♥ PosetteForever ♥

Hmmm what do u want to know? i'm no expert, but i can tell you how i do it. I use paintshop pro 7. First u need photos of bodyparts and face and u need skin seamguide/templet for the figure you are going to make a skin for.

I mostly do high delails in the face, hands.... Legs/arms/genital i don't do very detailed, but the same technic would of corse apply to those parts too.

I start with the photo of the face.
I erase the eyes.
The skin on the outskirts of the face usually have the same /or close color and lighting so i decided what part of it matches the color and lighting of the face the most.
I make a seamless tile of a small part of that ouskirt of the face on a new image.
I paste the face on to the seamless tile. I then clone brush (with a clonebrush set low, like 40 %) the outskirts of the face so that it maches the seamless tile i made and the face.
I then part by part paste the face onto the seamgiude for the face. There will be gaps and i use the clone brush to fill them, cloneing the neighbouring skin.

Hope that helped or gave u some ideas. I have never followed a tut, so there are probably much easier way of doing it, i just came up with this for myself.

Thank you for having shared your technique Thilda :thumb: !

Now we're talking about one of my obsessions. I have been doing quite a bit of work on this for the past few weeks. I've tried verious techneques and found most of them usfull one way or another.
Poser5's face room is nice if you can find the right photos to use, I found them here http://www.3d.sk/index.php. Not saying the face room works great all the time, some times it can be a pain.
I do most of my work in Carrara5, but I make skin textures to use in C5 with Genetica 2.5; a seamless texture generator . I've acheaved my best results stacking mutiple texture in a shader; up to 6. Below is my first work in the face room, the body texture is a stack of 6 textures. But this is something I am always working on.

Thank you for the hint manleystanley :thumb: . I had to edit your link to Genetica becasue we don't allow links to commercial products on Posetteforever :hand:

Well I am a Genetica beta tester so...... :grin:
I had thought about exporting that model as a .obj, and saving the shader as a texture, just to see if it would work.
If your rendering with a program that allows you to stack textures in the shader, Grab a nice skin and a paint program. Darken it set the contrast way up, then save as a B texture. Start with the origenal texture again and lighten then shift the color a bit to magenta{pink}. save as C. Back to the origenal texture again. Darken it way down, set the contrast way up, the do a gausnian blur to soften the edges, save as D. Now stack them. Not sure about other programs but in Carrara you can use a noise to mix the textures. If your does, go back to the origenal texture, set up the contrast a bit and make it black and white, save as BW, now make it a negative and save as NEG. Have fun, I have spent hours doing just this to get a skin as realistic as posable.

I have been looking for this information for a long time, I was very surprised when I found it here.
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Thanks Amish for cleaning up :friends: I'll carry out the trash...

For a while :mmmh: I've been thinking that P4 figures need good textures, similar to M3/V3's.

I know there's the Vicky Buster texture for P4F, & a PosetteV3wwg version which can use V3's textures (hi-res or standard, I'm not sure)... but I think P4 figures need their own set, including P4 children :binky2: .

I'm not sure, but I think that it's ahjah's morph I came across for an African ethnic face for Posette (I think I saw it in Anywoman & Neaena as well), & when I first dialled it I thought "Wow, this African morph is so cool :clap: ! Thank's ahjah :thumbup: ! Awesome, I've always wanted an ethnic morph for P4 which improved on the base African character packaged with Poser 4 Pro Pack :yeah: !"

Then I realised, what's needed in addition to this lovely African morph is a realistic ethnic texture :icescream: .

I searched for some books on 3D texturing which I'd like to go through on my learning journey :pottytrain4: & I hope I'll be able to make realistic textures like some of my more talented & experienced counterparts.

I don't understand shaders yet (not their purpose nor how they function).

But some of the pictures in the gallery have really cool textures & bump maps & I'd like to produce some of own like that :einstein: .

Hi Rico
If you're looking for better textures for the P4 people you should have a look at April's Vanity.
There's a remapped Posette to take V2 skins and a P4male/ M2 remap, too. There are some decent free textures for them around, still.

:thumb: Thank you kindly all!

I see on Poser DAZ Freebies there is a list of V2 textures (only a few for M2) which can be used on April Vanity's Posette (& Dork - :nono: I don't like that name, the figure needs a better name).

So far, I've only read a little about UV Mapping, but I understand the basic concept (but not further details as yet). I haven't used UVMapper either yet.

Is there an application or script which can convert textures for one figure to another figure? E.g. convert a texture for V4 to a texture for Posette? I haven't seen anything like that yet.

If I recall correctly, there is a way in DAZ Studio, to use textures from M3, V3 on Genesis 1 figures (apparently if one has the M3, V3 shapes for Genesis 1, I think :mmmh: ).

