Second Life Forums Archive - Question about "baking"

Indigo Panther

Eternally lost

Join date: 5 Nov 2005

Posts: 36

02-27-2006 11:49

Hi!
I'm relatively new to the SL designing thing and I have a question about "baking".

Now, as I've made my designs and uploaded them into SL to see if they look right on the avie...I'm going BROKE! LOL

A friend of mine mentioned something about a program or programs that may be used to see your design on an avie before you spend the $10L per texture to load in world. Are there any such programs that might aleviate the strain on my poor SL pocketbook?

Thanks in advance!
Indi

_____________________

Indigo~Shadow Designs and Second Hand Dreams
My little shop! Now selling my designs and second hand clothing at reasonable prices!

Chip Midnight

ate my baby!

Join date: 1 May 2003

Posts: 10,231

02-27-2006 12:18

Have a look at this thread: /109/20/78145/1.html

_____________________

My other hobby:
www.live365.com/stations/chip_midnight

Chosen Few

Alpha Channel Slave

Join date: 16 Jan 2004

Posts: 7,496

02-27-2006 12:32

There are several applications in which you can preview clothing on an avatar, but keep in mind, you'll be seeing it on the generic av, not on yours in particular. Viable programs range from freebies like Blender, DAZ Studio, and Tattoo to low-priced apps like Poser and Bryce to high end multi-thousand dollar platforms like 3DS Max and Maya.

The first thing you want to do is download the avatar models from the downloads page of this site. They come in Poser and OBJ formats. The Poser models will work in both Poser and DAZ Studio. The OBJ's will work in almost any 3D modeling program, although they generally take some tweaking after import (OBJ's are practically universal, but the methods for saving them unfortuately are not). Then just follow the instructions in whatever program you're using for applying textures to geometry.

All that having been said, you can also cheat in SL to use it as a previewer. It's not exactly convenient, but it can be done. If you look in your SecondLife/character folder, you'll see a bunch of TGA files. These are the files that control how your av looks when naked. The 3 files in particular you want to look for are called head_color.tga, lowerbody_color.tga, and upperbody_color.tga. Make copies of each of these so you don't lose them, and then replace the originals with the respective clothing or skin files your testing. Then go into appearance mode in SL and take off all your clothes. This will force the system to rebake your av textures. As long as you saved your test files are named appropriately, SL won't know they're not the base skin files and it will use them to bake the naked av. The result is you get a preview. SL thinks the av is naked, but what it's actually showing you is your test clothing files. Just make sure you don't save when you exit appearance mode, and make sure to replace the files with the right ones when you're done.

Like I said, this is not a convenient or "neat & clean" way to do it, but it works. Someone else discovered this and posted it a while back, but I couldn't find the original post to give credit. Hopefully whoever it was will see this and chime in so they can be properly thanked. It's not quick, but it can save a fortune, and you get to see the texture on YOUR av, not the default mannequin.

_____________________

.

Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested.

Indigo Panther

Eternally lost

Join date: 5 Nov 2005

Posts: 36

02-27-2006 12:32

You are a life saver! Thanks so much!

_____________________

Indigo~Shadow Designs and Second Hand Dreams
My little shop! Now selling my designs and second hand clothing at reasonable prices!

Cottonteil Muromachi

Abominable

Join date: 2 Mar 2005

Posts: 1,071

02-27-2006 22:37

From: Chosen Few

cheat in SL to use it as a previewer.

There is no need to cheat SL to preview clothes on an av, as long as you don't mind it being on a generic avatar. When a clothing texture is being uploaded, theres an option there to preview it on an avatar, by selecting it to be displayed on upperbody, lowerbody or skirt, for example. If you're satisfied, you can then ok the upload. If not, just cancel and continue tweaking.

Frans Charming

You only need one Frans

Join date: 28 Jan 2005

Posts: 1,847

02-27-2006 23:49

You can also use the 1.9 preview client and grid, you should have 5k L$ there.

_____________________

Indigo Panther

Eternally lost

Join date: 5 Nov 2005

Posts: 36

02-28-2006 04:46

So I have DAZ Studio now and I've downloaded the avatar file, but DAZ isn't recognizing anything that's in the SL avatar file.

Any clue what I'm doing wrong?

_____________________

Indigo~Shadow Designs and Second Hand Dreams
My little shop! Now selling my designs and second hand clothing at reasonable prices!

Chip Midnight

ate my baby!

