Does anyone know of a Good Dark Elf (Drow) Texture for G8F?
TraceSL
Posts: 519
in The Commons
Looking for a good Dark Elf texture for a drow, more of the black skin veriation? The ones I have seen do not work well with lights, changeing too much.
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This might be the best to give you control over the exact colour you're looking for:
https://www.daz3d.com/fantasy-skins-for-genesis-8
https://www.daz3d.com/dokkalfar-the-dark-elf-for-genesis-8-female
yes, it does look to be best
it is okay but a dark tan/brown look
There's also Nylyssa.
Also there is Aunrae
or Dark Elves
I just noticed you said for Geneisis 8F. The first one will work but the 2nd one is for Genesis 2F
I have a tutorial on how to easily customize and change the color of skins in Daz. You could easily make a Drow using already existing skins you own.
My tutorial: https://mooncraftrp.com/index.php/2020/10/31/tutorial-custom-skin-colors-in-daz/
This is how I do it
Did you do all the surfaces because theres a rather obvious seam between the face and head.
When hair is applied you will not see that seem image from the back here
I would be concerned that if there's one seam then something in the settings isn't correct and seams will appear elsewhere.
Perhaps a make-up thing? It happens to me occasionally when I apply some make-up settings after making changes to make-up after adjusting skin specularity/translucency settings. Repeating the changes after applying usually fixes the problem.
Try changing the base (and other colours) of a texture you like, just be sure to select all the different parts: legs, torso etc
The trouble with that is, using a darker colour on the base will hide many of the skins details, its better to use the other settings, Transluncency, Reflection tint and top colour.
Thats what I did here using Rawarts dark elf as the base is already dark, the blue colouring comes more from the lighting
There is something I don't understand about DS shading system. In other 3D software, the opacity of the diffuse map (or any channel, for that matter) can be set. If you set to full opacity, the map overrides the underlying color. Then, you can reduce the opacity of the diffuse map and an underlying color will become more visible, and it becomes an extra control mechanism. That's apparently not the way it works in DS, as there seems to be no method to control the diffuse map's opacity so that it overrides the underlying color.
Also, skin detail can be enhanced and preserved by moving the perceived detail as maps to specular, bump, normal and and reflection channels. I see that in a lot of skin textures; but again, there should be map opacity controls for fine tuning in combination with an underlying value. Otherwise, we're doing layered renders and controlling that in post. DS does not seem to have built-in tools for isolating the effect of a particular channel (ie bump, specular, reflection). I think Dreamlight sells tools for that. Naturally, color variations should live in the diffuse channel.
I have not spent enough time playing with the settings with respect to skin to say anything definitive for DS. But this is a good topic. I think Mooncraft's tutorial is pretty cool (Thanks for that!) and Scorpio's suggestion about lighting has a lot of merit!
Nylissa is great! Yes, excellent solution for drow and drow skin :)
Sweet - will give this a try
this is a fantastic color for them
A shader could be set up to vary the opacity of the map over the base colour, rather than just multiplying them - indeed, you could do it manually with Shader Mixer (make the base layer a solid colour, add a map as a new layer and vary its opacity and blend mode).
Good to know. Thank you. Can I apply the new shader to my existing textures? Would it behave like a converter or is there more to it?
This is also how I've done it too.
One caveat - if you use things like LIE shaders, that gets applied to it as well. What I have done to get around it is to take the RGB values, then subtract them from each RGB level in Photoshop. That should net you the same result rendering, but LIE makeups and textures applied should look normal.
If you created a full new shader it would replace the existing shader, carrying over the previous values would at least require using matchning names, but in the past (as I recall) Shader Mixer shader presets would not preserve maps even if told to (I haven't tried for a long time, though). Using LIE would just be using a different map, in effect, so you could save a preset to apply just that map and it wouldn't disturb anything else (but it would take a script to update it to use the current base map/colour - unless you could achieve the desired result with the flat colour layered on top of the map, in which case a layered image preset would do the job of preserving the current map)..
Ok. Thanks again, Richard! I will give this a spin. Could be very exciting! Happy Thanksgiving, too.
The last time I had seams on a model was due to the normal maps not being seamless and set to different values.
I admit that I'm a purist and "Dark Elf" has a very specific meaning for me, but this may be the first example I have ever seen that looks like what a Drow should... very nice indeed, @scorpio You've inspired me to try in Cycles.
Rather than changing the base colour in the material settings, changing the "SSS Reflectance Tint" can really make some dramatic changes to a texture colour without losing as much detail.
Just be careful...even subtle changes can bring a big effect.
Haven't tried it myself, but this may help: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/freestuff/full-body-diffuse-overlay-colors/83316
Daio's Drow skins were my go to when I wanted to make Drow, only problem is she has not made a Drow skin since V4 days, though if you can find a way to convert them they would probably work. They are old as heck, but I have never seen another come even close to straight black.