How do I increase resolution of body textures?

[devilpool]

Hello every-nyan :3 So, I've seen some mods on the nexus that have characters that look very detailed. So, one day, I decided to read the faq of the Sporty Sexy Sweat mod by Xs2reality and he clearly says

 

I have a rather high-end system and have custom-made body textures. My basic skin texture is 8192 x 8192 pixels, my normal map is 2048 x 2048 pixels and my specular map is also 4096 x 4096. You do the math :smile:

 

 

So as you see, I want to know how I would go on about increasing the resolution of body textures as Xs2reality has done.
Any help and all help that I get, I will be very grateful for.

Sankyu :3

Edited July 11, 2013 by devilpool

[Rennn]

You need to make a new texture or heavily repaint an existing one. It's not as simple as just upscaling a lower resolution texture.

[ArtMurder]

Increasing texture size beyond 4k has basically no visual effect and only introduces lag, I don't know why people do it. At least for something as small as people. Now if you are replacing a texture that shows up GIANT in game, then yeah, make it GIANT, but people are not giant, and thus a 4k texture should suffice. =P Buut, ignoring that point, you can't just 'increase the size', you have to use a body texture OF that size, and most of these people who use custom body texturesthat size made them themselves (I have one like this for khajiits that's 4k that no one else has cause I made it myself) You can make these by getting Paint.NET plus Photoshop CS2 (free from the website), use Paint.NET to change it to a .png, then rescale the size to 8192 x 8192 in photoshop, then use photoshop to smooth it out and change the texture to your discretion. Then use Paint.NET to change it back to a DDS (sense photoshop can't do this) You can also use pictures of actual people to overlay onto it and fade into it which will give it a much more realistic look, just make sure it overlaps the original image perfectly! If you don't have a person willing to let you take pictures of them for this, then this can be harder to do. If you don't plan on releasing it though, there is no reason you can't just use random pics from the internet, but I'm pretty sure that is NOT allowed if you plan on uploading the resulting image! ^_^ And if you do plan on uploading the resulting image you most DEFINITELY need permission of the subject you are using and they MUST be over 18 =3

[vinniewryan]

I've been watching this to see how other people go about doing it. Personally, I gauge this by what the texture is. If it's a tiling texture, you can sometimes scale the texture up, then use the smaller 1/4 textures tiled on top of that as a luminence layer so you hold the detail while getting a larger tile.

If it's a skin, you're gonna have some work to do. Scale it all up but use the detail from the smaller texture to project fine detail where you want it. If you want to add overall grain to utilize all of the pixels, sometimes a grain effect can help slightly. For details like nose and such, you may need to completely go over it with a brush to create the fine edges. Further, you can use some sharpening tools to re-create curves and lines, but be gentle with any global effect. Pay close attention to everything as you apply them, or move certain parts to new layers before applying effects.

I would go into more detail if you had more specific questions.

[devilpool]

Thank you so much! I didn't want to make it 8192 x 8192 because I personally knew that it would cause lag since I only have a medium-heavy range rig :P But this is incredibly helpful! :D I couldn't find 4K body textures so I had to resort to making my own :p Thanks once again. If I could give you rep or something, I totally would! Also, thank you Renn ^_^ You didn't go into detail but I know something new and that's "Heavy Painting" :D I can just search that up and learn. So thanks to you too :D

[ArtMurder]

Thank you so much! I didn't want to make it 8192 x 8192 because I personally knew that it would cause lag since I only have a medium-heavy range rig :P But this is incredibly helpful! :biggrin: I couldn't find 4K body textures so I had to resort to making my own :P Thanks once again. If I could give you rep or something, I totally would! Also, thank you Renn ^_^ You didn't go into detail but I know something new and that's "Heavy Painting" :biggrin: I can just search that up and learn. So thanks to you too :biggrin:

Actually, I think you can give people 'kudos' or something like that... I have no idea how. XD

 

When layering set the layer transparency in blending options down a little on anything but the bottom most file, this helps it flow with the rest of it better, if you blur out the edges with the eraser on the really soft setting! =3 (if you are using photoshop, I know nothing of any other image editing program)

[devilpool]

Okay! So I'm done with it :D Thanks all but... One more thing... The Mature Skin Texture mod makes my character look dirty. Not just minor imperfections but it actually looks like dirt. Can anyone tell me what's wrong?

[ArtMurder]

Okay! So I'm done with it :biggrin: Thanks all but... One more thing... The Mature Skin Texture mod makes my character look dirty. Not just minor imperfections but it actually looks like dirt. Can anyone tell me what's wrong?

That's weird, I use the same skin and I don't get that... maybe it's because you are use to the CBBE which, to be honest, has a texture that looks like a barbie doll. xD (assuming you are using one of the base CBBE textures) The Mature skin has a real skin look to it to me. It's possible an ENB is doing something weird to it I suppose?

[Rennn]

ENBs and RCRN, as well as other lighting mods, increase contrast and can cause pores and skin details to look too dark.

If you don't use a lighting mod and you still think it looks dirty, then it's most likely that you're used to a smoother texture that looks like plastic.

 

I personally adore the appearance of dirty/hairy females, so it's not a big problem for me. I actually passed on Mature Skin Texture because it looked too clean, lol.

[devilpool]

Wait.... I resized it wrong! And the texture became too large and fit around the entire body T_T *Sigh* Maybe I should make this a mod request. I'm not really cut out for this kind of stuff since I suck at it :P Thanks guys ^_^