SoS - Fixing a texture

chris the stranger

I want to use the Ranger Tunic texture from the Striker of Shadows Outfit Textures set.  Unfortunately, the tunic features a very noticeable repeating pattern in the texture, due to the placement of a few blood splotches.  It's not immediately discernible in the promo images, perhaps because of all the different maps involved.  Due to reasons, I can only use the Diffuse, Specular and Bump maps for my project.  As seen in the attachments, the repetition is immediately noticeable, and this is before I adjust the coloring to make the outfit match the cartoonish aesthetic (Which makes the problem worse xD)

Here are a few things I've tried:

• Procedurally generating my own diamond-stitched pattern using Genetica.  Even though it looks like the pattern follows a perfectly square grid in the UV image, I couldn't get something that lined up.  Also, don't want to even think about trying make that trim look like it naturally overlays a new pattern. Finally, I don't have the Pro edition of Genetica that lets me work with UV Maps.
• Tried coming up with a histogram layer adjustment that darkened everything within the diamonds to the point where the blood drips and leather fabric are indistinguishable to the eye, while leaving (most of) the stitches behind.  But no amount of layer property fidgeting allowed me to clearly display the stitches over the new base color.  Maybe someone with moreimage editing skills could offer some advice.
• Black and white threshold.  Keeps all stitches, but turns the inner fabric into a lot of noise.  I couldn't simply flood-fill the noise away, painting over each square would have been necessary.  When the podcast I started came to a close, and I realized I wasn't even halfway done, I decided this would not be the way to go.
• Doing a HSB adjustment of the separate RGB channels, to see if I could match up the darker, discolored splotches with the tone and brightness of the rest of the armor.
• Contacted Daz Help to see if there was a way to get in touch with the Pa and get a base version of the texture that doesn't feature said pattern.  They weren't helpful in this instance.

I've never tried contacting a PA directly (I honestly don't know how in some cases).  I've seen people @ them before in threads, but perhaps I'm far too timid to try this myself.  I don't want to be imposing to the creators, who probably have their plates full with other tasks; at this point, it would be so much easier if I could obtain a version of the texture where 'Layer: blood decals' is set to invisible.  But if that's not feasible, then does anyone have any advice on how I could fix this?

sriesch

Could you use your image editor to select a single square that doesn't have the stains, then use that as a brush to stamp over the top of each of the squares that has a stain? 

chris the stranger

I don't think I can do that in Paintshop Pro.  I thought about using the CLone Brush tool, but even though that pattern looks like a square grid..it warps ever so slightly to follow the topography of the UVs.

Edit: there'd probably also be a discrepancy between the changes I make to the diffuse, and the bump/specular maps.