Texturing question

[Valto Auxifur]

Alright I have two questions to ask here, one reguarding modding and the other reguaring texturing of skin.

 

1. My bf has a full modifable Fulle Arrow tatoo, he got the permissions from the distrubator and he wants me to change the trible colors from black to red. How do I go on doing that? Is it similar to how texturing any other things or what?

2. Ok I been working on my tiger skin on photoshop, I'm having issues making the stripes, anyone know an easy method in how to make tiger stripes?

Also with Skin (pic)

Of course the tiger avatar won't have a normal fur, since my friend requested it to be purple. Anyways everytime I look at the skin it just tells me that the color look "painted" on, I want the colors to look a bit more realistic and natural anyone has any advice for this?

Thanks for reading this, I'm still a beginer when it comes to texturing so any advice helps.

[Kalynn Carnell]

Since you mentioned photoshop in your post, I'll make suggestions for that particular program.  These are only suggestions, and I'm sure other people will have some as well.

1. Since you have full permissions, you need to get the texture file from him and open it up in photoshop.  Use one of the selection tools (lasso, magnetic lasso, quick mask, or the pen tool...love the pen tool!) to pick out the tribal bits that he wants changed.  Once you have the selection (that little line of "marching ants"), you can either choose the brush option and simply paint over that area with red, or you can play with the color replacer tool.

2. Skin: The line between the white and purple is too hard and obvious.  Try using the fuzzball brush in the default brush palette for that line.  As for the stripes, the Dodge and Burn tools are wonderful for that.  Burn makes sections of your painted color darker, while Dodge will make it lighter.  Then, to get the look of fur, play with your filter gallery.  I found that either sprayed strokes or smudge sticks gave a really good approximation of fur fibers. Here's a photo with some of the settings I used.

 

I'm still learning all the possibilites of the various tools in photoshop, so maybe someone who has used it a lot longer than I have will have some better suggestions.  Good luck!!

[Valto Auxifur]

1. You mean get the texture file from the seller? or just get it from his tatoo object?

2. I sort of get what your saying it is a bit hard to imagine, but reguardless I will play around with the tools you mentioned, another I was asking is what is the best tool to use to make the actual stripes without having too much issue, since I using a mouse and all.

 

Reguardless thank you for the advice I found the skin one really helpful ^__^ Since it is my first time attempting this basically.

Edit:

 

Another question how do I apply the skin to the body itself?

[Ecko Soulstar]

This is How I would go about this. I hope it helps.

1. Get the Tattoo Texture -

You need to have this texture in YOUR inventory. If he has full permission on this texture then he can send it to you by dragging the texture from his inventory and simply dropping it onto you. Once you have it in your inventory - Open it (double click the texture). Go to File > Save as > (I prefer to work with PNG, but the choice is yours).

2. Open and edit the texture in photoshop-

Being a tattoo, it should be showing on the transparent backgroud, with nothing else. I would use the selection tool zoomed way in for accuracy) to grab only the areas I want to change. Then right click, and layer via copy. (Cutting tends to leave a mess sometimes). Your selection should still be 'marching' around the areas you just copied. With that still there, go to the layers panel and click the original layer, then hit backspace a couple times. This will delete the selected area from underneath. (I backspace more then once to 'defeather', making sure I have a clean erase.) Now reselect the layer you want to color in the layers panel. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue Saturation. Play with those sliders until you have what you need. Tip. If it's just a solid color change, check off the 'colorize' box. Otherwise you will just be tinting, and that's not easy on black. If this methos isn't working ofr you, definately play with the color replacer.

3. Saving and Uploading

Once you have the finished image, 'save as' in either .png or .tga (TGA will require you to use 32 bit/pixel for SL)
Finally, upload that texture to SL. When you are logged in, click, File>Upload... (I would use temporary upload here, in case something isn't quite right, your not out the 10L for the upload). Once you're happy with the final texture, upload it again, and delete the temp texture(s).

I know nothing about making fur at all, never tried. But I did find this little tut that might help you.


Fur Texture in Photoshop

If you ever want to try other ways to make fur, or other textures in photoshop, try playing with the blending options. There is a 'texture' option there, with several different textures, that can be scaled, as well as applied in different modes, such as mulitply, burn, overlay , ect. You can also set the opacity from there.
Don't forget the sharpen filter. Over-processing details, like hair, can degrade the sharpness of an image. I almost always hit the sharpen before saving anything, just to see if I want it sharper or not. And if I want it, but not everywhere, I drag out my sharpen tool. :-)

Applying Skin to your avatar-

You will need to be wearing a skin you can modify. The default skins in the inventory library should work, but I don't really know for sure.
Right click your avatar and select appearance. Chose 'skin' from the side tabs. That will show you 3 boxes of skin selection. Head, Upper, and Lower. Click on the area you wish to change. Then click the 'texture' box at the top to bring up the texture list. Find the skin texture you created and uploaded. Click it, choose select. This will apply that secetion onto the avatar. Repeat this for the others if you have a full skin, using the appropriate textures you made. When finished, Click save as, and name your new skin. Click 'OK' and check yourself out.

I do hope that I helped some. Some people tend to find me confusing. My apologies if I only succeed in confusing you more, lol. Good Luck!!! :smileyhappy:

[Valto Auxifur]

Alright so I tried the fur blending option and it only looked very odd on the avatar.. I uploaded the picture becuase I finally got some Ls and applied the skin to one of my own avatars.

http://tinypic.com/r/e7y0k1/7

As you see thye upper body skin lacks realism when uploaded on to sl. I am not certain it is't just me, but the skin itself looks painted on, it just doesn't work. (although it is missing the tiger stripes...which I still having issues on doing)

Any advance on how to make it look better, more appealing as a avatar texture?

[Valto Auxifur]

Sorry for all the help I am resquesting, still pretty much useless on photoshop. lol

[Suspiria Finucane]

For anyone using GIMP

Step 1

Open your image

On the upper menu = Layer>Transparency>Color to Alpha

Pic 1

 

Step 2

On upper menu = Colors>Levels

Pic 2

 

Step 3

On Adjust Color Levels = Value>Red

Pic 3

 

Step 4

On Adjust Color Levels = Adjust Output level to desired color>Click ok

Pic 4

 

Step 5

Save As>Select File Type>TarGA Image>Click Save  When next small window opens = uncheck any tick boxes> Select Save

Pic 5

 

Piece of Cake. Takes less than 2 minutes.

Now you have a red tattoo you can apply to your face, upper or lower template.

Gimp Girl Forever!

 

[Kalynn Carnell]

Valto, I think one of the problems you are having with your skin looking "painted on" is because there are  no highlights or shadows on the skin.  Take a look at some of the other skins around you; human, furry, whatever.  You will notice that the front and back of the thighs, the calves, the arms and such all appear to be lighter in tone, whereas the sides of the thighs, body, arms, etc appear darker.  Shadows and highlights will help the skin look like its actually wrapped around the body.  Also, skin is never one overall color.  Try adding some noise to the purple area.  You can do this by going to Filter (on the top tool bar), Go to Noise>Add Noise.  A window will open where you can choose the type you want to apply.  I've found a lower number looks better, and I use Uniform distribution and check the Monochromatic box.  Here's an example of No Noise vs. Noise added:

 

You can see that Noise sort of breaks up the solid color and might help with some of your frustration of the "painted" look.  

(As an aside, I was able to edit my earlier reply to include the picture I had made showing a few different filters and such.  I made the dark stripes in the purple area with the Burn tool at 100% exposure and highlighted above them with the Dodge tool set at 20% exposure, then applied the filters.)