Avatar Topography Guides

When I grow up I want to be...

able to understand half of this thread lol!



You are seriously wonderful people for sharing all of this..

ok now the easy answer here and probably th correct one is i'm to thick to get my head around how all this works but i've been playing with the settings for the last hour or so and can't get an poutput to look anything like what you have chip.
i can get either the front or the back to highlight up nicely but never both. any chance of a settings list even if it's just for the good starting point to work from?

I think the reason you can't get both the front and the back to be lit at the same time is that the settings are moving around a single light source. You can't really use the plugin to generate overall lighting, but rather can use it to create directional accent lighting. Let's say for example that you wanted to simulate a strong light source from the back upper left and the front upper center. You'd want to create two different grayscale images with the plugin and blend them both into your texture. It's not possible to do them both in a single pass. Hope that helps.

So this is good for say i just have a green color on the template.. And i wanted to highlight and shadow it... this would help with that?

The topography guides in the first two posts are to help you visualize the 3d shape of the avatar while working on a 2d texture. The normals maps and photoshop plugin posted on the second page will actually generate accurate 3d lighting (without shadows) that can be blended into your avatar textures.

You guys rock... I don't know if I can make sense of it all... but I know this will be of great assistance to me of some degree.

Thank you doesn't seem enough.

Is there one for the lower body?????

Yep There are three topography templates for each gender attached to the first two posts in the thread.

The normals maps for use with Abu's Photoshop plugin are just one for each gender, but they include all three body parts (head, upper body, and lower body) in a vertical strip. It's done that way so you can generate lighting for the whole body at one time. After you've run the filter simply split the resulting image into three equal parts. The best way to do that in Photoshop is to duplicate the results of the Theta filter twice so that you have three copies of the image. Crop each one to 512x512, center one to top, one to middle, and one to bottom in the crop dialogue. You'll end up with textures for head, upper body, and lower body.

Is there a way to make the plugin work with Mac PS CS2?
Thanks for all your work and contributions.

Chip, Abu,
You've both probably heard this before, but you guys ROCK!!! Thank you for sharing this.

Now, I am no photoshop expert, but from my limited perspective, my guesstimate is that the resulting greyscale images can be used to create a light and shade effect on avatar skins and clothes. Is that right?

Chip, you have also referred to "blending in" the grey scale image to the skin texture or clothing. Could you please give me a few steps on how I might do this, or point me in the right direction where I can find the information myself, if it has already been discussed elsewhere.

Thanks so much.

Ayesha

abu, chip you guys rock this should be stickied!!!!

Jenette, I'm not sure. I don't know enough about Mac versions of PS to know if the plugins are a different format. Perhaps someone more knowledgable about both platforms can answer.

Ayesha, after you've cut the resulting image into the three parts, try pasting one over the corresponding texture and playing around with the different layer blending modes. Multiply is a good place to start. You can adjust the effect by changing the opacity of the layer. Hope that helps

Thank you Chip. Your last post clarifies much of what initially sounded like latin and greek to me. I am sure it is do-able now thanks to your instructions.

Chip,
I just do not understand it, ok maybe I am just to bloody dumb I do not know.
I went and got all of your templets and all I can use ether PSP or Photoshop 8 I have them both, I went and got them just so i could make some cloths for SL

I can drew free hand and in Paint but I am haveing all kinds of Prob.'s with the templets and I do not know why???

If I had a Normal Body it mite not be as bad but I just cannot understand the templets, on how to use them orhow to work with them, I am sorry llike I said may be I am just dumb lol

Can you help me with this?? Help me understand hoe the templets work??

I am realy new to all of this and that is why I do not understand I guess, I want to make stuff so much I have allready spent over 2k in Textures LOL, so I am all ready to go to work on it, and I have made a nice Cape in pain that I would like to see in SL, it mite be of the old type but it dose look nice lol..

Thank you...

Hi BlackDragon. There are two things you should do. First, have a look at this PDF file. It's the first issue of a magazine called Second Style, and it has an article in it that explains the templates and should help you understand what it is your're looking at. Next, you should upload the three templates as textures into SL and make a skin out of them. Wear that skin on your avatar without any clothing and take a bunch of screenshots. You can use those as a reference while you're painting so you know where each part of each template ends up on the avatar. It can be a bit tough to wrap your head around at first if you're not used to dealing with UVW maps for 3d models.

Kool thanks for the help, every body is aying this and that but not how to do it and maybe that is what is messing me up lol.
I will do as you say and with hpe it will do the job for me..

Thank You..

I've only been on the forums for a short time, but I can see you are one of the deserving; for respect and admiration. I have learned a great deal from you all and I thank you so much. I truly hope I can repay that honor some day.

Much thanks, again!

Rhadric

Would the RGB plugin work in the Gimp program?

No.

Maybe its just me, but when I view these there are the strangest lines.. I dont see how these help.. Am I missing something here? Also when trying to open in PS it says it can not parse the JPEG....

LL's server isn't serving up attachments reliably. Much of the time they come up corrupt. They will eventually load correctly though if you keep trying. Clearing your browser cache helps.

ah TY Chip!

I just went ahead and reuploaded them so you shouldn't have any problems. If they go corrupt again I'll move them elsewhere.

Got em, opend in PS no prob! I had these, but was missing the lower female.. Yes they help much! Thanks again!

Thank you, guys!

I wonder if there's a baked texture for the system skirt?