Thread is created to provide an opportunity for the more experienced Daz users to share their knowledge with the wider community. Thread is not intended to train users from scratch, however provide insights about certain aspects with each post. Also please feel free to provide techniques on related software such as Blender / Hexagon for modelling and photoshop / GIMP for post processing of images.
Tutorial Index (to be updated with links to specific posts):
Xavster - Character Creation -
Character Creation:
The following contains a step-by-step example of how I created the character below and also some key tips to creating quality characters relatively easily. My intention is not for you to re-create the character, however understand the creation process, such that you can create your own characters.
Establishment:
- Create an environment which facilitates rapid rendering of the model. I would suggest either using a HDRI or a single light source to render the image.
- For the image above I use the Z Photo Studio backdrop (changed colour to blue) and a single emmissive plane in front / angled 45 down to create butterfly lighting.
- Load a Genesis 8 Figure (Not essential to load G8F, however new Daz asset releases are typically for G8 models)
Skinning:
In my opinion getting a quality character skin is the most important step in creating a character. No matter what the morph, having a good skin will make it believable and have the audience engage in the image.
- Load a quality skin onto the character preferably without eyebrows. For the character example I applied the Zelie skin.
- Increase the skin realism by tweaking the textures. My strong preference is to use Skin Builder 8. The following tweaks were applied to the model.
- Overlays \ Tanlines \ Tanline Strength (20) \ Full Design (0) \ Softer Edges
- Overlays \ Skin Details \ Blotches \ Visibility Strength = 60
- Overlays \ Veins \ Head + Body \ Visibility Strength = 60
- Overlays \ Freckles \ Head (Most) + Body (Less) \ Visibility Strength = 40
- Overlays \ Freckles \ Head (Less) \ Freckles Colour (Darken Slightly) \ Visibility Strength = 70
- Gianna Eyes 06
Hair / Eyebrows:
Nothing tricky, just load up the assets you like
- OOT Alice Hair
- Molly Brows. Prefer fibremesh bows as they look better in close-up and you can adjust without creating a new version of the head texture map.
Quick Morphing:
I'll probably cop a far amount of flak for saying this, however characters can be created very rapidly by simply combining morphs from 2 or more character assets. I tend to use no more than 50% of a certain character asset morph, otherwise it will very closely resemble the asset character. Just play around with a heap of combinations until you find something you like.
- 50% Minthy Head + 50% Sienna Head
Tweaking:
Process is exactly what it sounds like. Essentially go into all the individual settings to adjust the character to your preferences. After each set of tweaks, do an image render to compare how it looked prior to the tweaks being done. I typically do these renders at 900 pixels wide so I can compare the 2 renders size by side.
Additional Notes:
- I haven't covered body morphs, however using quick morph + tweaking methodology works fine for bodies as well. As per the eyebrows, picking a source texture without pubic hair is preferred as you can use a fibremesh asset and separate edit without changing the torso texture.
- The key to a good skin is its imperfections. Skin tone variation is essential to make it believable.
- Skin Builder 8 has the ability to save an entire texture map in the utilities tab, which can then be applied to future models. Keep in mind that you can adjust the base colour to create dark skin or different hews.
- When saving skins, I would leave off additions such as tattoos and make-up, as they can't really by unloaded once the texture has been adjusted.
- When using make-up, use LIE overlays or the base skin which you have spent time working on will be over-written.
- Some base skins in character assets are simply better than others. If you plan to use skin builder, then lighter skins without too many features are typically better.
- If you wish to create a range of distinct characters, you need to use different skins and significantly different quick morph characters. During the tweaking process, your eye for aesthetics will always make the characters look more and more similar the more tweaks you undertake.
- Create an environment which facilitates rapid rendering of the model. I would suggest either using a HDRI or a single light source to render the image.
- For the image above I use the Z Photo Studio backdrop (changed colour to blue) and a single emmissive plane in front / angled 45 down to create butterfly lighting.
The scene setup can be seen in the image below. I usually have multiple cameras so it is easier to switch between face / torso / full body renders.
Changing the backdrop colour is simply a matter of selecting the item, then changing base colour in the surfaces tab.
