Starting with designs with the templates

Hi everyone,

Im trying to make some clothes in photoshop with the templates from Chip and Robin (working with vectors in illustrator). But i dont know which lines to flollow, to make for example a small strapped t-shirt. Should i follow all the lines on the template to make it in good shape, or is it better to make your own lines?
When i put the shirt on my avatar, the curves arent right. (Alpha channel is ok)

What i'd like to have is some examples with well formed clothes to put into my psd files. (I've got the linden examples, but they dont show me where the lines should be).
Does anyone knows where to get some examples?

And another question, i tried my work on the SL clotes previewer (see sticky in this forum). Too bad it hasnt an apha channel. Is there a way to test it on avatars in SL? Should i do it with the betagrid SL-program? Or is there another way without investing big money in Poser or Maya?

Many thanks in advance for trying to help me out!

Jally Jayaram

The First Impressions; PS CS3 Extended (3d in PS!) thread realy helped me out on my question!

Thanks Robin

Still would like to know where to get more examples on clothes, to put in the templates.

Jally

slexchange

See the 'Generous Residents' list in my blog, and check my tutorial. It's Gimp based, but it answers some of your questions. (unfortunately not the tool-specific ones.)

http://seshat-czeret.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-make-sl-clothes-in-gimp.html

Olila, Robin Sojourner Wood, Chip Midnight, Natalia Zelmanov, and Eloh Eliot (Another blog) are the specific residents who are generous in a clothes (or skin)-making way. Reading their blogs, looking through their tutorials, and studying Eloh Eliot's open-content skins gives you an education in making SL clothes and skins.


But that's the long answer to your questions. The short answer is: draw lines, go into the beta grid, upload, put the stuff on an avatar, see how it looks.

Then use a different shape, and discover that what looks great on one shape looks awful on another.

I like to test stuff on a Ruth (you'll find that shape in your library folder: it's the base model for avatar shapes), and on a variety of shapes.

I have a set that's all 0s, all 25s, all 50s, all 75s and all 100s. Those look pretty freaky! But they're helpful for helping me decide which lines to put where.

Olila suggests uploading the UV map templates, and seeing how they look and move and shift as your avatar does. I'll add to that: use a variety of different shapes while wearing the UV map templates.

A couple of hours with UV map templates and various shapes will teach you more about where to put your straps and necklines and such than anything anyone can tell you or show you.

The lines on the templates show the underlying polygonal structure of the avatar. You don't need to follow them, and when doing things like necklines and shoulder straps you'll have better luck just making your own lines. Just remember that while the placement of your lines will always be the same on every avatar relative to the polygons of the avatar, their appearance can change quite a lot on different avatar shapes.

Also note that the underarm area on the front of the avatar, the breast area just above the areolas and the shoulder blades on the back are the areas I have found most prone to "pixel stretch." You can tell this by the size of the polygon on the UV template - the bigger the poly - the more likely it is that "stretching" will occur. Also, as the others mentioned clothing that might look good on a medium or smallish avi may not look so great on a "robust" model. With that being said - I think that those who do have robust avatars are used to it and will more than likely be aware of the problem. It is just something that SL has limited the artist with and unfortunately there is really very little you can do other than avoid those areas.

Just fyi.