Join date: 1 May 2003

Posts: 10,231

02-28-2006 07:45

Indigo, this is from Robin's post in the thread I linked to earlier. Hopefully this will have what you're looking for

From: Robin Sojourner

To preview clothing and skins on the Avatar in Studio, first download the Avatar from SL. Then

1. Go to the File menu, to Import, and Import the Avatar .obj file. (Yes, it will import the .cr2 file, but if all you are doing is looking at textures, all that does is add another step.)

2. Open the Surfaces window, if it's not already open. (Command/ctrl 1)

3. In the Surfaces window, click the long button, which says <No Selection>, and choose a Material from the drop down list; say, "Material_Upperbody."

4. In the Basic tab, click on the long button under Color, which says None. Choose "Browse for Image" from the menu, and browse for the image file. (It needs to be in .tif, .png, or .jpg format. .psd and .tga files won't work, sadly.)

5. It will show up on the avatar in the window. If you don't see it, make sure that the window display is set to "Texture Shaded." (Under the flippy to the right of the View menu, at the top of the window.)

6. Repeat for any additional textures.

Hope this helps!

_____________________

My other hobby:
www.live365.com/stations/chip_midnight

Chosen Few

Alpha Channel Slave

Join date: 16 Jan 2004

Posts: 7,496

02-28-2006 11:02

From: Cottonteil Muromachi

There is no need to cheat SL to preview clothes on an av, as long as you don't mind it being on a generic avatar. When a clothing texture is being uploaded, theres an option there to preview it on an avatar, by selecting it to be displayed on upperbody, lowerbody or skirt, for example. If you're satisfied, you can then ok the upload. If not, just cancel and continue tweaking.

Yes. I knew I forgot to mention something. The texture previewer works to an extent, but it's extremely limited. The viewing window is very small, and it only shows one garment at a time. There's no way to use it check how seams between head, upper body, and lower body line up. It's really the worst option there is, considering DAZ Studio, Tattoo, and Blender are free, and they'll show you the whole av at once.

As for previewing the textures on YOUR av instead of the generic, the only way to do it is the "cheat", unfortunately.

From: Frans Charming

You can also use the 1.9 preview client and grid, you should have 5k L$ there.

Good suggestion as long as the preview's open. Unfortunately it's closed more often than not.

_____________________

.

Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested.