To create butterfly lighting, create a plane (create\new primitive\plane) the place and rotate as per first image. Then adjust the emission colour to white in the surface tab and increase the luminance. For the scene in question I am using a luminance of 50,000 with a camera shutter speed of 16.
The scene setup can be seen in the image below. I usually have multiple cameras so it is easier to switch between face / torso / full body renders. View attachment 190567
Changing the backdrop colour is simply a matter of selecting the item, then changing base colour in the surfaces tab. View attachment 190570
To create butterfly lighting, create a plane (create\new primitive\plane) the place and rotate as per first image. Then adjust the emission colour to white in the surface tab and increase the luminance. For the scene in question I am using a luminance of 50,000 with a camera shutter speed of 16. View attachment 190575
Clothing Customisation:
The following tutorial is intended to give you an understanding of the surfaces tab in the properties window and how to use it to customise your character clothing. This understanding can also be applied to you rendering environment by allow changing of wall surfaces etc.
Shader Presets:
The following adjustments at applied to the OOT Leony Outfit using primarily shader presets from the Traveler Uber+ Iray SkinTight Shine. All clothing assets are a 3D mesh that is applied over a character model. Typically customised to a particularly character model it is scaled and then surface smoothed with the character geometry. At it's hearth though it is a surface that you can apply a texture and in not overly different from a wall or prop from a rendering perspective.
- To apply a shader present select the item of clothing you wish to modify. Then select that portion of the clothing you wish to change in the surfaces tab (see image in Spoiler - Surfaces). Then simply select desired shader preset.
- Another alternative to applying a shader preset is to copy surface properties from another surface and apply it to the surface you wish to change. You do this by right clicking on the source surface and "Copy Selected Surfaces", then selecting destination surface and right clicking again and "Paste to Selected Surface".
- You can also straight up edit a surface by changing parameters such as Base Color or Cutout Opacity.
- In the modification I have made below I have also elected to apply a lace shader preset, which applies a map to the cutout opacity. You can also change the size of the lace pattern by changing the Horizontal and Vertical Tiles setting.
- I have also specifically chosen the OOT Leony Outfit as it contains a "Micro Pressure" adjustment. Don't be fooled by the description, it is simply a character morph similar to bodybuilder HD details.
Clothing Pattern Customisation:
This process gives you complete control over the result, however it does require editing of the Base Color Texture by using a image editor such as GIMP or Photoshop. The following after image clothing was achieved by doing the following.
- The clothing texture map in the before image was located by hovering over the Base Color image in the surfaces tab.
- The existing design on this surface was replaced with a strokes logo I found in the internet.
- I achieved the shirt rips by creating a custom Cutout Opacity map. I grabbed some rip graphics off the internet again and then applied it to a map (white = opaque / black = holes / shades of grey = partially transparent).
- As the shirt has textured image on it I had to match the Cutout Opacity map to the shirt graphic. With a plain texture you can scale and move the rips by changing the horizontal / vertical Tiles and Offset properties respectively.
- Also to give the shirt a slightly more aged look, I also change the base colour to make it brighter than the original. I could also have dome this by making the source texture more faded.
To give you an idea what is possible using some imagination I thought I would post some of my earlier work. All 3 images in the spoiler below use the Trumpet Dress as the source asset with the first being the original.
Scene Lighting:
Responding to a couple of requests, the following is intended to expand your knowledge of scene lighting and the way in which Daz iray functions. I wouldn't consider myself an expert on this top at all, so if you have corrections / additions to the information below, please feel free to contribute.
Daz / Photography:
Daz uses light ray tracing in order to create an image at the camera. By design it is intended to simulate what happens in the real world. Hence light from a source(s) is reflected / refracted / scattered / partially absorbed off the surfaces in the scene. The light that reaches the camera is what you see in the render. As such, lighting guides in photography are directly applicable to Daz. There is no simple recipe that will work for all scenes. Often it will take several attempts to get the scene lighting to work effectively.
