How to Change the Look of a Poser Model's Skin in Poser

Changing the look of skin in Poser can be challenging, but worth it when you see the looks you can achieve in the material room. You can alter skin tones, the look of lights and a variety of other elements when working with the skin and translucence nodes in the material room. This tutorial assumes you have a basic-to-intermediate understanding of Poser and already know how to set up a model ahead of time before even getting to the material room. In this article, you will learn to change the look and even feel of the skin of your 3D human model.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

The Pose Room

1. In the pose room, load your 3D human model and load any skin, hair and eye textures you want.

2. Next, conform or drape the figure's clothing as necessary, and pose your figure.

3. Finally, add a background or create a scene by adding props around your 3D human figure.

Going Into the Material Room

4. First set up the Material Room to work with the skin of your 3D human figure. Select your figure and the part of the figure whose skin you want to change. If you are doing a portrait, you might only want the head, torso and neck to be changed. You will see the Poser Surface options; scroll down to "Alternate Diffuse."

5. Use your mouse to create a node: You do this by holding your mouse down on what looks like an electrical socket next to the words "Alternate Diffuse," then moving your mouse. This will cause a small line to appear from the socket. Let go of the mouse and a small window will appear giving you the option to create a new node. Select "New Node," then "Lighting," then "Special," then "Skin." A new box named "Skin" will appear attached to the "Alternate Diffuse" option by the wire.

6. Click on the color box next to "Skin Color"; using the color palette, give the skin whatever color you want.

7. Using your mouse, pull another wire from the socket next to the "Skin Color" box and attach it to the plug on the "Image Map" box. This will ensure that the color you just added will appear on the skin of the 3D human character you picked. In this example, I've used Aiko 3.

8. In the "Poser Surface" window is a "Translucence Color" box; you'll want to create a new node for that as well. Repeat Step 4 to create a new node, but select "New Node," then "Math," then "Simple Color."

9. Change the translucence color from black to white using the color palette. Underneath "Translucence Color," you'll notice a translucence value. Experiment with the value until you get the look you want. You'll notice the difference in the picture at the bottom of the "Poser Surface" window. This time, I put the value on .10.

10. Repeat Steps 1 to 5 for each part of the body whose skin you want to change.

Returning to the Pose Room

11. Render your picture in Production mode. You do this by opening the "Render" drop-down menu and selecting "Render Options." While rendering in this mode takes a bit longer, you will be able to get a better picture of what the final product looks like than you would in the draft mode.

12. Experiment with the lighting or make changes in the Material Room until you have the look you want.

13. Once you have skin looking the way you want, save the render to your computer.

Tips & Warnings

• You can use a combination of the lighting and changing the appearance of the skin to achieve different looks. For example, you might try giving making the translucence of the skin a lavender color, then using purple lights; this can evoke a nighttime feel.
• The lights will sometimes make the skin look different on different parts of the 3D human figure's body, so you may have to work on the lighting to reach the desired consistency.