Retexture help daz squirrel tail

Jessie

Hey, so I am looking to retexture the squirrel. More specifically it's tail. See I'm a furry artist and I take bits and pices from different daz/poser models parent them to each other, redo the textures a bit to make a figure I can use that will help me figure out how a character needs to be posed and how the shadows/highlighs should be. Yet so far the only thing I have not managed to retexture is the squirrels tail. Why? because over it's base tail it has a seperat layer on top for the tails fluffyness and it's texture jpg is wonky to say the least. I've tried everything even going so far as to atempt a straight line down the center to see how everything lines up. But that doesnt even work because of how the texture wraps around each part of the 'fluffs'. Even more frustrating is the change I'm trying to do is easy...ish. See this is the tail I am trying to do http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17211658/ A solid color on top, with a much lighter version of it underside and tiger stripes (so like top of tail, sides but not underside or tip). I've done more complex texture edits than this for other figures yet this is the one I can not manage. Maybe someone can help me? Or has a texture map for the tail I could use? or some kind a suggestion?

SixDs

The Squirrels tail, as you will have noticed, is divided into segments for both movement and texture mapping purposes. The segments, starting with that closest to the body and working rearward, are Tail1, Tail2, Tail3 ... Tail12. Each of these segments is actually composed of two or more grouped meshes - an inner cyclindrical mesh, and one or more outer conical meshes. It is this combination that gives the tail its "bushiness". If you wish to customize the textures for the tail it is important to be able to translate between the texture maps and both the different segments as well as the inner and outer components. For a more-or-less solid colour, this is easier than attempting to create a pattern or variation.

There are actually two diffuse (colour) texture maps that are used for the tail: the SquirrelBodyM.jpg, and the SquirrelTailM.jpg. The body map is used for the texture for Tail1 segment, which is only cylindrical and lacks a conical component. The part of the body texture map that corresponds to this is the protruding part of the squirrels body on the map. The body map also has an oblong spearpoint shape on the right side - this is the map for all the inner, cyclindrical components of tail segments 2 through 12, from bottom to top, respectively. The remaining conical components are found on the separate tail texture map. The seams for all of these are at the bottom of the tail, so the edges are closest to the bottom of the tail and the middle is at the top. Once you know which parts of the texture maps go where, it should be possible to create the effect that you are looking for in an image editor by varying the tone from edges in towards the middle, and then adding the variagations on top. Whether you will need to do both on the cylindrical portions as well as the outer conical portions I cannot guess - you'll just need to try it and see.

Now how do you figure out what goes where from those maps? Well the parts that are on the body map are relatively simple as I have already explained. The tail map for the conical sections is a bit trickier. So I placed coloured numbers on a copy of the map in Photoshop, then saw where they ended up on the tail when I replaced the original diffuse map with my annotated copy. Here's a copy of a revised annotated map, attached, that you can use as a guide to figure out what goes where and how you will need to edit the textures for what you are trying to do. (Note: the attached map is at a lower resolution than the original, and in grayscale, not to mention being plastered with numbers, so isn't useful for anything other than a guide to texturing - not a template).

Here's how it goes for the tail texture map that is used for the cones, from inner to outer, as numbered on the map:

Tail2: part 2, then 1
Tail3: parts 6, then 5, then 4, then 3
Tail4: parts 9, then 8, then 7
Tail5: parts 11, then 10
Tail6: parts 13, then 12
Tail7: parts 15, then 14
Tail8: parts 18, then 17, then 16
Tail9: parts 21, then 20, then 19
Tail10: parts 23, then 22
Tail11: parts 25, then 24
Tail12: parts 28, then 27, then 26

I have attached an annoted body map, as well.

Jessie

Awesomeness thank you ^_^