Scene Complexity / Render Time:
With each render iteration, the computer calculates the path of a number of light rays from each scene light source. These rays interact with the surfaces in the scene and change colour, intensity and direction. Those rays that reach the camera, form the render image. The greater the number of light sources and the greater the scene complexity, the longer it takes to do each iteration. Additionally surfaces that scatter light rays have a degree of randomness which leads to slower convergence of the image. Whilst you can create a scene with very simple surfaces, that will render very quickly, it will tend to look cartoon-like, as surfaces in the real world are far from simple.
HDRI's:
A HDRI is a spherical light source that surrounds the scene, that provides a variable light source, dependent upon direction. In my opinion it is the preferred method, if you are rendering an outdoor scene. It has the advantages of rapid convergence and also variable light intensity and colour, dependent upon the direction. It also provides a screen backdrop for your renders, that will likely be complete after 1 iteration.
To apply a HDRI you need to do the following:
- Under the editor tab selected "Dome and Scene" or "Dome Only" as the "Environment Mode"
- Under "Dome Mode" I would suggest using "Infinite Sphere". You can use "Finite Sphere" however if you don't have the main focus of the render close to the origin, the HDRI background will be distorted.
- To change the HDRI used select the HDRI file by selecting the left portion of the "Environment Map".
- Adjust "Dome Rotation" to change lighting direction and the background scene.
Tips:
- If you have a single figure in the scene with ground active on the HDRI, you often need to apply a slightly negative Y value on the model, to prevent the figure from floating above ground level.
- The figure will blend better into the HDRI background if you use a prop.
- You can bring an external HDRI indoors using
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. Despite what is says in the instructions, it will work if you change the focal width and focal length.
Scene Lights:
A range of scene light alternatives may be found in the toolbar at the top of Daz window. To have these active, you need "Dome and Scene" or "Scene" selected under "Environment Mode". I am not going to attempt to explain all of the alternative here, outside leaving a few tips and links for further reading.
- Typically you want to have a primary light source to create shadows on the scene objects. This will create depth in the scene overall.
- You also need a secondary light source at lower intensity from a different direction to provide back-lighting. You can use a scene light, however you can also use emissive lights or a HDRI.
Emissive Lights:
Emissive lights are my general preference for interior scenes. Then tend to give softer shadows on objects and renders tend to have fewer fireflys.
An emissive surface is one that emits light. The colour and intensity of the light emitted with depend upon it's luminance and surface colour. To make a surface emissive, you need to change the emission colour to something other than black and select a luminance. You can achieve affects such as glowing eyes, or neon lights using this feature. Instructions below:
- Selected the object
- Under the surfaces tab select that surface you wish to make luminescent
- Change emission colour to something other than black (texture map also works)
- Adjust luminance to achieve the desired brightness
I use
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fairly extensively when doing indoor scenes. This is more for convenience, as you can achieve exactly the same effect without the asset, by creating emissive spheres in the scene and the setting the sphere cutout opacity to a very low value. Also in many of the building assets, there are lights props within the scene. Whilst they often do not have light source associated with them, you can create it yourself by making the light bulbs emissive.
In my recent "The Vampire" series of images, I used emissive surfaces via the "Iray Light Probe Kit" and also an emissive plane, that I locked to the camera to create butterfly lighting. As such the light probes provided the background lighting and the plane acts as the key light. The images below contains the light setup for the final image and the final render in that series. The white butterfly plane is fairly obvious and the red spheres are the light probes.
General Notes:
- Preferably have the light come from actual light props in the scene. For example, if you have a candle, make the flame emissive.
- As per photography, if you don't want to add additional lights, place the characters and the camera in the appropriate locations.
- You can adjust the brightness of the render by changing the luminance (emissive) / flux (light) / environmental intensity (HDRI) or change the "Shutter Speed (1/x)" in the scene editor tab.
- Also there is nothing wrong with tweaking the brightness / colour balance / contrast of the Daz render in an image editor.
EDIT: With greater experience comes additional knowledge. Whilst I still use emissive surfaces widely, many of my newer work predominately uses spotlights. By changing the shape of the spotlight, I can achieve the softer effect, whilst retaining control of the direction of the light beams.
Hey thanks again for this awsome guide! It is really perfect!
