Tinting to match skin

[Kazimira McConnell]

Due to my taste in strange skin color (Pale blue, dark purple, drow grey) I have found that many ightems you would normaly tint to match your skintone are not working with my skintone (ears, feet, feet in sandals) The reason for this is that the parts that need tinting have a texture thats already got color on it. Some human skintones that are quite pale I can't get to work ether.

My serch for mesh feet ended up with me going though sevral pairs of feet before I got a good set I could tint how I liked when I liked.

Anyone else found this a problem?

[TammyTgurl Umaga]

This is a very old topic talked about every day all over SL.

Here are some facts that will help.

First the lack of tinting a prim to your skin if you have a full color spectrum tool   is  only your own lack of skills .it covers every color there is....

Here  is the real problem skins are not a sold color.They are a texture! Made up of many many colors (if they are with using)  you really need to texture the prim not try to add color.

First Rule, If it set no mod,then just do not buy it as for you it will be worthless.

No lights on your body,they will only cast  shadows and make the prims look to lite.

No crazy custom sky settings! 

The best way to do this,snap a image of the body part you are adding a prim to,example your foot.

Snap a image of the top of the prim part and where the skin from the AV conects ,learn to use a simple image program like gimp.

Crop he image to the secton you took the image of making sure to only have the skin you are connecting prim to body part.

If done correct you should have a small box that looks like your skin tone.

Now resize it as small as you can but not under 212x212 the best is 512x512.

When you do this it could make the color tone fade a little and you might need to play with the color tone.

I like to add a small alpha layer over it and add a few faint shadows by simply lite pressure spray brush and then add a little noise follow by adding a bit of alpha until I get a shadow effect and not black streaks.

Then you must Edit Link parts to slide the texture on,Sl wiki search "how texture single  links in a linkset "

Might sound hard but Gimp is Free,Gimp Wiki is Free and this really is some simple steps and one could master over a weekend and well worth it for the picky color skin user as I am the same way and just wanted things to match my obscure skin tone so I learn the basics  to save me money and time.

[Kazimira McConnell]

The problem isnt always the color hud infact that can be great its ightens made with a sighn saying they are fully tintalbe yet the palest you can get is fake tan orange because thats the texture they used. I dont care if I dont get an exact skin match as long as the color is just about right. Elf ears for the most part are easy to sort out as I can pull a texture from an ear kit I got a wile ago and that tends to work but mesh feet where they have the indavidual toes all textured up and looking great with seprate toenails and everything thats when it gets tough. And as for makeing a foot texture thats simple enough just as long as I know where each bit will be going.

I got my first pair of mesh feet by trying on the demo and finding out the demo had grey textured feet with shading and highlights but it would be incredably tintable if that was what the real feet ended up like. Got the real feet and on the box it said it could be made to match any skintone. I found for my normal DrLife skin which is my normal human looking skin they were way to orange but any and I mean any color tint I put on them would make them just to dark to look anything like good and already it was pushing it.

I am intested to know what colors you tend to pick out though I very rarely find anyone in SL that goes for the odd colors other than going for a devil red or an almost black grey.

Edit: OK I may have messed up the word I want here Monocrome is what we need the textures on feet to be pale and monocrome because from there we can get to anjy skintone.

[Morgaine Christensen]

A lot will depend on the type of tinting hud used.  If a creator uses an inexpensive one, they generally have limited options they can off the customer to chose from.  If a creator uses an expensive Hud (these can range from 4,000L on up) that allows more customization or, to set the RGB, you should be able to get close to your skin color barring shadowing and highlight. Also, it takes lots of patience and practice on the user's part to adjust the color appropriately.

When buying shoes, ask the creator/seller what what type of Hud they use.   I use a very expensive high end Hud that I include for my customers so they will have the most options to match their skins.  However, regardless of the price, it still will only be close due to the shadowing and highlights the skin creators used....and the patience and taste of the customer.

I have often wondered why many of the skin creators don't offer to their customers the RGB numbers to the base of the skin so they can more easily adjust their shoe skin.  I under stand protecting one's creativity but the base numbers should not effect the over skin creation.

 

 

[Hunter Stern]

So you are suggesting one take a snapshot 'snip' of the skin on a body part to make into a 512x512 (example) texture, and then upload that dirivative work to SL from an editor as a new texture? If so I wouldn't recommend that action at all unless the originating texture (skin) is ones own creation.

The concept does work though. There are skin textures out there on the market for cost and for free that could be used and edited (some have various agreements to end use applied).

[Kazimira McConnell]

Base number means very little when it's going over a texture thats arleady quite a defighned skintone. I always go for good huds myself but the skintone issue is getting to me.

For a good effect the bits we need the hud to re color need to have a  white base texture or good shadeing on a white base and when I say white I dont mean a kind of pinky skintone I mean as in as white as the forum background. That way the base number would work without a color already being there to mess with it.

[Morgaine Christensen]

Base color numbers of a  skin is merely for a starting point to begin adjusting. Even with the very expensive HUD product I use when creating shoes, has a limited selection of starter bases to begin adjusting with. Personally, I use a white texture base on the skin portion of a creation, I have no clue what others might do.   Using the base RGB of the skin base, I feel is a better starting point for me, but since we all are different in how we approach things, this may not be workable for others.

[Kazimira McConnell]

If you use a white dkin texture base and i am talking white as snow here your one of t he vest desighners to deal with in Sl because so many dont and is hrd to match skintones.

[Isabelli Anatine]

As far as I remember, just slink has a greysih texture, that is almost white with baked shadows to dive the feet some quality.

 

You should try the demo of this place...

[nuria Augapfel]

Hello, just a humble advice...if you want to match your skin tone from a HUD with different  skin textures  (presets)  to start with it, i recommend you to choose always the preset slightly lighter than your skin. If you choose too light skin base to match the feet then you can have issues about the tone looking  different depending SL lighting. If you choose a skin base texture too dark (darker than your skin) you will not able to make them lighter by the HUD (color picker)  if each preset is a single texture. So i recommend to choose the one just a bit lighter tan your skin and then match the tone.

Pure white skin texture preset works well to match very light skins, but to match medium/tan skins is not recommended because a prim or sculpt with pure white texture and recolored by edition in SL will show the tone different depending the lighting. I hope have explained me well, sorry about my english ^^