Someone patient... Please help a complete newbie.

Making clothes, skins and tattoos sounds so interesting... Being a Photoshop artist. Now, you could tell me to read everything posted on the forums...I'm sure all this has been asked before too. But if someone would take a moment to explain some basics, I'd be most gratefull. Now:

1) I understood I need templates to make stuff on Photoshop. I also found some links to download them. The question is: Where do I save them? Do they just appear in my inventory, or how do I "transfer" them to my avatar?

2) I'm so new I don't even know what I don't know... So I'd really appreciate somekind of a tutorial for blondes (very clear, that is...) on making things on Photoshop. Link meeeee....

...and if I'm linked to something usefull, I wont bug you people with more questions

Thanks a lot. *hugs and indecent fondles to all*

To answer your first question, it doesn't matter where you save those templates. Those templates are what you use in Photoshop to make your clothes. It's probably best to create a new folder just for Second Life clothes.

To answer your second question ... here is a link to a very good collection of tutorials. I hope that helps, and good luck!

*fondles back*

http://spacethinkdream.com/v_tutorials.php

if i understand the 1st question right you mean how to get the textures into sl from Photoshop? when you're done making the clothes save them out as TGA (better quality bigger on your hard drive) or JPG (worse quality smaller on your hard drive) then open SL. the format you saved in only affects how big the file is before you upload it. when you upload it gets compressed again either way.

go to File > Upload Image (i think it's called) in SL and choose your clothes image. you'll get a bunch of preview options but none of them affect how it looks when it's uploaded. it's just for you to see if you messed up. if you like it hit OK and it will end up in your texture folder in a minute.

Hi Dweia,

Now that you have your texture uploaded by following the steps in the previous posts you'll want to apply it to the clothing item itself.

Make sure you are not wearing the target type of clothing you want to make. This isn't really required but it makes finding a menu button easier later on.

Go into 'change appearance' on the pie menue (right click on your AV).

In the apperance editor, select the item of clothing you want to edit 'shirt/pants/jacket/etc...' that you want your texture to go on.

Select "new 'shirt/pants/jacket/etc...'" (this should be the only thing listed if you removed the clothing item before starting the edit session)

Now you should be wearing a plain white version of the article of clothing.

NOTE: If it's an undershirt/underware layer, you might have to remove any shirt, jacket or pants worn over it in order to see it properly.

Now select the 'texture' block on the left to bring up a pulldown menu listing all the textures in your texture folder.

HINT: I made a 'textures offline' folder and moved all the textures I'm not currently interested in there. This makes the pulldown list much smaller and easier to find stuff. Simply move any files from the 'textures offline' folder back to the textures folder when you want to see them in the pulldown menu again Also, files can be put in subfolders for organization purposes within the texture folder and the pulldown will still list them. I make a separate textures/subfolder for each build project or 'suit' of clothing and move that whole folder to 'textures offline' when I'm done for safekeeping and future refrence.

There is a 2nd block for selcting a tint color. You can use that to change the color of clothing somewhat by giving it various colors to blend with. Works best with light color clothing.

Adjust any sliders you need to for sleeve length, etc. and save the new article of clothing. (it will automaticaly save out to your 'Clothing' folder so give it a reasonable name when you save it so you can find it again

Racer P.