how do you make attachments?

How do you make attachments such as hair and texture them?

Attachments are made of primitive objects that you create with the build tools. When you're ready to wear it on your avatar you'd right click on it in your inventory and select attach from the pie menu. That brings up a list of attachment points so you can choose where on your body to attach it. In the case of prim hair you'd choose skull. Once it's attached you can adjust it on your body by right clicking the attachment and selecting edit from the pie menu.

Just as an addition to what Chip said, if you select "Wear" it will put the attachment on the last body part it was attached to (or, I think, the skull if you've never attached it to anything yet). So once you've put your shoes or hair or whatever on, if you ever take them off and want to put them back on again, all you have to do is select "Wear."

Ummm, also, you don't get a pie menu in your inventory; you get a contextual menu, just so you don't get confused. (Chip was just tired, or something. )

You choose "Attach To" from there, and you'll get a fly-out menu with a long list of all the attachment points.

You need to pick one, and then right click on the prim and "Edit" it to position it however you want it positioned. This is easier if you're on a Posing Stand, because your AV will hold still, instead of constantly shifting around. (If you don't have one, IM me, and I'll drop one on you.)

Once you've done that, the item will remember the attachment point and positioning, so you or anyone else can just "Wear" it after that.

I was probably just hungry. Mmmmmm, pie.

ok, and to texture it? hair looks complicated to texture...

Hair is usually made of mutiple prims that have been linked together (most attachments are, in fact). All my experiments with hair have been a disaster, so I don't know how many textures hair designers typically use, but it's not as if you have to work the entire hairstyle into one complex texture.

A very quick and dirty guide to texturing prims:

1. Once it's created or rezzed, right click. Select "Edit." (If you don't know how to rez an object: open your inventory, click on the object you want, and drag it with the mouse out onto the ground. It will show up in world.)

2. A window will pop up. Click "More," and then click on the texture tab.

3. If you want all faces of the prim to have the same texture, then click the texture thumbnail. A window showing your inventory will pop up, and you can select a texture from there, and click "select." Other controls in the texture window will let you fiddle with the texture.

4. If you want different textures for different faces of the prim, go to your inventory. Click on the texture you want, and drag it to the face of the prim you want it to be on.

5. If your prim is part of a series of linked prims, you'll have to check the "Edit Linked Parts" box in the top part of the editing window. This lets you work with individual prims within a linked series, including texturing them individually. To select a prim to work on, click on it. It should start to glow blue or yellow. Once you've got it selected, texturing works just like that on a solitary prim.

6. If you want to texture several prims in a linked series, again check the "Edit Linked Parts" box. Hold down the shift key while you click on the prims you want to work with; if you accidentally select one you don't want, just click it again to unselect it. Again, these prims will glow either blue or yellow.

7. If you want to texture an entire series of linked prims, you don't have to bother with the "Edit Linked Parts" box. Just go to the texture tab, click on the texture thumbnail, and have at it.

8. A note about the color thumbnail: you can click on it to tint your textures, but it doesn't necessarily work in the way you think it does. Someone else on this board (Chosen? Chip? Robin?) compared the texture to a slide, and the color as the light from the slide projector. White color isn't like lightening your entire texture; rather, it's like white light: it will show your texture as it truly is.


I'll note that I'm kind of a newbie, too, so there's probably some information that could be added to this guide. This is how I work, though, and I don't have problems texturing prims.

Somebody listed a location some time ago which had a copyable posing stand in it - can anyone tell me where that is?

I got one from the New Citizens Institute freebie booth.

Hair is typically made from the torus (doughnut) shape that has had the following done to it:

- Tapered at one end (to give it a pointy end)
- Radius Delta and Revolutions adjusted (usually for curling)
- Hole Size (usually for hair thickness)
- Cut Begin/End (for shortening hair based on the look you are trying to achieve)
- Some scaling and rotating for length and proper orientation of the hair strand (prim)

Other settings can be used in the process to tweak it even more. As for texturing I can only suggest you do a search for "hair" in this forum. People asked about it many times.

I'm really happy to see an active thread pertaining to this subject. I'd like to ask the gurus a bit more. You've covered the construction of attachments perfectly, and with practice, I can see myself successfully making them. Now here's where my question(s) comes in. The base hair layer, how is that constructed? Is the head template used? I can't image making an extreme numbers of attachments to create that base hair layer, those strands of hair that would protrude out in some manner seem to be what attachments are for. Also, I've seen some hair thin as it reaches the tips, is that done with an alpha layer? Thank you all for your insight.

Hi Biggin,

I am a fairly new hairmaker but happy to share as others have helped me. The base layer draws upon the template/uv map that is downloadable from the Lindens on this site. Robin actually provided a great alpha mask for hair in a different thread where I was asking for some help. You create or use a texture and then apply the alpha channel to get the transparency where it is needed, and then upload and use the sliders to create it on the avvie's head. I think this is the very hardest part of making hair, I hate using it although there are some here quite skilled at creating base hair. I find it easier to use a bald head and position the prims around it so that they cover the skull. It is difficult to do short styles this way.

For your question about the fringe, you are right - you need an alpha channel to create the transparent effect to see through the "hairs" textured on the prims. This is also tricky to do well but when done well looks really cool.

Best of luck!

bump

How would I do this?
I'd like to make an avatar with a military style high and tight haircut, does anyone have one or know how to make one???