creating tan lines

j_stnk

hello all,
how can i create a tan line with a specific article of clothing with the texture maps. i have successfully made some for m4, genesis and and g2 skin maps. but they are only arbitrary lines for 3 types of swim wear. i would like to make some for m4's basic wear speedo on the m4 skin maps. is there a way to do this to get the lines exact by using the speedo texture maps. what map would i use. the only tex map of the speedo with the whole shape of the garment is the bump in the textures folder. would i have to create if possible a uv map? is there a tutorial on this? thanks

Richard Haseltine

In which application? The only way I can immediately think of is to bake Ambient Occlusion on the skin, with the clothing loaded, and use the resultant image as a mask for modifying the base texture in an image editor or in a shader.

j_stnk

Daz 4.7 thanks

j_stnk

ok richard,
i suppose the ap you are referring to is a modeling one like maya or blender? i researched ambient occlusion baking and they are done in these types of aps. i had a feeling that uv's were involved since learning daz and the make up of 3d objects and applying materials and texture to the geometry (i never got that far in blender). i brought blender out of the mothballs. i'm not quite sure how and where to break up the edges to form the uv on m4's body for the speedo. i terrible with edges, faces and vertices. i was hoping there was a way in daz. i can always do trial and error with Xs plotted on the skin map then applied to the model like i did for my farmer tans around the neck and clavicle areas. i'll try the blender way if i must. thanks

Richard Haseltine

It should be doable inside DS, with Shader baker, but I'm not having a lot of success. You don't want toe dit the UVs in Blender, that will stop the baked occlusion from lining up - just make sure that you keep the different maps (head, torso and limbs) separate in the output.

WendyLuvsCatz

So you are saying it is possible for DAZ models to get virtually sunburnt?
Baking lighting to the UV? I thought those were cartesian co-ordinates not UltraViolet radiation!!!

j_stnk

i think i see what you're getting at here. the baked body will have the tan and the areas that are covered will keep the base texture? i looked at the v4 wet and tan product and i thought those tans aren't real looking. the edges are too harsh and crisp. that's why when i did the arbitrary tans for my base character skin mats i made sure i used the eraser at an 85% feather and erased with an 80% transparency in my image editor to make the lines more real and natural looking. i'm sorry that i didn't tell you that but i could still use the torso map for template use if this is the end product.

Richard Haseltine

Well, I was thinking of just using a white map and baking the occlusion onto that, so you'd end up with white for the exposed areas and black for the shaded, then use that as a mask in an image editor to adjust which ever texture set you wanted to whatever degree you wanted, rather than trying to do it all in one operation.