Is there a possibility to use Alascanus or Aguja mertail with other skins?

CZ

I tried to use these wonderful mertails (https://www.daz3d.com/aguja-mermaid-for-genesis-8-female-plus-mertail-and-fins and https://www.daz3d.com/alascanus-merman-for-genesis-8-males-plus-mertail-and-fins) on other G8 Characters, but was not sucessful. Around the stomac there still is the original Alascanus skin texture visible, wich makes it impossible to use it with other characters.

I tried it with Olli as you can see in the pic.

Is there any hopefully easy way to make this work?

Thanks a lot! :)

scorpio

It doesn't look like there is, atleast not without a lot of faffing about.

Thank you for pointing this out I purchased it but haven't had a chance to look at it closely - guess I'll be returning that order.

kenshaw011267

I haven't bought it yet but I have bought equivalent products. 

Try this.

Open the surfaces tab of the base character. There should be a skin surface. Select it and choose copy selected surface. Now open the Alascanus mertail and open the surfaces tab and find the skin material, it might be torso or something. you want just the human skin surface. Select Paste to Selected Surface. That should change the mertails skin to match the character it is attached to.

Pyreaux

Maybe try changing the head morphs from Alascanus' head to Ollie's head. Obliviously the skin will still be Alascanus'.

Pyreaux

..

scorpio

kenshaw011267 said:

I haven't bought it yet but I have bought equivalent products. 

Try this.

Open the surfaces tab of the base character. There should be a skin surface. Select it and choose copy selected surface. Now open the Alascanus mertail and open the surfaces tab and find the skin material, it might be torso or something. you want just the human skin surface. Select Paste to Selected Surface. That should change the mertails skin to match the character it is attached to.

That wont work unfortunately as the tail is geografted above the waist and the tail is all one mat zone , you would actually have to alter the whole are on the texture map in photoshop or something or fiddle with the geometry editor.

 

kenshaw011267

scorpio said:

kenshaw011267 said:

I haven't bought it yet but I have bought equivalent products. 

Try this.

Open the surfaces tab of the base character. There should be a skin surface. Select it and choose copy selected surface. Now open the Alascanus mertail and open the surfaces tab and find the skin material, it might be torso or something. you want just the human skin surface. Select Paste to Selected Surface. That should change the mertails skin to match the character it is attached to.

That wont work unfortunately as the tail is geografted above the waist and the tail is all one mat zone , you would actually have to alter the whole are on the texture map in photoshop or something or fiddle with the geometry editor.

 

That's just crappy design. If they had just sliced a lower torso off a character and put on the mertail leaving the various material zones in place and adding material zones for the tail you could move it to different characters easily and also change the tails appearance easily enough. The way they did it they're stuck with the one tail's appaearance.

Maybe there is a technical reason that they did things that way that i'm unaware off. Did they do the centaurs that way or can you merge any character onto the centaur lower body using the technique I described?

Male-M3dia

Have you tried a geoshell to that area?

scorpio

Male-M3dia said:

Have you tried a geoshell to that area?

Thats a good idea thanks, I will give it a go.

Sfariah D

It is geographed which means transparency maps will not work?

Summerhorse

At least 1 of the creators, Darwinmisshap is very active on the forums. hopefully he will stop by and tell us if it is possible.

 

Arki

The mertail and gills are indeed textured to be used with one specific character - and that's Darwins Mishap's Alascanus.
That might be the one big drawback of geograft items. They really need to have custom tailored textures for every single character you want to use them with.
I am afraid a geoshell won't work, because it will share the same texture templates and materials as the original figure(s) it was created from. So you are right back there with the same sort of problem.

So, apart from doing postwork on a final render to join textures of torso and tail, I see no way to use it with another character texture.
But you can use different character morphs with the tail, as long as the base figure is based o Genesis 8 Male. Besides, the Alascanus skin offers so many options that you can tweak it for the use you want.

Hope that helps :)

 

Sfariah D

Can others do textures for him and sell them?  As long as they are all original textures of course!

WendyLuvsCatz

Arki said:

The mertail and gills are indeed textured to be used with one specific character - and that's Darwins Mishap's Alascanus.
That might be the one big drawback of geograft items. They really need to have custom tailored textures for every single character you want to use them with.
I am afraid a geoshell won't work, because it will share the same texture templates and materials as the original figure(s) it was created from. So you are right back there with the same sort of problem.

So, apart from doing postwork on a final render to join textures of torso and tail, I see no way to use it with another character texture.
But you can use different character morphs with the tail, as long as the base figure is based o Genesis 8 Male. Besides, the Alascanus skin offers so many options that you can tweak it for the use you want.

Hope that helps :)

 

actually you could create a LIE template that masks the area for other skins

I presume the UV matches, I don't actually have it

carrie58

Been puzzling over this since the mermaid came out and I think that if the material zones for the tail were added to the main figure ,then the geoshell would have the same material zones and it would be possible to use different textures on the main figure while keeping the tail skins on the geoshell . Similiar to the Genesis3 Centuar.

