Advanced Clothing Related: Designer Question

So I do pretty much everything in Second Life now.

My clothes are alright, I do good alphas and my detail levels are alright but could be better.

I've gotten very strong with architectural texturing but clothing is really where I want to go.

Problem is, no matter how hard I work on my detailing it never really comes out as good in SL as it looks in Photoshop. And I use Robin Sojourners advanced templates over the basic ones.

So I had some questions to ask some of the more advanced clothing designers out there.

Are you developing from photo sourcing for details? As far as light mapping and shine is concerned are some of you using Deep Paint 3D or Lightwave?

Overall I just don't feel, at this point, that Photoshop alone is enough to pull off high quality clothing for Second Life. It can do clothing pretty well by itself. But some of the work out there is just going well beyond Photoshop from what I can tell.

What do I really need to add to my software suite to take my work to the next level?

I'd appreciate some pointers here. Thank you in advance.

Since I've been in world for almost ayear, and seen a lot, i will be frank. You really have to make the textures outside of SL. If you photosource, all you really need is dodge, burn, soften, sharpen, blur etc.
I personally use PSP 10 for my clothes, I do photosource mine from my own camera (and other purchased images). I use raster deform, dodge, burn, soften, push and smear alot. I also paint alot because I can make the textures paintable which helped save time.
I know of several (Elika and caLLie cLine I know of) who use Lightwave to bake their textures. I don't. But I will say that if you can go for it. It will make them look better. However, as I discovered, about 50% of clothes are in world prim manufacturing. Shoes, dresses and other items are best done in world.
I do mostly mens so I can stay out 70%. Ties and shoes are my inworld items.
I never got Deep paint to work right for SL. So I cant say. But I believe all you need is PS or PSP or Gimp (if you are a gimp*tard and must use it), a prog that produces seemless textures (photoSeam is nice) and if you are doing skins Daz is free.
You can add a 3d program too. But since SL uses parametric objects and the only to get them in world is via notepad, its up to you. There are plugins for Blender and Maya 6 for sl that allow this. But only them.
Hope that helps.

Please don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way, Suzanna. Whether you're talking about a 2D application like Photoshop, a 3D program like Deep Paint 3D, or good old fashioned finger paints and a smock, the results are 100% in the hands of the artist. It's not the tools that create the art; it's the person operating them.

Frankly (and again, please take this constructively), if you're not getting the results that you want, it's not Photoshop's fault; it's yours. Of course, there's a huge positive in that, which is that when you do get the results you want (and you will), it won't be the software's doing either. Those good results will be yours.

Before you can get the good results, you need to take responsibility for the bad ones. Understand and accept that getting good at making SL clothing, just like anything else, takes a lot of practice, and a lot of time. That holds true regardless of what tools you're using. I've seen people make amazing digital artwork with nothing more than MS Paint, and I've seen more than a few people make pretty terrible stuff with every expensive tool under the sun at their disposal.

For SL clothing, all we're talking about is manipulating pixels, and to that end, there's absolutely nothing Photoshop can't do. Manipulating them to look "good" is up to you. Photoshop has no idea what "good looking clothing" is. It just does what you tell it to do, no more, no less.

I do almost all my SL texturing, clothing included, in Photoshop alone. Every so often, I'll dabble with baking something in Maya, but that's a relative rarity. 99% of the time, it's just Photoshop for me.


In regard to baking vs. painting, so you know, neither one will inherently produce "better" results than the other. There's nothing you can bake that you couldn't hand paint just as well, and vise versa. It all comes down to what tools you're best at using, and what's going to be the most speed-efficient for the job.

If you're talking about a geometrically complex build with a dozen different light sources casting all manners of highlights and shadows, then it'll be much faster to bake the thing than to paint all that lighting by hand. If you're talking about something more "normal", then generally painting is faster.

For clothing, take your pick. There's no inherent advantage to baking, but there's no real disadvantage either. Myself, I find it faster and more intuitive just to paint what I need when I need it than to have to sit there and let a rendering engine do it's thing, but not everyone agrees. Some people would say the exact opposite.


As for 3D paint programs, I have yet to find one that I really like. I'm really intrigued by Ghostpainter, as it uses Photoshop instead of replacing it, but as I'm not very experienced with Max (I'm a Maya person), it's unfortunately not an option for me at this time. Lots of people get great results with programs like Deep Paint 3D and Body Paint, but to me, they just don't seem to have very powerful painting tools, at least in comparison with Photoshop. It's a shame.



