Making a horror character, think F.E.A.R.

madmaxneo1

I am trying to make a character similar to the one in the F.E.A.R. series of games. Basically it is a little girl that is really creepy looking.
I have tried and am able to get some things set but not all.
1. The eyes: I can get the eyes themselves to look evil through either stuff I purchased or some free stuff. But it is the area around the eyes that I want to change so they emphasize the eyes themselves. How do I do this?
2. Skin: how do I make the skin more pale?
3. Hair: I have long and black hair on the girl but I need it to hang down in front of her face but be thin enough so you can see her eyes.
4. Wardrobe: Anyone know where I can find a basic nightgown or long simple white dress that hangs down straight? I need something that looks dark ages/medieval if not a nightgown.
5. Blood: I'd like to add some effects to the dress or clothing like blood spatters and dirt.

I'm ok with the following but:
6. Teeth, I have a tweaker to make the teeth long like in the creature creator but I want to do a second pose with her mouth open and her teeth are like 6 inches long and pointy
7. Fingernails same as for the teeth.

For 6 and 7, if I can turn off the limits and make the teeth and fingernails longer without distorting them then that is perfect!
FYI I intend to do two poses, one where she is standing there like in the photo below (mouth closed and arms down) and another where she is leaping out with teeth/fangs and fingernails/claws expressed for an attack.

Here is a pic of the girl from the game, but I want to make her a little more creepy.
Bruce

madmaxneo1

For the dress I have found that the morphing fantasy dress in it's basic form works great, except I need basic color textures. I have been searching the store for basic color textures but nothing so far. I need white but some really light color will do.

But then again I also would like to have some blood splatters on it. When I get done I will post it here for others to use.

mjc1016

Several things you can do...mainly because it would probably be easier to edit an existing skin than find a 'close' one in the store. Horror skins are somewhat under represented, especially for the current generation of figures (there are a few...)

I took the basic Genesis 2F texture into GIMP (Bree), somewhat desaturated it, then used a vein map to overlay on top...set the mix to multiply and about 50% transparency on the vein map. For the face, before overlaying the veins, I took the burn tool and burnt in around the eyes and lips.

Then I saved out the 'finished' textures, under new names and reloaded them in the Surface tab, in DS.

I didn't spend a lot of time doing that...maybe about half an hour of copy/paste, move some sliders, with a good half of that time playing around to figure out the initial settings/getting something I liked. And that was for all 3 main maps.

I figure it would probably take me about another hour, again most of it deciding the 'look' to come up with a 'grunge' overlay for the nightgown.

There are also several products in the store that are mostly tileable shader presets/overlay products that are perfect for 'grunge'...

http://www.daz3d.com/antique-grunge-shaders-for-daz-studio

http://www.daz3d.com/hybrid-grunge-bundle-for-daz-studio

And for basic fabric work, without having to create whole new texture sets....

http://www.daz3d.com/the-fabricator

Or if you are feeling up to it, then the templates for most clothing items are available in your product download page in your account.

mjc1016

Here's a bit different lighting and a tileable texture on the nightgown...based on the Fabricator, I linked to before.

SixDs

the templates for most clothing items are available in your product download page in your account

I only wish this were true. We have been told that this will happen, but since their disappearance from the product pages following the website changes, many remain MIA. I have the morphing fantasy dresses for V3, V4 and Genesis, for example, and the texture templates are nowhere to be found. (and yes, I know about SnowSultan's seam guides)

madmaxneo1

mjc1016 said:

Several things you can do...mainly because it would probably be easier to edit an existing skin than find a 'close' one in the store. Horror skins are somewhat under represented, especially for the current generation of figures (there are a few...)

I took the basic Genesis 2F texture into GIMP (Bree), somewhat desaturated it, then used a vein map to overlay on top...set the mix to multiply and about 50% transparency on the vein map. For the face, before overlaying the veins, I took the burn tool and burnt in around the eyes and lips.

Then I saved out the 'finished' textures, under new names and reloaded them in the Surface tab, in DS.

I didn't spend a lot of time doing that...maybe about half an hour of copy/paste, move some sliders, with a good half of that time playing around to figure out the initial settings/getting something I liked. And that was for all 3 main maps.

I figure it would probably take me about another hour, again most of it deciding the 'look' to come up with a 'grunge' overlay for the nightgown.

