I had a question about textures

and how to keep them true when using them for clothing. My textures always turn out stretched and you cant tell what the pattern is. I did read the sticky topic of size of texture and while it was good I didnt see an answer to my question. So, how can I keep my texture looking not distorted when I add it to clothing (in second life)?
Oh and how can I keep an edge on a rezzed skirt (like a scalloped or fluted edge? When I try to create a hem with a shape on it it turns out flat across the bottom.

Hmmmm.... It's not easy to answer your first question without knowing exactly what you mean by "stretched." Because you have been working on prim skirts, though, I'll guess that you mean the texture on your skirt panels is distorted. If that's the case, the answer is simple. When you are applying the texture to a panel, open the "Texture" tab in your Edit window and change the Horizontal or Vertical Repeat parameters. Decreasing either one will stretch the texture in that direction; increasing it will shrink it. You will probably also have to move the texture left-right or up-down on the skirt panel. To do that, use the Horizontal or Vertical Offset parameters on that same Texture tab. That's it.

Let me suggest a useful L$10 experiment. Make yourself a checkboard test pattern with Photoshop. The pattern should have at least 8 columns across and 8 rows down. Color each row a different color and put a number or a letter in every box in the same column. You'll end up with a column of colored boxes all labelled "1," another column of boxes labelled "2," and so forth. Upload that texture and make a skirt panel with it. I think you'll be surprised to see which colored and numbered boxes show up. Try playing with the Repeat and Offset parameters to move the texture around on your skirt panel. It will give you a good idea of how much you can do with a REAL texture. (Incidentally, if you think about it for a bit, it will also suggest a way for you to put two or more fabric patterns on the same uploaded texture, so you can make much more complicated-looking skirts. .....

Now, for your second question..... There's no way to shape the bottom of a panel into a rounded point, the way you would have to do it to make a scalloped hem. That's simply not an option you have with the cut boxes and cylinder prims at your disposal. The way to do it is to use transparency. When you create the texture in Photoshop, shape the bottom by creating a mask and saving it as a new alpha channel. To do this, you'll need to first be comfortable with the exercise I suggested above, so that you know exactly where your texture will show up on a skirt panel. You will also have to learn about how to use transparency -- a much more detailed explanation than I want to go into here. I suggest that you read the Transparency sticky at the top of this forum VERY carefully and count on doing a mess of experiments to get comfortable with the idea. Because transparency introduces some awkward side effects in a skirt, you will need to learn another few tricks before your skirt with a scalloped hem becomes a reality, but that can be a the subject for another round of questions some day.

Are you creating your clothing textures with a program like Photoshop or Gimp with alpha channels using the clothing templates or are you just applying a fabric texture and using the sliders to create the shape? If you're applying a fabric texture and using the sliders, you have no control over the repeat of the pattern.

As far as scallops on the hem of your skirt, once again you have to use a paint program to create the scallops and either upload a tga file with an alpha channel or png so that the bottom is transparent. Then I apply a totally clear texture to the back and all edges and my skirt texture to only the front. Also helps to have another layer of skirt with no alpha under the partially transparent layer to reduce alpha flicker. *hates flickery skirts*


ETA: Rolig beat me. I just assumed you meant clothing layers...

Holy cow, I just did the test pattern. That was worth about a million Lindens!!! I'm not doing clothes, but was trying textures on some sculpted prims and spending a small fortune on trying to get textures to line up correctly.

THANK YOU!

I have had this problem with fabrics I made by hand and put in uv layer that I
didn't see the distortion until I uploaded.
I have used similar grid 16 by 16 row and up squares for regular prims that someone has given me but I still haven't fine tuned it exactly yet. I haven't done any sculpties in while though.
8 by 8 rows I hadn't thought of that one, neat idea.

basically you have to fake it. The easiest way would be to distort the image on the shirt, to compensate for whatever curves you are putting it on. This is why people use 3D paint programs with avatars, it saves a lot of time.