Can materials be applied to parts of a (Genesis) figure?

ShelLuser

And so after a few months of waiting and plotting I have everything I need. I recently picked up the Rock demon which is in my opinion something with huge potential (the materials such as lava alone..). I also got a freebie last week due to my platinum club membership: Toxic, also something very appealing for darker nastier sceneries (pay attention to the toxic lights and materials; ideal stuff if you're not quite up to creating that stuff yourself).

I already had the Undead fiend, only yesterday did I pick up the Stephanie 5 starter bundle which includes Riley and the stage is all set for a somewhat darker fantasy scenery.

Now; I'm working on a scene where the Fiend somewhat forces Riley to get near the toxic waste which (obviously) has its effects; her arm starts to change into something "weird" (that's where the rock demon materials come in).

My question, as mentioned in the subject; is there a way to apply the material only to parts of a figure? Apart from changing the material of course. For example; the Rock demon also has a material setting for "Lava nipples" which only changes, well, you know, but that's a setting in the material preset itself.

I'm trying to apply the lava material only to the lower arms of Riley (Genesis figure). I've selected the lower arm and the children, but it seems that the only option you have with applying a material is to apply it to the whole figure.

I have enough imagination in me to realize that if nothing works out I can always duplicate Riley, then apply the material on the duplicate, only make her arm visible and at the same time obviously make the lower arm on the regular figure invisible. Then all that's left is to try and piece those two together.

But is there another way? Can materials be applied on a per-section basis?

Thanks in advance for any tips you guys may have.

fixmypcmike

Hold down the Ctrl (CMD on Mac) key while applying the material preset, and you can select which material zones to apply it to.

ShelLuser

fixmypcmike said:

Hold down the Ctrl (CMD on Mac) key while applying the material preset, and you can select which material zones to apply it to.

Thanks a lot, that is indeed the trick I was looking for.

Unfortunately it didn't work. According to the dialog it should have; it allows me to apply the material only to the surfaces I've currently selected, but the moment I click accept nothing happens.

In the mean time I did manage to get some results when using the surfaces editor (the displacement options) but it's not exactly the effect I'm after.

I'm going to try again this evening to make sure that it's not something I'm overlooking.

JimmyC_2009

If you use the Surface Selection Tool (Alt+Shift+M) to select the arms and the hands, you can then apply a shader to the areas that you want to use. I thought I had a lava shader, but I can't find it for the moment, so I used LJStudios 'Christmas Green', just to give the idea.

When using shaders, you MUST select the item in the Scene pane AND in the Surfaces pane. You wont see the effect properly until you render, as the OpenGL viewport can't display shaders properly.

This is Riley on Genesis, with some clothing for decency's sake.

ShelLuser

Problem solved, thanks Jimmy!

Yeah, it would be a very good excuse for me to finally pay a little more attention to shaders. But the thing is, as you showed here yourself, shaders can only be applied on surfaces (obviously).

When it comes to Genesis you basically have 2 surface groups for the arm and hand: 3_SkinForearm and 3_SkinHand. The problem, as you showed yourself, is that if you apply a shader on one of those it will apply to both arms / hands. Which is not the effect I'm after; I want to focus on one arm only.

But this tip did show me where things went wrong in my example above. The moment I use the surface selection tool (which I should have done from the start) and then use the control-doubleclick method to apply the material it does work. Of course now it applies to both arms and hands, but that's something I'll have to worry about later.

Well, here's a quick preview. As you can see the lava material from the rock demon looks really menacing on Riley (and I love the diversity you have when it comes to facial controls).

JimmyC_2009

I'm glad that you are getting there.

There may be another way to just texture one arm, Use the Polygon Selection Tool (Alt+Shit+G)right click on the arm and use Polygon Selection > Mode > Rectangule Selection. Drag a box over the arm, and when it is selected, choose Polygon Assignment > Create Surface from the same right click menu, and give it a name. It will then appear as a selection in the Surfaces pane, and you can apply a shader to that area only.

Here is my example :

ShelLuser

Thanks again Jimmy!

I'm still struggling a bit with this (I managed to create the section, but applying the texture didn't work just yet), but I also know where I probably went wrong. I'm getting there, much appreciated!

Of course now I face a new (self applied) problem :)

Now I'm aiming for even more... Using both the lava material and a section which creates some sort of transition between the lava and skin texture. So far it's still a lot of experimentation but I'm already quite excited about the setup so far.

SimonJM

You could apply the shader/texture to a geometry shell and hides the other, unaffected, parts