Need clothing template help/info please ...

OK now that I've done a skin and got that pretty much down pat LOL

I need help on doing clothing templates. I've watched a mess of videos, searched and read posts here, etc. I've even been to SLex to look up ready made clothing templates but before I spend my hard earned L on those I'm wondering if anyone has any free already colored-in body templates for clothing in psd format and 1024 in size!?

I don't mean Chip and Robin, and SL templates ... I have all those!

What I mean is, are there any free colored-in clothing templates, like the shirt is colored black so all you do is flood fill with a texture and voila? I see there's alot of layers on Robin's and that's great but I don't see anything filled in and ready for texturing. Are we suppose to flood fill one vert section at a time until we get the whole top filled in? Surely someone's been there and done that? If not, I can go that route I suppose but it's awfully time consuming ... I know, I did do it and when I tried the top on it seems I missed the entire outer edges LOL so I *can't use it* without further fill on the outline parts and heaven knows what else.

I'd just like a flood filled long sleeve shirt and pants in black as a template to use to learn from, I'm not asking for a wardrobe's worth ... just maybe a long sleeve top and pants to learn from, perhaps as a layer or something. Then I can take that and layer it over Robin's template to see where/how it's colored in verses all the lines, etc. Does anyone have such a thing they'd be willing to give?

Thanks in advance ; o}

I don't work from a template or, if I do, it's one I make for myself. I suspect that's true for most designers. Not to be too harsh about it, but that's the difference between being artistic and doing paint by numbers.

Samara, use the lassoo tool and select an area, lets say the whole back area of the shirt for example (just do it over whats there, dont worry about layers of robins template, leave em alone for now)... Make a new layer, you will notice that the selected area that you lassoo'd is still there.... Automatically this selected area will be on the new layer..... Then just fill that selected area in...... This should give you a new layer of a shirt that is filled with whatever colour you want......Then you can drop the density of it to reveal the layers and lines under it,,, that way you see where abouts you are filling in.

I've always thought making a skin would be several orders of magnitude more difficult than clothing design. If you have skin making "down pat," I can't imagine why you would want the sorts of color-fill clothes you are describing. I'm confused!

Edit: Unless by skin, you mean SL's built-in skin editor?

Clothing in SL is a whole new ballgame for me. By having a skin down pat I mean I took one of Eloh's (?) free skins, colorized it, put my own lips on a new layer, etc. I'm familiar with doing this from poser art I do and from another 3D chat/community I do avatars in.

Doing avs in SL is somewhat different which is why I was asking for templates. As far as clothing in SL that's new to me and so far I've not had to use templates until now. And yes, I was asking for paint by numbers to learn from ... I will get it figured out in time ... thanks all for your replies.

Teake your advice was helpful ... thank you! ; o}

Check the downloads section of the SL site. There are a bunch of clothing sample textures that can help get you started if you don't have them already.

I have all the templates, just none colored in already (as in a fully colored in shirt on a layer), I'll get it figured out ... thanks all.

Samarra, I could be very wrong, but it sounds like many of your questions are not really about skins or clothing. They're about how to use Photoshop. Maybe the best thing you can do for yourself is head to the closest bookstore and buy a Photoshop manual/tutorial. There are some excellent ones on the market, so pick one that fits your own learning style and plan on spending loads of time working through it. If you learn from a person better than from a book, maybe the smartest alternative is to check out your local community or technical college to see what courses they offer. I'm just afraid that if you leap too fast into making things before you have the basics down solid, you're going to be frustrated most of the time. It's so much better to feel confident and have fun designing.

Thanks for your advice. Unfortunately books are not my thang ... I'm a *show me the movie* kinda gal LOL ... I appreciate what you said anyway tho, thanks again! And I have been doing avatars in another program for well over 3 years now but SL is slightly different. No I wasn't looking for photoshop advice, have it and use it although I am more proficient with PSP. I was just wondering if anyone had already painted clothing, like one solid color that I could use as a layer for long shirt & pants for the sake of seeing how they work that way. But I can painstakingly do my own as I'm sure many of you had to do. I will start out that way, flood fill the painted ones to see how things work and line up and then go on from there. In the other program I make avatars in I've even done photorealistic clothing so I think I'll be fine here also. Thanks again ; o}

Not to be rude, but having it colored in for you ruins the fun... the whole point is to do it yourself, whats the point of putting a pretty picture on someone else's work? As for having it "colored in" already though, just about any photoshop template out there is set up in a way in which you can hit the layer, hit paint bucket or your coloring tool of choice and there ya go.. you have it whatever color you want. =)

http://seshat-czeret.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-to-make-sl-clothes-in-gimp-part-2.html

That is the part of my 'making SL clothing in the Gimp' tutorial which covers how to make a t-shirt.

You use the same techniques in Photoshop, just not necessarily the same tool names.

I believe there are 'templates' available at OnRez and SLExchange where someone has drawn a basic outline of a shirt, or a bikini, or a pair of pants. But the essential task really is simply: make a new layer and scrawl all over it with the paintbrush.

Or whatever tools you like.

Hey, I'm using "paint by numbers" too.
I'm a musician by nature and have never really
tried a lot of art.
And as with any discipline, you have to crawl before
you can walk and walk before you can run.

I have so much respect for all you artists in SL.
I look at the clothes and just go "Wow, I hope SOME day
I can be that good!"

OH one thing I have been doing is going into SL and wearing
one of my favorite outfits. Then pull up GIMP (which is what I use) and practice drawing
the wrinkles and folds that I see.
I don't know. It's all hard. LOL!