I have just one question for now. I noticed that there are figures where you can remove the eyebrows and some where you can't. So I tried using the Skin Builder and everything worked fine. I have just one problem, I couldn't get the color of the eyebrows right, but now I don't know how I can change it's color. And I also don't know how I can find out which color the preset colors of the hair has.
Maybe you know what I can do, especially with the eyebrows
Hey thanks again for this awsome guide! It is really perfect!
I have just one question for now. I noticed that there are figures where you can remove the eyebrows and some where you can't. So I tried using the Skin Builder and everything worked fine. I have just one problem, I couldn't get the color of the eyebrows right, but now I don't know how I can change it's color.
There are two basic alternatives with the eyebrows:
1) Forms part of the face texture.
2) Done as a fibre mesh.
1) To change is a bit of a nightmare. Either you have to go into an image editor and change the source "Base Color" texture map, or you need to re-create the texture map with a different eye-brow color.
2) If it is done as a fibre-mesh, you need to select the fibre mesh, which will be a subset of the main character model. You can then change the color of the fibre mesh using the surfaces tab. You can also change the shape should you desire.
This is why I prefer the fibre mesh over the incorporation of eyebrows on the face texture.
The hair is also a subset of the character model. Typically the hair colours are visible in the content library (People\Genesis 8 Female\Hair\Hair Asset\Mats\Iray). Once you select a preset colour, you can tweak by modifying the base colour in the surfaces tab of the hair asset.
These tutorials are extremely helpful. As someone who has
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with many of the publicly available (video) tutorials this has been a godsend. I've been practicing based on your tips here. @Xavster would you be up to answering some questions about these tutorials and/or be open to requests for tutorials on other topics?
These tutorials are extremely helpful. As someone who has
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with many of the publicly available (video) tutorials this has been a godsend. I've been practicing based on your tips here. @Xavster would you be up to answering some questions about these tutorials and/or be open to requests tutorials on other topics?
I have to agree! This tutorial helped me more than most of the videos out there. The only problems I have at some point is that I can't find some of the functions. Either I am blind or I am always at the wrong place. So either a picture or path would be nice
And yeah it would be nice to ask questions here rather than in the "Show you Daz Skills Thread"
Feel free to ask questions in this thread. I won't have all the answers, however hopefully some others on the forum can help where my knowledge is a little lacking.
Also I'll update the first post to links to all tutorials, should others wish to contribute. I would suggest that they cover a certain topic in their contribution.
Content Management:
Whilst the following tutorial is not overly exciting, it is particularly useful when using Daz. This tutorials provides some tips on how to manage your assets and also how to save aspects of your work such that you can use them in future scenes.
Asset Management:
Assets is work undertake by others that simply the process of creating a Daz scene. These include items such as buildings, characters and clothing. Assets when installed are typically installed on your hard disk in the following location C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library. You can check the folder where assets are installed by selecting "My DAZ 3D Library" from the content library within Daz \ right click \ "Browse to Folder Location". This will open up windows explorer at this directory. When an asset is "installed" it is merely located on your hard disk and is not integrated into the Daz application. As such you can add and remove assets using windows explorer.
If you are downloading assets from the Daz store using the installation manager, the installer takes care of the placement of files on your hard disk. It may also be used to uninstall (delete) these files on your hard disk. Should you have downloaded the asset from an external source, to installed you copy the files from the asset (typically under content folder) to the "C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library" folder.
Whilst assets are normally installed in the public user folder and visible in Daz under "My DAZ 3D Library", the saved items from your work will appear in the "My Library" folder in Daz and appear in your user library. You can check which folder this is on your hard disk by selecting the "My Library" folder \ right click \ "Browse to Folder Location" in your "Content Library".
Managing a Scene:
Full Daz scenes can include a large number of characters and props with an extremely high polygon count. As most of us are running fairly modest rigs, attempting to manipulate the scene with all of these items active is extremely slow. By using the "Create a New Group" command (arrows in circle on main tool bar), you can divide up the various portions of your scene. You can then manipulate all of the items within the group together (eg Move / rotate). By hiding the majority of your groups in the scene, you lower the visible polygon count, which makes the scene far quicker to manipulate.
