BASIC clothing tutorial- making a shirt.

OH GOD.

Ok, I don't know at what point this happened, but somehow the folder of images that this tutorial linked to has gone missing from my ftp/site thingy.
Oh, and, as if that weren't bad enough, the computer that the images were stored on is long since dead.

This really sucks, and I am terribly sorry.
The bright side is, this tutorial was LONG overdue for a re-write. I will get on that immediately, look for a new improved tutorial here very soon.

Bummed,
Nephi

You never cease to amaze me. Neph, this is SO nice of you! This is something that really needs to be added into the SL Tutorial/download section. Or at least STICKY in this forum

Awesome Tutorial!

-_Water

why, thank you

Stunning work Neph. Well done.

Linden - this should be a part of the starter pack in some form.

Thank you for the Tutorial, Neph! I love it! I have been trying to design my own clothing, but had no clue what I was doing, until now.

GREAT, Neph! Now if only someone could teach me how to do it in the old Metacreations Painter program!

The Sadly Photoshopless Bhodi

Wonderful, Nephilaine! Thank you soooooooo much! Alpha channels! Wheeeeeeee

bhodi-

i'm hunting down my copy of painter to reinstall now, so perhaps i will be able to help you out with that soon i know it can be done in painter, but havent worked with it in so long i couldnt translate the steps off the top of my head
what version are you using?

Thanks, everyone, for the support! I should have installment II, Shading The Garment, up this evening

Neph,

I use 5.5, which I THINK is the last release that MetaCreations put out, before they sold it. (I"m a Kai Krause groupie - how nerdy is that?) I love it, and although I can use Photoshop, Sig Other destroyed my old computer, and took my copy of PS with it! (Bad, bad Sig Other and his night time surfing habits!)

Hi Neph Great Tutorial. PSP has simular steps but some of the Photoshop nessasary ones are omited in PSP. After seeing this Neph I think I might need to update a tutorial for PSP 8.1 for here to show how to make clothes in PSP.

I have never used Photoshop but I am sure that I could pick it up quickly if I ever get it. Especially after seeing this tutorial and the GUI that it has I dont think it would be hard to convert from PSP to Photoshop at all.

Talk to ya soon.
Shadow

Great work Nephilaine

Would you mind if I included this tutorial at the University of Second Life's tutorial panel's collection?

not at all hank, i would be honored.

thanks shad! i would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see a psp tutorial- i know less than nothing about psp, but i am always all for learning new packages

bhodi, im searching out my painter disk (it has to be around here somewhere!), and as soon as i can get my hands on it to do some research I will work on a Painter version of this tutorial

my apologies for not having the other installments up yet- I have been nursing a sick munchkin all weekend. but she seems to be feeling better, so hopefully I will have more time to work on it today

I would like to see a PSP tutorial too -- but I use PSP 7 still (I'm too cheap to upgrade atm). I could do one for PSP 7, though I suppose it would be a bit outdated .

Zana

This is a great turorial! But sadly enough the best painting program i have is the basic ms paint......Maybe one day i will buy photoshop, but thats not until i can afford a digi cam. Then i'll need it.

Thanks so much Neph! I am really looking forward to your next installments because every time I see your clothes my jaw drops. How do you DO it? So great to see some of the method!

I still can't make heads or tails of the alpha channels business. For instance, what does the similar-color background do for you?

In the past I've just skipped it entirely. In Photoshop 7.0 all you need to get the transparent areas is to select a transparent background when you start a new file. When you cut out the edges of the layers on top of it the balance is automatically clear.

I still mean to learn those channels someday! It'd be nice to be able to generate a variable image transparency.

A couple other tips to folks just starting out:

ALWAYS create a new duplicate layer of your item before doing something to it you'll have trouble backing out of later on.

If you are trying to make a more complex cutout shape, especially if it involves straps, I recommend starting with a pattern blank of a solid color to get the shape right. That way if you find you've trimmed too much when you try it on, it's an easy fix with the brush.

