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Making a Character Texture
I wrote this tutorial on my own. Any similarity to another tutorial is purely coincidental. I claim the copyright to my tutorial. You are free to do whatever you please with what you make, but please do not take my tutorial. Do not send the tutorial through email. Only share my link. This tutorial was created for some friends of mine who wanted to begin learning more about DAZ Studio. It is intended for beginners to learn how to make a character texture. If you have any questions, please feel free to Email me. To do this tutorial you will also need DAZ Studio. You will need the template for the figure that you wish to create a texture for. I will be using the V4 figure to create a texture. You can download the template from this page: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=4783 scroll down to about middle of the page for the template download link. 1. EXECUTE the install file for the template and save it into a template folder. 2. Open the V4face template in PSP or Photoshop. 3. Duplicate the image, and close the original.
In PSP: SHIFT + D to duplicate 4. Here is a partial image of the face template. Take a look at the lines that are closer together, and the lines that are spaced further apart. Lines closer together indicate a change in topography -- a denser area of the face -- a place where it has a faster change in slope -- the hollow areas of the face.
5. Layers > New Raster Layer ***EVERY step must be done on a new layer!***
6. Flood-fill this layer with the main skin color of your choice. It does not matter that your color extends beyond the uvmap grid. Anything beyond the uvmap grid will NOT show on the figure.
7. Now slide the Opacity down to about 50%. This way you can see the grid again.
8. Layers > New Raster Layer 9. Choose the airbrush tool Here are the
paintbrush settings I used in PSP In Photoshop Choose a Size 25 paint brush, 100% hardness 10. You will need to choose 3 more colors besides your skin color. It should be colors that go together and have a quality of dark, medium, and light/bright. Since my character will have a nature them. I chose black, brown, and olive green. The fourth color is my skin color.
These colors are used to put shadows in the hollow areas of the skin. So you will notice that at the very center of each hollow area, I put the darkest color that I wanted to use. (black outlining the edge of the eyes. Then the black outline was surrounded by my medium color (brown), and that was surrounded by my light/bright color (olive green). Finally, All of my shading no matter which color I stopped on was outlined with the skin color (this will make it blend better with the skin tone) Add your colors into the shading. We will do cheek color separately. 11. Apply a Gaussian blur, about radius = 35 (you may need to adjust based on what colors you chose). In PSP:
Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur In Photoshop: Filters > Blur > Gaussian 12. I liked the way the colors blended, but I felt they were still too dark (after increasing the opacity of my skin layer and checking) so I lowered the opacity of this shadow layer to about 85%.
13. Layers > New Raster Layer We will now work on the cheeks. 14. Start the color layers again with darkest in the center, then medium around that, then light, then finally skin color
15. Apply the same Gaussian Blur 16. Lower the Opacity of the cheek layer as necessary -- I chose 71% this time.
17. Layer > New Raster Layer. 18. Choose the base color for your lips and color the lips in.
19. Lower the Opacity of this layer to about 65%.
20. Choose the airbrush tool In PSP: Here are the settings I used. Changed the size = 15, Hardness = 80, density = 10, opacity = 75
In Photoshop the Airbrush tool is located WITH the paintbrush tool. Choose the paintbrush tool. Then in the top paintbrush toolbar, there is an icon to choose the airbrush. Set hardness = 80, opacity = 75, Size = 15. 21. Whether you are using the same colors as the shading for the skin or chose different colors for your lips, you do the same: Outline the lips with your dark color, then inside that outline use the medium color and fill in the shadow contours of the lips, then inside that outline the light/bright color, and a fourth color for highlights to place in the "shiny" spots of the lip. I used the skin color (since it was light) for the shiny spots.
22. Apply a Gaussian Blur, but this time Radius = 10. Settings for PSP: (Adjust > Blur > Gaussian Blur)
In Photoshop: Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur 23. Return to your skin layer (the first flood-fill layer) and RAISE the opacity back to 100% so that the grid lines do not show anymore. 24. Now you can add embellishments to help create your character. Remember to add each one as a NEW Layer. I used tubes to add ivy leaves (Edit > Copy the ivy tube, then Edit > Paste as New Layer on the face template) You can also use shapes to decorate, or dingbat fonts or fonts.
25. When you are done, you are ready to save. It must be saved as a JPEG and saved inside a folder in the Textures folder of your DAZ program. for PSP: File > Export > JPEG Optimizer Then browse to your folder in DAZ:
And basically, that's the procedure. You will need to add this skin color layer to every template file of V4 that has a skin image on it (limbs, torso). You can make your own eyes for her the same way. If you would like to follow a tutorial for the rest, click here to continue **coming soon**
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