texturing from imvu to sl have a few questions???

well i have been retexturing on imvu for a few years now and i have come to second life wanting to develop i understand the wire frames and everything the whole consept of texturing but i have no clue how to actually upload the items nor preview them or make the catalog image can someone explain this to me i w0uld be ever so greatful

To upload an image, simply click File -> Upload Image.


Previewing is a little more complicated. The method(s) depend on what you're trying to preview.

If you're looking to preview something that would go on an avatar, like an article of clothing or a skin, then there are a number of ways to do it. The most basic is the one that's built right into the viewer. When you go to upload an image, you can see not only how it looks as a flat image, but also how it would wrap around various body parts, and how it would behave as a sculpt map. It's pretty limited, but it works.

A better option is to use a third party 3D or 2.5D application. Go to the downloads section of the SL website, and you can grab the avatar mannequin models. They come in OBJ and Poser format. The OBJ's can be read by just about any 3D or 2.5D modeling/texturing application. The Poser files can be used in Poser or DAZ|Studio.

If you have Photoshop CS3 Extended, you can load the OBJ files into a PSD, and do your previewing there. You can also load the OBJ's into a 3D modeling program like Maya, Max, or Blender, or into a 3D/2.5D paint program like Zbrush or DeepPaint3D, and use the various texturing facilities those programs have to offer.

There are also numerous resident created programs you can use. One is SLCP, which you'll find stickied right at the top of this forum.

Or you can do a bit of hack trickery to view your images right on your own avatar in-world by temporarily replacing the base skin files in your secondlife\character folder on your hard drive. Just be really careful not to screw anything up as you're poking around in there, or you'll need to reinstall your SL viewer.



As for previewing textures that would go on items other than avatars, your best option is to create a duplicate of your model in a 3D modeling program, and then preview and/or create your textures there. I quite often bake textures in Maya, for example.

There's also the preview grid, but since you're new, you might not have access to that yet. If you don't, you'll have to wait until the next time they refresh the database snapshot. That could be tomorrow, next week, next month, there's no set timing. It's intended for testing new features of SL. The fact that you can also use it for previewing your own stuff is just a peripheral benefit, not a deliberate feature. For more info on the preview grid, see http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/05/25/reintroducing-the-preview-grid-aditi/



SL has no catalog like IMVU has, so don't worry about that. The closest thing to it would be resident-created shopping sites like SLexchange, and OnRez. Each of those has its own instructions for usage.

There are also in-world classified ads, which you can purchase if you wish. Right-click on your avatar, open your profile, and then click your Classified tab. Hit the New button, and follow the instructions. People searching the classifieds will be able to see your ad.

Note, the classifieds are intended for advertising places, not necessarily things. If you have a store somewhere in-world, you'd place an ad for your store. You could additionally place ads for each item in your store if you really want, but that would get very expensive very quickly.

You're probably used to IMVU's disjointed website-like behavior, but SL behaves more like an actual world. It's contiguous. If you want to sell your creations, it's best to have a place to sell them from. This could mean owning your own land, or it could simply mean renting store space at a mall somewhere. Use of the aforementioned shopping sites will greatly add to your business, but it's best to have at least one in-world location, if not several.