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Using the Tattoo Tools Plugins
The Texture Convertor 2 Tattoo Tools Plugins are designed to help you create tattoos on Victoria 4's back and Neck. But taking a flat image as their input, they will split the image to place it on Victoria 4's pelt mapping.
The Templates
Included in this product are two template graphics, these can be used to ensure that your tattoo fits into boundaries of the tool and doesn't get cut off. This templates are available from the product page, but you can also click on the thumbnails below to see the full size versions.
The Source Image
| This plugin set supports 32bit transparent .png files as a texture source.
For this step-by-step guide, we're going to create a transparent back tattoo. Here is the .png file we're going to use for this example - the checkered area is transparent.
You are welcome to download this .png file and try it for yourself - simply click on the thumbnail to open the full-sized version. Make sure you save it as a .png file. |
On the template, the white area is the biggest area a square image can be to be converted, while a non-square tattoo (like the one we are using, must fit nto the mesh shape on the template.
Notice how when placed on the template, the tattoo is within the edges of the underlying mesh (highlighted in red). In this particular example it can go over the edges of the white area because it is a non-square tattoo.
The Conversion
In Texture Convertor 2, we select "3D Universe - Tattoo Back" (under the "Tattoo Tools" heading) as the Source Figure.
Then we select "Daz3D - Victoria 4 (Tattoo)" (under the "Tattoo Tools" heading) as the Target Figure.
We can now browse for our tattoo .png file by clicking on the texture map box.
Once you have located the tattoo .png file, a [preview] button appears next to the texture map box. Click on this button to view a thumbnail of the tattoo we are going to convert.
Make sure that the png image is a 32bit image (displayed just under the thumbnail), and is transparent (ie. had gray blocks in the background rather than a solid color).
If the image is not detected as 32bit (for example it shows up as 24bit instead), the transparency information will be ignored as it doesn't have a variable alpha (transparency) table. 24bit .png images have what is refered to as binary transparency (either transparent or opaque) wile 32bit .png images have palette transparency (a range of 0-255 levels of transparency) and are far preferable.
When rendering, TC2 doesn't display the correct transparency in the little render monitor window. To display accurate transparency information in that window would slow the speed of rendering down significantly, and we didn't feel it was justified.
Our final .png file looks like this - TC2 has split the tattoo across Victoria 4's back mapping.
By overlaying this .png file onto one of our Victoria 4 torso textures in Photoshop or something equivalent, we can get a beautiful tattoo on the back even with the texture seam running down the middle of the models back.
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