Tattoo Blending Options

I've noticed that a lot of tattoos look pretty unnatural, especially on dark skin, and especially when color is involved. I've seen bright reds on dark brown skin, which just looks ridiculous and fake. But sometimes it can't be helped.

So, what I propose is: Blending options for tattoo layers. To get a natural effect with tattoos, you could implement a technique that goes by the name of "Multiply" on PSP. It adds the color of the top layer to the bottom, which also gets rid of any white in the top layer and would make for nice-looking tattoos. It would perhaps be nice for other clothing layers as well.

Of course, a lot of people use tattoo layers for makeup and skins, so it would need to be optional. And I don't even know if something like this would be functional for SL or if it could even theoretically work in that setting. But it's a suggestion of something I'd like to see. For sure.

Thanks for listening to my crap.

I'm not sure if this is so much a Second Life problem as it is a tool problem. I spent a fair deal of time working on my current avatar in Painter IX (with custom blending brushes) and the GIMP, and ended up with a nicely fleshed out set of skins.

Now, as far as post-production to save Lindens is concerned, that's another story entirely. I think a better "preview on avatar" system would be nice... but really, I'm usually careful and UV map onto the template files before content ever sees admission into Second Life.

I guess that all depends on how you look at it. I readily admit that I'll fail the first three to five tries on a texture/sound/animation/whatever before I get it right. Perfectionists and low-tier residents who want to min-max their Lindens disagree. I would say the system, as it is now, is fine - but it does have room for improvement.

Well, I mean, if you're making skins and want to put a tattoo on that skin, and it looks bad, then it's a tool problem.

If you're making tattoos for default skins, then it's a bit more of a problem. I mean, you can draw in any graphics program with black and a transparent background, etc. and then load that to SL as a skin, and it'd work fine. But if you want color tattoos on default skin, that's a lot more tricky. I don't think you could get one kind to work for all skin types without a Multiply option.

I just think it's stupid to have to buy a whole skin to get a tattoo that doesn't look like crap. I don't -want- a non-default skin. I certainly don't want to have to pay L$2000 for something I don't want. And I can't imagine anyone else necessarily wants to, either.

I just think it would be a good addition to the in-world toolset.

I haven't tried the Mulitply blend mode very much, but I think PSP's "Screen" mode seems more appropriate to this. Anyway, I like the idea

I haven't personally tested this out, but I do believe it would work. What if you if you make your tattoo semi-transparent. What I mean is the background would be completely alpha'd out, and the tattoo design and color would be slightly transparent. When placed on the av, this should allow for some of the skin tone to show through, thus 'blending' the tattoo color with the underlying skin tone. While this might not be a perfect solution, it could be accomplished in SL as it stands today. Just thought it might be worth a shot.

McW

Edit: I haven't tested it out.... (need more sleep )

Ahhh, okay. I like what you're getting at.

Alternately, perhaps someone/LL should release templates for all of the default skin colors as a low-tech solution? I know many paint programs utilize a "pick up underlying layer" option... but if the skin color is prone to change, an in-world solution might be more viable.

Screen would get rid of all the black in the picture. It's the "opposite" of Multiply.



You're right-- That'd probably work a bit better than normal, though imperfect. It would be more subdued, anyway. I dunno, though.. I'm too much of a perfectionist. :\



I think there's a copy of the default skin in our SL files, actually.. though this is unverified, because I just woke up and am too lazy to check.

The problem is, it would be very hard to sell such a tattoo, because there's, like, 82409324976356 different default colors.

:\ :\ :\