Texture Atlas Basics Tutorial

Texture Atlas is an awesome resource and this tutorial is about the basics of using it.
Do not have Texture Atlas enabled? Check out my tutorial on how to Set Up.

For the basis of this tutorial I have loaded up a green alien (which can be found at ShareCG)

Step 1

Texture Atlas

Load your figure, in this case I have used my green alien.
Then open up texture atlas by clicking on the grey globe icon.

Your screen should show a dialogue box similar to this one:

Step 2

Click on the "Auto Arrange" button, which should allow the "Preview" and "Accept" buttons on the lower right hand side to be selected.

Click on "Preview"

This will bring up a new dialogue box.

(tip: if you do not see anything when you clicked preview, don't panic! You probably do not have the figure selected in the scene, close out and select the figure and then go back to step 1.)

UV Set Name: what the UV (texture map) will be saved as.

Target Image Folder: where the map will be saved to! (tip: make sure you pay attention to this and change it if needed so you can find it later!)

Created Images: this are different options, which will allow you to do different things. The most common are bump and diffuse.

Texture(s) Settings: this allows you to set the size of the image, the larger the image the more details you can add, but you should not need to to be too huge for more uses 512 x 512 to 1000 x 1000 should be fine.

For this I have changed the UV Set Name to "Green Alien"

Step 3

Navigate to the folder that you saved your new UV Set to (remember that tip about paying attention to where you saved it?)

It should contain two images (if you used the Toony Alien, some will contain more, but in this case the alien only has a diffuse and bump.

Step 4
That is nice what do I do with these images now?
Excellent question!
With this images you can change colors, and make a variety of changes to a character!
How do I do that?
That is for another tutorial!

Congrats you now know the basics of Texture Atlas!

This tutorial was brought to you by Amy Pettijohn and Bouncing Dog Graphics.

Texture Atlas Set Up Tutorial

Texture Atlas is one of those cool things included in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro but most people don't use because it is not already set up!Looking on the Daz Studio Website is not exactly a help, as last time I checked the information page was pretty much empty! An in depth search of the forums does help some, but it did not fully answer my questions in an easy manner.
So here is my guide to the Texture Atlas!

Texture Atlas for Daz Studio Tutorial!

If you are like me you were excited that Texture Atlas was included in Daz Studio, however, it is not pre-setup for use!

Step 1 
So the first step is to enable it. For the purpose of this tutorial I use the "Hollywood Blvd" layout, which can be selected under "Window" then "Workspace" then "Select Layout".

To enable Texture Atlas you need to go to: Window > Workspace > Customize (or use F3)
Then select "Actors Wardrobe &&" from the right column, toggle the arrow down to see the drop list, then select "Toolbars", at the bottom there should be "Tools" and default setting is to OFF, you want to click it with a right click, which should bring up a little dialogue that says "Enable Tool Bar" which you click and should turn it ON. Then click "Apply" at the bottom of the window, that way the setting change goes into effect. See graphic below.

When you hit apply your screen probably seemed to freeze a moment then refreshed, don't panic! There should be change to your tool bar, see graphic.

Yours will probably not have the grey globe that is texture atlas... yet!

Texture Atlas Icon

Step 2 

How do I get that little globe to show up?
Click on the "Tool Bars" button at the top of the box on the right side, that will bring up a new menu.
At the bottom of the menu should be "Tools" Click the > to expand it.
Then on the left size on the "Actions" box area, there should be "Texture Atlas" listed (tip: its listed alphabetically, so its pretty far down the list) then click the > to expand it, it should have a grey globe and "Texture Atlas" as an option.
Drag and Drop the globe icon over into the "Tools" menu in the right column.

Then hit apply, after the refresh you should see the grey globe on the menu bar...

Now you can click on the texture atlas icon to open it up.

Step 3 
But I don't like all those extra icons at the top of the screen you say?
Go back to Step 1, and remember when you "enabled" the tool bar? Go back there and "disable".

Step 4
But wait! How do I access texture atlas then?
It is still there, you just need to go to the "Tools" menu at the top, and your Texture Atlas icon should be listed.

This tutorial was brought to you by Amy Pettijohn and Bouncing Dog Graphics!