Anyway, Suzanna, the bottom line is you can make just about ANYTHING work. Don't fall into the trap of blaming you tools when you don't get the results you want. If your art isn't as good as you want it to be, it's on you to get better at what you're doing. There's no magic "easy button".

I think you'll find that if you transition your question from "What additional software will solve my problem?" to "What additional knowledge will solve my problem?", you'll be in a much better place.

I found this thread /109/b8/162864/1.html
to be a real eye opener, especially the part about saturation. I crank up the saturation on pretty much every texture before uploading into SL and I am more satisfied with the results.

One thing that you may find useful, though in an indirect way, is to play with DAZ|3D and light sources, as a means of learning where shadows fall on similar figures.

This will NOT "do it for you". What it will do is give you an 'artist's model' that is infinitely patient about posing for you.

I sometimes will take just the basic "Victoria" figure in DAZ, alter the settings so her figure is similar to a default "Ruth" female figure in SL, and then play with lighting her standing figure from different angles, rendering test shots and saving them for visual reference sources. I don't put my outfit on her. I just dress her in white spandex, to see the shadows better.

You can do the same thing with a toy store Barbie doll or similar, and a desk lamp.

But in the end, Chosen is right. While good tools make it easier in some areas, great work comes from only two things. Talent and practice. If you have a good eye for design and the inherent talent to do artistic work, you can do fantastic stuff with the worst of tools. If you lack that gift, no tools will help you. Practice, on the other hand, can make even the worst artist improve, and is often the difference between an average artist and a great one. The great thing about designing clothes in SL is that you can re-do the work thousands of times, and never turn your fabric collection into a rags box in the process.

My biggest recommendations are, use lots of layers, and save lots of intermediate steps. Both will allow you to retrace your steps and take a different path to success, regardless of what tools you use.

Drawing is underestimated

I have no clue about 3d modeling and such, but is not impossible to achieve convincing results with 2d painting, "real" or digital. Some real life drawing experience, with, like, pencil and paper, helps A LOT. It would be perfect if you could attend to some real life drawing classes, but reading a good drawing book or even some online tutorials would help. Learning to draw is less about talent or manual dexterity (my hands couldn't be less shaky) than it is about practice and learning to see. I teach drawing IRL and, in my experience, everyone can draw, most people simply don't have the patience it takes to practice, practice, and practice more.

If (or when) you have some experience, I highly recommend photo references (REFERENCE, not sourcing). Get some pictures of people wearing a piece of clothing similar to the one you're designing, so you can copy the shadows, wrinkles, shine... A real life model wearing the clothes would be ideal, but even a mirror helps. In the lack of a good picture/ model, or if your design is not something you'd find in real life (like a fantasy dress or something), use at least a 3d model or RL mannikin (or even a barbie doll, like Ceera said). It'd help a lot with shading.

I am not sure what you mean about "detailing". Are your textures blurry? Are your stitches and seams not showing up or too faint? The shading not quite right?

I think that if you take a look at the templates you can see where shadows should fall and where your details will stretch or pinch in. Keep that in mind while you work so that when you make seams, stitching or any other detail you can liquify or warp them to match the template (bigger squares stretch the texture smaller squares pinch it).

Work big and save small. I work at 1024x1024 or larger, don't work at the default 512, you will never be happy with the results if you work that small.

Also use and abuse adjustment layers, these are lovely little gems that enable you to modify the curves, levels, saturation or color of your layer or file without actually destroying the image (yay!).

Peter-pan it! Yes add drop shadows that are only 2 pixels deep, you'd be amazed at how your stitching and other details (pockets, belt loops) will look and how much it pops off the base material.

I photosource but mostly for texture. As for the little incidental details like pockets, bows, shading, beltloops, wrinkles - that is hand done. I am not saying you should work that way but it does seem to improve the overall look.

Really look at the clothing you are trying to make - how will it lay on the body? How many shadows will it cast and what type of shadows are they. The same goes for highlights - if there is a cast shadow or drop shadow you have to create a highlight or it will look weird and unrealistic.

I hope this answers some of your questions. If you need tutorials on Photoshop try www.pixel2life.com or just do a google search.