At the moment, I think re-mapping a texture to a mesh remains a manual UV mapping process, but it would be convenient if someone could use a utility to simply point to one texture & say 'convert for use on another figure'.

IIRC, Rendo may still sell a $$ 'Mat Converter', but I don't even begin to understand its arcana, or if applicable here.
Sorry...

Thank you kindly Nik, I'll have a look :thumb:

Found one but it's limited to the following figures, so no go on that one:

"... has eight transformation options:
- Victoria 4.2 (Daz) to DAWN (Hivewire3D)
- Victoria 4.2 to ROXIE 1.1 (Poser/SmithMicro)
- Victoria 4.2 to Genesis 2 Female (Daz)
- Victoria 4.2 to Pauline (Poser/SmithMicro)
- Michael 4 to DUSK (Hivewire3D)
- Michael 4 to Paul (Poser/SmithMicro)
- Michael 4 to Genesis 2 Male without anatomy
- Michael 4 to Genesis 2 Male with anatomy


** ADD-ON PACKS sold separately
- Victoria 4 to Genesis 3 Female
- Michael 4 to Genesis 3 Male
- TT FEMALE Add-on Pack (includes four transformations: Dawn to V4, Gen2 Female to V4 & Gen2 Female to Gen3 Female and Pauline to V4)
- TT MALE Add-on Pack (includes five transformations: Dusk to M4, Gen2 Male to M4 & Gen2 Male to Gen3 Male without anatomy, G2M to G3M with anatomy and Paul to M4)"

I was reading this just now and I was struck by rico's plight a few years back, as it's a common problem for those approaching Posette for the first time, whether now or back in her heydays. I'll note right off I know nothing about modern versions of Poser, the program's latest capabilities these days, or current techniques for its best use. However, for any backward curmudgeons like myself who still want to insist on using Poser 4 decades after it was obsoleted, I'll say that most of what was written in this thread in the past strikes me as simply wrong, and as someone who's been using Poser 4 for going on thirty years now :dash: , I don't agree with much of it at all.

Poser 4 is capable of output which approaches photorealism, if you're interested in doing that. Our dear old friend pangor set an unfortunate tone for this whole discussion right off, however, by assuming that everyone loves photorealism and wants maximal doses of it at all times. Even though I now know how to get near-photorealistic results from Poser 4, I rarely undertake it-- because my own artistic and aesthetic goals rarely place much use or value on that result.

Setting that point aside, however, I'll add that if an artist still using Poser 4 desires photorealistic output, then the main advice given by our other old friends-- use photographs for the construction of texture maps-- is far more likely to frustrate and disappoint than bear fruit. Not that it can't be done-- but it likely can't be done adequately by a beginner just starting out with Poser 4's texture map system.

The output render of Poser 4 is a complex interaction between mesh models, texture maps, bump maps, and the lighting utilized in the scene. A texture map itself is far less important than how the texture map will interact with the lighting. Use of photographic texture maps on Posette and Dork is not likely to give satisfactory results until one advances to expert levels of scene design, light arrangement, and texture mapping.

The reason for this is that a texture map built from photographs will depict a texture which has already been lit at the time the reference photograph was taken-- and that real-world lighting will almost certainly be quite different from whatever you're using in your Poser 4 scene. A photographic texture will have highlights and shadows, as well as hidden seams and patterns, which are likely to become quite uncanny when applied to a Poser person in some uniquely lit scene under construction in Poser 4.

As bad or worse, the most common solution in which beginners are encouraged, in order to get around precisely this problem, is to apply ambient object lighting to their models, in order to even out texture distortions-- in other words, to deliberately wash out (obscure) the textures they've just worked so hard to make. It's a vicious circle that often leads to permanent dead ends and futility. I was in a rut for years with my Poser art, until I abandoned these common advices and struck out in my own direction. Real objects in the real world (other than light bulbs and televisions) don't emit light-- therefore, a Poser mesh object that emits light is automatically going to set back and detract from any desire to have a photorealistic output.

Sure, if you're an expert old hand with the program, you can build textures with photos, and make proper use of ambient object lighting, but neither of those are likely to be helpful to beginners.

As rico demonstrated, a common thing for beginners is to put faith in established tools like 'vickybuster' and P4NW/P4NMs modified to use higher resolution texture maps originally made for other models with higher polygon counts. However, these steps are unnecessary, and will actually hurt the beginner in the long run, by stunting development of the understanding and skills needed to obtain whatever output is desired from Poser 4. In matters of texture, I still use the standard and default old P4NW and P4NM as the basis of all my models and artwork, modified only in minor ways by some grouping to add a bit of detail in spots that are obscured by the standard texture maps of those models, such as the feet and genitalia.

