3. Connect to the Bottom channel and notice that only the darker areas in the origi- nal texture are affected. The highlights have not been touched. 4. Continue by connecting to the Octaves channel. The Octaves are the denser areas in the original texture. The base color in the Granite node (white) dominates these areas. 5. Finally, connect to the X Scale, Y Scale, and Z Scale channels and observe how the texture engine attempts to texture tonalities along each of those axes. Applying Photographic Images to Individual Channels Just as you can add procedural textures to individual channels, you can also add digital images. In this section, you’ll add a photographic image to each of the channels. 1. Open another Turbulence node. It will be titled Turbulence_2 by default. Start with the X Scale channel and attach an Image_Map node. To do this, choose New Node > 2D Textures > Image_Map. At the top you will see the Image_Source layer. Click on this layer and navigate to the tutorials folder. Open the texture.jpg file from the The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide258 Figure 5.70 View of the Granite node added to the X Scale channel Tutorials folder. Immediately you can see how the image map is applied to the Turbulence_2 texture. If you observe closely (see Figure 5.71), you can determine the axis that is being affected by observing the direction of the distortion. Poser appears to be allowing it to affect the pixels in a left-to-right fashion, which is the X axis. 2. Connect to the Y Scale and Z Scale channels and observe how the texture engine affects the tonalities along each of those axes. Start by connecting to the Y axis and notice that Poser appears to be allowing it to affect the pixels in an up-and-down pattern. See Figure 5.72. In this step the pixels that are affected are the ones facing you on the Z axis, so everything seems to have some distortion. See Figure 5.73. Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 259 Figure 5.71 View of the Image_Map node added to the X Scale channel The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide260 Figure 5.72 View of the Image_Map node added to the Y Scale channel Figure 5.73 View of the Image_Map node added to the Z Scale channel Using the Nodes to Create Bump and Luminosity Effects When working with photographic imagery, you will also want to apply the image directly to the surface of your object. Oftentimes you may want to use that same image to create bump textures as well as lighting effects through the luminous channels. 1. Clear the other nodes that you were working with in the previous exercise. Apply the image map to the Diffuse_Color channel, as shown in Figure 5.74. Use tex- ture.jpg as your source image. Note that this channel is the one that you will use to apply a photographic image to the object’s surface. Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 261 Figure 5.74 Apply the image map to the Diffuse_Color channel 2. Next click and hold on the Specular_Color connector and drag it to the image map. The color of the current image is used as the specular color of the box. This is why the white highlights were replaced with the actual color of the texture. See Figure 5.75. 3. Now connect the Bump channel to the image map. You can see that this process uses the textures in your image to create a bumpy surface. Poser is simply using any highlights from the image map as the areas that will rise forth and any shadow details in the image as the areas that will recede into valleys. See Figure 5.76. Do a little experimentation with the value of the bump. Change it to .03 as shown in Figure 5.77. Notice that the effect of the texture is less dominant. Use the Bump value to control the strength of the effect. The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide262 Figure 5.75 Apply the image map to the Specular_Color channel Figure 5.76 Apply the image map to the Bump channel 4. Now, connect to the Alternate_Diffuse channel. The higher the value, the more luminous your surface will be. The lower the value, the darker the surface will be. Because you’re using the texture image to create the luminous surface, the texture engine is using any brighter areas in the image to make the surface glow. See Figure 5.78. Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 263 Figure 5.77 Change the Bump channel to .03 Figure 5.78 Apply the image map to the Alternate_ Diffuse channel 5. Connect the Alternate_Specular channel to the Image_Map node, as shown in Figure 5.79. Any areas of your surface that have a specular quality will be enhanced by this channel. Because you already have the texture connected to the Alternate_Diffuse channel, this process will brighten the surface to a greater degree. The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide264 Figure 5.79 Apply the image map to the Alternate_ Specular channel 6. The Alternate_Diffuse and the Alternate_Specular channels are fine-tuning options that work in combination with Diffuse_Color and Specular_Color. You can also use other nodes that will match functions to apply color effects. One of these is called ColorRamp. Connect the Color Ramp node to the Alternate_Diffuse chan- nel (choose New Node > Math > ColorRamp). Figure 5.80 shows the ColorRamp node connected to the Alternate_Diffuse channel, which is in turn connected to the image map. So, if you look at the bottom of the PoserSurface panel, you’ll see the results of the image map being blended with all four colors. The bottom color represents the highlights and the top image represents the darker details. In essence, it uses a graduation of all of the chosen colors to represent the tones present in your photographic image. Understanding how to use texture nodes can greatly improve how you texture your Poser model. Figure 5.81 is an example of how nodes were used to create the final texture on the character. Note the fiery, luminous effect happening throughout his body. Look at the settings that are displayed in Figures 5.82 and 5.83 and apply these directly to your character to get similar results. Both these examples make up one continuous panel. They have been broken into two examples to make it easier for you to read them. Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 265 Figure 5.80 Apply the image map to the ColorRamp channel Figure 5.81 Final view of the texture nodes shown in Figures 5.82 and 5.83 The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide266 Figure 5.82 First half of textures applied to the character Figure 5.83 Second half of textures applied to the character Don’t forget to save this texture into your library since you’ve put hard work into cre- ating it, as shown in Figure 5.84. Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 267 Figure 5.84 Save the texture in the library Now that your character is completely textured, it’s time to go back into Photoshop and add the final touches to the scene. Adding the Finishing Touches in Photoshop In this section you’re going to bring your character into its own layer and place him inside the transparent tube. You will then add some lighting effects for additional interest. Fine-Tuning the Character 1. Access your glass tube layer group. Ctrl-click/Command-click on the highlighted edges to get a marching ants outline around the glass tube shape. Create a new layer below the metal strips that you created for the top and bottom portions of the tube and fill this selection with an orange hue (choose Shift+F5 > Fill with Color). See Figure 5.85. [...]...268 The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide Figure 5.85 Fill the tube with an orange glow 2 The glass should reflect some of the concrete wall that is supporting the top and bottom sections Duplicate the concrete layers and place them above the layers that make up the glass tube Change their blend mode to Screen Associate a layer mask and edit it so that the reflections are restricted to the. .. up the glass tube and give them an outer glow using layer styles 4 Place the Poser character behind the glass tube and apply a layer style of Outer Glow Give the glow surrounding the body a yellow hue Figure 5.90 displays the final result of the outer glow being applied and Figure 5.91 displays the attributes of the layer style Figure 5.87 Create a gradient that will represent the glow 270 The Art of. .. are quickly painting and you find that you need your other hand free for other shortcuts 276 The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide Figure 5.98 Select a softedged brush Figure 5.99 Set the Wacom properties to enlarge or reduce the brush with the pen buttons Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 277 2 Because of the ambient light bouncing all around the tube, the metal strips will... Texturing in Poser Figure 5.93 Duplicate the layer and give it a blend mode of Luminosity Figure 5.94 Apply the Plastic Wrap smart filter 273 274 The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide Figure 5.95 Final results of the Plastic Wrap filter Figure 5.96 Apply energy effects using the Gradient tool Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 275 Figure 5.97 The view so far Fine-Tuning the Backdrop... shows the latest results Figure 5.100 Apply highlights to the sides of the metal strips 278 The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide Figure 5.101 Rotate the canvas 90 degrees to the left Figure 5.102 Create a new layer and paint a highlight around the tube Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser 279 Figure 5.103 Latest results with the glow 5 Because there is so much light coming from the. .. the glass to the background See Figure 5.106 8 Finally, go back to the layer with the circular highlights and stretch it upward to give the glow a sense of motion, as shown in Figure 5.107 280 The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide Figure 5.104 Create a new layer and paint a highlight around the tube Figure 5.105 Create a new layer and paint a richer tone near the base of the tube Chapter... also spill over onto the concrete, so create a new layer below the one with the outer glow Change its blend mode to Lighter Color and paint on the glow with the yellow hue as the tube’s highlight See Figure 5.104 6 Because there is only a slight shadow at the base of the tube due to the effects of the ambient light, you need to paint a richer tone near the base of the tube, where the metal strips are... layer and change its blend mode to Multiply and apply the shading using black See Figure 5.105 7 The mountains inside the glass tube compete too much with the character, so access the layer with the stone figures and edit out some of the stone detail by applying a 50% gray mask in the shape of the tube The gray mask will leave some of the stone visuals to show that you can still see through the glass... Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide Figure 5.88 Apply the gradient to a new layer and change its blend mode to Overlay Figure 5.89 Create additional gradients and change their blend modes to Hard Light Chapter 5 ■ Advanced Nodal Texturing in Poser Figure 5.90 Apply Outer Glow to your figure Figure 5.91 View of the Layer Style settings for Outer Glow 271 272 The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official... the right you will see designations for the bottom and the top buttons located on the pen itself You can set any command that you like for either of these buttons, but for now set the top button to make your brush larger (]) and the bottom one to make the brush smaller ([) So activate the drop-down menu and choose Keystroke Apply the designated shortcuts as shown in Figure 5.99 This will be very handy . Notice that the effect of the texture is less dominant. Use the Bump value to control the strength of the effect. The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide262 Figure 5.75 Apply the image. Texturing in Poser 259 Figure 5.71 View of the Image_Map node added to the X Scale channel The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official Guide260 Figure 5.72 View of the Image_Map node added to the Y. Image_Map. At the top you will see the Image_Source layer. Click on this layer and navigate to the tutorials folder. Open the texture.jpg file from the The Art of Poser and Photoshop: The Official