Clothing Blending Into the Skin

Is there any tips and tricks how to stop this from happening? When I make an article of clothing, the edges just seem to blend into the skin. I tried adding a bevel and emboss, to give the edges a little shadow, but that didnt transfer when I uploaded the outfit. I tried stroke on the inside, but it still appeared to seep into the skin. Any tricks to stop this?

Btw I use Photoshop CS 8.0

Thanks all!

If your avatar clothing settings are all maximum length, and you use transparency within your texture to create the edges of the clothes, you should get nice crisp edges. When avatar clothing settings determine the edge of a piece of clothing, it always melts into the skin in a fuzzy way.

If you're already doing this, then something is not quite right with the way you're handling the edges of the transparency.

Oh my, that is probably it thank you! I remeber I turned down alot of my settings when I was running Photoshop and SL at the same time, then I introduced Avipainter..WOO lag central. Thank you so much! I'll have to log in and turn up my settings and see if that helps!

As for transparency in my texture I'm not fully sure? I say paint my tshirt, flip to the channels tab and create and alpha of it, flip back and create a black layer under all the clothing and upload. That close?

The setting Jake is talking about are the sleeve length, pant length, etc settings in the appearance editor. If you rely on those to adjust your garment you generally end up with clothing and skin roughly blended at the edges. If you're supplying your own alpha channel, make sure these lengths are all set at 100%.

If that's not it, then something in your workflow is introducing anti-aliasing. Generally this is good, but it sounds like your edges might be too soft. If you put a skin-colored layer under your garment, do the edges seem soft in Photoshop? Keep in mind that they will appear softer on the avatar because the textures are stretched.

If you want someone to tell you if what you're seeing is not normal, you'll probably have to post an example.

When you edit the Alpha layer directly, the Black is opaque (0% transparent) and the White is 100% transparent. Gray is partially transparent. If you put your shadowed edges in an area where it is White in your alpha layer, they would be transparent. If it is Black alpha under your shadowed edges they should be opaque and visible.

Thank you all, I'll log in in the morning and see if any of that helps. If not I'll post an example! I can't thank you all enough.

Ok I've tried a few things. I followed Robin Sojourner tutorial for alpha channels, just to make sure the way I was doing it wasn't messing it up (BTW Robins is much better).

The way I was making shapes out of my clothing, like arches or '\' type of lines on the side of shirts was using the marquee tools, and I read that it pixelates the edges of the image so I tried using the pen tool, that supposedly makes crisp edges. Well,..

I am definatly doing something wrong, I just don't know what. I upload as a .tga, 32 bit this is what I am getting...

http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l86/Mscheveous/?action=view&current=BleedingArea.jpg


Obviously I'm a Photoshop Amature, self taught, is there any tutorials, guides, hints or suggestions on how to make the edges crisper?

*edit edit* Ooh, and I was also trying to do a bevel and emboss, to give the edges a small shadow, it didnt seem to stick on the outer edges, but it stuck to the edges on the layer that overlaped onto another, any tips on that?

Ah, thanks for posting the pic. You may get other opinions from those more expert than I am but here is what I think. This is not exactly a photoshop problem or alpha problem, more of a design problem. When the pixels you put in your photoshop template get applied to the avatar, some of the pixels get stretched. If you have the slightest bit of bumpiness, the stretching of pixels will exaggerate it and make a smeary mess. Some areas do this more than others. The shoulders are a tricky spot for putting much detail. You might get better results by moving your borders in (towards the spine) or simplifying the curves you made with the pen tool.

*edit: are you feathering the edges in the alpha channel (feathering by 1 pixel is good)? Do you know that if you make you alpha channel visible, it displays as red and you can see exactly where it is on your art layers?

What you're seeing looks normal. Some areas are worse than others, but there are a lot of areas that are stretched like that.

Try making a 512x512 texture that is nothing but a fine grid. A line every other pixel in both directions. Put that on the clothing previewer or upload it and wear it, top and bottom, and look at all the areas that are stretched and nowhere near square.

512x512 just aren't enough pixels to texture an avatar in any detail.

Thank you all very much! Makes me feel better knowing that it isnt totally my fault. I apprecite it a bunch, that outfit is a custom order and the person wanting it hated the clothing bleeding into the skin, I thought it was because I was doing a shoddy job, I'll have to explain why it does, or direct her to this post, or possably another designer =)