How to create skins and more?
amyw12
Posts: 63
i like using premade skins that come with characters and using skinbuilder to touch up on them, but the time has come where I’d like to start making my own skin textures, eyes, teeth etc - you get the drill - for my own characters.
does anyone know of good tutorials for learning this? Also which programs to use? Would also love to hear your tips as well.
also if anyone knows how I can achieve the level of detail seen in the Fiore for Genesis 8 Male figure’s Skin, That would be appreciated
thanks kindly
Post edited by amyw12 on
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I'd try this https://www.daz3d.com/skin-builder-8-for-genesis-8-females to start; it will allow you to get the feel for creating your own from a Studio perspective, and would be helpful later on - should you continue with broadening your skills.
I'd look at merchant resources available here and elsewhere too.
Generally the best results are from using photo references; one also needs both the tools and skills to use the references effectively. Combing merchant resources and photo references is also very effective. For practice, there is no reason why you shouldn't start by using existing textures - as long as you're not sharing them, I doubt there would be an issue.
this was pointed out to me
https://www.daz3d.com/perfectly-imperfect-skin-and-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8-female
Awesome, thanks guys. Know any resources for Genesis 8 Males?
https://www.daz3d.com/authentic-skin-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8-male
https://www.daz3d.com/versatile-skin-texture-merchant-resource-for-genesis-3-and-8-male
https://www.daz3d.com/dark-skin-texture-merchant-resource-for-genesis-3-and-8-male
https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-3-and-8-males-texture-merchant-resource
https://www.daz3d.com/project-eyeray-next-gen-and-merchant-resource-for-genesis-8
I don't own any of them except the Project EYEray one, so I can't vouch for if they are good or not, but judging by the promos they look like they're pretty good and would be a good starting off point for creating your skin textures. :) Keep in mind that you'll need to modify them fairly heavily if you want to use the MR skins with a character that you plan on selling.
Thanks!
Which of these products would work for a 8.1 female?
Get a Adobe Photoshop license, Adobe Substance Painter license, or Quial Mixer for free. Get a subscription to 3d.sk for photo references. There are tons of tutorials and websites for makeing 3d skins, creatures effects on skins etc.
I like skin builder 8 previous versions are great toofor early generations but 8 has a lot more options including freckles only downside is it's female only but you maybe able to cheat by using a female body then adding a male texture then after adding whatever texture changers you do saving that then reapplying to a male body. Lovechild (from here) is great you can combine two face photos to create a new face. Generated Photos is a great site that has faces created like this. Finally in my arsenal is Face Gen (from here) with this you can create faces imported photos and it creates the head shape too and there are tools in it to add extra morphs plus it will also create matching textures for the body. Using all of these I've created a lot of original unique characters oh and if you have a bunch of head and body morph packs that'll help too
Hello, it seems most of these links don't works anymore and I don't find these product by searching their name. Does these items not exist anymore? Is there an equivalent? Thank you in advance!
The first 4 were (I think) all by Vyusur who left Daz - currently a couple of them (or at least G8M versions) can be found for sale at RenderHub.
The "authentic", "versatile" and "dark" MR links which don't work anymore were products by Vyusur, she closed her store here.
You can find them (and several more) in her renderhub store.
Ah, ok! Could you tell me if it is worth to buy them? Are them really usefull? I would like to create a pale skin but I have difficulties to do it (I tried with the Skin Builder 8 for now, but I also want a skin for G8M). When I try, the skin is either too yellow, or or too grey, or not pale enough...
Thank you in advance for your answer!
I never tried creating my own skins (beside using skin builder), so I don't own any of them.
Merchant resources are a good starting point to create a skin, and if you find one close to what you want it will save you time. But they will only help with creating the texture maps, and the end result once applied to a figure will also depend a lot on the surface settings you use.
If you look at the promo pics for utilities like this for example you can see that the same skin can give very different results with different settings.
Whether you start with an existing merchant resource "for" the desired model or whether you are starting 100% from scratch, it is a good idea to make all the main surfaces at the same time, in the same project. Trying to colour match arms/legs/torso/etc afterwards can be next to impossible.
Rawart has some merchant skins, as do some other PAs. Each has their own 'style' ... in time you would also develop your own style. And this isn't something anybody can tell you how to do.
So far to date, there is only "one" PA whose merchant skins I give a hard pass. They did not take the time apparently to finish their work enough to make it usable. The number one thing IMHO are the seams. Whichever MR skin you try, load the entire set on the model and make sure that the seams match. In an image editor, made a COPY in "black and white" and load that set too. IF there is a problem with the basic set, it's unlikely to be fixable later. Keeping in mind that seams "must" match ... do all your additional work [I think it used be at least 20% or more] inside of those seams. Any overall colour/hue adjustments -- do them to ALL the main layers in the same session. Remember to keep a buffer zone of at least 4+ pixels ... I like to test with a red background. If any red shows on the model it's easy to see where additional work needs to be done to correct the seams.
Also make sure to check with the actual UV for the model ... again some MR are better than others -- some have been "critiqued" elsewhere receiving low scores because they did not bother to match those minor details such as nipples.
Here it is, and it's free:
https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/85293/lk-skin-merchant-resource-for-g8m-freebie
Thank you very much, every one!
I have a question that can seem a bit idiot, but since a skin can also depend on the light, I wonder which kind of envireonnement and light correspond the default environnement I mean the environnement that appears by default when I made a render, without having added any light. Does it correspond to a sunny day, a day with dark clouds, a room with a lamp or something else? I have difficulties to choose which kind of light to use for testing my skins...
Thank you very much! Could you tell me how to intall it, please? I never intall anything without using Install Manager?
Thank you in advance!
Download the zip for the freebie, and unzip it in a temp folder. For this freebie you'll get 3 folders there: Runtime, People and Documentation.
Check where DIM installs your content and open that folder. You should see various folders there, including "People","Runtime" and "Readme's".
Take the "People" and "Runtime" folders from the temp folder and merge them with the existing "People" and "Runtime" folders in your install directory.
The "Documentation" folder contains the readme and Rendo licence, you can put these into the "Readme's" folder in your install directory.
After that you should be able to access the presets to apply this skin by going to Daz Studio formats\<Your DIM install directory>\People\Genesis 8 Male\Materials\Lexa Kiness\Skin MR G8M in the content library tab.
Also, one of the well known sites for acquiring photo skins is the 3dscanstore which has a sale on atm for many faces: metahuman-textures {check licenses when acquiring anything for use commercially}
Thank you very much!