Generalized Texture Layers

Name: Generalized Texture Layers
Category: avatar
Subcategory: clothing
Author: Voting System Admin
Prop Date: 2005-04-13

Feature Detail
Allow multiple textures to be used as stacked layers for clothing. This will allow mutiple tattoos, for example.

feel free to use this thread to discuss further

Yesyesyes, please! Very cool idea! And it would rejuvenate the tattoo business, which seems to have been in decline since custom skins got so popular...

I'll be sure to save all my old tattoo and makeup textures, in case you implement this.

(And just to make sure: you do mean to include multiple *facial* texture layers too, right? Mixing lipsticks, eyeshadows, facial tats, masks, etc?)

I'd like to see this as an option even beyond clothing. It would streamline many applications in the build process.

Hi!

I was just about to make a post requesting a feature that allow for a second skin (so to speak) specifically for tattoos so a user may use their tattoos with any skin.

I’m always impressed how 'on the ball' your team is. Please, please implement this fantastic feature. It will be lindensend for all skin designers!

Ohhh i forgot to ask - is there a planned release date for this feature?

Yes, Yes, Yes!!!!!

Vote for it!
https://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=14

Definately! We really need this as about 90% of SL uses full body skins.. The ability to use tattoos, different makeup textures, etc is limited once one buys a skin. Many SLers, if not ALL will be so greatful to have this feature, including mwa

I vote yes !

I know very few that will NOT benefit from this feature. Please vote for it!!!!!!

We do need to make absolutely sure this feature includes the Head Tattoo target, otherwise (I think you see the problem) the most manipulated and important part of the avatar body is left out of the loop.

I'm not sure exactly how LL intends to implement this feature assuming it is approved, but I imagine one additional clothing item might need to be added for the head. May I suggest calling it a "Mask".

el bumpo

possibly add to this the ability to let a user put clothing they buy on any layer they choose. For instance, someone could sell a tshirt but instead of being specifically a *shirt* it can be up to the user as to what layer they wear it on. You could wear your undies outside your pants (because i know we've all been dieing to...maybe no). This could almost be an alternative to adding a new layer for textures, though there definately needs to be a second layer for facial textures.

YES!

/brings balloons to the party.

Im getting alot of IM's everyday asking about prop 14 link below

https://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=14

This feature really needs to be implemented. I am anxious for new skins and options.

Good point. We should get at least one additional layer for head, torso, and lower body textures. I'd also like to see them try to restructure it so if a person is wearing say, just a t-shirt, pants, and underware layers, then maybe a second layer for skin tattoos is opened up(however this would probably be harder to fit into the GUI than my next suggestion).

Or, going off what Kenzington mentions, just change it so instead of having "jacket layer, shirt layer, undershirt layer, skin layer1, skin layer2", just have 5 layers that you can stack in any order. Mebbey even just give us 5 layers for each head, torso, and lower body- which would open up a lot of options for AV's faces. Ideally, I'd like to see that - I probably would still only use one layer for my face, but I'm sure makeup-designers could use the extra face-spaces.

Is this proposal still alive? It is a fantastic idea, but it seems like there hasn't been much activity around it in a while... Just wondering if it's worth tossing some votes at or not.

here is the link
https://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=14

The trouble is this is technicly complex. You see the current system has the layers(clothing) hardcoded. There are some intricate things going on behind the scenes. A move to generalized texture layers would require a change to the core arciteture. The major design problems would be making it intuitive and still capable of mirroring the current feature set.

One can only hope. I think SL really needs and would benefit from having the new layers added!

WOW 1089 votes!! Wish we knew when they will be added

here is the link to vote

https://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=14

Probably not, as the voting system isn't doing much visible good. I'd take Jesse posing the question as being a better sign than throwing another 0.1% of votes at it.

One of my RL development guidelines is - you have one of a thing, or lots of a thing - never 2, 3 or 5 for example.
soooo - give me an arbritrary number of layers. any clothing that does not need to perform physics stuff (which, until a new physics engine, is pretty much everything other than skirt/cloak) can all be baked into one layer anyway, so the rendering engine need no take too much of a hit.

If a layering hierarchy already exists for tattoos and clothing, what's the big deal with adding GTL's? Maybe I'm wrong, but I see GTL's as a simple substructure in the existing layer heirarchy. Take, for example, the modified appearance dialog below - The slots for plugging in the textures could be numbered 1-9 (that seems like enough) with 1 on the visual bottom and 9 on the visual top. Skin texture would go in slot 1, makeup, tattoos, etc. in the other 8 slots. This example doesn't have textures plugged into the slots, but one can easily imagine all 27 scrollable slots filled with textures that get baked by the rendering engine. Clothing sets could be handled in exactly the same way (slots numbered 1-9). Any existing clothing assets would default to slot 1. Additional slots could be filled to include belts, scarves, buttons, pockets, etc.

Anyone that works with Photoshop layers and thier layer sets should see how this works. The layer sets already exist in SL. The substucture just needs to be defined. Coding this into the Host side is where I have to defer to the programming gurus at LL, but in my mind the visual/intuitive interface seems pretty straight forward.

Namssor:

Your idea could easily work within the current system, only minor changes to the architechture would be needed (instead of just unloading a peice of clothing it would have to check to see if that it's priority is already taken first). And the new layers could be added into the settings file no sweat.

The only issue, what to do about the fitting attributes of the clothing?

Strife, could you elaborate on the above. I'm not sure I understand.