Making MAT Pose Files with QuickMAT

This tutorial assumes you've made some beautiful textures for your character which you would like to put in a Pose file so that others can use them.

I use Hogsoft QuickMat to quickly and easily create MAT Pose files. Whilst I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish this, I have no idea how to do it any of those ways. I'm sure there are tutorials out there for those of you who chose not to buy QuickMat. This tutorial assumes you will use QuickMAT and that you have Poser 7.

First, install QuickMAT onto your Computer.
Open Poser 7 to see if you have the correct files in there because if you don't there is a little trick you can use. In Poser 7 click on scripts on the top tool bar and see if there is a Hogsoft Utils menu option. If it is, bring up the drop-down menus to see if there are "SaveP5Mat" and "SaveP5MATs" option. If you do then all is good and you don't need to read the next bit.
For those of you who, first of all don't have the Hogsoft option when you click on scripts just go into:
C:Program FilesE-FrontierPoser 7RuntimePython
and look for a folder called Hogsoft Utils. Once you find it copy the whole folder over to
PythonposerscriptsScriptsMenu
and it should now show up in your Scripts drop down menu in Poser.

For those of you who don't have the "SaveP5Mat" and "SaveP5MATs" menu options, in your Windows file browser navigate to:
C:Program FilesE-FrontierPoser 7Runtime
Right-click on an empty space in that folder: this will bring up a pop-up menu. Click on "Make New Folder" and call it 'materials'... exactly like that, NO CAPS (and no quotes either, of course).
Inside that 'materials' folder right-click on an empty space, select "Make New Folder" and call it nodes... again, NO CAPS.
That's all there is to it. Close Poser 7 if it's open, then reopen it and check to see if you now have the "SaveP5Mat" and "SaveP5MATs" menu options. I'm going to assume you do for this next bit.

Open V4 then inject the files you made from the pose folder so she's all pretty then go into the scary place, the material room...lol... go into the Simple Tab.
Next to the tab names you'll find "Victoria 4" on the first drop down menu (Object:) and "4_InnerMouth" on the Material dropdown. Starting with "4_InnerMouth" click on the square under 'Diffuse Color', click on the [Browse] button in the Texture Manager dialogue, navigate to your textures folder and select your mouth-teeth file.
If you have bump map files then click on the box under "Bump" - which is next to material preview and using the steps outlined above select bump maps corresonding to your material areas. Leave the other boxes alone for now.

From the Material drop down menu select the next Material which should be "4_Gums" and do the same thing. Do this for every material - selecting the corresponding file for that body part.
When you get to the bottom of the list you'll see preview. IGNORE IT... just leave as is or blank it out.

Now, here's the scary bit, the advanced section. Open it and click on 1_SkinFace in the Material dropdown. This is just to experiment a little: there is no way I can teach you much about nodes/shaders in this brief tutorial. I've spent days and days playing with them to see what works and what doesn't and if you see in my image below I've sort of got it right but it's not perfect.

Notice my colours on the side and my bump map settings which I found suited Ella's texures. You might want to try different settings to see what works for you. Too high and she's going to look like she has a very bad case of acne and too low is not going to look very realistic.
If you find something you like then apply the same settings to all flesh parts of the body. The eyes are a different story altogether: I've used some simple nodes plugged into different things as on the right.

Then you have the lips... to give them a nice shine, click on the simple material room tab and click on the colour swatch under highlight and change the colour to a very very light pink, almost white.

I guess it's all well and good to tell you to add nodes if you want to but I should tell you how to actually do it. Go into the advanced material room and follow the instructions on the right.

If you have everything looking nice it's time to save but remember: if this is your first or even second or third time it does take practice. You don't really have to have nodes/shaders, it's all up to you. One thing I did forget to mention and that is setting up your Hogsoft QuickMAT, so we'll do that now. Open it up from the start menu or if you have a desktop shortcut even better and make your settings like mine on the right.

Now we will make the injects for the textures. You've added your textures in the material room so go back to the pose room and give it a render to see how beautiful she is. Then, click on the 'Scripts' menu option on the top tool bar -> Hogsoft Utils -> QuickMat -> SaveP5Mat It will do its thing and then ask you which files you want included. For your first base you'll want everything so leave it as it is except UNTICK PREVIEW as it's not needed.
It will also make a thumbnail for you if you've clicked on that in the settings. I don't much care for the Hogsoft-generated thumbnails, so I don't have this option deselected. I do a nice render then make my own png thumbnails in Paintshop Pro or Photoshop.

Once it's finished it's onto the next one which will be one of the makeups you've made.
Go back to the material room and all you have to do is click on Skinface on the drop down menu and change the image under the diffuse colour to whichever makeup you want. Get's easier doesn't it??..lol..
Once you've done that go back into the pose room and do the Hogsoft QuickMAT thing again, only this time when it asks which files you want to include only select the face files like in the image on the right.

The same with eyes, deselect the others, also if you make separate lips only select those. Once they're all done you can go in and remake your thumbnails, i make mine 100 (wide) x ?? (high) so they're nice and big. Hogsoft makes them the poser default size of 91 x 91 which is too small in my opinion. Size does matter...lol...