There are also several products in the store that are mostly tileable shader presets/overlay products that are perfect for 'grunge'...

http://www.daz3d.com/antique-grunge-shaders-for-daz-studio

http://www.daz3d.com/hybrid-grunge-bundle-for-daz-studio

And for basic fabric work, without having to create whole new texture sets....

http://www.daz3d.com/the-fabricator

Or if you are feeling up to it, then the templates for most clothing items are available in your product download page in your account.

Hmmm so I can take the textures into a graphics program (Xara or illustrator, prefer Xara), and alter the textures in there? I have loads (thousands of textures in png and jpeg formats but I have not used them just yet. I even have some blood textures.

I need to figure out how to load up new textures into DAZ.

How do I get textures to load onto an item in DAZ if it came with a different DAZ item? I've tried this but it never loads up for me.

madmaxneo1

Here is my image so far. No background just yet though...

mjc1016

SixDs said:

the templates for most clothing items are available in your product download page in your account

I only wish this were true. We have been told that this will happen, but since their disappearance from the product pages following the website changes, many remain MIA. I have the morphing fantasy dresses for V3, V4 and Genesis, for example, and the texture templates are nowhere to be found. (and yes, I know about SnowSultan's seam guides)

Maybe I've been lucky then...but most of the things I've got have them. I thought I had a set for the MFD...but it looks like I don't.

I guess that should be 'are SUPPOSED to be...' .

Richard has been saying to put in a support ticket if we can't find them where they are supposed to be...except, the MFD it seems. A quick search points all the versions back to the V3 MFD...and the store page for it says to use SnowSultan's template.

This thread pretty much sums up the MFD template issue...

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/32173/

Here's the grungy tile I made...

CC-0 (Public Domain)

kaotkbliss

I picked up the Blood and Gore pack 1 (http://www.daz3d.com/blood-gore-pack-i) a while back for a project and wish I had known about LIE back then as it would have made things a lot easier.

But you can take this .psd file into photoshop and extract the pieces you want to use, then in Daz use the LIE to place the pieces on the clothing or model where you want them.

madmaxneo1

kaotkbliss said:

I picked up the Blood and Gore pack 1 (http://www.daz3d.com/blood-gore-pack-i) a while back for a project and wish I had known about LIE back then as it would have made things a lot easier.

But you can take this .psd file into photoshop and extract the pieces you want to use, then in Daz use the LIE to place the pieces on the clothing or model where you want them.

Thanks!
Now I need a tutorial that shows me how to do this.
FYI, I don't have photoshop but I do have Xara photo and graphic designer 10 along with access to all the Adobe cloud stuff, but I prefer Xara.

kaotkbliss

I'm not sure how those programs work, but photoshop has a script to extract all layers as separate images (for the quick easy way) or you could just hide/delete all but 1 layer and save a new png (don't save over the original file or you won't be able to reopen it with all the layers intact)

Once you have your layers into separate png files, then in daz select your item and go to it's surfaces properties. Under diffuse, click the down arrow (probably have a little image there as well) to the left of the color picker and choose "Layered Image Editor".

Inside the LIE, there is a window on the right side that lists your current layers and directly below that is a + and - sign (for adding new layer or removing selected layer)
click the + to add a new layer and select that layer.

Then next to "resources" click the bar that says "none" and browse to your bloody image.

You can then drag it around for positioning and scale it.

madmaxneo1

Thanks @mjc1016 I am trying that particular texture. I applied it but all I get is a white image. Which is consequently better than the base untextured look. If I am understanding this I have to separate the layers then apply each one separately?

kaotkbliss said:

I'm not sure how those programs work, but photoshop has a script to extract all layers as separate images (for the quick easy way) or you could just hide/delete all but 1 layer and save a new png (don't save over the original file or you won't be able to reopen it with all the layers intact)

Once you have your layers into separate png files, then in daz select your item and go to it's surfaces properties. Under diffuse, click the down arrow (probably have a little image there as well) to the left of the color picker and choose "Layered Image Editor".

Inside the LIE, there is a window on the right side that lists your current layers and directly below that is a + and - sign (for adding new layer or removing selected layer)
click the + to add a new layer and select that layer.

Then next to "resources" click the bar that says "none" and browse to your bloody image.

You can then drag it around for positioning and scale it.

I have textures of blood, and I think I have some blood spatters for use in maptools, I'll have to look through them again.

