This tutorial will cover how to make a custom texture for an object in D|S and save it as a material preset for a later use.
I will not cover in detail how to produce the Texture file itself in your favorite application. (I assume you know how to do this).
I also assume you have basic knowledge on how to load objects, render and save in D|S.
First of all we need an object to texture : I choose the free MD Dress by ISOP. You can find it HERE .
We will also need the object templates in order to paint in the right places. Most DAZ products have the templates available on the product page, but for most freebies you will have to make you owns. For this we will need UV Mapper. You can download it for free HERE . (For further info about UV Mapper refer to this tutorial ).
DAZ|Studio and your favorite 2D application. Anything that can paint will do but layers support is a plus.
Download or extract the UV template of the object you want to texture.
Open UV Mapper.
File<Load model<MDDresA3.obj
A little window with statistics will pop out. Click OK.
The UV template is displayed, for easier texturing we are going to assign a color to each material zone.
Edit<color<by material
Now we have one color per material zone, it's time to save our template :
File<Save Texture Map
In the pop up window alter The Bitmap size to 2000 x 2000. This will save a large template which will be easier to work with. Click OK and save to a folder of your choice.
Now that we have our UV Template we can close UV Mapper.
Open D|S and your 2D application.
Open the Template in your 2D app and export it/save it as MDTemplate.jpg in : */Studio/Content/Runtime/textures/"your name"/MDTemplate.jpg
In order to see where the different colored parts will fall on the dress, we are going to apply the Template as a texture in D|S.
Load the dress in D|S
In the surface TAB Select all the dress parts : Click on the top one and Alt+Click on the bottom part will select all the parts.
Open the advanced Tab, click on the little triangle beside color and browse for your MDTemplate.jpg
Your suface tab should look like this
See how the various parts of the template "fall" on the dress model.
Now in your 2D application you can duplicate/add a layer to your Template, and paint on each part, knowing where they will end on the model.
I choose a red leather texture for the dress :
Save your new dress texture with a new name : WA-MDDresA3.jpg
Back in D|S Select all the dress parts and replace MDTemplate with your new file:
Check your texture for seams or errors : some errors are obvious on the viewport but it's always better to render.
Here we have very bad seams
Go back to your 2D application and fix what needs to be fixed.
Save the file.
Go back to D|S and in order to see your changes : Open the surface Tab options by clicking on the little black triangle at the top right:
In the drop down menu click : Refresh images
Repeat until you are happy with the dress.
Now we want to add some lace, for this we will need a Transparency map.
Go back to your texture map add a new layer and paint some lace on the corresponding part of the template. I choose some web lace for a gothic/halloween look.
Save the file again and apply the lace in D|S as you did in step 4 only selecting the lace parts of the dress.
When you're happy with the lace placement/size its time to make a transparency map to make our pattern really look like lace.
A transparency map will apply a level of transparency corresponding to a level of grey. From : Black=100% transparent to White=100% opaque.
To make the map : Duplicate the lace layer and convert it to grey scale. Invert the black to white and adjust contrast if needed (like in my case where I have black lace)
Save with a new name : MDDressA3Trans.jpg
Now back in D|S apply the transparency : with the lace parts selected, in the advanced surface tab scroll down to the opacity and apply your Trans map.
Now, let's render to check :
Now we are happy with our new texture but we need to make a few surface settings adjustments in D|S before we save the mat preset.
Let's Adjust the dress glossiness ans see if we can enhance our lace a little.
Here I lowered the glossiness down to 65% and changed the specular color to a dark red : 38,0,0
To add some "depth" to the lace part, I applied the transparency map in the Bump section,changed diffuse color and glossiness and replaced the plastic lighting model by metallic.
Now that you are happy with your dress it's time to save the material preset so we use it later without havnig to manually change the textures.
Make sure the dress (MDDressA3) is selected in the scene file, then :
File<Save as<material preset
Browse to the folder you want to save to. Beware : the folder MUST NOT be under *\Content\Runtime\....
This is where I saved mine :
*\studio\Content\people\Aiko3\Clothing\MDDress\RedLeather.dsb
Check in your content tab if you see your new preset:
You're done with the dress, now you can apply the same steps to the rest of the outfit.
Happy texturing.