Custom Made Tattoos. The colors are off

DDCreate

I applied some opacity maps to the skin of one of my characters and am having a problem with the coloring. As you see in the first picture, the tattoo is black. When rendered it renders more red. Does anyone know what is causing that and how to fix it? I am just applying an altered skin map. I render in Iray.

Thanks!

Richard Haseltine

So you haven't changed any of the non-base maps? With iray there are a lot of factors that can, depending on the set-up, contribute to the final look - in this case I think you are seeing the contribution of SSS.

DDCreate

Correct. I just loaded the new skin and left everything else alone. Is there a way to fix it?

 

Seven193

Is this a Iray Uber shader surface?  I've seen some people put detail texture maps in Diffuse Overlay Color instead of Base Color.  Not sure if the texture map can be transparent or not.

https://www.deviantart.com/sickleyield/journal/Iray-Surfaces-And-What-They-Mean-519346747
 

vwrangler

Did you add a copy of the tattoo to your SSS map itself? With Iray (and to a lesser extent, 3Delight), you need to have the tattoo itself appear on both maps, otherwise SSS bleeds through in ways you don't want.

If you have more recent characters that you've purchased that have tattoos, take a look at their texture setup. They should have both a color version of the map on the diffuse, as you've done, and a faded-looking, more or less black-and-white version on the SSS map for the same body part. (Sometimes also called the TRANS map in the file name.)

As Dave 230 mentioned, another way is to use the diffuse overlay channel. Daz (the company) uses transparent PNG/TIFF diffuse overlay maps on its characters, such as Owen, which means that they don't need to tinker with the tattoos on the diffuse, but that requires either properly positioned transparent PNG images, or a second use of the edited diffuse map itself, which I've seen some other vendors do. If you don't choose the first method of altering the SSS map itself, either of those ways of approaching the diffuse overlay should also work.

DDCreate

No. I just took a symbol and made an opacity map .png and applied it directly to the skin map, saved as a seperate file and applied it to the base color channel. I also tried applying it with LIE and got the same strange red hued result.

I don't see an SSS Channel. I see SSS Reflective Tint and dials for SSS Amount and Direction.

 

Illidanstorm

You could use this tutorial to apply your tattoo. https://www.deviantart.com/tiangtam/art/Tiangtam-Tutorial-Geometry-Shell-719261158 Instead of applying a geometry shell of the clothes, make one of the figure... That's how I apply tattoos at least because when you just change the map textures I found it never looks right.

DDCreate

Thanks Illidanstorm, I took a look but never having used Geo-Shells before I'm not sure I understand it and am having a tough time converting this tutorial in my brain to how I'd use it for tattoos. 

VWrangler: Where is the SSS Map you mentioned? 

diogenese19348

I use a shell also.  There's just too much going on with IRAY to make it easy to change the skins. 

Seven193

No shells required.  Paint your tattoo directly onto the skin.  Put same tattoo skin texture in both BaseColor and Translucency Color slots.

Illidanstorm

Its not that hard.

Click on your figure > create > new geoshell > Parent to Selected Item

Click on the new geoshell and select all surfaces of the geoshell and give them a black shader if you want a black tattoo

In Photoshop: If you want a tattoo on the arm, take the texture of the arm of your figure and place your tattoo there in photoshop or gimp on a new layer and make the tattoo white.

Make a new black background layer and place the tattoo over it. You should now have your white tattoo on a black background. Save it as .jpg

Back in DAZ3D select every surface of your geoshell and go to Cutout Opacity, place your newly created .jpg there.

Now you should see your tattoo on the arm.  

vwrangler

DDCreate said:

Thanks Illidanstorm, I took a look but never having used Geo-Shells before I'm not sure I understand it and am having a tough time converting this tutorial in my brain to how I'd use it for tattoos. 

VWrangler: Where is the SSS Map you mentioned? 

I'm sorry; I meant the translucency channels. Used the wrong term.

I'm not near Studio at the moment, and I don't remember offhand if it goes into the translucency strength channel or the color channel; I think probably the color. The maps are called either the SSS map or the trans/translucency map by individual vendors. The name can vary.

Honestly, if you've already got it painted onto your diffuse map and haven't yet got it on your trans map, I suspect that Diffuse Overlay will be by far the easiest method/channel to use, if you're using Iray. It won't show in the workspace, but you'll be able to see it either in Iray Preview mode or on render.

Seven193

Color tattoo test.

DDCreate

Thank you Dave230! I was hoping I wouldn't have to learn Geo-Shells right now. It'll put me so far beind :P This solution worked like a charm.