Question Can dynamic textures be used to achieve dynamic wrinkles in subtle areas in VAM?

[vvs123]

I know that VAM cannot achieve wrinkles due to the surface limitations of the model, but can very subtle areas such as the wrist and eye corners be achieved through dynamic mapping? Diffuse and normal maps are sufficient to provide these details. I don't know much about programming, but perhaps it can be achieved by using layer masks for specific body parts in specific situations?

 

[MacGruber]

The usual way to achieve this kind of things in games is to have an secondary normal map layer that can be faded in as needed. Of course you also need a way to control where to fade it in....so you can fade each area of the body, like each joint seperately. Could be additional texture layers, or potentially something encoded in vertex data.

In any case, you would need a custom shader that can make sense of all the data. Since VaM's shader is not accessible in a way that you could modify it, you would have to rewrite it....or ask Meshed very nicely.

Dynamic textures are likely too expensive. Too much data that needs to be updated every frame. Except potentially a very low resolution control texture that just serves as fade value for the more high res secondary normal layer.

 

[Origin69]

Could you potentially do it with a skintight clothing wrap that uses the same skin_D textures as the base model? if the normal maps on the clothing items included the wrinkles, you could alter the alpha and specular detail of the cloth layer depending on morph values or animate it to correspond to joint position.

 

[epus]

Decal Maker has dynamic texture blending and despite its name also has slots for normal maps. I've never used those, though. I don't know if they are additive to the base normal map or if they are overlays, i.e. need to be alpha-masked where they shouldn't apply.

 

[vvs123]

Could you potentially do it with a skintight clothing wrap that uses the same skin_D textures as the base model? if the normal maps on the clothing items included the wrinkles, you could alter the alpha and specular detail of the cloth layer depending on morph values or animate it to correspond to joint position.

Oh, this reminds me of a plugin called Cloth Skin.I just tried it out and by adjusting the hardness and looseness of the fabric, I got some wrinkles that worked well, but at the same time, there were also many problems, such as cracks and faults between the body and genitalia

 

[vvs123]

Decal Maker has dynamic texture blending and despite its name also has slots for normal maps. I've never used those, though. I don't know if they are additive to the base normal map or if they are overlays, i.e. need to be alpha-masked where they shouldn't apply.

Thank you for your answer. I have achieved good results using Decal Maker combined with timeline

 

[epus]

Thank you for your answer. I have achieved good results using Decal Maker combined with timeline

If your solution is generally applicable maybe make a resource out of it