how the hell matching across seams

ARGH
How the hell do people match up so perfectly across seams?
is there some kind of trick or something?
I have been trying to do a custom piercings on the torso sides... and the ribbons will not align, always off, I try matching them, they look matched and then put it on the avatar and they are mismatched....

are there some kind of trick to doing this?

(I tried that program that lets you preview the stuff out of world and it will not run for me on the laptop and the pc is dead atm)

anywho any help appreciated

PS here is a snapshot of it in progress, this seems to be the closest I can get it, is it cuz it is on angles?
(I always seem to see the seam too)

Without using a 3d paint app (where you can paint directly on the avatar model) you just have to keep going back and forth between your paint program and your previewer of choice. That shouldn't be too hard to fix. You can get a good idea just looking at it about how many pixels each lace is off by. I like to use Photoshop's liquify filter to nudge details around. Your you can just cut out each lace that's off, move it up or down the number of pixels it's off, then fix the lace leading up to that part you moved. It really comes down to tweak, check, tweak, check, tweak... until you have a match.

Also, that's what the grid is for on the templates. look at exactly where on the grid the top and bottom of each lace hit the seam, then make sure the top and bottom of the lace on the other side of the seam hit it at the same place on the grid. You're already very close.

if you want to save money you can always upload it to the beta grid to see if it lines up

Chip, I use your templates for almost all my efforts at making clothes. You mention to match "exactly" where any line or texture needing to merge from front to back (on a shirt, for instance). Are you talking about where the grid lines meet the black line before the colored lines on the template or one of the colored lines outside those lines? If it's the colored lines then it requries a little estimating. Sometimes I can get things to match near perfectly but other times it seems I missed by a mile. I try to do it the same way every time using the inside black line.

By the way, someone else who knows the answer to my question can answer too. Thanks.

thanks for the imput
and yeah I been doing the tweak check tweak check on the beta grid

(cost too much to do that on the main grid)

have not tried anything that lets me paint directly on the avatar, that would definitely be handy

The match point for a fully rezzed texture is the outside of the black line. The colored edge matching guide is just for reference, but it also corresponds roughly to the bleed area, meaning that the outside edge of the colored line equals the match point for a texture that's 1/4 to 1/2 rezzed. The match point you want to pay attention to is the black outside line on the bottom layer for a fully rezzed texture. Hope that makes sense.

Look for "avpainter" on slexchange. I bought it but I haven't really installed it yet.

Yes it does make sense Chip...........and thank you

I got the demo and installed it, not a bad program
not sure if I will have a use for it yet, but maybe soon. time will tell
don't think it will help on the side piercing ribbons, just gonna have to go with trial and error on this one. hehe

but I think it will be very handy for things like shorts, and cropped shirts and such