Question about "baking"
Indigo Panther Eternally lost Join date: 5 Nov 2005 Posts: 36	02-27-2006 11:49 Hi! I'm relatively new to the SL designing thing and I have a question about "baking". Now, as I've made my designs and uploaded them into SL to see if they look right on the avie...I'm going BROKE! LOL A friend of mine mentioned something about a program or programs that may be used to see your design on an avie before you spend the $10L per texture to load in world. Are there any such programs that might aleviate the strain on my poor SL pocketbook? Thanks in advance! Indi _____________________ Indigo~Shadow Designs and Second Hand Dreams My little shop! Now selling my designs and second hand clothing at reasonable prices!
Chip Midnight ate my baby! Join date: 1 May 2003 Posts: 10,231	02-27-2006 12:18 Have a look at this thread: /109/20/78145/1.html _____________________ My other hobby: www.live365.com/stations/chip_midnight
Chosen Few Alpha Channel Slave Join date: 16 Jan 2004 Posts: 7,496	02-27-2006 12:32 There are several applications in which you can preview clothing on an avatar, but keep in mind, you'll be seeing it on the generic av, not on yours in particular. Viable programs range from freebies like Blender, DAZ Studio, and Tattoo to low-priced apps like Poser and Bryce to high end multi-thousand dollar platforms like 3DS Max and Maya. The first thing you want to do is download the avatar models from the downloads page of this site. They come in Poser and OBJ formats. The Poser models will work in both Poser and DAZ Studio. The OBJ's will work in almost any 3D modeling program, although they generally take some tweaking after import (OBJ's are practically universal, but the methods for saving them unfortuately are not). Then just follow the instructions in whatever program you're using for applying textures to geometry. All that having been said, you can also cheat in SL to use it as a previewer. It's not exactly convenient, but it can be done. If you look in your SecondLife/character folder, you'll see a bunch of TGA files. These are the files that control how your av looks when naked. The 3 files in particular you want to look for are called head_color.tga, lowerbody_color.tga, and upperbody_color.tga. Make copies of each of these so you don't lose them, and then replace the originals with the respective clothing or skin files your testing. Then go into appearance mode in SL and take off all your clothes. This will force the system to rebake your av textures. As long as you saved your test files are named appropriately, SL won't know they're not the base skin files and it will use them to bake the naked av. The result is you get a preview. SL thinks the av is naked, but what it's actually showing you is your test clothing files. Just make sure you don't save when you exit appearance mode, and make sure to replace the files with the right ones when you're done. Like I said, this is not a convenient or "neat & clean" way to do it, but it works. Someone else discovered this and posted it a while back, but I couldn't find the original post to give credit. Hopefully whoever it was will see this and chime in so they can be properly thanked. It's not quick, but it can save a fortune, and you get to see the texture on YOUR av, not the default mannequin. _____________________ . Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested.
Indigo Panther Eternally lost Join date: 5 Nov 2005 Posts: 36	02-27-2006 12:32 You are a life saver! Thanks so much! _____________________ Indigo~Shadow Designs and Second Hand Dreams My little shop! Now selling my designs and second hand clothing at reasonable prices!
Cottonteil Muromachi Abominable Join date: 2 Mar 2005 Posts: 1,071	02-27-2006 22:37 From: Chosen Few cheat in SL to use it as a previewer. There is no need to cheat SL to preview clothes on an av, as long as you don't mind it being on a generic avatar. When a clothing texture is being uploaded, theres an option there to preview it on an avatar, by selecting it to be displayed on upperbody, lowerbody or skirt, for example. If you're satisfied, you can then ok the upload. If not, just cancel and continue tweaking.
Frans Charming You only need one Frans Join date: 28 Jan 2005 Posts: 1,847	02-27-2006 23:49 You can also use the 1.9 preview client and grid, you should have 5k L$ there. _____________________
Indigo Panther Eternally lost Join date: 5 Nov 2005 Posts: 36	02-28-2006 04:46 So I have DAZ Studio now and I've downloaded the avatar file, but DAZ isn't recognizing anything that's in the SL avatar file. Any clue what I'm doing wrong? _____________________ Indigo~Shadow Designs and Second Hand Dreams My little shop! Now selling my designs and second hand clothing at reasonable prices!
Chip Midnight ate my baby! Join date: 1 May 2003 Posts: 10,231	02-28-2006 07:45 Indigo, this is from Robin's post in the thread I linked to earlier. Hopefully this will have what you're looking for From: Robin Sojourner To preview clothing and skins on the Avatar in Studio, first download the Avatar from SL. Then 1. Go to the File menu, to Import, and Import the Avatar .obj file. (Yes, it will import the .cr2 file, but if all you are doing is looking at textures, all that does is add another step.) 2. Open the Surfaces window, if it's not already open. (Command/ctrl 1) 3. In the Surfaces window, click the long button, which says <No Selection>, and choose a Material from the drop down list; say, "Material_Upperbody." 4. In the Basic tab, click on the long button under Color, which says None. Choose "Browse for Image" from the menu, and browse for the image file. (It needs to be in .tif, .png, or .jpg format. .psd and .tga files won't work, sadly.) 5. It will show up on the avatar in the window. If you don't see it, make sure that the window display is set to "Texture Shaded." (Under the flippy to the right of the View menu, at the top of the window.) 6. Repeat for any additional textures. Hope this helps! _____________________ My other hobby: www.live365.com/stations/chip_midnight
Chosen Few Alpha Channel Slave Join date: 16 Jan 2004 Posts: 7,496	02-28-2006 11:02 From: Cottonteil Muromachi There is no need to cheat SL to preview clothes on an av, as long as you don't mind it being on a generic avatar. When a clothing texture is being uploaded, theres an option there to preview it on an avatar, by selecting it to be displayed on upperbody, lowerbody or skirt, for example. If you're satisfied, you can then ok the upload. If not, just cancel and continue tweaking. Yes. I knew I forgot to mention something. The texture previewer works to an extent, but it's extremely limited. The viewing window is very small, and it only shows one garment at a time. There's no way to use it check how seams between head, upper body, and lower body line up. It's really the worst option there is, considering DAZ Studio, Tattoo, and Blender are free, and they'll show you the whole av at once. As for previewing the textures on YOUR av instead of the generic, the only way to do it is the "cheat", unfortunately. From: Frans Charming You can also use the 1.9 preview client and grid, you should have 5k L$ there. Good suggestion as long as the preview's open. Unfortunately it's closed more often than not. _____________________ . Land now available for rent in Indigo. Low rates. Quiet, low-lag mainland sim with good neighbors. IM me in-world if you're interested.

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Question about "baking"