DarwinsMishap

Hi all.

Yes-the tail is specific to Alascanus; which is why it is made to work only with his skin set.  However, the LIE idea is interesting.  I'll look into that idea.  

kenshaw011267

DarwinsMishap said:

Hi all.

Yes-the tail is specific to Alascanus; which is why it is made to work only with his skin set.  However, the LIE idea is interesting.  I'll look into that idea.  

The question is why? If the tail had conventional material zones it could be made to match other models and the rest of the tail could be recolored as desired by the owners of the asset. I realize that you probably intend to sell your own texture sets for the tails but you have yet to do so and at $20 and $30 each you're asking a lot for a single model for anyone who is considering making a fantasy scene involving merfolk, particularly now that they cannot do more than one male and female.

Arki

The UVs of the tail skin area do not match the torso UVs of either G8F or G8M. So we cannot provide LIE presets to give you blending options with other G8F/G8M torso textures.

As for using different character with the tails: Yes, we are aware that the tails are limited to a single texture/material set. However, that does not restrict the user to use different morphs, eye and lash textures, LIE makeup and tattoo options and all the other things hich can be used on facial, arm and upper torso regions, which are also a crucial component in customizing characters.

I can only repeat: geografts are dependant on using the texture blends which make them work together with those of their base figure. That is the nature of the beast.
 

WendyLuvsCatz

Arki said:

The UVs of the tail skin area do not match the torso UVs of either G8F or G8M. So we cannot provide LIE presets to give you blending options with other G8F/G8M torso textures.

As for using different character with the tails: Yes, we are aware that the tails are limited to a single texture/material set. However, that does not restrict the user to use different morphs,eye, lash textures, LIE makeup and tattoo options and all the other things hich can be used on facial, arm and upper torso regions, which are also a crucial component in customizing characters.

I can only repeat: geografts are dependant on using the texture blends which make them work together with those of their base figure. That is the nature of the beast.
 

I guess the only other option is a fully scaled tail with a LIE or geoshell that extends the scales up the torso 

Arki

Wendy_Carrara said:

I guess the only other option is a fully scaled tail with a LIE or geoshell that extends the scales up the torso 

That or create your own torso/face/arm textures with a texture blend for the upper tail portion - yes ;)

We did not create the mertail set in the way we did to give you guys a headache.
There were a couple of technical considerations involved which are the reason why we did what we did.

Oso3D

I think this would work:

Create a torso mask that blends from the waistline upward.

Assuming the torso has Aguja texture, using LIE, add layers to the torso maps for the other skin you want (or vice versa) and mask based on the previous image.

Note that for this to work right, the transparency and SSS should be homogeneous for the two skins.

 

You could do something similar with geoshell, but if the Aguja skin has transparency overlaying some of it over another skin might not look right.

 

But in all, the trick is that you need to adjust the torso, not the tail.

 

Arki

Oso3D said:

I think this would work:

Create a torso mask that blends from the waistline upward.

Assuming the torso has Aguja texture, using LIE, add layers to the torso maps for the other skin you want (or vice versa) and mask based on the previous image.

Note that for this to work right, the transparency and SSS should be homogeneous for the two skins.

 

You could do something similar with geoshell, but if the Aguja skin has transparency overlaying some of it over another skin might not look right.

 

But in all, the trick is that you need to adjust the torso, not the tail.

 

Also, when you use a geoshell for skin matching, be careful with the stripe/pattern geoshell if you also want to use that.
I have never tried using mutiple geoshells on one figure, overlapping each other. You'ld probably have to adjust the offset of the pattern shell in this case.

CZ

Thanks for all the comments!
What a pitty that this will not work easily. I tryed to apply Altern8 (https://www.daz3d.com/altern8--skin-shader-system-for-genesis-8) on the Alascanus skin and copied the torso surface onto the tail too. Then I changed the maps back to Alascanus tail map just to get the different skinsettings on the tail. With that workaround at least it is possible to get some different skin tones for a variety of merfolk. Changing the morphs is no problem.

 

 

carrie58

CZ don't  forget to do similiar to the Gills if you use them . Your mer looks good

5200north

i hope this isn't inapproprate to ask here, but, how to they make little mermaids and merboys. the male and female each seem to be missing a required part.

Oso3D

How well hung do you think fish are?

kenshaw011267

5200north said:

i hope this isn't inapproprate to ask here, but, how to they make little mermaids and merboys. the male and female each seem to be missing a required part.

Fish do things somewhat differently from mammals.

WendyLuvsCatz

she spawns eggs which are externally fertilized by the male

Sfariah D

kenshaw011267 said:

5200north said:

i hope this isn't inapproprate to ask here, but, how to they make little mermaids and merboys. the male and female each seem to be missing a required part.

Fish do things somewhat differently from mammals.

Unless they are guppies.

ZippyGuitar

Oso3D said:

How well hung do you think fish are?

LMAO I was going to say the same.

ANGELREAPER1972

then there are seahorses, the males are the ones that give birth