Solved Making Alpha textures

[virtamater]

What would be the process for removing just the skin part and converting that into an alpha chanel while leaving the Black border, the holes in the nose, eyes and the lips for reference.

I have lots of png files I use as stickers for tattoos, but I have to put them on Skin files like this. If there was a way to just place the stickers on a file that was set up as a decal.

I've been trying to figure this out in Krita for months now.. so I'm asking here lol.

I would use that process to use on all the the torso, limbs and gens too.
Previously, I tried tracing a border on already set up alpha image, but it didn't work out to well.

 

[Origin69]

I use Gimp to do textures. If you add a new blank layer on top of the skin texture and place your decals where you want them you can then hide the base layer and export as a .png with a blank background.

 

[virtamater]

I'll have to start using gimp then lol

 

[Origin69]

The other option is blender. It's a bit more complicated, but with the right set up you can texture paint directly onto your model using your images as stencils, so you can go over seams more easily and keep everything lined up. It's a steep learning curve, and I had to make adjustments in gimp afterwards anyway, but you can get some good results.

 

[virtamater]

I've noticed that the skin maps seem to be different on the way blenders charactors has the UV mapping, how would I set up the blender model to share the same mapping that the Daz/Vam girl has as this way would be easiset cuz I've texture painted in blender prior. It's been a while since Ive use Blender until recently.

I had the Bastoni lab human generator lab.

I also have a default Candy model from VaM that I use as a hieght reference to make the cua's in Unity.
Would I just make another Candy model and export the texture files then too?

is there a tutorial around to unwrap a model in the way the VaM persons are?

 

[SlimerJSpud]

The characters in Vam have several different UV sets. There's the Base G2, Victoria6, Monique6, Olympia6, etc. There are subtle differences that might make seams fail to line up. Why not use Decal Maker presets? You can scale and shift the decals on whatever skin and UV you are using.

Plugins - Decal Maker

I recommend you always delete or disable old VAR versions of Decal Maker when updating. Saving the final blended texture is intentionally disabled. Only a single Decal Layer at a time can be saved out via the Move UI. Unless approved by MeshVR I...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[virtamater]

I had that. I might give it another go. last time i used it I don't think you could move around or scale the decal..

 

[Origin69]

I've noticed that the skin maps seem to be different on the way blenders charactors has the UV mapping, how would I set up the blender model to share the same mapping that the Daz/Vam girl has as this way would be easiset cuz I've texture painted in blender prior. It's been a while since Ive use Blender until recently.

I had the Bastoni lab human generator lab.

I also have a default Candy model from VaM that I use as a hieght reference to make the cua's in Unity.
Would I just make another Candy model and export the texture files then too?

is there a tutorial around to unwrap a model in the way the VaM persons are?

Yes, it is a bit of a pain to set it up properly. Not only do the different built in skins use slightly different uv layouts, they also have the materials channels split into multiple groups. You can export the model from Daz if you have it, or export an .obj to the root folder from Vam. I haven't found an easy work around for the material slots though. I still manually select all of the materials for a texture in edit mode and make a new material slot and apply them to that.
ie.
The face texture is split into - Face, Lips, Nostrils. (You may want to delete the eyelashes on the models so they don't get in the way)

The Torso texture gets split over - Ears, Head, Neck, Hips, Torso, Nipples. and part of a "default texture" slot that includes the gens. (if you exported from vam, this default texture includes what would be part of the hip, you may want to drag the two added gens island out of the way in the uv editor to texture paint this )

The Limbs texture is - Shoulders, Forearms, Hands, Fingernails - Legs, Feet, Toenails.

I always intended to make a blank setup for each uv layout, but my painting blend files are a mess of different projects, so I don't have a blank one. I hope this helps though. Good luck.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

I had that. I might give it another go. last time i used it I don't think you could move around or scale the decal..

There was an update for that. I suggested it so it would be like the LIE presets in Daz.

 

[virtamater]

lots to think about! thanks !