Texture on ONE ARM ONLY on Genesis?

Dare Arkin

So, the title. I'm trying to make a man with an artificial arm. As a result one arm needs to be textured differently than the other. My original idea of simply making a second, identical genesis figure, fitting it to the original and using hide/reveal to show the arm didn't work, as the second figure distorted horribly. the upper body spaced away from the original figure, and the hands became a mess.

advice?

sriesch

Can you simply copy the default texture and modify one arm on it in your favorite image editor? (or if using shaders, apply the shader(s) to one arm.)

Dare Arkin

I am using shaders, but I don't know HOW to apply shaders to one arm only. x.x it selects both no matter what I do.

sriesch

Ok, I see the problem. I forgot the left and right sides were merged as a single material, so although one can modify the texture map, a shader would apply to both. You'll have to wait for the experts on this to see if there is a way around it.

Back to your original idea, instead of fitting one of your figures to the other, can you go to the menu and choose Edit > Copy > "Copy Figure", then select your second figure and choose Edit > Paste > Paste > "Paste Figure Pose" to get the two figures lined up?

Dare Arkin

I might, but that'd take a lot of work. I'll consider it my last case scenario...

Tramp Graphics

To do a single cybernetic arm, your best bet is to use a combination of gloves and bracers on the hand and arm you wish to make "Artificial". I use one of the gloves each from this set, the sleeves from the V4 Ninja suit from Mamomamo and the M4 men's gloves by Kyotaro. IF you're doing both arms, you can do without the Kyotaro gloves. If it's only the forearm and hand, you can forego the Raven Cosplay gloves, and if it's just the hand, just use the Kyotaro glove alone. That's what I did for the three characters I have with Cyber arms. All you need to do is apply a Chrome shader to them to make them look like metal, and hide the glove you don't want used by turning it off in the scene tab (or setting its opacity to 0 in Surfaces if possible).

BWSman

Tramp Graphics said:

To do a single cybernetic arm, your best bet is to use a combination of gloves and bracers on the hand and arm you wish to make "Artificial". I use one of the gloves each from this set, the sleeves from the V4 Ninja suit from Mamomamo and the M4 men's gloves by Kyotaro. IF you're doing both arms, you can do without the Kyotaro gloves. If it's only the forearm and hand, you can forego the Raven Cosplay gloves, and if it's just the hand, just use the Kyotaro glove alone. That's what I did for the three characters I have with Cyber arms. All you need to do is apply a Chrome shader to them to make them look like metal, and hide the glove you don't want used by turning it off in the scene tab (or setting its opacity to 0 in Surfaces if possible).

Artificial as in a prosthetic limb; not cybernetic/bionic.

Tramp Graphics

BWSman said:

Tramp Graphics said:

To do a single cybernetic arm, your best bet is to use a combination of gloves and bracers on the hand and arm you wish to make "Artificial". I use one of the gloves each from this set, the sleeves from the V4 Ninja suit from Mamomamo and the M4 men's gloves by Kyotaro. IF you're doing both arms, you can do without the Kyotaro gloves. If it's only the forearm and hand, you can forego the Raven Cosplay gloves, and if it's just the hand, just use the Kyotaro glove alone. That's what I did for the three characters I have with Cyber arms. All you need to do is apply a Chrome shader to them to make them look like metal, and hide the glove you don't want used by turning it off in the scene tab (or setting its opacity to 0 in Surfaces if possible).

Artificial as in a prosthetic limb; not cybernetic/bionic.You can still use the same trick, just apply a different texture to the gloves. Whether fully mechanized with electronics, like a cyber-arm, or a basic prosthetic, You still have the cuff into which the arm stub fits, as well as the joints. It also means you don't have to worry about trying to change the mats on only one arm, given that Genesis isn't designed for that. I have three such characters, one has only an artificial right hand, one has an artificial left arm, the third has two full artificial arms. The trick works, as seen in these pics: [url=http://tramp-graphics.deviantart.com/art/Romantic-Dinner-or-an-Exercise-in-Frustration-319288011Romantic Dinner (or an Exercise in Frustration) (Kageto's Cyber arms in this shot are the Raven Cosplay gloves and a pair of bracers from this set with the surfaces of his forearms and hands covered with a Chrome shader), Overdressed (Marc's Cyber hand is the Kyotaro M4 glove with a Chrome shader). If you want a more "plastic" look, use a different texture or shader on the gloves and bracers. The use of gloves and bracers in combination, creates those cuffs and joints and allows you to do only one arm instead of having to do both. And, the best part is, it can all be done with freebies.

Richard Haseltine

You can also generate a mask for one arm but nott he other and, in Poser#'s Material Room or DAZ Studio's Shader Mixer, use that to control which of two different sets of material values is applied to the surface.

DaremoK3

One more way to skin the cat with already included tools inside of DAZ Studio...

First, I am going to go out on a ledge, and assume you are using DS Pro with the included Content Creator Tools (since it was made available to everyone for free). If you are only using "Standard", then you will not be able to utilize this technique.

*Create a custom Material/Shader setting for Genesis (separate arm MATs) that will allow you to use separate materials/shaders on each arm using the "Polygon Group Editor":

1. Load Genesis.

2. Open the Polygon Group Editor Tab.

3. Navigate to the "Surfaces", and select the "plus-sign" (+) on the surface "3_SkinArm". You will see both sides of Genesis arm groups light up/selected.

4. In your view-port right-click and navigate to Polygon Selection: Mode, and then choose Rectangle Selection.

5. Draw a rectangle marquee around one side (one arm group. either left or right) using the negative selection control key (ALT by default) to deselect the polygons of that side.

6. Right-click on "Surfaces" header in the Polygon Group Editor Tab, and select "Create Surface from Selected", and name it to something like "3_SkinArmL" (or "R" if you have the right arm selected) to keep in line with the default naming conventions. Note; The "3" denotes the mapping group for the stacked UV's extremities group.

6a. You can repeat this procedure for the other side, but you will destroy preset parameters looking for "3_SkinArm", so it might be best to leave at least one default. Then you can copy/paste from the original to the new MAT group if needed.

7. Select the "3_SkinArm" material setting in the Surfaces Tab, right-click and select "copy". Then select the "3_SkinArmL (or R)" material setting, right-click and select "paste" to copy back the original Genesis shader settings.

DONE; now you have a custom left/right arm group that you can apply separate shaders to. Just repeat for other needed groups (forearms, etc.).

Example pic below:

EDIT: Corrected naming conventions, and defaults...