So just keep practicing.
We'll both get there.

Seshat,

Thank you so much for the time you have put into your tutorial blog. It is so hard to find good tutorials for GIMP which is weird since it's free. Can't wait to see what I can do with it when I get home.

Your Gimp tut rocks! I don't use Gimp but I have, with the help of some of you posters, gotten the hang of what I wanted to do. Thanks again folks!

I've got two pajama styles on SLex now and I did manage to figure out how to box the 2nd styles LOL Here's my SLex url if anyone is interested in having a looky. Newest sets are four color of my Butterfly Jammies. I know they're *primitive* but I'm new so don't be too harsh ... I'm sure most all SL clothing designers started out this way ;o}

http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&MerchantID=143470&&sort=age&dir=asc

On a side note tho, I'm not overly crazy about flood filling with a texture (in templates) verses just u/l the texture itself and using it in Edit, Appearance or on a newly created skirt, etc. I don't see the seams lining up and the boobs stretch the texture to about double the size either way. Yes I see you have potential to make cleaner lines and not have the SL fuzzies but as far as alignment goes matching sides, etc, doesn't seem to be that easy even with lines in a template. Any thoughts as to why flood filling into a template is better and which templates are best for seam matching?

Yes, matching seams is a challenge. Of course, if it were easy then everyone would do it and clothing designers would go out of business. There is no magic tool .... just practice, patience, and an artistic soul. Neither "flooding" a template with a texture nor uploading a texture and dumping it on an avatar in Appearance is a satisfactory solution in the long run. Both methods will create clothing that looks like it was spray-painted on. Sooner to later, you will need to create your own "templates" and then learn to handle seams, shading, folds, and all the other fine details that make clothing look real.

You have a good start so far. Keep it up.

You're welcome, Tiasha. Let us know what you've done!



Yes: that's why the best designers hand-paint rather than flood-fill.

If you look at the belt on my Cameron pants or my Kevin pants (free demos available at my Roosa store: see my profile picks), you'll see that the pattern on the belt is almost-but-not-quite perfectly matched where the avatar side seams are.

I did that by drawing the design on one part of the pants (the back), then cutting the design at each seam and pasting on the matching seam on the other side.

It's easier with a belt than with most other designs, because belts aren't supposed to match nicely at the buckle.

The dragonets down the legs of the Kevin pants are a kind of cheat: one is on the front part of the avatar leg, the other on the back part. But I was careful to make sure they were also on the front or back of the 'sewing seam', which does NOT match the avatar seam. (The avatar seam doesn't go perfectly down the middle of the leg of an average sized avatar.)

As for textures stretching - yes, they do. Grab a copy of my Designer's Toolkit while you're at my Roosa store (it's also free), and pick any one triangle of the skin to look at. See how many different shapes and sizes that one triangle is when you wear each of the many different shapes in that designer's toolkit. Sure, noone in SL walks around with any of my extreme shapes - but they're indicative of what happens to your textures when different avatars wear them.

A nice program for matching seams I found is called AVPainter. I found it on SL Exchange for 1700L. It is absolutley awesome!!!!

Fantasia

Samarra I am a visual learner also. It's supposedly been proven that everyone learns differently - auditory, visual, kinetic and I've forgotten the other styles of learning. I get antsy 'reading' how to do something also. If I can't visualise it, I'm lost anyway.

People whose tutorials either illustrate or paint pictures with their words are easier - in fact the 2nd is better since illustrations with a technical, dry tutorial loses me quickly as well. If I can't picture it as I go I have a harder time proceeding, because I'm not learning.

Ideally I would have someone over my shoulder as I tried things, telling me "no" or "yes" or "try this". I wouldn't mind finding a real-time tutor in SL who could approximate that. Maybe you could run a classified ad for one of those, yourself. (Just an idea.)

Making clothes for a different game I often began by clicking the white part of the alpha file with the selection tool, and painting or filling it in and going from there. I often did paint in buttons, pockets, seams, etc. but not always. Some items need less detail. And sometimes the ones which looked simple took longer than the fancier items. Matching stripes for instance. Dealing with that wonky shoulder to neck area.

I think someone should do some seams/shading templates too; it wouldn't be tracing, just a guideline. I don't want to trace anyone else's work. I just don't want to waste time putting a seam down the middle of their leg instead of on the side. Etc.

It would also be nice to have the 'click and color in the lines option' of a solid color/outline template but til that day, I just use the freehand selection and trace around where I want the clothes to go, let it select, hide the template layer I traced on top of, and then use the selected bit to color in. That's what I've done so far, although keeping the mouse steady all the way around a torso isn't easy!

I don't understand why you are doing that, Clarissa. Anything that is outside the body template won't show anyway, so you don't need to mask it or erase it. And if you made your alpha channel image correctly, it will automatically serve as a mask to cut away anything on your fabric layer that you don't want to show. The alpha channel image is exactly like the paper pattern you would use if you were making the same clothes in RL. It sounds as if you are doing a lot of extra work. .... unless I'm totally misinterpreting what you wrote.

Yes, I'm sorry, you seem to have misunderstood or I have miscommunicated. Same result.

I was talking about making clothing for another game. The alpha files were already made by the game company and visible. A quick way to make (visible) textures was to click on the alpha, fill it with your colors/shading and then save the file as the clothing part of the file. Load it in and voila, new clothes. They didn't mind people doing that long as it was not for profit.

For this game what I've been doing is using the body template to trace where I want the clothing to go and then coloring it in from there. Then I delete the layer that has the body template on it.