Toenail coloring tutorial please???

fearthefailure

Something that never worked for me was altering toenail colors.  I've tried every variation I can think of, but the color never changes; I can only make them glossy with metalicity.  I'm otherwise stuck with the default pink, however, I'd like some of my characters to have painted toenails.  Until someone creates content I like [French tips, multicolor combinations, designs], I'm happy with solid colors.  I've played games with characters made in DAZ Studio, and they have different toenail colors.  But I've never been able to alter this, and I feel like I'm doing something wrong after Crosswind helped me get literally everything else working properly.  Worse, in all my searching, I've only found one thread about it here [literally nowhere else], and it appears the method has changed since then.  The thread was from 2019, I followed Richard's instructions, and I still have the default pink toenails.  I'm trying to make everything match the theme of every character.

Anyone mind writing up a short tutorial in this thread please?

Taoz

Not sure what you mean - here's G9 with blue toenails.  In this case I just selected "Toenails" only, deleted the Translucency map, and changed Base and Translucency colors to blue. 

 

fearthefailure

Taoz said:

Not sure what you mean - here's G9 with blue toenails.  In this case I just selected "Toenails" only, deleted the Translucency map, and changed Base and Translucency colors to blue. 

You definitely understood because you SOLVED IT!  THANK YOU!  All that time, I had no idea that I needed to delete the translucency map.  I spent three months not knowing that.  I FINALLY see the results I was looking for!

Taoz

Great, glad you got it solved!

Well I wasn't sure if it was that which you were talking about since you hadn't been able to find any solutions, and it seemed pretty straightforward to me from what I know (i.e. maps can interfere with or prevent color changes if you try to apply these).  This exact method may not work in all cases, you may also have to delete the Base Color map and maybe other maps as well in some cases (I'm speaking in general here, not just for nails) in order to apply colors, depending on how the shaders are set up. 

 

fearthefailure

I had no idea.  I just started using DAZ in September, so these methods are new to me.  I'm advancing quickly, but my lack of experience leaves me with a lot of question marks for unexpected occurrences.  For instance: I'm still wrestling with creating hair I really want.  I can't make it curl without embedding itself in the scalp, have to manually create waves with the mouse, and even the comb embeds the strands I the scalp [so, I have to spend hours reworking even just a ponytail to dig them all out].  If there's a way to apply colliders in DAZ so that hair doesn't fold into the scalp, that would speed up my workflow greatly.  Another feature that would help is onion skinning, so I can see a section I already painted on and line up the next part that has different texture, length, or color.  I'm probably missing something important, but I only picked it up a couples of weeks ago.  I need to do it to have all the styles I need and to cut development costs.

Taoz

I'm afraid I can't help with creating hair, I have no experience with that.  If you haven't already, you could try youtube, there are many DAZ Studio tutorials there about many different topics.

crosswind

fearthefailure said:

I had no idea.  I just started using DAZ in September, so these methods are new to me.  I'm advancing quickly, but my lack of experience leaves me with a lot of question marks for unexpected occurrences.  For instance: I'm still wrestling with creating hair I really want.  I can't make it curl without embedding itself in the scalp, have to manually create waves with the mouse, and even the comb embeds the strands I the scalp [so, I have to spend hours reworking even just a ponytail to dig them all out].  If there's a way to apply colliders in DAZ so that hair doesn't fold into the scalp, that would speed up my workflow greatly.  Another feature that would help is onion skinning, so I can see a section I already painted on and line up the next part that has different texture, length, or color.  I'm probably missing something important, but I only picked it up a couples of weeks ago.  I need to do it to have all the styles I need and to cut development costs.

If you mean you're using Strand-Based Hair Editor to make a hair, I'm afraid the "poke-thru" issue is not avoidable... but it shouldn't be a big deal. On lots of SBH products made by Daz PAs, the hair even penetrate into the figure's skull...

fearthefailure

crosswind said:

fearthefailure said:

I had no idea.  I just started using DAZ in September, so these methods are new to me.  I'm advancing quickly, but my lack of experience leaves me with a lot of question marks for unexpected occurrences.  For instance: I'm still wrestling with creating hair I really want.  I can't make it curl without embedding itself in the scalp, have to manually create waves with the mouse, and even the comb embeds the strands I the scalp [so, I have to spend hours reworking even just a ponytail to dig them all out].  If there's a way to apply colliders in DAZ so that hair doesn't fold into the scalp, that would speed up my workflow greatly.  Another feature that would help is onion skinning, so I can see a section I already painted on and line up the next part that has different texture, length, or color.  I'm probably missing something important, but I only picked it up a couples of weeks ago.  I need to do it to have all the styles I need and to cut development costs.

