Fmeh

Are there any tools out there for converting pictures of faces to a skin that can be put on an SL avatar? I've tried using the liquify option in Photoshop over a template and it just isn't doing it very nicely.

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Siyu Suen

Almost any 3d application with a projection feature can handle that pretty easily actually. Modo especially is pretty famous for being very good at it.

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"Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever" -Baron Munchausen

I'm attempting to bring about the end of the world to usher in a new era of mask wielding overlords. This is how!

Fmeh

How about free ones?

Siyu Suen

Ermm.. that I'm not so sure about. I know for a fact though that Zbrush 3 (which could handle it, but not as easily, there would be more stages to doing it) has a free full function 30 day trial, so you could just get that and let it run out. I think Modo might as well but I'm not sure if it's full function or how long it lasts.

Fmeh

Wow--700mb, big program....

Maybe I didn't describe what I'm trying to do very well....

I'm just wanting to find a program that has stretching tools that I can use to stretch a face to fit the proportions of

Is this standard that SL uses the same standard that other programs use? I thought they'd be different.

Vaelissa Cortes

Blender!

Here's a tutorial on how to do exactly that, complete with a video narrated by synthesized voices!

Creating Surface textures for sculpties with blender « machinimatrix

Joshua Nightshade

Please do not subject poor Fmeh to Blender's UI.

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Siyu Suen

Well, with the programs I mentioned you could load the SL avatar in them, then project the photograph you have straight on to the avatar's face. Then, all you need to do is take that texture that was projected and it should be stretched like that.

Actually, the friend that told me about Modo's capabilities offers custom skins based on photographs using it. Maybe you should talk to her about it, I don't remember her pricing but her name is Ina Centaur.

Fmeh

It would seem that I'd have to be able to export the 3d files for my avatar to be able to do that. Can you explain further?

Siyu Suen

Actually no, no need to. The default male shape in the form of an .obj would work just fine, as the uv mapping with slider distortion doesn't change much, everything would still line up whether it was the default sl avi object or your custom shape. Or at least it should in theory.

Fmeh

That still is requiring that I import some sort of .obj file into the editor. Where would I get that file?

Vaelissa Cortes

Second Life | Downloads: Avatar Files !

Fmeh

I'll try downloading modo trial a 3rd time. The installer I've downloaded twice is not working.

EDIT: Okay, the 3rd time was the charm....

Fmeh

Okay, I imported the avatar, took a look for a few minutes at the menus, and closed the program as to avoid throwing my computer through the window.

Joshua Nightshade

These are all complicated programs Fmeh, you can't expect to just pick them up and get it immediately.

I know it's frustrating, but that's what practice and trying is for. I'm reading these threads you keep making and you have very ambitious goals but the first time it doesn't go 100% immediately the way you want it to you totally give up.

It's not the right attitude, and if more people in SL acted like that instead of gritting their teeth, reading tutorials and going through the trial and error process then SL would look really fucking boring.

Nobody who makes anything in SL has any magic powers or knowledge transplants. We all went through the same steps and the same process and the same frustration and hatred and annoyance. But if you want to learn and want to make something you have to persevere and keep at it and not give up because it doesn't snap into place the instant you try.

Siyu Suen

Again, Ina Centaur uses the programs and if it's worth it to you to pay in lindens rather than your time you could probably talk to her. Either her or Sachi Vixen, but my guess is Sachi would be pricier.

Fmeh

I don't want to pick up a new program that I'll never be able to afford. I just want to stretch a picture. That's all I want to do.My goals are NOT ambitious. They're simple goals that SHOULD be easy to achieve. They're BASIC things.

I don't have any ambitious, lofty goals in SL unless I had enough money to afford a decent chunk of land, and if I could afford that, I could afford to pay people to make things for me.

It's not worth it to me to spend months researching how to use a program that the trial will run out of that I won't be able to afford to buy (and even if I COULD afford MODO, I'm not paying $1,000 for a program, period), all just to do something as trivial as putting a custom face on an avatar. If that would be worth it to you, more power to ya, but I know that you have lofty goals and you have a sim of your own and you sell things. I'm just wanting to customize my avatar which is not an ambitious goal.