Nephilaine, what's your favorite way of getting source material? Do you like to start with a flat swatch of fabric, or do you work with pictures of whole garments?

Another one I've had trouble with is jaggies on the edges. What's your advice on getting a good smooth edge?

I think it's something like:

Step 1: Be an awesome artist.
Step 2: There is no step 2.

We're not worthy, Nephilaine. But if you decide to make your limited editions a little less limited I could pretend to be pretty darn worthy.

Great questions Ananda!



The purpose of the similar background is in the event your alpha is not a perfectly clean line. if you placed your garment on a black background or a white background, then anywhere the alpha wasnt *perfect* would have a black or white smudge. this camoflages those areas a bit.



I have heard this same thing from a friend recently! Tragically, my copy of PS is broken in this regard So i have to create all my alphas from scratch


I taught myself to work with varying transparencies in an alpha by doing the following experiment-

*take a shirt with some fabric shading in it, or some kind of design or texture, one with a plain black and white alpha channel. if you dont have one handy, you can find one here
also,here is an example of varied transparency.

*go to the alpha channel, select it using the marquis tool, and copy it.

*go back to your color layer, and paste the alpha channel in the color layers menu.

*make a copy of your color layer, and with this layer selected go to edit/adjustments/desaturate. this will turn your copied layer to greyscale.

*in your layer menu, be sure the alpha channel copy is on top of the greyscale layer- set the copied alpha layer's blending mode to Multiply.

*be sure your background layer is invisible, and go to layers/merge visible to merge the alpha copy and the greyscale layer. you should end up with a greyscale image that is black in all the areas the original alpha channel was black, but with shades of grey where the white was.

*copy this layer, and paste it into the alpha channel. delete the greyscale layer from the Layers menu.

*save your garment ans a tga 32, and try it on

Once you have created the first map, begin to save out revisions- in the revisions, do not edit the color map, but instead use the edit/adjustments/levels and edit/adjustments/brightness contrast controls to vary the transparency or opacity of the alpha.
Just play with it, upload a few variations, experiment until you are familiar with what the various levels of grey will produce.


When I first started, I worked from photographs of garments. However lately, I have found a collage-and-paintover sort of technique more satifying- I use fabric swatches, photographs of beads and trims, scans or digital photos of fabrics that i run across that i like, ect


I have found the best defense against the wily jaggy edge is a hard-edged brush go around the edges of the image as you work on it periodically i wish i had better advice for this one, but that usually works ok for me

Sorry for the novella! hehe if i missed anything, poke me in the ribs good and hard, and i'll edit

Love your tutorials Neph, it has definatley allowed me to make some s tuff I could not make before... maybe you will get to it later, but it seems I have a harder time trying to figure out how to use a real picture of clothing rather then just starting from scratch... any suggestions?

Sensual,

I make my clothing from pix that I found all the time (since I have no real aritistic talent of my own ). Contact me inworld sometime and I'll try and walk ya thru my process. I promise it's not as hard as it seems!!

I would love to see a tutorial based on PSP but i have both programs so either will work....its just that i use PSP more often.

I would LOVE to do a psp tutorial, unfortunately i dont know the first thing about the software.

anyone want to take this on? clearly there is a demand for it.

Neph, you are just the absofab!! I have been doing a full ps7 tutorial for the past month but have just gotten to the actual meat of making an article of clothing.....Your tutorial is perfect though so now I can skip it hehe....I am just mad I didn't know ya when I was struggling not that I don't still struggle!!! But thank you anywho...you are one of the greatest assets to the design community of SL!

thank you so much aliena!

but by all means, dont stop on your tutorial just because i posted this one! As i said in the text, theres more than one way to skin an avatar
Each designer works a little differently, and all of us likely have our pet tricks that the others havent even thought of. I would love to read more of them, we can all learn from each other

I would love a clothing tutorial for PSP. I am struggling with everything in PSP.

Hey Neph -- this looks like a great tutorial, but all the links in it are broken now, with Forbidden errors. In fact, the whole domain is forbidden now.