As an example if I was do pose a character on a couch, I would hide every other character and the overall scene. This reduces the polygon count which make posing rapid. Additionally if I want to do a test render of the pose, it will start rendering faster and also converge faster.
Scene Subsets:
You may save portions from any scene you create utilising the "Scene Subset" option from the Daz file menu. This command is particularly useful when coupled with the group command as described above.
Saving a Character (inclusive of hair / clothing etc)
- Place your character with all of its sub assets (clothing \ hair) in a "Group" as described above.
- File \ Save As \ Scene Subset
- Enter character name when selecting filename
- Deselect all tick boxes with the exception of the character
- The character is then available for use in any future scenes by selecting it from "My Library" \ "Scene Subset" within your Content Library.
You may also save other aspects from you current scene for use later by selecting various other options from the "Save As" menu.
If you use skin builder 8 you can also save a full skin map from a character for use on an alternative or new character. Whilst you can modify the directory in which it saves within the utilities section of SB8, the resultant skin saves are typically selectable at the following location - "Content Library" \ "My Library" \ "People" \ "Genesis 8 Female" \ "Materials"
Jumping headfirst into questions. I hope these aren't newb questions, but questions to help people gain some insight.
1) @Xavster, you mention "load a quality skin". Is there any way to tell what is a quality skin without testing for yourself? That is, can you tell before buying it?
2) Character morphs: I've been playing around with this. It is apparent that some combinations work better than others. I assume that morphing together characters which are related to each other make more subtle effects.
For example, Fillia and the Linsay characters uses the Sunny 7 character as a base. Tweaking a morph with a mix of the three seems to do less than morphing with more unrelated characters.
Any other tips for how character morphs interact with each other?
3) Quick test renders. This is a very good tip. The quicker you are able to do experiments (and compare your work), the faster you will learn. Would you have recommendations for test renders other than the 900 pixel size? Rendering is an entire tutorial topic by itself, but I just want to focus on quickly testing and comparing.
1) @Xavster, you mention "load a quality skin". Is there any way to tell what is a quality skin without testing for yourself? That is, can you tell before buying it?
There is no way to definitely tell just from the images provided on the promo page. I would define a good skin as one that looks realistic rather than plastic. Some also look good under certain lighting conditions and awful under others. I have a standard model / pose / background and test a skin using emissive lighting and also HDRI lighting. A couple of things to look out for when buying a character asset.
- Makeup is done using LIE overlay (can use make-up options on other skins and modify the base skin)
- Faces without eyebrows as an option
- Tattoo's or other additional features (LIE preferred for tattoo's)
Also certain artists are better then others. Have found that Mousso typically does good work
2) Character morphs: I've been playing around with this. It is apparent that some combinations work better than others. I assume that morphing together characters which are related to each other make more subtle effects.
For example, Fillia and the Linsay characters uses the Sunny 7 character as a base. Tweaking a morph with a mix of the three seems to do less than morphing with more unrelated characters.
Any other tips for how character morphs interact with each other?
There is no real rules to which characters you can combine. I actually like blending 2 or 3 quite different characters, such that the final result is fairly unique. I would recommend the following.
- Do the head and body morphs separately and do the head morph first.
- Make sure the body morph matches the head morph, hence no athletic bodies with chubby faces.
- Do the head morph with a minimalist hair applied. Without hair you will stare at the scalp and with excessive hair you can't see the face.
- Do not apply heavy morphs from multiple characters. You shouldn't take the combined percentage from multiple models past 150%. It might look fine with the pose / expression you have selected, however as soon as you change pose / expression the character will often look odd.
- Make sure you sort out the skin you wish to apply prior to completing the morph as the skin will effect the final result.
- Tweak the various morphing sliders to get exactly what you want, but try not to use heavy sliders as results may differ with different poses / expressions.
- Check final character with both white light (emissive or spotlights) and also HDRI and with multiple poses / expressions.
3) Quick test renders. This is a very good tip. The quicker you are able to do experiments (and compare your work), the faster you will learn. Would you have recommendations for test renders other than the 900 pixel size? Rendering is an entire tutorial topic by itself, but I just want to focus on quickly testing and comparing.
