How Do You Skin a Cat?
Sevrin
Posts: 6,305
So I was wondering how to make a rug. Like a bearskin, or tigerskin rug. Is there a smart way to do this? I was fooling around and came up with this, but it doesn't look very nice from any distance closer than, say, across the street. I mean I could sort of kind of use a fine mesh on the plane and drag stuff into place, but that still wouldn't get me a furry plane. I tried with the SBH editor, but that only showed me the square, which wasn't helpful in placing hair. Maybe by deleting unused geometry I'd be able to have a better idea of where things were? The cat doesn't come with a normal map, and I couldn't get normalmaponline to cooperate with a 4k input, so I don't even have that.
The head i sthere, because I had the tiger, but I'd even be okay with a headless rug.
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Comments
well you don't want it flat like a piece of fabric and the UV shape
rather a body flayed out with shaping
with or without head
https://www.deviantart.com/catbonestaxidermy/art/Antique-tiger-pelt-circa-1960-or-prior-378945146
Run it through a physics simulation. Add some tension to the mesh so crumples up a bit, to get some folds and bends.
That actually doesn't look bad at all. maybe give the body mesh more thickness and add some fur and you are good. Just make sure PETA doesn't see this thread, LOL
Push modifier to give the skin a little thickness and then dforce hair.
Might try Oso3D's fur shader if you have it or even Thicket I think I seen some one use that one like fur.
Ha! Not just PETA; this kind of offends me, but that is the purpose (or one of them) of art.
Would make great scene, with the tiger going from the image and 'flowing' out into a fully formed kitty (admittedly a big kitty).
I really hope you try this one out, because it's incredibly useful and underrated:
1. Get DimensionTheories Fuzzy Cloth https://www.daz3d.com/uhd-fuzzy-cloth-shaders-and-merchant-resource
2. Apply Fuzzy Cloth, choose whatever looks most like tiger fur
3. Replace the standard color texture from all the layers with the original texture from the Tiger.
I guarantee you this works perfectly and it's not hard on the system at all (better result and fast render than Dforce).
I picked that up the last time it was on sale. I'll give it a shot.
Let me know if you need any tips, it's really good.
So here is our victim with medium fuzz applied and some mesh grabbing on the near side of the head. It's a big improvement.
One issue I had is that, in order for my transparency map to work, I couldn't scale up the fuzzies. Any closer than this and you start seeing lines like you already see on the near forepaw. One possibility would be to scale up the texture before applying. Another might be to duplicate the skin with a tiny bit of offset on the duplicate.
Right. That's looking pretty dang good Sevrin. The reference samples I'm seeing show the pelt mounted to a border like Chohole's example so maybe that could give you some blending fudge factor.
Also. maybe you can give some details how you got to your starting point to begin with a bit later.
Yeah, I googled the rugs, and saw the black borders. Felt I guess? That's definitely handy.
I started with a tiger and plane with 40 (not enough) divisons and put the tiger's diffuse texture on the plane. Then I took the bump map and increased the contrast untill it was pretty much black and white. Inverted black and white, and saved that as a transparency map. With the flat part in place, I jiggled the tiger until just her head was poking up from the floor at that angle. There's still a lot of tiger going on under the floor.
Ah. Got it. Thanx.
Skin looks nice already, it's a good fur. Btw, don't be afraid to go for the heavy fuzzes, they are better at a distance and have a thick fluffy density you really notice if you put like feet or hands on it. You can also put each of the 4 Geoshell layers at a further distance manually, space them out a bit more. Otherwise just increase the Y- of the object itself to give it more tickness.
Have you considered UHD Fur Builder - Shaders and Merchant Resource? Same vendor (with some help), same principle, but for, like, fur. Only flows in one direction, though. Would need creative UV maps to look like it was following the natural contour of the beast.
I have that on my WL, but don't own it yet, and this was kind of a fur of the moment project. But I already had the tiger's diffuse map, which is the big difference, and was mostly interested in adding a bit of volume, which the fuzzy product does a decent job of. I also used the tiger's original bump and specular maps. The fuzzy product was for the geoshells and normal map.
From your personal collection? I'm jealous. Ours is a Leopard, shot by my grandfather in 1928 after it had eaten at least two people near, I think, Lucnow in India (spelling may be iffy) but I may be wrong. Nearly got him too, when his first shot didn't kill it and he had a very annoyed Leopard arrive on the same branch he was sitting on. His second shot as he fell out of the tree killed it. In the last 92 years the moths have been busy, and it's a bit worse for wear.
holy crap that sounds scary
I visited a friend of my brothers cousin once who had a deer farm and was a taxidermist
but besides deceased domestic and slaughtered livestock animals he only stuffed or tanned roadkill and other animals acquired through interesting means such a lion from a circus that had died etc no hunting.
he did a lot of birds too.
mostly did peoples pets actually
All I have is the shoe belonging to the kangaroo that tried to shoot me while it was robbing the liquor store I was trying to by booze from... but I did manage to tell it to get stuffed before it ran off... not sure if it followed my advice. If anyone has a taxidermied kangaroo with an eyepatch that's missing one shoe... it could be him.
I have a few things made of rabbit or sheep, thats about it
someone ate the meat or they are pests so don't feel any more guilty about it than my leather shoes
Australian feral fox fur wouldn't worry me either
I eat kangaroo too
what I really get angry about is those so called game hunters shooting on safari etc
endangered animals especially
tigers are especially an issue with the whole ground tigerbone quackery too
no, found it on the net totally by accident, It is from a leather cleaning and restoration forum.
Oddly, for research until the current situation set in, I was going to take a jaunt out to a semi local place in Estacada OR called The Safari Club. Mostly to see if it's even still there, but frankly it puts the Ace Ventura scene to shame. Tackiness^3. Got to remember though this goes back to the 20's or 30's I think, so consider the place a museum.
why didn't anyone find this?
https://www.daz3d.com/faux-fur-decorative-rug-set
has rug morphs for big cat 2
The morphs might be a good starting point, but they don’t go far enough. It just looks like a big cat that’s been slightly deflated, not a rug.
a fair bit of vertical down scaling needed below the head I agree