I've got M4 loaded and go to the texture room, then select the "SkinFace".  It has the default texture map of the face, then I try the "Multiply" and use the "Noise function: Fractal Noise" for Source 2.  (The default texture map becomes Source 1).  The idea is a sort of plague, and it looks pretty good, some black nasty marks on the face.  But when I animate the head, the black marks slide around on the face.  I tired some different mappings (parametric, spherical), and also changing the "Space" in the fractal noise (local, global, UV), and also "Add" instead of "Multiply",  no luck.  Ideas?  I am a complete novice in the texture room, so you cannot be too basic.

Can you bake the texture, export it, then bring it back as a normal JPEG? 

I've never baked a texture, but I had a similar idea, just take the texture map into Photoshop and add the black spots.  I have done that kind of thing before, no problem.  The advantage of the "Fractal Noise" is that I could change the degree pretty quickly, e.g. as the plague progresses.  And I'm curious in general about the noise functions and how they map to shapes during animation..

But thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a look.

 yes, sorry I cant tell you the cause of the problem, it looks like you have investigated all the usual suspects!

Do you have http://www.daz3d.com/advance-pack ? It's on special at the moment. The Baker part is good.

Okay, thanks.  I have a bunch of Fenric plugins that might do some of those things, I haven't tried more than about 20% of the features.  So many toys, so little time.

Is texture baking possible without the Baker plugin?  I.e., just in Carrara Pro 8.5?

 ah you can export things as procedurals when you export an obj, so maybe that would work ?  select model, export as obj, and you get a window that gives you choices

Here's another solution for you.

http://www.digitalcarversguild.com/plugin.php?ProductId=13

Shaders Plus has a function called Procedural Lock that works great for your problem. Plus is it has a few other goodies tucked away inside. I used it several times in a shader experiment project I was working on a while back.

Headwax's suggestion of Baker will also work. I've used that plugin a few times as well.

Looks like another good idea, thanks.  I'm off on a project for now, but I'll get back to this.  I really have not gotten into many plugins for Carrara, other than Fenric (when on sale at DAZ), since I'm still finding my way through Carrara's features with PhilW's help.  But it sounds like I'm missing some good stuff.

Oh, yes! The Digital Carver's Guild plugins as well as Inagoni's plugins are great. Their addition to Carrara can make a world of difference to what you can do with Carrara. It's like having your own personal Carrara 9. :)

A bit late in the day but - don't overlook it is usually cheaper to buy direct from Inagoni http://www.inagoni.com/news.php

Oh, yes. I bought all of my Inagoni plugins directly from him.