Hmm is there a tutorial for the LIE somewhere?

I really need to get "The Fabricator", I hope to see a sale sometime soon.....

kaotkbliss

LIE is pretty simple to use and pretty basic although I'm sure there's some stuff I've not discovered with it yet as I've only needed it for very basic layering.

madmaxneo1

kaotkbliss said:

I picked up the Blood and Gore pack 1 (http://www.daz3d.com/blood-gore-pack-i) a while back for a project and wish I had known about LIE back then as it would have made things a lot easier.

But you can take this .psd file into photoshop and extract the pieces you want to use, then in Daz use the LIE to place the pieces on the clothing or model where you want them.

Exactly what .psd file are you talking about... I thought you were the one who posted the texture file and being somewhat ignorant to layered images did not know that jpeg usually aren't layered.
So if you meant to post a texture (as your post somewhat indicates) it didn't show up

kaotkbliss

No, the product I linked to (blood and gore pack) comes in a psd (paintshop something-or-other file) which is a layered png file so the backgrounds are all transparent.

mjc1016

Jpg files don't have an alpha channel, so they can't be a layer...they can be the base, though.

LIE uses png, tif and a couple of other image formats, as layers. PSD is a Photoshop 'working' file format that preserves the layers and such instead of compositing them as a 'final' image. You can extract each layer from a PSD (it's often used to package stacked layers) to use separately as an overlay on something else.

The problem is that tiled textures and using the LIE don't work well together...the overlay will be tiled, which basically means instead of an over all overlay, you get a tiled one.

To use it to add something like blood splatters, you need to have a 'fitted' texture for the item. That's where the templates come into play. You'll need to make a fitted texture first...then use the splatter image extracted from the PSD in the LIE to overlay it...

madmaxneo1

mjc1016 said:

Jpg files don't have an alpha channel, so they can't be a layer...they can be the base, though.

LIE uses png, tif and a couple of other image formats, as layers. PSD is a Photoshop 'working' file format that preserves the layers and such instead of compositing them as a 'final' image. You can extract each layer from a PSD (it's often used to package stacked layers) to use separately as an overlay on something else.

The problem is that tiled textures and using the LIE don't work well together...the overlay will be tiled, which basically means instead of an over all overlay, you get a tiled one.

To use it to add something like blood splatters, you need to have a 'fitted' texture for the item. That's where the templates come into play. You'll need to make a fitted texture first...then use the splatter image extracted from the PSD in the LIE to overlay it...

Ok, sounds complex. Instead of creating a whole new fitted texture would it be easier to take the original template then add the blood texture (and renaming it)?

mjc1016

The template is just that...a template, not a real texture. Basically, if you load the MFD it will, by default load with a preset purple texture. If you remove the diffuse map, it will pure white. But if you try to use the LIE, it won't work, because there is now no base map to layer over. The template file is just a grid pattern and alignment markings, in various colors, so it isn't usable by itself for anything.

Now, there are literally hundreds of texture sets available for the MFD. It uses the same UV mapping for almost all the versions of it there are.

Here's some of the free ones.

There's a bunch in the store here.

madmaxneo1

mjc1016 said:

The template is just that...a template, not a real texture. Basically, if you load the MFD it will, by default load with a preset purple texture. If you remove the diffuse map, it will pure white. But if you try to use the LIE, it won't work, because there is now no base map to layer over. The template file is just a grid pattern and alignment markings, in various colors, so it isn't usable by itself for anything.

Now, there are literally hundreds of texture sets available for the MFD. It uses the same UV mapping for almost all the versions of it there are.

Here's some of the free ones.

There's a bunch in the store here.

Were there supposed to be links in that post?

kaotkbliss

Here's a couple examples I put together real quick.
The one is a render of the finished product, the other is a screen shot showing the LIE with 2 layers added and a couple blood png's from the blood and gore pack used.

madmaxneo1

I can add the png textures directly in LIE? If so that makes a huge difference.

kaotkbliss

yep, that's exactly what I did above.

madmaxneo1

That is cool!
The blood textures I have are in jpeg format so all I need to do is convert them into png format with transparent layers...
The hard part is remembering how to do it.

Odd thing happened. I placed the jpeg texture posted above onto the morphing dress and the first few times I opened that scene it only showed up as a solid white layer. But now it shows up with the grungy pattern look as in the picture above. Is that weird or normal?