Hi. Basically you can either edit the default feet to look more realistic or model them from scratch and adapt them ( rigging, unwrap the same way the default ones are unwrapped in uv_0, unwrap in uv_1 in a way that does not deform the mesh too much when you change the size in CAS, vertex paint with 00FF00 ). There's no difference to it in terms of modelling or adapting than shoes or any other custom mesh-based item.
If you are new to Blender, i strongly advice you to watch an introductory tutorial on modelling and uv unwrapping because that's what you'd be doing the most
Things you should be aware of:
- most skin cc creators pay no mind to how the toes and toenails are drawn on the default skin, they do it the way they find more appealing. The problem with that is if you unwrap your uvs to match the default, it won't match with custom ones. What I did was place all toe nail uv islands on the big toe nail texture and put the uvs of toes above the texture of toes;
- if you're going to do like I did, keep in mind that the texture in that area will be stretched which is not noticeable with skin, but is noticeable with fishnet tights, for example;
- on the subject of tights, feet with detailed toes will not work properly with tights, socks and the likes. I decided to create a separate meshgroup that covers them and make it transparent by default. Later I will make tights and socks meant specifically for them. This is obviously not something you have to do, but something you need to keep in mind
- the default skin is not identical on both sides of the body. Some people place the uvs of one foot on top of another, which is not a good idea. You will see the difference in texture in the ankle area;
- the lower the uvs are placed in the uv_1, the bigger/smaller the foot will become. To know what I mean, compare the uv_1 of high heels and flat feet. If you want to make high heels, do not make them protrude too much, this will look really ugly;
- in maxis shoes the bottom of the foot is mapped on the side of the top. This is really unnecessary and would be very hard to match, do not do it like that, just map it underneath the front;
- the uv_1 making process will be challenging but please do not just disable morphing, the ankles will not morph either;
- try to model the bottom of the foot in a way that it is not visible from most angles so that you could delete it if needed and the difference in textures is not noticeable. You can also put the uvs of the bottom on top of each other
- be very mindful of the polycount. I see people make 30k shoes and that is crazy. I redid my feet the third time specifically to make them even more low poly. Right now each would be 2,6k and I would still have 5k for shoes, so that is reasonable.
This is how I did my latest and final version, i think it is the most universal and problem free version. Note that I only have one foot in the scene, i did not put the uvs on top of each other