You can also use very large texture maps on Posette and Dork, if desired, to add minute specks of high resolution detail; the standard texture templates that come with Poser 4 are misleading in that respect, with their meager 700px or 800px. Poser 4 will let you know immediately (by freezing or disappearing objects) if you try to load too many hi-res textures (2000px or more) at once; otherwise and until then, don't worry about it.

I hand-paint all my Posette and Dork textures, never making use of photographic references, and I'm pretty happy with the results I manage to obtain from Poser 4. I'll add that in speaking of texture maps, one should never ignore bump maps-- the two work together, and in my opinion bump maps are just as important as texture maps in controlling the output of Poser 4 to obtain desired results. Learn how to make both.

As an experiment and example, I made a few simple renders in Poser 4 to illustrate my points above.



On the left, we have a standard Posette with a texture map made by myself (which I call 'Iris'), which is furthermore not a particularly high resolution map-- it's only 1200 pixels square. This texture was made by painting in layers in an image editor. How much of a cheapskate am I? Not only do I still use Poser 4-- I still use JASC PSP) is a bitmap graphics editor for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system that was originally published by Minneapolis-based Jasc Software. In October 2004, Corel Corporation bought out Jasc software">paint shop pro 7, which went bust even before Poser 4!

There is also a fairly aggressive bump map applied to the Posette model, but we needn't consider that here. Apart from Victoria on the end, the first three images are exactly the same Posette in every respect, standing in the same spot and lit by the same lights, with only the exception of her texture map.

To the right of Iris is Posette with the once-famous 'Vickybuster' texture applied. With all due respect to our old friends Staale and SnowSultan, I think we can clearly see here-- Vickybuster just doesn't look very good. :redface: Recommending it to a beginner, and telling them 'this here is how Posette should look,' is simply bad artistic advice.

However and in fairness, I think those fellows would quickly reply that Posette looks bad here because she's not emitting any light from her body-- she's not ambiently lit. Probably they would say something like 'Well, you just have to use ambient object lighting, that's just what everyone does.' Except that I did not do that for the Iris render-- that first Posette is entirely illuminated by the lighting in the scene, and doesn't herself emit any ambient light at all. I think she looks pretty good for an otherwise unmodified Posette with a 1200px texture map.

To the right of those, the third Posette thus represents that conventional response. In #3 I've set Posette to emit ambient light. I think the results are again clear-- sure, the skin tone livened up a bit in general saturation, but at what cost? She has taken on the uncanny look of a cartoon figure. That's fine if you as an artist intend to make a cartoon style render, but let's recall the 'conventional wisdom' said we should take this approach precisely for the opposite reasons, namely to increase 'realism.' Whatever we mean by realism, clearly result #3 isn't that.

As a final comparison, on the far right we have Victoria 3, a high-polygon model contemporaneous with Posette herself. Sadly many people leapt into using V3 for many reasons that we should now admit, all these years later, were really just lack of technical knowledge and skill in making the best depictions and uses of Posette. I think we can see that at least in matters of texturing, V3 looks about the same as the Iris P4NW; if there's some advantage in that regard, it's certainly not any large or glaring advantage.

In fairness, I'll add that the texture applied to V3 in the render is something I made myself, by modifiying (in saturation and hue) a rather nice (but unfortunately nameless/unknown) old texture for V3 by Fryespirit-- which was a freebie texture, and therefore however nice, was probably not the apex of V3 texturing in Vicky 3's own commercial heyday. Also in fairness to Vicky, we should add that these are renders from a distance. On a close-up of the face, for example, Vicky's extra polygons do offer obvious and immediate benefits even to a beginner. For example, her eyes have an extra transparency layer (called her lacrimal), that automatically bestow her with a realism of the eyes that can really only ever be achieved for Posette by post-image editing, rather than in the raw output renders of Poser 4.

A good Poser 4 artist is not necessarily one who outputs 'photorealistic' renders-- unless that artist's explicit objective is to make a photorealistic render. Poser 4 is capable of output catering to all sorts of aesthetic sensibilities, of which 'photorealism' is but one sort. The output of Poser 4 is a bundle of complex interplay between model, texture map, and bump map as affected by the lighting used in the scene. These are the key points for the Poser 4 beginner to keep in mind at all times; first understanding and then mastering each of these four elements, as well as the interaction of each element with all the others, should be the primary goal of any beginner coming to Poser 4 and Posette.

We know our trusty ole Posette is indeed a good model, so that part is somewhat taken care of straight out of the box, but one must still learn how to pose her well, and surround her with good props and scenery. Texture and bump mapping, in my opinion, is probably the last thing a Poser 4 beginner should worry about; Posette (though Dork, not so much :sad: ) actually came with a fairly decent texture map if she's put into a scene that is properly lit. Thus I would say that in truth, learning how to use the Poser 4 lighting system is actually the second most important thing to learn, after figuring out how to pose the model. Certainly, textures are important, but even the greatest and most expert texture will look crummy if it's not properly lit in the scene.

