Changing clothing colors and textures

alex_bb8aa5da

What is the most efficient way to change clothing color/texture? I have the time soldier outfit and the textures for it (https://www.daz3d.com/time-soldier-outfit-textures) , but would like to change the color scheme. Maybe make the light blue one a richer blue. Is this best done by 

1. Opening the map material in photoshop and fiddling with the colors and textures there, then loading a new map? or

2. Somehow using all those shaders I keep purchasing

It need for the clothing to maintain its creases and all that, which I think is whats called bump map?

Currious minds want to know! :)

 

Kitsumo

If you just want to make it a richer shade of blue, Photoshop is best for that. Loading a new shader might change the creases like you said.

LosingSignal

But if you use shaders, you can do fun things... like make your entire outfit out of blood.

It looks like most of the outfit's creases and embellishments are made from a normal map and bump map, so yeah, if you just use a straight shader preset, you'll lose that.    On the blood shader above, though, I just put the image for the normal map back in.  The preset didn't give me an option for the bump map, but you can still see everything pretty well.  You wouldn't have any changing colors on those embellishments, especially right under the buttons and chest straps, though, so that would, imo, make for a less interesting outfit.  If you're comfortable with Photoshop, that sounds like the most effective way to get a nice image at the end.

andya_b341b7c5f5

Simple color changes like making deeper or darker can be done in the Surfaces tab of the Parameters pane.  Use the Base Color.  Click on the color bar and adjust the color as desired.  If there is a thumbnail at the left end of the Base Color then you already have an image map in that channel and the colors from that will be mixed with the color from the color bar.  You can remove the image map by clicking on the thumbnail and choosing 'None' from the dropdown list.

alex_bb8aa5da

<< On the blood shader above, though, I just put the image for the normal map back in.  >>

Ok, first THAT IS SOOOOOO FREAKY!!!  i would never have had that idea! love it.  Second, what does your sentence above, about "put image for the normal maps back in" mean? :)

alex_bb8aa5da

@andya - that sounds awesome for small adjustments. I'm not full understanding how this works though - I thought the colors came from the little jpg that I can edit in photoshop. What does the base color have to do with anything? Should I always remove the image map from the base color?  Say I want to make the Time Solder black outfit be a rich dark blue instead of black.

LosingSignal

alex_bb8aa5da said:

<< On the blood shader above, though, I just put the image for the normal map back in.  >>

Ok, first THAT IS SOOOOOO FREAKY!!!  i would never have had that idea! love it. 

When the first division of Time Soldiers left through the wormhole generator known as the Star Portal for the distant future, their families cheered them on.  When they returned... changed... the cheers stopped. 

alex_bb8aa5da said:

Second, what does your sentence above, about "put image for the normal maps back in" mean? :)

The normal maps, bump maps, and displacement maps are jpeg files that are basically just like the "texture" jpegs that provide the colors of an object.  The difference is that those three maps provide colors that translate to height or depth that the object is changed, as well as where.  When I applied the blood shader, the shader removed the image that served as the normal map (and removed the bump map option entirely), since a liquid like blood wouldn't really need it.  Fixing the missing normal map is pretty easy.  Before applying the shader, ideally, go to the normal map or bump map slider.  Hover over the little square to the left of the slider.  That should give you the file location of the map and a larger version of the picture.  Remember the file name (or write it down, I guess), then apply the shader.  Go back to the now empty left hand square of the Normal Map property.  The slider itself will be gone, but don't worry about that.  Click the square that now has a down arrow on it and look on the file list that appears for the name of the original normal map.  The slider will reappear (probably automatically at full strength) and you'll be in business.  You'll use the same process to load a texture map that you've edited in Photoshop, just under a different property (Base Color or Diffuse Overlay or whatever).