Texturing
VIArts
Posts: 1,523
in The Commons
Well, I was trying to make my own texture for my superhero. I have the diffuse map the way I want it, but it's just colors. I don't really know how to paint it so it looks like real material -- either spandex or lather -- instead of just color. Do you paint it on the base map or a bump?
Or, if I get iray fabric shader, can I just simply put my just-colors map in the base color channel and go voila?
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You may be best off picking up a shader set and modifying the colors as needed. Many of the fabric shader sets will contain various texture and matalic / gloss options that will help with the spandex / leather look. In particular for your use case you may want to take a look at these:
That last one in particular is my "go to" when I want to add a leather look to something.
I have all three of those thanks to sales. But, aww man, I wish PAs would put some kinda descriptive names for the visually challenged artists like me, like "blue leather" instead of "ABC001, look at the thumbnail and figure it out".
So, do you mind helping this visually challenged artist? I'm not sure which is spandex or leather and would look good with my base color map
If it were me, I would make the dark parts the spandex fabric, the light purple parts leather, and the aqua parts a different shade of the same leather (or possibly a contrasting color depending on the look you're going for).
Yeah, but I just meant I can't tel fabrics apart by looking at the thumbnails of the shaders and the filenames aren't helping. So I wondered if you or someone could point out the filenamses from DG Iray Action Fabrics that's spandex/leather?
And..my colors share mat zones. How wud i keep the fabrics i their own color?
yeah, just had a look at the DG Iray Action Fabrics and the readme, pretty confusing naming of the various shaders for sure. looks like mostly metal shaders from the naming.
If the above image in DS is of a special texture you developed and it covers multiple mat zones, you can only apply a shader to the whole thing since shaders just cover the material zone and not the specific areas of a texture. If you want specific materials on certain parts of the texture, you will have to develop specific textures for those affects, shaders won't help much.
What did I do now? Named stuff weirdly? Yeah, I probably did. I can decode the file names for you. Wow, Action Fabrics was quite a few years ago. I remember lookng at many pictures of Spiderman and Superman to see how their modern costumes looked. OK. We are looking for ones that would be spandex? See screen shot below. I'll decode it for you. DGIray AF Pat 01 C01 Metal = DGIray Action Fabrics Pattern 01 Color 01 Metallic. DGIray AF Pat01 C01 = DGIray Action Fabrics Pattern 01 Color 01 non metallic. The non metallic would be the more spandex looking one, or whatever high tech costume material Stark is putting out these days. Please keep in mind Iray was new to the PAs at that time and we all had a bit of a learning curve. I know I was trying to see how many effects I could make with the minimum amount of texture maps. Looking at those presets now, I see that I made it so you can quick change the color, meaning pick the color you want in the Base Color, Translucency Color, etc. I was trying to keep the amount of presets to a minimum since you can grab whatever color you want. I'd do the whole thing differently now, but it is what is.
Some of the patterns lent themselves to be lace or mesh, so I did those when it seemed appropriate.
@MAJourney, your comment is noted about color names being more descriptive. I have to note though that what I think is orange, you might think is pink or red, so we have to work around that built in layer of subjectivity.
MAJourney, what suit is that you are using? Link to product please? You would want to have the suit selected in the scene tab like you have as shown, and then move to the surfaces tab and expand the suit to see the different material zones as defined by the modeller. You can change each material zone to be something different.
Depending on how it looks, you could apply a similar looking shader and then use your custom texture in the base color. You could also use a variety of software to generate a bump/spec/normal map from your custom texture. You could use a plugin for GIMP or there are some sites online that can do this. Like this one http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/ You could add a small amount of noise to a bump map to get more of a texture.
@DestinysGarden I love your shader packs, but yeah, sometimes they can be a bit confusing. My rule is to keep it simple and memorable. Even if you call a color orange and I don't agree its orange, at least the name is something I can remember, rather than a long name with a generated number that I'll never remember. Like in this set, there is no need for "DGIray AF" in every name. Take that out. So maybe "Metal Green Hex Pat" Or "Metal Green Tri Pat", something like that. Try to avoid using numbers, even silly and illogical names can be both fun and memorable for the user. You certainly aren't the only one, there are pose and expression packs with nothing but numbers and those drive my crazy.
There is a need for it. The name of the product is supposed to be on every preset.
+100
We have to name the set with the base name prefix so it shows up properly in Smart Content. We are getting better about that after many years of practise. Without the base name prefix in the presets you end up with 20 presets called Blonde 03 with no idea which hair they are supposed to apply to, etc.
Thanks so much for the kind words Outrider42 and JonnyRay
Quite welcome DG. I think I have all your shader products, always a worthwhile purchase!
Another note on the naming is if (like me) you con't like using Smart Content, it also helps to have the names in the presets if you're using Categories. I have SOOOO many Iray fabric shaders that I have them categorized so I don't have to browse through the product folders.
The other advantage is that I can add presets to multiple categories. So for fabric, I might have categories by the main color and other categories by patterns and another by fabric type with the same shader preset marked in all 3 of them.
@DestinysGarden, I'm using this suit: https://www.daz3d.com/guardian-for-genesis-3-female-super-bodysuit It's pretty much te original bodysuit with different mat zones. I exported those zones as separates pieces of UV t help e get the look I wanted using Photoshop, but some angles were too sharp for me or some aren't in the shape i wanted, like this one:
So if I wanted black to be spandex and blues to be leather, I think I'd haves to use two suits -- one transmapping out black, the other blues and apply respective shaders. but I'm not sure that'd be idaol.
On the naming, you're right people will perceive things differently (remember laurel and yanny? lol), but everything is created with a specific intent, right? i'd name my stuff after that.
Thanks for the decode BTW
Have you tried using the Geometry Editor tool to give it material zones? Here's a great tutorial by Fixmypcmike that shows how to add material zones to an object via Daz Studio's Geometry Editor Tool: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/42088/tutorial-adding-surfaces-in-ds-with-the-geometry-editor-tool/p1
That's nifty! If only my texture didn't have areas where polys share colors... -_-
Looks like i'm stuck making my own fugly bump map. Doesn't seem too hard though. Leather can be created rsing the Stained Glass filter. Spandex, I have noooooooo clue. I can't really see what it looks like, 'cause im half-blind and I haven't found a specific tut.
Speaking of superhero outfits, anyone ever wonder how v some like Spidey even get their outfits on? I can't see any zippers or laces Spideys tighties