3DViews about SL

Monday, November 14, 2011

Clothing Layers (Mesh Layers) continued-

In the lower template:

Underpants, Pants and Socks Layers

Underpants and Socks layers are very simple to set, meaning that they don't have too many controls you can play with. Pants layer is the most used.

System Skirt

This skirt is quite useful as a component, but keep in mind it is bumpy, even when it's set to fit at zero. As it matches shirt and undershirt layers, it is ideal as a base for more complex skirts or jackets.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Clothing Layers (Mesh layers)

Layers in clothing are those related with the textures that wrap the avatar. They are applied inside SL environment while in Appearance mode.

Most used in clothing are :

Undershirt, Shirt, Jacket, and gloves for upper part avatar and
Underpants, pants and socks for lower part avatar.

They stack on top of each other in a certain order. These are the areas they can cover to their full extent, in plain colors:

In the Upper Template:

* Undershirt layer, Shirt layer, (in orange and green). Keep in mind the same order for your designs, so you can play a bit with different pieces. Usually, the same piece of clothing is offered in those versions, and it is up to the avatar how to wear them. It's part of the fun, the mix and match process.

The Jacket layer (in blue) mixes the upper avatar and the lower avatar. Therefore, the bottom part of the jacket has to be done on a pants or underpants layer, but defined in the jacket layer.

The amount of space for an open jacket can also be defined

in Appearance mode, while creating the jacket.

Gloves layer belong to the same 'upper' body template.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Designing and Templates

For templates to work you need a graphic software that uses layers. Many people use Photoshop, but there are more options. The Gimp is a good option as well as Corel Photopaint and even Photo Shop. Whichever your software of choice might be, It's imperative that you know your software fairly well, manage your tools appropriately, and work easily with layers.

The basic 'set' of templates for clothing comes from Linden Labs and it is based in those true-sets we've been talking about (mesh). SL Residents Chip Midnight and Robin Sojourner made extremely useful improvements to all templates. They are available at

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Creation_Portal

Both sets of templates come layered in *.psd format. They add many useful reference points at the design process: where seams should match, how stripes change from 3D to 2D and so on. A nice way to work with them for me, is merging both (Chip's and Sojourner's) so that I can have all the advantages together.

The pic to the right is an avatar just wearing those templates. It's a very recommended way to know where every point or area is. (Head, feet and hands have been left out)