Adding a tattoo design, NOT L.I.E.
RAMWolff
Posts: 10,365
Hi,
I'm adding one more option to a make character I'm making. I wanted to add a tattoo design, got that all ready to go. Fired up ZBrush, I'm not used to using Polypaint in ZBrush, I'm old school Photoshop user. I watched a few video tuts and got the gist of this. When I was through apparently all I had to do was under the Tools> Texture Map> New From Polypaint. Well all that happens is that the original skin texture I had created was loaded back and the tattoo that I was so happy with went **POOF**. Control Z brought it back so I'm OK for now. So I looked over the tutorials again, nope, I was going about it correctly. So wondering if this newest upgrade of ZBrush have any known bugs like this? Or has the technique changed?
In any case if there is another way to add in a tattoo without resorting to LIE, which I don't like using at all, I'd appreciate it. I have 3DCoat and even Substance Painter but not really gotten my feet wet in that one yet. I thought I had the "Tattoo" program that DAZ sold a while back but apparently I don't. The tattoo will go down the center of the back so it's not like I can just choose some other place as THAT'S where I want it to go.
MANY MANY years back I was at the Castro Street Fair up in San Francisco and this hot, muscle dude had this beautiful tattoo on his back and I asked to take a picture of it. SO it's that tattoo in all it's glory after some clean up in Photoshop and I really want that to be the first go at applying a tattoo to a character.
Let me know what you suggest and I'll see if I can do it.
Thank you,
Richard
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Comments
So far as I know it's LIE (which lets it be used on any figure - with some reservations!), or it's a fundamental part of the skin texture so you'd, perhaps, have multiple skin texture options, one for inked, one for non-inked (I've seen a quite a few with just the areas with ink being 'duplicated')
Wondering if this is still a viable solution: https://www.daz3d.com/decalmaster ; Not sure but if so will it work with Windows 10?
For Iray, a decal would be an option.
Hmmm, OK but I want to have this on the maps permanently. So does the Decal program work with the current build of DS or if DS isn't needed will it work with Windows 10?
The decal option is a feature of Iray itself.
Yes, I understand that but I don't think there is a way to export maps from within DAZ Studio so that leaves me with external programs. I got it mostly figured out. I fired up 3D Coat and got something I can work with. I was hoping to use the colored version of the tattoo but using the Stencil import I got a black and white and fixed the torso map in PS and now onto painting it up.
So interested in checking out the Decal mode. I created a parented one to Dusk. Not showing up regardless of how many of the images I cram into each drop down image nodes. So I'm apparently doing something wrong unless this doesn't support figures that are non DAZ figures?
...keep getting a 404 error on the link.
One other way which granted would be a bit of a pain, would be to open the skin texture in Photoshop or whatever 2D programme you use, overlay the tattoo directly onto the skin map, save it with a different name, then apply it to the character in the surfaces tab. This probably will not work with other skin resources like SBP or Beautiful Skins.
I tried it all. Nothing is working inside of DAZ Studio. Even tried the hated LIE... slowest most annoying feature in DAZ Studio as far as I'm concerned and there is NO WAY to get something nicely going over seams using that joke of a tool. It would be nice if DAZ3D, instead of making new toys all the time, actually took the time to properly write out how toos and vid tutorials on the ones already present. Couldn't get the stupid decal thing to work properly either since I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING ON IT IN THE DATA BASE, THANKS FOR NOTHING DAZ! Sheesh. I think the current PDF is from version 4.5 MAYBE so none of the new tools or updated tools are covered. LAME! So the only bit of this I find I'm getting anywhere with this is 3DCoat. I guess I'll go to their forums but they are their own little click there so help is usually slow coming if at all.
Have you tried a Geometry shell ?
I PM'd you, RAM
You can do it in Substance Painter via projection painting. SP can't natively paint across texture sets, but you can get a seamless tattoo going with some trickery. http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2534503/#Comment_2534503
Just be sure to do it on it's own layer that you can just copy/paste to each texture set you need it to span across.
I have no experience with 3D Coat, I've tried the trial before and I just couldn't get on with it's interface. I do most my stuff in Substance Painter, but will crack open Mudbox when needed to go across seams easily.
Thank you so much Vaskania! I do have Substance Painter but not the newest one, YET! I'll check it out!
LIE is a tool for layering images - it isn't a UV projection tool, which is what is needed to get a flat image to bridge across the seams. You can create a suitable image using exactly the same tools as you use to add the atattoo seamlessly to the base maps, just don't merge the layers but save it and its opacity mask as separate images.
I made a video tutorial a few years ago addressing how to use the warp feature (in Corel Paintshop, but the basics should transfer to Photoshop, which also has a warp feature) to put a tattoo across seams. The vid is not by any stretch of the imagination professional, but you may find it helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdK3ygz76Pc
Thanks Richard and Melissa!
Decal Master would have worked (it runs, if a bit flakey in WIn 7) if it had been fro Poser-style figures as it can onby load .cr2 type stuff. And update of the program (to 64-bit and loading figfures via .duf) woudl be rather good!
