Making my Avatar look like me.

How can I edit the face of my avatar to make it look like me. I've been searching the internet and cannot find any information.

Do I need to use any 3D software to edit the avatar? Like Poser or any other type?

ANy help it would be good.

Thanks

i saw someone in RL once who looked like ruth.


ok back to serious: you need photoshop or something like that, and you create a skin with your face on it. a few days ago there was a post in the forum with a link to a tutorial for that.

alternative: there's a shop on avatar island that does that for money. drawback: 2700L$, pay in advance, totally no refunds... so if you're not happy with the outcome, 2700L$ down the toilet.

The skin (texture) will determine about 70% of the look. The shape (what you edit on the sliders), about 30%.

You can pay someone to do the work in Photoshop and a 3D app to manipulate the textures from photo reference, or you can learn the software yourself. The cost is high, either way.

You can also visit Avatar Island ( like Lance suggests) and pay L$ 2,700 (about 10 bucks) to have an automated process do that for you from 1 or 2 reference photos.

Whatever your choice is, you get what you pay for.

This thread has some good examples, at all levels, of what you can achieve with the SL avatar:

/53/23/186909/1.html

So I can download the skin template from http://goodies.onrez.com/shop/chipmidnight/ and since I just to edit my face to look like me, I can only use the head template?

Is that the correct skins?

Yes, those are the UV templates for Avatar textures. Yes, you can focus on just the head one, but the seam between the head and neck is usually visible on avatars so you will have to think about how you want to handle that.

You might want to meander over to the Texture Tips forum and check out the stickies and post your future questions there. Not that we don't love you, but chances are you will get more help on texturing in the texture forum than in the one for building.

Simply put, the templates are no more than guides for how to lay out your textures so they fit the avatar. The head texture will be the most important one for establishing your RL look.

Less simply put, I could literally write a book on the technical aspects of skinning. It's what I've been doing for the last 4 years in SL, and I'm still refining my techniques. It is not an easy task, especially for someone that needs to familiarize themselves with the avatar mesh AND the software involved with manipulating textures on it. If I was tasked with that challenge all over again, it would probably take me about 6 months to learn all aspects of the process well enough to do a decent job at it by todays standards. That time frame is with 15 years previous experience in Photoshop. I learned several 3D applications from scratch in addition to reapplying my previous Photoshop knowledge in new ways after joining SL to be able to do what I presently do. There is also the SL learning curve.

The bottom line really is - What is it worth to you to look like your RL self inside a virtual world? Figure that out first. If your answer is...

"At all costs"

...then, and only then, should you try to accomplish the task yourself. Your next stop should then be the Texture Tips forum.

Thanks guys...

I will start looking at that, and the next question I will post under the texture forum

Didnt I see a booth on Avatar Island where you could preview your face? For that price it would make sense that you could preview, then hit the button for the change.

btw can the "photog" face be transferrable to different avatars?

I am a helper at avatar island
yes there is a preview booth
the way the system works is if you decide you want to get the custom skin, you will upload your photos to them via their website (url and credit applied after you pay)
then you will receive in your email (that you specify when you upload) the actual texture files that you can then edit, tweak etc in photoshop or other program
you will then upload your finished files to SL, create a new skin (so you will be the creator) and apply the skin textures in the appearance mode, to the skin tattoo layers)

hope that helps.

as for transfering the skin or textures, that is entirely up to you, as you will own both the skin (cuz you make it) and the textures...

the preview booth allows you to upload the pic and see the rendered results on their website (of course the shape you use could change your results)

someone did an amazing tutorial post on this in the texture thread