What an alpha channel is

A Digital image is first and foremost a file, ready to be viewed in your computer or multimedia device. There are a lot of different types of digital images, but all of them have been designed to store data.

Digital images store values for what we call colors in a RGB format (Red, Green and Blue). RGB are the primary light colors allocated in channels. Certain types of images can allocate yet another channel called alpha channel. This alpha channel stores the values you decide to be transparent in the image.

In SL environment you can only upload *tga and *png images for a transparency effect or transparent area. This type of image stores colors in three channels, and also can store the transparency in the alpha channel.

Not too long ago, *tga was the only type with alpha enabled for SL. However, Portable Network Graphics format, or *png, works as well as *tga and it's easier to handle.

SL is flooded with transparency areas. Transparencies have a little drawback though: They collide. Not only in_world, but at any virtual environment. It's something the processor has to decide which goes first. That's why sometimes, your hair will be eaten up by a glass, or floor, or even a wall, given the fact that they have been textured with any image with transparency effect. Ctrl+T will give you an idea about this usage, turning into Red all transparencies.

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Upper and Lower body Meshes...and system skirt

Upper Body Mesh

The upper template is the basis for creating:

-Undershirts

-Shirts

-Jackets

-Gloves

Look closely, there is only one arm and one hand. What you create for arm and hand will be repeated.  

Lower Body Mesh

The basis for templates to create:

-Underpants

-Pants

-Socks

There is only one foot. That's the reason for avatars to have weird feet (It's just one foot, repeated)

In those areas in which there are more surface variations, triangles are not - and cannot- be regular.

System Skirt Mesh

There is yet another template, and it is the one that belongs to what is called “system skirt”. In fact, it's a very simple map. However, as every avatar is somehow customized, sometimes this skirt looks odd. We can see its line better in wireframe mode:

It's used for classic skirts and also as part of specific designs, both for women and men, as in costumes.

Regarding Male Avatars, They use the same mesh with some alterations, namely muscles. These alterations -in both female and male meshes- will make your design complex in those areas in which triangles expand or shrink. Differences are very subtle...but they are important in the long run.

 

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Mesh and Templates, Head

Speaking of meshes...If we dissect the mesh we can see what a template really is and where it comes from.

The Mesh

As almost everything you see - or do not see- in SL, a mesh is comprised of triangles. Their varied angles, coordinates and forms, determine the 'bumps' that mimic surface, as this example shows.

Here we go :-) 

Head 

UV texturing permits polygons that make up a 3D object to be painted with color from an image. The image is called a UV texture map, but it is only an image, that's all.  

Unwrapping the UV map is pretty much like extending a map onto a flat surface. 

Thus, the map for the head becomes this template:

It's in this template where make-up, and the very skin of the avatar's face is done. It's rarely used for clothing.

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Understanding Mesh Clothing for Avatars

SL is made up mostly by meshes, covered or wrapped by digital images called textures.

All avatars come from only one mesh, so basically, everybody is one and the same. That mesh is the foundation for clothing, and some other important stuff, like your skin. 

How to design clothing for an avatar

To design clothing for an avatar you will have to use the so called 'templates'. Templates are nothing more than mappings of the mesh. They give you the exact areas in which you can trace, apply color and add a bunch of effects to simulate volume.

They are a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional object. Light and volume is lost in the templates...That will be for you to apply.

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About this blog

SL is a world inside another and, even thou its ways of presenting itself vary greatly, one comes to realize that somehow it's an extension of our daily lives. I was attracted by SL for the very reason Fine Arts enticed me: The real opportunity to learn and express beyond what we see.

I entered SL fresh from digital Art, and wanting to know more about '3D worlds'. In fact, Raytracing and modeling surely provided me with the thrill of creating a world -literally- from scratch. I wanted to know how would it be 'to live' inside one. And decided to start from Zero...And here I am!

There are many areas to explore and create, to share and enjoy and all of them are never ending endeavors. One of those was to make 3D textures I really like, and another, trying to find by myself how to design clothing. In the same way we carry with us our inventories in SL, we get to relate, and connect, with all of what we have lived in our lives. A 'feeling good' experience :-)


First entries of this blog will have to do with where we -as avatars- come from, hence the name : We are All One and the same:-)

See you in the next post!




Copyright 2011,Eme10 All Rights Reserved