How long does it take on average to make an outfit

I now usually spend around 3 to 5 hours per outfit. Am I taking too long? I made about 11 outfits so far and I know the more I make, the easier it will get as I learn more tricks and shortcuts. I use Photoshop to make the textures and Maya to see how it fits on an av. I seem to be taking longer the more I get into each outfit to perfect it better than the one before. How long do some of the top designers take for each outfit they make and does the time shorten with more experience?

mcgeeb, sounds about right to me. Some are easier than others, because you can simply adapt what you've done before, but like you, I seem to be doing more complicated designs each time, which take longer.

And, I've learned more, I've gotten pickier about the details, too.

I really don't know how some designers seem to put out several new outfits a day. Mind boggling to me. LOL.

Maya? Is that a way to see how clothing will fit on an avatar without having to be in SL?

Don't worry about the hours, Mcgeeb. Good work takes time. There's no way around that. My avatars usually take many days to complete properly, even weeks in some cases. A single artical of clothing can take hours all by itself. Of course inefficiency should be avoided, and good technique is the way to cut down on that, but assuming you're doing things right, the level of detail is what will determine how long something takes. If you know what you're doing, and your work is taking a lot of hours to complete, chances are it's pretty good work, so don't worry about it.


Me too.


Maya is a good choice, but any 3D package that can read OBJ files will work, which is pretty much all of them. The ones commonly used by the SL community tend to be Poser (for both previews and animations), Tattoo, Daz Studio, 3DS Max, Lightwave, Blender, and Maya.

If all you want to do is look at textures on the AV, you can also use DAZ Studio, which is the only free alternative if you happen to use a Mac.

(You can get the models from the Lindens here.)

For me it depends on the item (and also sunspot activity, and number of microwave ovens in use in a half mile radius around my house). I have things come out just the way I want them in half an hour, and others that I've spent 8-10 hours on. My skins usually take me 20-30 hours to do. Like Chosen said, don't worry about the time it takes. It's the fun you have doing it and the end result that matter.

I never worry about the time, either. That's the kind of thing I have to do in my day job, where there are deadlines to meet.

The way I work, though, I set up one template with a garment, which takes a while, depeding, and then I just slip in other colors, or other fabrics, which doesn't take long at all. So the more variations I do on the theme, the shorter the "average" time for that thing.

But I would highly recommend that you not judge your own performance based on that of others, anyway, and certainly not for something like this.

Thanks for all the responses. It's definitely fun and rewarding. Now I won't feel so bad to take my time and enjoy making things that look really good. Perhaps someday I will have made enough templates to churn out an outfit a day.

LOL, and THEN, once it's made, it seems to take me forever to do the modeling, promo signs and vendors boxes ready!!! Sometimes I think I spend more time on marketing the item than I do making it!!!

Me too.

Skins take me weeks, outfits take me about a day. It seems to take longer to hand-draw than to photosource, unless it's something simple that you already made alphas for. Alphas alone can take an hour or two to get perfect.

But it's worth it.

Yeah, making the vendors is definitely the most boring and time-consuming part. (So much so that I have things I've made, but haven't gotten the vendors finished for yet! )

i can easily take several hours to make an outfit. i tend to not use a template to recreate other versions of an outfit, which would be far faster. my approach is chaotic, i usually have a very vague sense or no clue idea what i am making until i start playing around with ideas and then at some point the clothing tells me what it is going to be and I obey.

that is not to mention the hours i spend occasionally viewing RL fashion sites and trends and art work and whatever to draw inspiration from.

don't sweat the time taken. sometimes i create somthing awesome in 30 mins - other times i spend 3 hours to get there. i do it because i love it and im sure your enoying the creative outlet too, so just let yourself flow and have fun.

Where do I unzip the Avatar Files, Templates, Textures to in DAZ?
Sorry I'm no expert, but interested in a whole unknown field.

Any helpful suggestions or info would be appreciated, thanks.

Hi foehn!

You don't. You unzip them to your hard drive somewhere; anywhere will do, as long as you can remember where it was.

Then you follow the instructions in this thread.

(and you should use the product name instead of the company name, too. )

Hi, I am a real texture fan, and I am loading on this moment all my create house textures (parquet wood, walls etc etc) up.
Now i am kinda new in clothing scene, and I just start simple off with stuff, but I hate it when I make a mistake when I upload something and it doesn't look good Now I have G-max on my computer... Anybody knows if Gmax works also with obj files? (sorry i didn't test it yet since the program let often my comp crash for some reason)

For me, 2.5 years and counting. I think it may have something to do with my native artistic ability, though.

Thanks! Robin Sojourner and for the link too.