LIE and custom tattoos
I want to get some experiance with LIE and try my hand at putting some custom tattoos on my character. I'm just not sure how to load the image into LIE. When I open it, I select the appropriate body part, open LIE and it shows the skin map. How do I import the tattoo though?
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You need to add a new layer by clicking the + (your tatttoo map, which needs to match the UVs of the figure), then you will probably also want to click the + again with the new layer selected to add a mask (an opacity map to let the underlying texture show through).
Awesome! Thank you Richard, that worked like a charm :) I appreciate it.
Okay well I finally tried to give this a spin and while I feel I am making progress, as you can tell from the picture, I'm not QUITE there yet. I see that it is using the entire leg map as "skin". I was trying to place the tattoo on the top of the foot. But as you can see, that didn't really work out. And it renders very faded. Any LIE experts out there that can give me a slap in the head and tell me what I am missing? I did exactly what Richards instructions said but I think there is a lot more I don't know about LIE. Obviously lol
Is your tattoo image the same size in pixel dimensions as the leg skin map you are placing it on? Is the tattoo positioned properly within the tattoo image, according to the character UV for the character you have appplied it to? Does the tattoo appear to line up properly in the LIE window?
Okay I'm going to do my best here...
I have little understanding of pixel dimension vs. leg skin map. The image I load into LIE appears in the upper left hand corner and looks the way I want it to. It's clear and defined.
I believe the tattoo is postioned properly within the tattoo image because to me, the image is the tattoo. It wasn't made with any specific UV in mind because I don't really know what that means.
Where I place it on the leg skin map, it lines up in the postion I want it. In this case, the top of the foot.
From my picture, I can see that somehow the leg map is what is being loaded ALL OVER the legs in a way that was not intended. You can tell by looking at the picture that the parts of the map that would be on the feet are loading on the shins with white space showing up elsewhere all over the legs. That is what gave me pause. After some further attempts I was able to get a decent result (see attachment) but what I'm stuck on now is that when I add the Mask per the instructions, the tattoo disappears completly. I have tried dialing the opacity up and down but the only way I can get the tattoo to reappear is to delete the Mask. So I'm just not going to do the mask thing anymore as I don't see any benefit.
Is the mask lined up with the tattoo - that is, if you scaled or moved the tattoo image did you do exactly the same to the mask image?
Ahhh see? That might be it right there! What I did was load the image, scale it to the size I wanted and then moved it to the location I wanted it on the leg map. THEN I created the mask. I assumed it would follow or just generate over the layer in the location/scale I had it. I'm still curious though what the advantage of the mask is? What does it do? I thought it turned out pretty good without the mask. This is just ignorance talking. I am VERY new to LIE and it's functions.
If your LIE tattoo is a PNG image with transparent background, I don't think you need a mask layer. However, if your tattoo image has a non-transparent background, you need the mask to hide that background that you don't want showing.
Oh I gotcha, that makes sense. And yes, they actually are .png files with transparent backgrounds. So I accidentally got something right! lol But hey, I'll take it. Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it.
Why are you messing with LIE?
I just tried something very simple: -->
Diffuse Overlay will require the tattoo to be created with the underlying character's UV in order for it to fit correctly, won't it? When the user has just a simple image of the tattoo shape, LIE allows visually sizing and positioning the tattoo to the desired location, with the caveat that there will distortion, because it is not in the character's UV. That is one reason to use LIE, and I think the user has just such an image for his tattoo.
There is no need to have the UV template, although most are free available somewhere in the web.
Simply use the texture map itself (as good as the UV).
Now do the same you did in LIE, but only once within your normal graphic design program (PSP, ...). That way you get the tattoo weight map as used in my example.
It is the same job as you do in LIE, but:
At the end it saves the long loading times everytime you load the character / scene, if LIE is involved in producing the maps.
And this overlay map now is available for all characters of the specific generation based on the corresponding UV.
Sorry, just wanted to be helpful ...
Hey I think ANY information is good information. There are so many nooks and cranies in Daz and the more people with flashlights shining some light on them the BETTER :)
Using the UV map makes it easier to get things lined up properly, and no bad seam matches. Especially helpful if using Snow SUltan's Seam guides, which are officially approved by Daz btw.
http://www.snowsultan.com/seam-guides/
Hi,
are you sure?
As I tried to use the UV template for creating tan-lines, and other addons for the skin, the lines of the UV map were really misleading.
Can you quickly identify the elbow or knee front zone only out of the UV template? Or create a straight horizontal line round the thigh following the UV template lines? Don't think so.
Only you load them on the character and look on it using the render camera.
But the source of snowsultan is quite good, cause it shows the transition to the different neighboured areas.