Fantasies Attic
Programs and more Programs => Questions? Answers and such here! => Topic started by: CardinalBiggles on May 31, 2023, 06:39:27 AM
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I mess around a lot with textures for my favourite costumes - mostly the MFD, but also Lirio, Pretty in Pink, Texture challenge 5, and I'm planning on working on more, but I don't know how to get from having a texture to a file to put in pose in the libraries for automatic one-click adding to the garment involved. I would love to offer some of my historical costumes as freebies but I'm a bit loath to do so with mere textures. so, I thought i'd ask!
I'm a dinosaur and I struggle with technology...
thanks, Sarah
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Poser or DS and which version(s)?
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oops, sorry, poser. I use PoserPro14 but i most things with earlier versions seem to work
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I'll look in the archives and see if I can find a version of pp2014 from before the update to illustrate with. I do have one I'm sure. Poser materials are no longer loaded that way. That method was a hack from the old days to get material files into the pose room. You can still load those old pose/material files in new versions of Poser however.
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Many thanks!
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Almost supper time here. I'll kick something up later tonight or first thing in the morning. Time to go cooking.
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much obliged; it's latish at night here, so I look forward to reading it when I'm fresher!
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You mean once you have added your textures to a item of clothing you don't know how to save it.
You just make a new folder in the pose folder with the name of your texture on it...then click the little plus button down the bottom left of the library and save it. you can make the new folder in poser by clicking the one that looks like a folder...and to add your texture and clothing item click the bigger + sign next to the one that looks like a folder...
My screenshot doesn't work so I can't show you with images...but pdg will put you right..
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So I just put the jpgs into a folder? it automatically turns it into a pz file? or do I have to open the item of clothing, put on the texture and... well if I save it that goes into the file where I save pictures, not into libraries. but I can save it with the library directly? using the folder and + sign?
assume I'm a technological ignoramus....
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No you put them into your texture folder...
let me ask first...are you using the template to make your textures?
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Sorry; got way laid after supper while I was typing this. Good evening sanbie. Supper time for you now. Here we go.
OK. So this isn't PP2014 but it won't matter in the slightest. At any rate, this is how to save a bunch of textures for a piece of clothing so they apply to the required parts of the clothing when you click a pose icon. In other words this is how to save a material collection. We will then manipulate it into a pose file. A material collection in Poser is an MC6. A single texture or shader is an MT5. A texture distribution technique to share shaders between Poser and Studio was to hack the MT5 or MC6 material file and turn it into a pose file. A PZ2. This is effective only for simple texture, transparency and bump maps. Complicated shader connections won't cross over from Firefly to DS.
So let's say you have painted a nice texture with a transparency mask to apply to the MFD like so. The first thing we want to do is make the MT6 file. The Poser material collection of all your wonderful textures.
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You can save the MC6 file from anywhere in Poser. We will do it from the pose room.
1. Make sure that the Materials tab is selected.
2. Click the folder in the corner and make a new directory for your texture file with a name of your choice and click OK.
3. A new texture directory will appear in the list.
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1. Select your dress.
2. Select your directory.
3. Click the little "+" that appeared when you selected your new directory and a new box opens up. The New Material Set. Perfect. This is where we get to pick between a single material or texture and a collection of materials and textures. We will select Material Collection as we want a bunch of stuff saved, not just a single material for a single area. Make sure it is named and all the required material zones are selected and click OK. As you see I haven't included the bodyhandles as I haven't given them a fancy texture.
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After refreshing our runtime we can see that your new MC6 is installed in our fancy named directory.I've opened up the directory to show you what the structure will look like.
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Now for the annoying part. The file hack that makes materials into poses. Make a copy of your MC6 file first in case things screw up and open the MC6 in your text editor of choice. We need to be careful not to add extra carrage returns or spaces to the file or it could get ugly.
We need to change the "mtlCollection" at the top of the file to "figure". Exactly this. No extra spacing. If we were converting the MC6 file to work on a prop and not a figure we would change "mtlCurrent" to "actor $current"
The only other thing to do is check the file referances and change the paths to point to any image files needed for your textures.
Save the file and change it's extension from MC6 to PZ2
Done.
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I knew you would do it all pdg...it's great to see the screenshots of it!
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yes, I use the template, enlarged for better detail
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Okay so those images(jpegs) go into a folder in your texture folder...saves changing the path in the file...I always have a folder called Sanbie...then inside that I have a new folder with the name I am calling my textures...then when I add them to the clothing the path will be right...then just follow pdgs screenshots
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thank you very much! I do feel much daunted but I've saved all this to a word document so I can print it out and see if I can manage it. I fondly believe I am attaching a pic of what I've been up to most recently.
:thanks:
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I knew you would do it all pdg...it's great to see the screenshots of it!
Yeah; did it last night but I'm a little slow these days.
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thank you very much! I do feel much daunted but I've saved all this to a word document so I can print it out and see if I can manage it. I fondly believe I am attaching a pic of what I've been up to most recently.
:thanks:
Looking good.
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Looks awesome indeed....
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thank you! I did like the Princess of China, but it's for the genesis MFD, so I wanted something for V4. I did 3 texture sets. tinkering with getting the shoulders to meet the without post work. I also did a heap of victorian dresses which could be tinkered in shaping to be small crinolines through to Edwardian, and some regency, as well as late 18th century - there's a lot of Marie Antoinette stuff but little from 1780-1800 - and 17thc. I'm messing around to get a cavalier costume out of valiant.
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Yeah; did it last night but I'm a little slow these days.
Me too pdg...me too...it's like I'm just starting to wake up after a long sleep!