All this is not meant as any slight to our many old friends :friends: who offered their best advice at the time in this discussion. After all, hindsight is 20/20. I just think that if someone new is going to start using P4 and Posette at this late date, they ought to get off to a good start and on the right foot by clearly understanding what they should be working on to level up their skills.

Re-reading my last post, I see I left out a key conclusion when discussing Victoria. We might certainly remap Posette's UV coordinates to make use of different texture maps, such as textures for Victoria 3. However, the only real benefit may be if we theorize that because Victoria 3 came out some years after Posette, then Victoria probably had more advanced and higher quality texture maps (which will therefore be better than P4NW textures dating from the prior Poser 4 era). That's a decent theory, though in practice it will often turn out to be incorrect.

On the other hand, remapping Posette's UV coordinates does not endow her model with the extra polygons nor the extra body parts possessed by Victoria. Supposing therefore that a remapped Posette will also enjoy these advantages is false; that may seem obvious to us at here at Posette Forever these days, but it's a point that a newcomer to Posette with little knowledge might not initially grasp. Leaving aside the experts and veterans category, who know precisely what they're doing as well as the reasons why, I think the most likely outcome of a newcomer to Posette trying to upgrade to a P4NW with Vicky-based UV coordinates would just be continued frustration.

Returning to discuss the famous 'Vickybuster' a bit more, Staale Loseth had a reputation for excellent P4NW textures in the latter part of the P4/Posette era. In my opinion 'Vickybuster' may have been his most famous contribution, but it was not his best. Looking through my archives, I found a much better texture by Staale cryptically called 'P4NG5V5.'

So let's take a look at example Poser 4 output on close-ups of the face. All three renders below were made using the same lights, with the model standing in the same spot in the studio. None of the models used any ambient lighting, which is to say, they do not emit light, and were illuminated entirely by the external lights placed in the Poser 4 studio.



On the left, we have a regular Posette using Staale's 3000px (!) P4NG5V5 high resolution texture map. It appears to be a photographic texture, or a texture map composed by slicing and dicing photographs of some unknown woman or women. The texture looks good aside from some innate ruddiness (rosacea on whoever posed for the reference photo?). Yet as with the Vickybuster considered last time, under the lighting conditions I used for the test render, the output would have been improved slightly if I had also applied a smidge of ambient lighting to Posette. The flip side of that, however, is that in low lighting conditions, this texture would look rather worse, which means more ambient object lighting would have to be used, which in turn would distort Posette more both by making her color saturation unnatural, and by deprecating shadows on her body. A vicious circle, with results too often evident in Poser 4 images that filled galleries in the Poser 4 era 25+ years ago.

If the P4NG5V5 texture is pretty good for close-ups of the face, I nonetheless wouldn't really recommend it for distance shots, as the body has severe tan lines from a one-piece swimsuit-- which is fine if you're into that look, but it wouldn't be suitable for many historical or fantasy-world types of characters.

In the middle is the P4NW 'Nigella' character I've often been using in recent album posts here. She has a hand-painted texture (humble at only 1200px) which did not use any photographic references at all (not even for the eyes). By my design, the texture features notably pale skin and is slightly jaundiced; obviously Posette's face structure has also been morphed to make this character. I'll add that though 'realism' wasn't my goal when making that character, as matters turn out she tends to indeed look realistic in key respects for distance renders, even under a wide variety of studio lighting conditions.

As a final comparison, on the right we have standard Victoria 3 with a nameless Fryespirit freebie texture at relatively standard resolution for that model (face map 1500 x 1000 px). As with the Posette on the left using Staale's texture, I think we can see that Vickie would have benefitted here if she used a bit of ambient object lighting (which, as noted several times, would also make her look a bit more cartoonish in color saturation and in lack of shadows).

The main texturing benefits of V3 are on display here, but none of them are benefits that would transfer to a P4NW remapped to use this same V3 texture. Namely, we see that because of V3's extra body parts associated with the eyes, Posette can't really compete with Vicky in the matter of 'realistic eyes' (unless we do additional post-work, which I did not for these examples). Another subtler thing we can see is that because of Vicky's many extra polygons, her bump map is applied in a better way, giving her skin a thicker and more realistic appearance.

The main points, then, are that Posette can look good in close-ups using either photograph-based textures (left) or hand-painted textures (middle) made by a competent texturer. In either case, a standard Posette (a Posette with her original UV coordinates) can also compete just fine against Victoria 3 in aesthetics, even on close-up shots, despite V3's more advanced architecture as a model.