Yes, I'm frustrated, I'm frustrated that there are some things that have been easier to mod in FPS games that aren't even designed to be modded. That shouldn't be the case. SL is supposed to be about content creation--so why do they make so many things SO difficult?

Joshua Nightshade

Your definition of "should" isn't obviously LL's.

We make due.

We all do.

We make due with the tools we have and the ways we can force SL to do things it really isn't made to do and in the end we all come up with pretty impressive things. My point is that it makes no difference if you think it should be easy or not. It isn't. That's the way it is. So you either say "Well how can I learn to get this to work, even though it's not as easy as a piece of 1000.00 software to make things?" And you either figure that out and pat yourself on the back that you managed to make a buggy, broken piece of software do something cool that you're proud of, or you just give up.

I hope you don't give up.

Fmeh

Thank you to those who have tried to help.

There are programs out there designed around FPS games that will stretch a face to similar kinds of proportions. Once I find it I'll post it here. I've used one once before, and it was really easy to use--it didn't require I learn an entire interface for a 3d design program.

Fmeh

I DO give up using MODO unless someone wants to walk me through the whole thing.

I DON'T give up, however, on trying to find an alternate way of stretching the face. I KNOW there are programs out there that can actually help me with that without having to spend months learning the interface.

gaia.clary

I have produced this video and recently i also dived into skin making from real fotos. In principle you can import the SL standard avatar models into blender (if you got them as .obj files) then you can apply the techniques, that we introduced in this video. (I even found some ready made .blend files osmewhere in the SL builder forum, but i cant remember the exact thread number)

Well, there are some more steps to do, before you really get good results. I am pretty sure, that we wil cove rthis in another tutorial in the next few weeks. You should bookmark machinimatrix if you are interested.

Siyu Suen

Actually Fmeh do you know about the Warp transformation tool in PS? Not sure what version you're using but I know it's on CS2. If really ALL you want to do is stretch it, not absolutely perfectly to the mesh or anything but just to the template, warp + polygonal lasso and a few layers ought to do a nice job of it.

Fmeh

Well, this is more of setting stretch points on the eyes and mouth and nose afterwards so it eventually fits into the template the right way. I'm using Photoshop 7, quite old, and I just haven't found a good way of stretching those things in a way that doesn't distort them in 7. I believe that the tool you speak of started with CS1.

Hmm..... plugins.....

But still, if I run into an easy way to do it, one of those programs that I spoke of, I will let y'all know. My brother seemed to have been the one that had it and told me it was easy to get at the time, but I never got it because I never thought I'd really need it. Ha. Foolish me....

Anyway, I can eventually get it going with photoshop, and if I can figure out some easy tips on how to do it quickly in photoshop, I will post them here as well with a tutorial of pictures.

I'm sorry for being so negative. I hate being sick and I've been inadvertently taking it out on everyone.

Ran Garrigus

CyberExtruder in SL has a relatively cheap process for doing this via their website. They're based on the Avatar Island sim, IIRC.

I think it's like $15 or something to get a photo turned into a head tattoo for a skin. It's relatively basic, not up to what I'm sure Sachi, Ina, or anyone else mentioned could do, but it might be something to look into.

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• Old Fashioned -- Occasional SL fashion reviews.

Madhu Maruti

I know nothing about this subject. But I do remember reading a really interesting post on the SL Forum which was a tutorial on making a SL skin from a photograph.

It was more involved than simply stretching the photo to match the shape of the template, so it may not be what you want. Nevertheless, here it is -
SL Forums
To me, as a non-knowledgable reader, it looks extremely well-conceived and helpful, and conveys how and why making a skin is so much work.

My inclination here is to agree with Josh; making a skin from a photo is not simply a matter of deforming the skin to match the template, it is indeed a more ambitious project.

But as I said, I know nothing about skinmaking, so perhaps it just seems more complicated to me than it does to you.

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