Add a glittery or sparkly effect to skin texture?
computersandmore
Posts: 131
in The Commons
It's for an alien I'm working on. I've got the glittering shaders already, but I'm not wanting to "replace" the figure's skin with a shader, I'd like to keep the current skin (Victoria 6 HD) but just add the glittering shader on top of it. Is that even possible? I know that Daz has a "shader mixer" but I've played around with it and I just cannot make sense of it.
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Iray or 3DL?
Sorry, 3DL.
So there is no way to "layer" a shader on top of the skin?
What skin shader is being used? If it's the DAZ Default Sahder or the AoA SSS Shader you could import it into Shader Mixer and create a glitter layer on top of it, if not then not without converting to one of those shaders or creating a custom shader of your own.
You can layer a shader over the existing skins settings if you think outside of the box a little.
Create a Geometry Shell of the figure, then apply whatever 'glitter' shader you want to use to the shell. Then all you have to do is play with it's opacity until you are happy with the results.
Selct your figure, go to Create / New Goemerty Shell
Under the Parameters Tab, you can select what parts of the shell are visible and how far away from the parent figure it is offset.
Hope this helps.
edit: this is RawArt's Alien, with Fisty's Sparkles for Daz Studio applied to the Geoshell
http://www.daz3d.com/sparkles-for-studio
Sorry, it's actually the Amalthea character that I'm using as a base. I have no idea how to know what shader is being used for her. I know how to go into surfaces and change shaders for each part of the model but I don't know where to find that info. Likewise I don't know how to "load" a shader into the shader mixer...the thing just makes no sense. It's two little panels floating apart from each other but unlike every other 3D software I've used none of the controls seem logical.
Okay, I'm just not getting the shader mixer. I tried dragging Amalthea's base mat into the mixer...nothing. It won't let me. How are you supposed to mix two things when you can't even get them in there?
I'd say stay away from the shader mixer.. Tim Bale's solution will work easily.
I just through this together. (I don't have a glitter shader, so I just grabbed something desinged for the super suit to use as an example.)
Edit: And I see Tim has added a picture example that's likely much closer to what you're wanting to do :)
Yep, I'm playing with the geometry shell right now.
Another quick question. How would I go about simply lightening up a character's skin? Basically go from a warm human "pink" to a more pale and less saturated version? Would the easiest thing be to just edit the mats in Photoshop?
you can adjust the base mats in Photoshop, or you can use the Layered Image Editor and apply a semi-opaque layer over the existing skin.
To get to the Layered Image Editor, go to the Surface Tab and look at the little icon where your Diffuse Texture is located. You'll see a little drop down arrow on the picture. Click that and you should see "Layered Image Editor" You can add as many layers as you want or need, play with the opacity and layering options to get the result you want.
okay, the geometry shell worked...except that it leaves a visible "aura" around the body. that's not going to work :(
Do you have a transparency map on the geometry shell to mask out everything but the sparkles?
if you apply a transmapped "glitter" image, it shouldn't leave a fully visible aura
none of the glitter shaders are transparent, they all have a color to them, so I used white.
it's these shaders:
http://www.daz3d.com/glittering-shaders
I just know that I have an alien race that has pale, glittery skin, and I need to find a way to accomplish that. the geometry shell almost works, but with no way to tell it what to map out I don't know if that will ever work.
Take a look at the folder that contains the textures and see if there are any black and white versions. If not, you may have to create one to use as a transparancy map.
Do you own the Genesis Supersuit? That comes with a glitter map you could use as a trans map.
yeah I've got the supersuit. so you're saying it has a transparency map? would I just use that in the opacity map slot of the glitter shader? wouldn't that be unpredictable though, as the glitter shader's "glitter" wouldn't match up with the "glitter" from the supersuit map.
sorry for the dumb questions. I'm coming from 3ds Max, where you can just add in sub-maps to just about anything and blend them super easy.
I know that I could just bring the maps into Photoshop and add in a "sparkle" layer but it wouldn't look right. they wouldn't actually "sparkle" like they're supposed to since they'd just be pixels on a bitmap.
No worries, happy to try and explain.
Under the Surfaces tab, you'll see Opacity Strength with a slider from 0 to 100%
If you add a black and white image to this (You'll see the grey box to the left with the drop down arrow, like I explained for the layered image editor) what will happen is all the black areas of the image won't show up, but the white areas will.
Scroll down further on the Surfaces tab and you'll see Tiling options. That will allow the map to repeat.
Try using LDSnowyTran.jpg as your trans map and see if you like it. Runtime\Textures\LuneDesigns
will try and report back in a few minutes. thanks.
the problem I'm running into is that I still am getting the "halo" appearance of the geometry shell. the opacity map, of course, does not line up perfectly with the "specks" of glitter.
just amazed it's this difficult to add a glitter effect to skin
You're almost there. Take that same image you are using for the trans map and apply it to all places you can apply an image - specular color and strength, diffuse, etc. It should get rid of the halo effect.
that did not do it. looks even worse. it looked best with just the glitter shader applied and set to 25% opacity...but it leaves the halo around the edges.
which shader are you using? I used the one that is in the FX folder under Shaders/Supersuit. Just changed the color to white and made sure opacity was at 100%
oh, no. I'm still using the glitter shader. I didn't realize you'd switched over to using a different shader.
do you have an image of how yours came out? because I think I just "might" be onto something on this end.
Okay, here's what I did:
1. Apply the white glittering shader to a body part (for instance the face).
2. Fill the diffuse map slots on the new material with the original maps and set them to 100%
3. Tweak the colors for Diffuse 1 and Diffuse 2 (255,199,170 in Diffuse 1, 255,222,205 in Diffuse 2)
4. Tweak the glitter settings of the shader to taste
So basically what I did was to replace the body's original shader with the new glitter shader, but then add the original map files back on top of that.
Here's how mine looks with a daytime lighting rig by Lantios in 3DL:
here we go. first decent scene render with the character.
If you get a halo with a geometry shell, check the offset?