When doing test renders, you want it to render as quickly as possible. You are not attempting to optimise the lighting, just provide a basis for comparison. I would recommend the lighting setup as per my post above
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. It is white light, hence does not change the skin colour and it is also very fast to render. You also only need to take the render to a point where you can decide whether the most recent change has been successful or not.[/QUOTE]
Tricks to help speed up rendering can be different for each scene but here are a couple that I have picked up along the way.
Keep the number of lights to a minimum. Don't use three lights where one could do the job, each light needs to be calculated individually so each time you add a light source you are drastically increasing the render time.
Remember to switch to "Scene only" if you aren't using the skybox / HDRI as a light source and always try to use HDRI instead of photometric lights where possible.
optimise the scene by hiding or removing everything that isn't in the render. You can always put it back when you need it.
Avoid having unnecessary characters in the scene. Characters are by far the biggest drain on system resources. If you need people in the background, use billboards or add them in post production.
Posing Tips and Tweaks:
Some tips to increase the speed of posing characters and also how to tweak the final character / scene to improve the realism. Use of D-Formers in the below is subtle, however will engage the character with the scene and improve the quality of your composition.
Posing Tips:
- There is nothing wrong with posing presets, provide you tweak the final pose to suit the character / scene.
- Pose presets for hands are particularly useful, due to the number of individual posing parameters.
- Best results are obtained if you use the sliders controlling bend / twist / lateral in the parameters tab on the various limb sections.
- Where possible achieve the pose using the smallest degree of bend / twist. Many of the pose presets will have counteracting twists / bends (twist on lower limb counteracts twist on upper limb). Avoids a contorted look.
- When you want to translate a body part, this is achieved by bend / twist of limb sections closer to the torso. For example if you want to move a hand location, the greatest affect is achieved by bend / twist on the shoulder and forearm.
- When posing hair, the quickest results are usually achieved using the wind sliders (select hair - parameters tab).
D-Former:
D-Formers can be used for many things, however a simple use is to adjust surfaces to achieve interaction between character and scene. Functionally the D-Former is applied to an object and creates a spherical field, which allows translation / rotation to any surface node points within the field. The degree to which they are modified decreases the further you get away from the center of the sphere. I often use these on the couch onto which I pose a character, however in the example below I have done it to a boxing bag (it's easier to see the effect).
Instructions:
- Select the object you wish to apply a D-Former to (boxing bag in the above).
- From the menu - Create \ New D-Former.
- Select to D-Former_1_Field in the scene and adjust the scale and translation parameters, such that the portion of the object you wish to modify shows up as red and yellow dots (they are the mesh vertices). The red dot will be modified to a greater degree than the yellow dots.
- Select D_Former_1 in the scene and adjust the translation and rotation parameters to your requirements.
- You can apply multiple D-Formers to the same object if you wish.
Mesh Smoothing:
When placing a character on a hard flat surface you can allow the character to clip into that hard surface or alternatively morph the character surface by applying a smoothing modifier to that character. In the spoiler below I have shown these two alternatives as well as the base pose. The effect is between the character and the top of the stool.
Instructions:
- Select the character in the scene window.
- From the menu select Edit \ Object \ Geometry \ Add Smoothing Modifier
- Under the character Parameters \ General \ Mesh Smoothing select the Collision Item (stool in the above)
- Translate the over character position such that it would clip into the hard surface
- The mesh smoothing will take care of the morph
A couple of limitations with mesh smoothing
- The amount of the deflection that mesh smoothing can achieve is minimal (~2 cm dependent upon body part).
- The level of detail in the deflection is dependent upon the how fine the character mesh is. Hence you can't do mesh smoothing to add finger imprints into the glutes for example.
- Where the mesh density isn't really high, often there is a gap between the 2 object from mesh smoothing. Adjust the iterations doesn't seem to make much difference.
You can also allow the character to morph the object through mesh smoothing. Additionally you can combine D-Formers and mesh smoothing on the same object. Typically I would do the major deformation with the D-Former and the final adjustment using mesh smoothing.
