Quote - ...Of course, if you're "painting" directly on the figure with some modern 3d painting tool, none of this matters.

I've thought of doing that but, honestly, that's quite a bit of work to get it fine tuned.  Even then, the texture is going to stretch with the mesh somewhat and it may not look as good in certain poses.  However, it's always an option.  I just don't have anything decent for topological painting.  Hexagon can do it but I don't think the results would be quite as exceptional as needed.  The free version of Blacksmith 3D doesn't have the resolution necessary and I haven't seen anything out there for free that will do more than paint some colored lines.

I started trying to do some layout lines in 3D painting on the mesh at first and then going directly into the map with a texture.  It's "possible" to do something like build an initial, undeformed, straight texture and then overlay it, follow some seam guides and then deform it.  However, too much deformation would make certain portions of the texture markedly different in appearance on the finished model.  That isn't good..

Some of this may be solved with a V4 second-skin bodysuit.  I don't have the V4 Bodysuit released by DAZ.  But, I can generate one using scripts.  The problem there comes in redistribution and I'm not sure I could redistribute it.  It's not simply a topo but a vertex-by-vertex copy... not something I think DAZ would like to see in a freebie.