Call me stupid ... but

I want to get into fashion design in a serious way but everything you read say that you must try on and finish the design on line and on an avatar...namely yourself. This is a hassle to change gender and size etc all the time to finalize your garment. Why is there not a dressmakers dummy or mannequin available in 2L for this final fitting prior to sale.
I have searched high and low for one but to no avail.

I use a free software called "tattoo" that uses the manaquins from the Second Life website as a dummy. Then I save the files in photoshop to a specific formate to upload them into Tattoo. Its a long and hard process that really isnt worth the time but if your needing something cheap it works. I would also want to know any easier programs out there that allow for quick importing and exporting of clothing on to and off of a dummy.

Try Body Paint from Maxon. Its not cheap, but its a joy to use. Supports layers and blending options similar to those in Photoshop.

www.maxon.net

It's not hard at all. Just make a shape, set the body shape to roughly what you need, and then you just need to wear one item to switch to that shape/gender. In general you only need one male and one female shape with roughly correct proportions to preview skins and clothes on, unless you're making a very specific custom job for a certain avatar.

I can't think of any way a "dressmakers dummy" could be made that worked easier than putting clothes on yourself.

For offline viewing, Daz-3D is a free 3D package that can preview skins and clothes on the SL avatar as well as Tattoo and Body Paint which have already been mentioned. There are probably other tools as well; I'm sure something fancy like poser, 3D Studio Max, or Maya can do it.

Sorry to drag up an old topic, but i am interested in learning more about the use of Body Paint. Since it supports blending modes and CS layers, can they be edited once in the program? or is it used simply to view what you have done in CS? I think my clothing design would be a lot smoother if i could edit it on an actual 3D model, so i am hoping

Basically, you can download the avatar mesh from the SL website.
Open it up and paint directly onto a 3D model.

You can also paste in a photosourced image and visually adjust the alignment of a layer simply by dragging the mouse over the 3D model. This helps a lot with aligning seams and placement on the avatar body.
You can switch between the 3D model and a flat texture edit mode and its functionality is similar to an older version of Photoshop.

Since the whole avatar model is in the same location, you can paint across the upperbody, lowerbody and head textures and no longer need to work on them separately if you're working on a long jacket, for example.

I move back and forth between CS and Bodypaint if I need to do more detailed curvy transforms, colour correction and alpha channels.

BodyPaint will allow you to open PS files, add new layers or paint on existing ones, and then save the resulting file as a .psd file that you can re-open in PS. It supports layers, masks, alpha channels, and all of those things.

It also has a mode that lets you "project" the paint strokes, which is great for painting lines that are the same size across maps that aren't.

I have it, and I use it; but I have to mention that it's less than perfect for painting clothing directly on the SL Avatars. Not because of anything wrong with BodyPaint; it's the mesh provided by the Lindens.

It is not the same as the mesh we have in-world, sadly. It's not even the in-world mesh with "neutral" slider settings, I'm afraid.

The UVs are an exact match, but the shape of the polygons is not.

Let me show you what I mean, pictures speaking louder than words (and all that.)

This is an image of horizontal stripes on the model in BodyPaint. As you can see, they are perfectly even and smooth.



I made a .tga of that texture, and applied it to a male model in SL, with the sliders set to roughly 50% all around. It looked like this.



As you can see, it's pretty massively distorted.

This distortion means that any application that allows you to paint directly on the mesh will be less than ideal when you upload the resulting texture to Second Life. (Not just BodyPaint.)

Of course, I tried to manipulate the sliders so that the lines would be straight and smooth again, but it didn't work. No slider configuration gave me what I had in BodyPaint.

Yeah, I was bitterly disappointed, too. But that's the way it is, at least for now. The .obj models we were given simply don't match the mesh we have in SL.

That being said, BodyPaint is great for getting things to match across the seams, although I find it a bit frustrating to work with since some tools, like the Smudge tool, don't work the way their equivalent does in Photoshop.

Usually I just paint the textures in PS, since it's faster and easier for me. But if I have a wrinkle or fold that I want to go across two map pieces, I take it into BodyPaint and paint that wrinkle in an empty layer on the model. Then I go back to PS, duplicate that layer (Command/ctrl J) erase all of the wrinkle or fold except the part that lies over the seam, and repaint it to avoid the distortions.

It's also nice for Photosourcing, since you can project an image directly onto the model (even one that covers all three of the Maps) and it will make the corresponding textures automatically. However, once again, I find it necessary to do huge amounts of retouching in Photoshop to compensate for the distortions.