If you mean you're using Strand-Based Hair Editor to make a hair, I'm afraid the "poke-thru" issue is not avoidable... but it shouldn't be a big deal. On lots of SBH products made by Daz PAs, the hair even penetrate into the figure's skull...

I wonder how they're covering it up.  On mine, it looks like bald patches - especially with short hair.

crosswind

fearthefailure said:

crosswind said:

fearthefailure said:

I had no idea.  I just started using DAZ in September, so these methods are new to me.  I'm advancing quickly, but my lack of experience leaves me with a lot of question marks for unexpected occurrences.  For instance: I'm still wrestling with creating hair I really want.  I can't make it curl without embedding itself in the scalp, have to manually create waves with the mouse, and even the comb embeds the strands I the scalp [so, I have to spend hours reworking even just a ponytail to dig them all out].  If there's a way to apply colliders in DAZ so that hair doesn't fold into the scalp, that would speed up my workflow greatly.  Another feature that would help is onion skinning, so I can see a section I already painted on and line up the next part that has different texture, length, or color.  I'm probably missing something important, but I only picked it up a couples of weeks ago.  I need to do it to have all the styles I need and to cut development costs.

If you mean you're using Strand-Based Hair Editor to make a hair, I'm afraid the "poke-thru" issue is not avoidable... but it shouldn't be a big deal. On lots of SBH products made by Daz PAs, the hair even penetrate into the figure's skull...

I wonder how they're covering it up.  On mine, it looks like bald patches - especially with short hair.

Haha ~ more or less but not sure.

Catherine3678ab

Skull caps ;-)

fearthefailure

Catherine3678ab said:

Skull caps ;-)

Is there a specific way to make one of those?  I haven't been able to find anyone going over the steps for that.  They talk about it like SBH and skull caps are one-and-the-same.

crosswind

You can cut the geometry of figure's head with Geo Editor as a "Scalp" or "hair cap", export / import as a OBJ and fit it on the figure with Transfer Utility. Then make a strand-based hair on the "Scalp". Or you may directly adopt the hair cap from a SBH product...just keep the root node (Scalp).

fearthefailure

crosswind said:

You can cut the geometry of figure's head with Geo Editor as a "Scalp" or "hair cap", export / import as a OBJ and fit it on the figure with Transfer Utility. Then make a strand-based hair on the "Scalp". Or you may directly adopt the hair cap from a SBH product...just keep the root node (Scalp).

That was a whole new language for me lol Hopefully I can follow this in my next session tomorrow.

crosswind

fearthefailure said:

crosswind said:

You can cut the geometry of figure's head with Geo Editor as a "Scalp" or "hair cap", export / import as a OBJ and fit it on the figure with Transfer Utility. Then make a strand-based hair on the "Scalp". Or you may directly adopt the hair cap from a SBH product...just keep the root node (Scalp).

That was a whole new language for me lol Hopefully I can follow this in my next session tomorrow.

NP ~ just learn it step by step ~~ 

Catherine3678ab

Um, you can't redistribute a cap made from the figure's geometry. Any 3D modeler can produce a sphere. Fit it around the head area, deleting any unneeded mesh. Add enough subdivision so it can morph nicely with whichever character is dialed into the figure. In D/S  rig it and save as a figure/prop file.

Hair can be built off of the skullcap.

fearthefailure

Catherine3678ab said:

Um, you can't redistribute a cap made from the figure's geometry. Any 3D modeler can produce a sphere. Fit it around the head area, deleting any unneeded mesh. Add enough subdivision so it can morph nicely with whichever character is dialed into the figure. In D/S  rig it and save as a figure/prop file.

Hair can be built off of the skullcap.

So, the sphere would have some sort of colliders that prevent the strands from folding into the mesh of the scalp?  Is that the correct understanding?

Catherine3678ab

Well, all the hairs start off coming out from the mesh "but" as one combs the hair [to style it] one will likely find some of the hair going through the mesh.

Takes some practice to get desired results.

I prefer starting hair on new mesh because resolution and uvmaps do matter. The back of the head mesh on many figures is rather low poly.

fearthefailure

Catherine3678ab said:

Well, all the hairs start off coming out from the mesh "but" as one combs the hair [to style it] one will likely find some of the hair going through the mesh.

Takes some practice to get desired results.

I prefer starting hair on new mesh because resolution and uvmaps do matter. The back of the head mesh on many figures is rather low poly.

Ah!  I can picture it now.  Thanks so much for the help!