Making Transparent Clothing

I wrote this tutorial on my own.  Any similarity to another tutorial is purely coincidental.  I claim the copyright to my tutorial. You are free to do whatever you please with what you make, but please do not take my tutorial.  Do not send the tutorial through email.  Only share my link.

This tutorial was created for some friends of mine who wanted to begin learning more about DAZ Studio.  It is intended for beginners to learn how to create transparent places in clothing.  If you have any questions, please feel free to Email  me.

To do this tutorial you will also need DAZ Studio. 

1.  Download the Template for the clothing outfit that you wish to use.

It is assumed that you already know how to texturize clothing.  If you do not, please read over my Texturizing Clothing in DAz tutorial.

2.  Open the template in your graphics program.  I used Paint Shop Pro.

3.  Layers > New Raster Layer

4.  Flood-fill this layer with White.  Then HIDE the layer in the layer palette, by clicking on the eye.

5.  Layers > New Raster Layer.

6.  Set your foreground and background colors to black.  I used a preset shape (diamond).  Make sure that "Create as Vector" in the toolbar is UNCHECKED.  Draw the diamond where you think it should be.

7.  UNHIDE the white layer.  Then save this as a JPEG.  File > Export > JPEG Optimizer  (and save in YOUR textures folder)

Now you will need to TEST your transparency map.

8.  Open up the DAZ program.  Load the figure and the base outfit that you made the transparent map for.

9.  Once the outfit is on the figure, click on the Surfaces tab, and go to the near bottom where it says Opacity Strength.  Right under that is a texture drop-down menu, choose Browse for Image.

10.  Find the folder where you saved your transparency map and choose it.

11.  Here is what mine looks like on Aiko.

As you can see, the diamond is a little large.  It runs off the top of the dress, and shows too much of her lower end.  But also notice that where the diamond is on the dress, it is transparent.

BLACK makes the spot transparent, WHITE makes it opaque.

12.  I returned to Paint Shop and resized my black diamond, and saved that as a new Texture file.

13.  Then I tested it again in the DAZ program, this time browsing for my SECOND texture file.

14.  Once more!  I shrank the diamond some more, saved it as a THIRD texture file, and then tested the THIRD file in DAZ.  This is what I'm happy with.

You can use this transparency map on all textures for the SAME outfit.

Now we learned that BLACK makes the spot vanish, and white makes the spot stay opaque.  What if we want to see through the dress but not have the dress completely vanish-- like as if we are looking through a veil?  Semi-transparent?

This is where your shades of gray will be useful.

15.  In the picture below, I took the same black diamond texture, but this time shaded it medium gray.  I put white lines on there to make the screen.  Remember, the white lines mean that part of the dress will still show.  Save this as a JPEG in your texture folder, a 4th texture.

16.  This is what the gray diamond does to the dress.  It's like you're looking through a mesh net.

Happy Rendering!

 Please do not remove this tutorial from my site.  Share my url.