Because you have Substance Painter, you're probably all fixed up. For anyone else:
Blender will do projection painting, so you don't have to shell out for the feature.
If you can get a tattoo to work via LIE, I have heard that DAZ Studio has to generate baked temporary files which combine each texture's layered images for rendering. One could learn where to find those baked files, and copy them to the user library, then use the Surfaces editor to swap out textures.
Just don't forget where the skins came from originally; you cannot sell characters whose skins you've made by baking LIEs onto skins which aren't Merchant Resources.
I'm curious why some folks don't seem to like the LIE...
I thought it is pretty cool, especially for a free app like D|S. I mean, yeah, if you need to put a tattoo in a specific location on a skin it can get really difficult to line up the placement, especially if it goes across different UV maps. And yeah, having a 3D paint app to do it would be awesome (is there something like that, which would allow you to stamp an alpha'd image on a character in 3D?). But just having a quick way to layer images for your surfaces/materials is pretty cool.
And then there's Shader Mixer, which I haven't really played with but looks amazing with the node based material editing, a lot like Blender.
Using LIE causes very long loading times. Everytime you load the scene, the character, ... LIE needs a long time to recreate your setting.
On a different thread I demonstrated how to use the diffuse overlay for this job.
--> https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/134466/lie-and-custom-tattoos (almost in the middle)
L.I.E. is pretty cool. However, it takes noticiably longer to load an option that uses L.I.E. That's fine if you're creating your own one-off changes for a scene. But not so much for presets on a product. I'm working on a scene right now where the figure's makeup is applied via L.I.E. Great looking stuff, but slow, relatively speaking. It makes perfect sense to me a product developer would want to use an optional skin texture for tattoos. For the user, it's still just a Preset.
Inkubo,
I saw you mentioned doing projection painting in Blender on a DAZ character. Are you using McjTeleblender to export/import the character and materials to Blender, or is there a better way? And is it updated to transfer Iray materials?
If you are just using projection painting to generate a tattoo warped and split to fit the UVs then there's no need for a fancy bridge, just import an OBJ exported from DS (using the desired UVs), paint, and save the image (and mask) for application - with LIE, with the Diffuse Overlay, or for adding to the base map in an image editor.
Oh okay, I was just hoping for a way to bring the character into Blender with all the textures/materials so all you need to do is make a brush with your tattoo and just stamp it where you want it. Without that I guess you need to load and apply each texture (torso, legs, etc.) as needed inside Blender. And since I'm lazy I want everything done for me
I'm sure you can apply the maps to the figure, if you want to paint directly on them - but given the choice I will always suggest the route that leaves you with separate fiels you can combine (in DS or an editor) as it allows for second thoughts.
I haven't done this, but I think Richard's suggestion is probably best, rather than going through the trouble of converting the whole character to Blender and then trying to convert back. It seems to me it would be way easier to just make the tattoo and bring it into DAZ.
Richard, to make sure I understand your instructions: you mean to export the character as an OBJ and then find the UVs and use projection painting or whatever to replace whatever content is there with the tattoo, making sure to use an alpha mask so all the stuff that's not part of the tattoo will be invisible. Then save your images--since Blender has this crazy thing where if you only save your Blender file, work on the images can be lost--and then DON'T bother to reimport the OBJ, just use just the tattoo image(s) as LIE layers.
Yes, I'm not familiar with Blender to give exact steps but that is what I was thinking - the OBJ is not needed once the painting is done.
https://www.daz3d.com/lie-baker
This will enable you to export the tattoo 'baked' onto the figures Torso map. You could then take the map into PS or Gimp( any 2D app that works with layers will do) where you could layer up the Tattoo map and the default Torso to blend the tattoo into the skin.
LIE will allow you to position the .png of the tattoo very accurately before you 'bake' it down to the torso map.
I'm still scratching my head trying to figure how to accomplish this....
If you export your character from D|S as OBJ, and turn off groups so it comes in to Blender as a single object, it also brings the UV maps. The way I know this is to select your character in Blender, go into Edit mode, then open the UV/Image Editor and you'll see all of the UV maps laid out side by side. Also, if you select the Materials tab you'll see all the associated Materials there, and you can select/deselect the mesh associated with each Material.
Now apparently what's not there are the individual texture images corresponding to each UV map. And all the UV maps are laid out side by side, apparently they came in as a single BIG UV map or something.
Now all of this really isn't necessary if you're just painting a new layer on a single map, but if you're, for example, trying to apply a tattoo which spans multiple UV maps it seems the only/best way to do it is to texture paint on the 3D object, rather than doing it in PS or Gimp and trying to align the image across two maps, which takes forever and often you can't get it lined up exactly.
And if a single map is unwrapped, it may be tough to line up your tattoo without a lot of trial and error.
Maybe I'm missing something simple here...
Can Blender paint to multiple maps at once? If not then yes, you would be somewhat limited on placing a tattoo that spanned maps but otherwise just assign new, empty, maps to the surfaces to be affected, use the 3D paint to apply your tattoo, and save out the maps/masks to get an overlay.