Some basic questions about making avatars

Right now I'm in the process of making an avatar based off a comic/cartoon character for my personal use and possibly to sell too depends on how well it I can polish it. I am using the templates from the sight and the program I'm using is Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9. Along the way I've come across a few things I need help with. BTW I'm not that advanced in using Paint Shop or when creating stuff in SL but I'm trying my best and would be thankfull for any pointers.

1) whats the best way to get rid of the lines in templates so they don't show up in my final product, cause I have two pieces finished, just need to figure out how the rid of those lines. Thats my main concern.

2&3) Like said not very good right now at creating things in second life so if maybe someone would post a step by step guide so I can create the following.

A very basic cloak with both bood and unhooded options

A belt, this one may be trickier needs to be desgned certain way

Any help with any of these would be gratefull.

To get rid of the lines, use layers, and hide the layers that the lines are on before saving the texture to import into SL.

To make a cape or cloak, you pretty much need to use flexi-prims. It isn't an option with normal prims, and looks terrible with rigid prims. The hood you might manage with rigid prims, but that will be very dificult. Specialized belts are best done with prim parts.

Go to the Bare Rose - Tokyo store, and look at some of the more goth or game-inspired men's costuming that they sell. Most are not terribly expensive, and they will give you some good ideas.

You're pushing the envelope for what can be done in SL when you try to make a hooded cloak, but there are ways to do it.

I think I must have done something wrong or working in the wrong layer or something, cause I do all my coloring in the UV Map layer with all other layers hid, but when I turn the other layers back on I can't see the progress I've made. Aslo when I save my designs my paint progam merges all the layers into one layer making it so I can't get the other layers back after saving.

It's a good idea to make a new layer (or several), and paint on that. That way the elements such as lines from the templates can be turned on and off at will.

I find, and others on this list seemingly agree and recommend it, that pretty much whatever I'm doing I generate several layers. Sometimes that's dozens. Sometimes I'm good about naming them too... increasingly so as I get more and more layers. It is a good habit to get into.

Layers make your .psd larger, but won't affect the size of your final output file. That extra size means you have a lot more flexibility in your final design... mistakes don't propagate over the whole thing etc. you can reposition detail bits more easily and so on.

So basicly what you are saying that I screwed myself over, that my best option is to start from scratch or is there a way to salvage my designs after bouching them up? If you want I can post pics of what I have to show you my mistakes.

*sigh*

Painting directly on the UV layer was unwise, but is recoverable. It also sounds like that you possibly did your saving to a flat file format, like .jpg, and lost your layers. I use Photoshop myself, but Paint Shop Pro should be similar in how it handles saving layered files. The application's native format should retain all the layer information, and should allow you to turn layers on and off at will. It should also allow you to make a layer partially transparent, and to work on a new layer that is under the transparent one, thus allowing you to see your guidelines, but to hide the guidelines at will by hiding that layer.

When you save for export to SL, save it first in the Paint Shop Pro format, with all the layers intact. Then turn off visibility on anything that you don't want to show, leaving only you art for export. Save that as .tga format - 24 bit if you have no transparent areas, 32 bit if you need an alpha mask for making holes or transparent areas in your clothing layer. That way you can ALWAYS go back to the original format file to do more work.

Another major hint. Work ar 1024 or 2048 pixels on a side for the master art, then, just before you save as .tga, re-size the art to 512 x 512. You'll get far better detail. And again, if you saved the original layered file, you still have that, at the larger size.

What you may need to do in your case is do some serious manual clean-up on your first attempt files, but you should not have to toss them and start from scratch. You said you painted directly on the UV layer of the template? Well, make sure you covered all the lines, and understand that at the seams, you may need to paint a bit outside the lines to cover any seam bleed. It's usually good practice to continue your coloring about 10 pixels beyond the planned edges.

Just a quick tip for painting under UV lines. If your UVs/template layer is black lines on a white background, you can set that layer to Mulitply so that the lines will be visible on top of what you're painting but the white background becomes completely transparent. When I do character textures, I like to have the UVs on the top layer, set to Multiply and 25% opacity.

I was wondering I really need all the extra layers that come the temlates such as the example clothes like the jeans jacket, victorian dress, t-shirt and wondering if would be alright if deleted them.

You should be alright getting rid of them.

If you change your mind you can always download them again.

If you want to keep those sample layers, just create a new template file without them.

Generally when I make clothes, I open up the original template, then 'save as' with a name for what I'm making, this is so if I ever need to change something, I have the original file for that item and don't have to recreate it. I delete what layers I don't need, then start creating. That way I haven't changed the original template.