Creating texture maps for Poser

Last updated: 08.07.2001

Poser allows you to texture the figures you create using flat images called texture maps. These images are 'wrapped around' (or rather 'mapped onto') the Poser figure to give it a realistic appearance.

Some texture maps are already provided with Poser, but you may want to make your own, for instance to change the skintone or clothing color of a given figure. You can even 'clothe' one of the nude figures by painting a special texture map that includes some clothing. Clothing created in this way is always more or less 'skintight', but you can achieve some quite convincing effects quite simply.

Theory

You can create a texture map with any 2D paint program such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter. This tutorial describes the use of Photoshop, and makes use of some especially useful features of Photoshop for this kind of work, but you should be able to do something similar with any paint program.

You can paint your own map from scratch, but in general, the best approach is to base your map on one of the standard maps that ship with Poser. They can be found in the 'textures' folder in your Poser folder. Choose the map that goes with the model you are using.

When you first open a map, you may be startled by how messy it seems. There's a vaguely human shape crudely daubed onto the canvas, with vague colored blobs floating around in space around it. It doesn't even seem to have any hands. Only the face and a few other details seem to have been rendered with any accuracy.

The apparent crudeness of the map doesn't matter. The model defines which parts of the map are important. Any paint that 'spills over the edges' just won't get mapped; it's as if it didn't exist. As for the missing hands, some of the colored blobs floating in space are actually the hands; the people who built the Poser models separated out the hands from the rest of the body to make their job easier.

Texture map [7K]

Figure 1: A sample texture map

This makes things difficult though when you're trying to paint a map of your own, so MetaCreations provide templates which show exactly how the figure is represented on the map. These templates should have been installed with Poser, although with certain versions they aren't installed automatically. If you can't find the templates, check the Poser CD.

Texture map template [11K]

Figure 2: A sample texture template

You can also generate your own texture map templates, which is useful if you don't have the original template. Some programs available to do this include:

Name	Windows	Macintosh
UVMapper
MapMagic
MeshMapper

One advantage of using a program to generate a template directly from the model is that you can generally make the template any size that you like. If you need a very detailed texture map, you can generate a very large template to work with.

Step by step guide

This is a step-by-step guide to editing texture maps using a program such as Photoshop which allows you to have multiple layers in your image, and to change the opacity and visibility of each layer. You need to be able to display the map template as a guide while painting your texture map. If your graphics program can't do this, you won't be able to use this approach. You can still paint texture maps, but it will be more difficult without the template to show you where the outlines of the model lie.

These instructions are written for Photoshop users. If you use a different program, you may need to adapt the procedure slightly, but the general principles hold.

1	Open the basic Poser texture map you want to base your map on. This should be the map that corresponds to the model you've chosen. We will use the female nude texture.
2	Open the template that corresponds to your model. We will use the template for the naked woman as a starting point.
3	Resize the template so that it is the same size as the texture map. For some reason, at least in the Mac version, the templates and textures are different sizes. You should make them both the same size so that you can paste one over the other and have them line up correctly.
4	Copy the template and paste it into the texture map window.
4	Using the Layers palette, set the mode of the layer containing the template to Screen, and set transparency to 25%. Figure 3: Photoshop Layers palette
5	The template should now be visible as a fine mesh over the surface of the texture. You can use this as a guide while you work on the map. Depending on the colors you use, you may find other application modes stand out better, and you can increase or decrease the transparency while you work. When the mesh hides details you need to see, use the Layers palette to hide it. Figure 4: Map with superimposed template
6	Add to the map by painting on layers of clothing, decorations etc. You can be as sloppy as you like around the edges of the figure, but any detail within the region defined by the template should be as sharp as possible. Figure 5: Texture map This map was built up in several layers. The lowest layer is the original female nude map, which provides the texture for the face and hands. Over that, a layer containing several blocks of olive green was added to make a jumpsuit. Note how crudely the jumpsuit colour is applied; the mapping process will simply ignore the spillover. To give the jumpsuit some detail, I imported the muscle bump map from Poser (actually the male version, because I wanted the 'bumpy' look of the male abdominals), masked out the parts I didn't want and used Darken mode and reduced opacity to blend it with the green color. The result suggests a kind of padded suit. On top of this, further layers were added for the figure's boots and some minor decorations - a stencilled number on the thigh, a badge and red piping on the trousers.
7	When you've finished, save the map in native Photoshop format.
8	Hide the template mesh (unless you want to make it part of your design) and flatten the image. Save the result as BMP or TIFF (PC) or PICT (Macintosh).
9	Go back to Poser and apply the newly-created map to your figure to see how it will look. Remember to set the object color for the figure to white, otherwise the map will be tinted. Figure 6: Poser test render Return to your image editor to correct any obvious mistakes. When you are satisfied, save a final version. Your texture map is now ready to be applied.

More tips

A good technique is to make extensive use of Photoshop's layers, with one layer for each piece of clothing or set of decorations. If you make a mistake on one layer, you can throw it away and redo it without having to begin completely from the beginning.

Another useful feature of Photoshop are the Path tools. You can use these to make regions with sharply-defined boundaries. For instance, the round neckline of a T-shirt is a lot easier to make using the Path tools than painting by hand with the brush or airbrush. Lines where clothing meets flesh need to be sharp and regular. Blurring or unevenness looks unrealistic.

Where you have large areas of colour, use the Add Noise filter to apply a small amount of monochromatic noise. This gives a more realistic 'rough' cloth texture. Regions of flat color tend to give a rather plastic look to clothing, which may not be what you want.