Question about matching a skin's tint

Ok, full disclosure: I'm trying to match a pair of Implant Nation implants to the skin I am currently using which is the Ana M2 6 skin. However it is VERY difficult to do, even using the Tinting HUD and the tinting ball.

What I thought might work is if I could get the color values from the skin and match them with the color values on the implants. Decent theory, but I can't seem to get the color values on the skin because it's not editable.

I know I'm a total newb, but I want to learn about this. Is my hypothesis sound? Is there a better place I should be looking for help? How do I get the color values for that skin, or am I out of luck with that?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Claire

Hmmm... skin isn't my specialty, but color is color. You could save a snapshot to your hard drive, open it with Photohop, and pick the color values that way, I suppose. Skin color isn't uniform, however, so be sure you're matching to the right area.

would GIMP work just as well as Photoshop for that?

And when you say "save a snapshot" are you referring to texture?

If you go into the UI section of the debug menu, you can select "show color under cursor" to see the colour value of the skin.

Oooo, right, Stephanie! That's an even easier solution.

And yes, Claire, any graphics program that has a color picker function will work just fine. Photoshop, GIMP, Paintshop Pro, whatever..... And yes, also, a snapshot that you take in SL is a texture. It's saved in your hard drive as a BMP file, and you can do anything with it that you would do with any other texture.

Prim textures and avatar textures are treated differently by the rendering engine. There is no possible way to get a perfect match for all conditions. Some lighting conditions may help, and those can be controled under Windlight , but 99% of the time there will be matching issues between prim and avatar textures. Sorry for the bad news

That's true, although it depends on just how picky you want to be about getting an exact color match. It might be smart to do your color sampling under several different lighting conditions, just to see how much variation you have to put up with. It's also possible to control lighting conditions to a degree by using body lights. I have a .... um .. .... personal attachment that matches my skin color most of the time because I keep my body lights just strong enough to overcome the ambient environmental lighting.

These are all great tips, I really appreciate all the advice! I don't need an EXACT 100% match, but I'd like it to be a heck of a lot closer than it is now!

I'm definitely going to try that Debug UI trick this evening.

Certainly happy if anyone else has anything to add.

Thanks!

Claire

Well sorry for the late response but i rarely visit these forums. But the main problem with secondlife is and will be: avatars are ARTIFICIAL lighter tinted. Best way to match your skin is this method:

1. Take a snapshot of you without the implants
2. Use colorpick in photoshop 5x5 pixels, press the skin under your neck (on top of your breast slope)
3. Colorize the pictures, paint nipple
4. Create a black layer, set it to 80% transparent (20% darker), it will definitly not match your snapshot i tell you, dont worry about that.
5. Upload and apply to your implants

Also best light is to use midday lighting CTRL+SHIFT+Y It looks best that way and matches best then. Best is also to turn off dynamic lights and facelights. Oh about facelights:
They totally mess up the look of implants. DONT USE FACELIGHTS!

The problem is in part due ot a "bug" that is about to be addressed in a future version of the viewer. That is, the avatar base is tinted like 20% grey instead of white. I don't believe this had yet been addressed in the current build but I believe it is slated to be corrected soon. The issue that may perhaps of frozen progress on this issue is of course is that the "fix" would impact virtually every piece of clothing content produced thus far in SL. A huge percentage of them would need to be revisited by the creators in order to accomodate the change.

Beyond this, I have noticed that any matching you accomplish in the current circumstances is valid only for the specific light conditions that you are in. Set the environment to "sunset" and the matching you have done may well be totally out the window. Your mileage may vary depending on your starting texture and your objectives.

If you happen to be on OS X, you can skip the extra program for grabbing colors. In the General tab of SL's preferences, turn on Use System Color Picker, and then you can use the magnifying glass tool to lift the pixel color instead of the SL tint. Just switch back if you need the SL tint.

Pardon what seems like a stupid question. I've seen the disparity between attachment tinting vs the avatar skin color issue too. It's made friends of mine tear out their virtual hair ~grins~ while I did my best to stand there with a patient and supportive attitude of...Oh that'll look fine dear.. instead of laughing. (I know mean but it is funny!).
As I know that "clothes" are merely textures which alter the avatar itself (which is easier to envision when you say skins, but true of clothes too), I can also see how a more pure white base will affect how clothes color the avatar, but I am not sure just how it will do so? Will it create a more "pure" color look and affect shading and the like? If so, then skins as well as clothes will be affected.

I guess since this is something which is going to happen soon, I just wonder what kind of changes we can expect to see in our already purchased products. (some at HUGE expense and many if not most non mod) I really can't see the benefit from throwing such a monkey wrench into the way our avatars look when the issue mainly affects the type of attachments we are ummm not going to see all that often?

Edited to Add as an afterthought:
You know if LL's default shapes would just include functional bits which could be affected by external scripts (like you can make those ghastly so called smiles winks and so forth with the face) perhaps this mismatch of prim color to avatar color wouldn't be such a huge issue? It's obvious by many factors, that we are NOT a nation of people content to be Ken and Barbie doll smooth in this online community after all!

You could try this method if the attachment is modifiable and the colour is lighter than your avatar's skin:

Select the attachment under 'Edit' and choose the 'Texture' tab. If the original colour is white, open the colour grid and set a grey tint. I usually find it is best to start with values of 100 for R, G and B. Slide the arrow on the tint bar slowly upwards until you get an approximate match for tone. Then play with the RGB values very slightly, one by one, until the colour balance of the grey tint matches the hue of your skin.

You may need to wait a little each time you make an adjustment until the colour updates on the attachment. Also, if the colour adjustment is very sensitive, you will probably have to deselect the attachment in order to inspect the results without the yellow/blue editing highlights.

Hot tones are matched better with a little more red and warm tones could always use a little more green as well. Very pale skins with a cooler tone could use a little more blue and possibly green than red.

If the attachment already has a colour overlay when you open the 'Texture' tab, save it by dragging a copy of the colour into the palette below. Then try playing with a new colour overlay or even plain old white to begin with. You might get lucky with a match straight off. If the result is a complete disaster, you can reload the original colour overlay and start again.

If you succeed in getting a color match, save that overlay in the palette. You may need to try slight variations as you live with the results over a few days and under different lighting conditions.

Important Note The current version of the viewer 1-21-6-99587, which I am using, frequently crashes when attempting to modify an attched prim with this method. It might be best to use an RC viewer or an older version of the standard viewer.