feel like a dunce. I tried copying and pasting something onto a portion of a texture map, and just got a small picture of the original. I must have done something wrong.