Custom Tattoo:
This tutorial will explain how to create a custom tattoo(s) that may be applied to any location on your character skin. A tattoo application in Daz is typically the method via which you modify the base skin.
Methods of Applying Tattoos:
1) The easiest way of applying a tattoo is to use an asset pack and hit the button. From what I can understand this uses the LIE feature in DAZ to apply to the texture map.
2) The most flexible way is to custom edit the desired base texture map using an image editor and overlaying the desired tattoo on this surface.
3) An alternative way is via the use of a Geoshell, where the tattoo is applied as a Cutout Opacity and no modification of the base skin occurs.
Custom Skin Editing:
To undertake this process you will require a reasonably competent image editor than allows layer editing. Personally I use GIMP as it has the features required and is open license (free), however not the easiest software to learn. What follows is a step by step instructions of the method, using an example of a full sleeve tattoo:
1) Create or locate a suitable reference tattoo art. The image should preferably be as high a resolution as possible, however smaller images work fine for smaller tattoos. When manipulating the image you want to stretch the image a little as possible. As my artistic skills are limited I used the tattoo design as below.
2) To allow application to any base skin you actually want to use this as the layer mask. To convert this to a layer mask you want to invert the image colour such that black --> white / white --> black. White on the layer mask is visible whilst black is not, grey is partially visible.
3) Load the base texture map you wish to apply the tattoo to within the image editor. Insert a new layer in the colour you wish the tattoo to be applied at the same dimensions as the source image above. Then apply the inverted source image as the layer mask for the new layer.
4) Rotate and scale the tattoo layer to the required location on the skin you wish the tattoo to be applied. Once this is complete you achieve a result similar to below.
5) Save the resultant modified skin as a high quality jpg file.
6) Within Daz, select the character and locate the surface skin which you wish to change out with the modified skin. Change the Base Color and Translucency Color with the modified skin. Render and hopefully you will achieve results similar to below.
If you wish to create a multi colour tattoo, rather than grey-scale with skin breaks there are two alternatives:
- For images with solid colour and a clear outline, place the image on a layer over the skin and delete the background pixels. Move and scale as desired on the base skin and export modified skin.
- If you wish to incorporate the skin breaks as well as colour you will need the base image on a layer and also use a layer mask as well. Assuming the source image has a white background, create the layer mask, by converting to grey-scale and inverting the image. You may need to increase the contrast on the layer mask or increase the saturation on the source image to stop the lighter colours fading away to nothing.
Geoshell Tattoo:
A geoshell is another surface that lies just above the main surface of the character. You make control the visibility of this layer to effectively create a stencil over the main character. The source image is similar to that you used for the layer mask, however you need it to be located on a larger black background as below to prevent the tattoo from tiling to the surface.
Method:
1) Create a geoshell in Daz - Create \ New Geometry Shell.
2) Hide all of the shell section to which you are not applying a tattoo.
3) Apply the image as above to the Opacity Strength on the appropriate body part in the surfaces tab.
4) You can move the position of the tattoo by adjusting the vertical and horizontal offset.
5) You can scale the image by changing the horizontal and vertical tiles.
6) You can change the colour / properties by modifying the geoshell surface. Applying a Shader Preset is the quickest method.
7) You can change how opaque the tattoo is by adjusting the Opacity Strength percentage.
8) To rotate the tattoo, you do however have to change the source image used in the Opacity Strength.
Custom Tattoo - Cheats Version:
As mentioned above there are many packaged assets for tattoos. Many of these are quite good, however they may not be to your liking in terms of colour, position or intensity. These tattoos may be rapidly modified using the techniques above as the bulk of the hard work has already been done by the asset creator. The asset tattoo as within the render below wasn't to my liking so I made it more interesting via the following steps.
1) Locate the source image used by the asset to create the LIE overlay. Usually in Runtime\Textures within your content library.
2) Create a copy and invert the colour so it can be used as a layer mask / Cutout Opacity.
3) For the case at hand I thought it was way too light so I adjusted the brightness and contrast.
4) To achieve the colour transition I applied across the full layer and then applied the layer mask as below.
