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Anableps anableps are but one example.
I know I'm a little late for the party but I figured out a quick and dirty method.
Two cheats!
Render the picture twice - one with the tail and the other without. Then use photoshop to rub the tail "skin" away. You just need to be careful near the body edges as the tail is slightly wider.
Before geografts one was used to making mermen and centaurs by scaling up animals and hiding bodyparts. The trick was then to blend the join in photoshop
Second cheat is to have some aquatic clothing that hides the blend zone!
Can you explain in detail how you did this? I had bought the Aguja mermaid tail for Genesis 8 female, which is really the just the female variant of Alascanus tail for the male. I also have Altern 8 and attempted to follow what you have done, but apparently I am missing something as it is not working out right.
In general, I had found this perchase lacking because of this issue. I never had issues with mermaid tails before as I have one for each Genesis figure with my favorite being the Laguna-Tail for Genesis 3. While it also has issues, there are certain work arounds to correct the problem that are not lengthy like this.
I am further put off by the fact this is an Arki design and I consider Arki's work of the highest calibur in the Daz Stores. Granted this was an Arki-Darwin's Mishaps collaberation and thus I am not sure who to point the finger at here. But given the higher cost for the better quality work, I didn't expect that I wouldn't be able to change the upper torso texture so it would work with my figures. As it is, I have a dark skin figure I created that I want to put a mermaid tail on and the skin texture is totally off.
With the Laguna Tail for Gen 3, I simply was able to use the skin material from whatever character I wanted to use and put it on the tail and it worked. I tried doing that with the Aguja tail and, no dice, it just applies the texture to the whole tail.
I really hate to return this tail as it is beautiful and detailed as with all of the items I have purchased from Arki in the past. I had NEVER returned an Arki item as I was always pleased with the artist's work. So I don't get why this seems like a step back. While if it is for one character in a scene, it may not be a big issue, but I have two that I want to create and one is black and the other is caucasian. Thusfar the best I could do was to try to match the skin by hand altering the base coloring of the tail, which doesn't seem to affect the scaled part of the tail as much, but affects the skin greatly. However, there is a visible seam and I have to use an article of clothing to cover that section up. With the caucasian woman, I didn't want to cover her torso as she has very nice abs. In fact it is the transition from the abdomen part from humanoid to tail that seems to appeal to me the most on a mermaid. So with wanting to keep her abs bare, I ended up using the mermaid skin throughout the body, except for the face, and I did the same color matching on the face as I did with the prior mermaid's torso. Again, there is a visible seam and I just covered it with long hair.
While it is a work around, I just feel I shouldn't have to do this.
If anyone has other suggestions of what to do.
Thank you,
Geo
Not the same product but ... it is possible consider there is no neck gilled male or neck gills for the sharktail. The only post work was 'breathing bubbles' and my sig. Posted this to my gallery but no clue as to how to display it from https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/user/6281787856650240#gallery=newest&page=1&image=1166953
Hmmm, not big on the shark tail. I wanted a good Mermaid tail for Gen 8 and while the Aguja tai! Is beautiful, not being able to use other character skins is a big disadvantage. Up to now, the best I could do for a mermaid is the Laguna tail for Genesis 3 and it doesn't work with Gen 8.
Geo
There this: https://www.daz3d.com/sy-merfolk-for-genesis-8
Actually, it does.
I figured out a way to make the tail work on any character.
Short explanation (if anyone here is still interested I would give more detailed WIP images):
1. Create an opacity map (easiest done by duplicating one of the tail textures). Edit the map in photoshop/gimp/whatever. Make the textures parts all white (no translucency) then use a soft brush and paint over the human torso part in black so that the tail fades into black rather than the torso part. To beginners or people not familiar with Photoshop this may sound harder than it actually is, so I could upload this opacity map here if the Aguja creators agree.
2. Under surfaces of the tail base, apply this map to the opacity setting of "tail" surface.
3. Edit G8F Geometry and select all polygons except the ones that contain human features -> Then right click and select `Set Auto-Hide Faces for Attachment...` and select the tail base.
4. Reduce the geometry selection on G8F (created in step 2) to only show the first ring of polygons around the hip area -> Then right click and select `Set Graft Faces for Attachment...` and select the tail base again.
5. Exit geometry mode.
6. Done (maybe adjust tail base scale depending on the character used)
Yup yup I would be very interested in a more detailed WIP !! Thank you very much .
Please removed textures from the character or give her some clothing, paitning out the nipples is not an acceptable solution Acceptable Ways of Handling Nudity
Ok, here goes:
Surface preparation:
1. Create an opacity map (easiest done by duplicating one of the tail textures). Edit the map in photoshop/gimp/whatever. See screenshot below: The left side is an original texture, the right side is the finished opacity map I generated/edited using the left texture as a base. I could upload my own opacity map here if the Aguja creators agree.
2. Under surfaces, select the tail base and apply the opacity map to the opacity setting of "tail" surface and leave it at 1.00.
WHY DO WE DO THIS? This step renders the tail texture's torso part that only works with the aguja character invisible and enables the tail to blend into any character torso.
HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? The opacity layer we created tells the tail surface which parts of its texture should be visible (White = Full Visibility, Black = No visibility). As you can see in my opacity map, it will leave the tail to be completely visible (WHITE) while the human torso part of the texture is made invisible (BLACK) and a soft fade from white to black will make the tail blend into the torso of any character.
Graft Preparation:
1. Select G8F and switch into Geometry Edit Mode. Edit G8F geometry and select all polygons (using lasso or rectangle mode and then drag mode for the details) except the ones that contain human features (see screenshot below) -> Then right click and select `Set Auto-Hide Faces for Attachment...` and select the tail base.
2. Reduce the geometry selection on G8F (created in step 1) up to the point where only the first ring of the prior selection is selected around the hip area (see the polygons marked orange in the screenshot below) -> Then right click and select `Set Graft Faces for Attachment...` and select the tail base again.
WHY DO WE DO THIS? The graft in its original state covers part the lower torso. While we already made the texture part of the torso invisible using our opacity map, we still want the graft to cover more or less only the tail because the shader/material options of our character will likely differ from the tail and we do not want the tail shader/material to interfere with the torso of our character in any way.
HOW DOES IT HAPPEN: This procedure tells the tail graft 2 things:
1) which parts of G8Fs body it should hide when it is applied (legs, lower torso).
2) which part of G8F it attaches to when it is applied.
Exit geometry mode.
Done. The young elf has turned into a mermaid. You can now save the tail as a wearable preset (including the shell and add-ons). It can then be applied to any G8F character.
Things to keep in mind:
1. In some cases the tail base scale needs to be adjusted depending on the torso of the character used. Another option which is much better imo, is to use the Mesh Grabber tool for DAZ to fix such issues if they arise because you can precisely target and manipulate the problem areas. I highly recommend this tool to anyone using DAZ Studio.
2. In some cases when you use multiple geo shells, they will appear white. This is a general DAZ issue and there are socalled shell fixes (google it) that you can apply to all shells in your scene to make them appear correctly.