I was offline for much of the day today, due to an experiment. Rather, as many of you know, I use Windows for only two main purposes: one is to run artistic software such as Poser; the other is for playing some computer games, when the mood hits me. For security reasons, I don't permit Windows to touch the internet. So when I boot up Windows, I am offline.
Today, I was trying an experiment to try to create a little more realistic skin texture than what I have so far accomplished. I would try changing the texture a little then set the program to render the results while I walked of to do some chores. Then when it was finished, I would adjust it some more and start another render ....
Comparing the textures used on Virgina to the newer version that I have used on Jezebel, you can get an idea of what I was trying. With the creation of the texture for Jezebel from that of Virgina, I have added an effect to provide the slight color variations that skin often has.
That was done with a series of Poser 5 procedural nodes, while most of Jezebel's texture maps are the same as those of Virgina. The effect I was try to add this time or the minor blemishes both flat and raised that skin often has. However, I failed to get the natural looking effect that I was seeking. The best looking flat blemishes that I achieved made the model look like she has the measles.
As for the elevated ones, using a procedural driven bump map, interfered with the current bump map the creates the skin's pores. I tried using a displacement rather than a bump map drivien by the same procedural nodes as I had tried with the bump mapping. Now with the same strength setting, she looked like she had small boils all over her. A slight modification of the setting made her look pox marked all over.
When it was clear that I was not making any progress, I scraped the experiment and left Windows. Oh the fun of trial and error!
Pangor