exactly where do I apply custom skin texs?

Hi everyone- Ive started building up a face skin in PS from the UV map I extracted from the .obj format avatar models and so far everything is clear except for one thing- how do I apply my eventual imported texture onto my av mesh in SL appearances?

In appearances>skin I can see no way to load a skin texture from my inventory other than the "apply tattoo" windows- I guess I COULD load a texture through these, except that ( i am guessing) my default skin would still be underneath- and (still guessing) I would have used up the top transparency layer so that any other alpha additions ( tattoos/ makeup) would be impossible.

Please tell me I'm wrong!

Dan

Right you are the first time. You create skins with the three tattoos, head, upper body and lower body. You can make these with alpha transparency or opaque. The transparacy will go over the default skin and the opaque will replace it and yes there is just the one layer for creating skin, make-up and tatoos. A lot of tattoos available in stores are made on a clothing layer, an undershirt or a shirt.

Hey Sylvia- that almost seems too simple! So the old opaque skin goes back in its box and the new skin becomes the default, still leaving a top layer free- thanks for that, its been worrying me for some time now.
(just saw your edited version after I posted, its much clearer now, thanks- I'll fiddle around a bit more now and see how this works in practice)
Dan

No not quite. I meant that if the tattoo layers are opaque skin textures, that is what will be visible as skin. As I undertand it, the default skin is not updatable. You can hide it with your created skin on the tattoo layer.

You can set your skin textures several layers lower by overwriting the color layer textures in the client 'character' folder. The 3 files that get overwritten are head_color.tga, lowerbody_color.tga, and upperbody_color.tga. This effectively sets an opaque or semi-transparent texture below most of the appearance sliders. Opaque skins still can't be tinted, but freckles and other effects can be applied on top of the skin. The big plus is the tattoo texture slots can be used for another alpha style texture like a tattoo or makeup. The big dowside of this method is it's virtually unsellable as a product because of no copy protection and client updates overwrite the skin textures.

Thanks for the correction, Namssor. Maybe I understand skin layers now.

I have a mac and I have not been able to find any character folder with these tga files. Is the mac install set up differently?

I think you need to look in 'Packets' on the Mac install. I don't own a Mac, so I can't verify that. The textures are there. SL won't run properly without them.

I found it, thanks.