So, IMHO, it's probably not worth the cost, if you're just going to use it for SL, unless you are making several hundred dollars each month selling your clothing.

For other applications, though, where you have control of the mesh and don't have the distortions it works well, except for the oddity of some tools, as mentioned above.

Hope this helps!

edited to add the bit about masks, alphas, and projection paint

You're wrong on this. If you inspect the mesh inworld and on the OBJ model provided, they are identical meshes. Please don't misinform people.

I think it is unrealistic to expect all the lines to be lined up straight since the avatar is deformed inworld when in the regular standing pose, with arms relaxed. This is compounded with the use of the female mesh to form the male avatar, especially around the chest area and stretched back area. This has to do with how they rigged the bones onto the mesh and the distortion is commonly seen on low poly models in other games.

About the only way this can be rectified is if we're allowed to export our own avatars as a mesh in a regular pose, instead of just the standard T-pose that is provided. It is also possible via the GL intercept hack to retrieve the mesh data I guess.

Cotton - Normally I would have answered this in a PM to you or ignored it. However, since you choose to use this venue, I will reply in the same venue.

I don’t know if you or Robin is correct in this? My issue is not with what you said but, how you said it. Robin has always been somewhat of a mentor to me. I admire her skills and knowledge and, most importantly her willingness to share these things with others.

You too, seem to have a great deal of knowledge in digital art programs. And, like Robin, you have been willing to share your knowledge. However, where she treats each person with graciousness and patience you, to use your bi-line, often treat people with abomination.

Robin obviously spent a lot of time showing why she believes the two meshes are different. You may be correct in stating that she is wrong. However, in the future please use a little tact and diplomacy. It will allow your message to come through, rather than being rejected because of the bluntness and directness. Starting off a post with, “You are wrong on this.” to someone of Robin’s standing does not encourage further reading. At least, not open minded reading.

Everyday, there are new people here in this forum. Each one of use deserves to be treated with respect. Robin, Chip, Chossen and several others deserve to be venerated for what they have given to all of us. New readers may not know of their contributions and assume the worst.

If you believe someone is wrong, you can say it in a kinder gentler way. Or you risk being marginalized by many of us. Otherwise, your many good inputs and suggestions are missed in the noise. You lose and we lose.

Jen

I agree with Jennifer.

Robin Chip and Chosen are mentors for many peopls in SL and deserve all the accolades bestowed on them.

To open a post in such a manner is to say the least downright rude. We may all disagree with some things in these posts but there are ways of voicing your objections without causing offence.

Politeness costs nothing

To me, it sounds like Cottonteil and Robin are pretty much saying the exact same thing (not accounting for tone, of course). Robin is correct that the shape of the polygons on the mannequin model are different than those on the inworld avatar, and Cottonteil is probably also correct that the reason for it is because the avatar is almost never in the same pose as the mannequin. Every time a body part moves, the shape of the mesh changes.

Even if you set the sliders to whatever exact settings were used to export the mannequin, and even if you were to force the av into a T-pose like the one the mannequin is in, you still wouldn't be likely to end up with an exact match. The avatar "breathes"; the mannequin doesn't. The shape of the avatar's torso is always changing while that of the mannequin is always fixed.

In short, there is no good solution for putting straight lines on an avatar. What looks straight at one moment will look totally borked the next. The same would be true if you painted lines on your own skin, by the way (although perhaps to less of a degree since real skin is much 'higher res' than avatar skin). While you're standing in whatever pose you were in when the lines were painted, they'll be straight. As soon as you move, they'll bend, twist, and distort.



Now that that's out of the way, to those people who rushed to Robin's defense (and mine and Chip's by association), I can't speak for Robin or Chip obviously since I'm not them, but thanks just the same. I will say though, let's be careful not to let this thread get derailed. It's easy to let our emotions jump us off topic, which of course is the goal of every troll. Thanks again for the compliments and praise; just please be careful not to fall into the trap of reacting to a taunting without also responding to the actual topic of the thread.

Having an apparent high standing does not instantly earn one the priviledge to disseminate partial truths and immunity to being pointed out. It becomes even more of a danger if the person has this high standing as everyone who reads it takes it as canonical truth.

Some of the people you have mentioned there have also proven to produce very questionable 'help' that only serve to confuse, and not wanting to admit it, even with evidence. Do you not know, while you think of some very highly, many newbies who have encountered one of these characters were actually belittled but chose to just keep quiet, simply because they were newbies learning the ropes. Far more damaging than my blunt methods.

Marginalize me by all means. Tell me if I'm wrong even. On many occasions, I am. But explain why it is so. However, there is no need to prescribe to me some gentle way of saying the same thing. Politeness is your style. Not mine.

Just wanted to point out that this is exactly the kind of taunting I was just talking about. This is a clear invitation to further derail the thread by attempting to enflame some already volitile emotions. I can't tell anyone what to do, obviously, but I would ask that everyone resist the temptation to fall into the trap.

Everyone who knows us "characters" knows that we're not in the habit of belittling people, so there's really no need to dignify that outlandish statement with a response. I won't deny that I get into somewhat heated arguments with people from time to time, and perhaps that's one of my faults, but belittling newbies? I'm a greeter for crying out loud.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Anyone got anything on topic to say?

I will not repeat what some of the newbies or even long time residents said about you, since they are obviously distasteful and has no place here. I am actually quite sure for some, there is never really an intention to belittle people. Its just what the person is.

I will keep in mind that it is wrong to say or explain how someone is wrong in a direct manner. It obviously has to be done in a roundabout way.

I tried to grab my avatar's geometry with GLIntercept, but what you get there are tesselated triangles, and the original mesh/uv map uses quads. So it's not identical again. I suppose you could fix the grabbed mesh, but it seemed like too much manual work (in the dense areas where you can't run some automatic tris->quads tool) to bother.

the sl manequin is identical to the one inworld minus animation and body morphings, i work with it all the time.

Though the topic has been kind of derailed, i still wanted to thank everyone for the useful information you have given. I have decided to hold off on trying to use Body Paint for the time being and just work in CS. i am getting much better at designing clothes in 2D so i may not need it at all

Again, thanks Robin and Cotton for the help. i appreciate it tons.

I'm relatively new to making clothes and would love to have a product like BodyPaint to help me out. Is there an inexpensive piece of software (i.e., free) that works like this?

I'd like to use something that allows me to paint directly on a 3d AV model and then import the resulting file into PhotoShop. It would be wonderful to be able to get a rough design of whatever I'm making and then use PhotoShop to refine it. It would save a lot of time with my hit and miss approach.

Thanks

Hi everyone. As those of you who know me know, I don't say things lightly.

I have tried everything I can think of to get the mesh that's been provided by the Lindens to look like the one we have in-world.

Then, one day about a year ago, I was complaining to someone who has been here since Beta that I couldn't make them match, no matter what I did, and he told me that the .obj mesh we have isn't the one that the Lindens use for our Avatars, but one that someone made to match the UVs.

The UVs do, indeed, match perfectly. Which means that the provided mesh is wonderful for seam matching. I, too, use it all the time for that purpose. I even used it, subdivided in LightWave, to make the "Templates" that I've posted. It's great, until you try to paint on it.

And then... it doesn't match up. Not even in places like the palm of the hand.

It is possible that I was misinformed, and if so, I apologize.

My point is; I have not found it possible to draw clothing directly on the .obj mesh we have, (even if I match the Appearance pose and export the mesh from Poser, which just makes it worse,) and have that clothing look decent in-world.

I just thought that people should hear that before they spend $450 US for a product that quite possibly won't do what they are expecting it to do.

I had high hopes for it, and was, as I've mentioned, bitterly disappointed. Fortunately, I can use it for other work I do, so I didn't waste the time I spent working for MAXON to earn it. But if I had no use for it but SL, and if I'd had to pay cash for it, I'd have been more than a little upset.

To those who defended me; I deeply appreciate it. But I have to admit that I'm not, in fact, infallible.

However, I will never steer you wrong intentionally.

It's my belief that when we speak about balance in the world, we are referring, not to balance like pans of a scale but to balance like walking a tightrope. To an internal sense of balance that allows us to reach our own full potential.

So I don't see any reason to harm people as often as I help them.

(Unlike Cotton, who has stated that intention publicly in this forum. Which is why there's no point in getting upset when ze lashes out. That's hir problem, not ours. ) (I'm using gender-neutral pronouns, by the way, because I have no idea what gender-address Cotton prefers, and for no other reason.)

Dale, I believe that there is a PC-only program called Tattoo that works that way. Since I'm on a Mac, I've never tried it; but people have mentioned it in that context here.

All closed meshes are tesselated. Just that many of the recent 3D software support quads and n-gons that help to hide away the tesselation to improve clarity. Depending on which software you use, there is a tesselate and untesselate function that easily removes or adds with minimal manual work.

I have not used the intercept method yet, but I guess that there really is some manual work to do to split into the head, torso and lower body before you can texture them. Probably much easier to just compensate within Photoshop or avoid troubled spots altogether.