Day 40: Green Plaid and Dino Boots
Wow, Im 40 days old! In case you are wondering, you didnt miss any other daily posts. This is the first one. I just figured out how to blog. So here goes.
This is me in front of the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives, one of the must-see places in SL if you build anything here. Primitives are the fundamental building blocks in Second Life. Everything in SL is built with them, from jewelry to tall buildings.
The Library contains displays explaining the fundamentals of each primitive type. It also has examples of each primitive and how it appears with different settings (twists, path cuts, hollow, etc.)
To come to the Ivory Tower Library of Primitives, click on the Search button at the bottom of your screen, select the Places tab, and enter "ivory tower" as the keyword. The SLURL is Natoma (210,164,27).
I was feeling cheery this morning for once, so I decided to make things bright. I made a light green plaid prim skirt, using an existing skirt pattern I have, and matched it to a freebie green top. The skirt actually came out pretty nice, considering it only took a single texture. In fact, I learn how to make a practically infinite supply of these skirts: important if you want to change every day or two.
BTW I did the shoes too. Those are the first shoes I made, dyed white. Its a basic high heel, what my friend calls "hooker heels". (She prefers more realistic heels with realistic looking feet.) But its SL, so these heels cant exactly hurt your feet. Besides, almost all female AV's wear them (even some furries).
These heels bring my height from a barefoot 5'7" to 5'10". This is normally a respectable gain. But in SL, most female AV's are 6 to 7 feet blonde goddesses with "hooker heels" and legs up to their necks, literally. So I am a midget among goddesses. But I have better outfits :P
OK, so you ask why I dont just crank the Appearance "Height" slider from 57 (my current setting) to 100 (max)? Well, Im a bit quirky that way. Im 5'7" in RL. So Im 5'7" in SL. I try to match SL to RL. Except I have better hair in RL...or is it in SL?
And heres my first pair of boots that I finished last night, after about 2 days of work. Its textured with dino skin (as in dinosaur) from the Devil Avi class I took (where we get to build a devil costume for Halloween). Ill find a more realistic texture for it later. But it looks pretty good, doesnt it? And since its a 2-piece boot (foot and lower leg attachments), they work well even with some of the most extreme model poses: i.e. the foot doesnt suddenly pop out the back of the shoe when you stand on your toes.
Im putting together some outfits for the Annual Miss Second Life contest, so I need to jazz up a pair of these boots, along with putting some outfits together. More on Miss SL later.
Is anyone reading this blog? If you are pls leave a comment! It lets me know someone cares... :)
12 comments:
HI Natalia! Just found your blog today! I love it. It's a crazy SL world out there and it's good to read about other experiences! Keep writing! You make me smile.
Hi, Natalia! I ran across your blog just now by Googling for how to match seams on textures in SL. You've got some wonderful information here, thanks for writing it!
OMG, those boots are gorgeous.
Congratulations on winning your Miss Second Life round! From the pics, it was very well deserved!
Johanna, thanks for stopping by! These boots have been wonderful for me! It was an absolute pain to make them at first, but I have been able to tweak them endlessly since to match different outfits.
As for matching seams on textures, the best trick I have found is to upload the clothing templates and wear them. This tells you how the templates map to your body.
Also, use one of the higher res templates from either Midnight or Robin (not the SL ones). They are all free and there are links to them on the Day 50 entry. The SubDivided UV's layer on Robin's templates really help me match seams, as far as the shapes go. This makes sure that the front of a shirt isnt wider than the back of the shirt along the shoulders.
If you are trying to match a pattern across a seam (like a picture)...well, I havent figured that one out yet. Its probably possible, but sounds like a LOT of work!
Hi, thanks for your response!
I'm trying to make a complete set of skin (face, upper body, lower body), and I'm having a devil of a time getting even the front and back halves of the torso to match up seamlessly where I've done shading, let alone the upper and lower body parts.
At least when trying to match halves of the same body part, you can use the upload preview window to see how it'll look without spending any L$, but there's no way (that I know of) to preview how two entirely different images will match up.
Yet I've seen some really nice skins where the creators were apparently able to do this, so I don't know if they have a trick for doing so, or if they spent a lot of L$ getting it just right...
Wow Johanna, its great that you are working on a set of skins! Personally, I think thats one of the hardest things to do right in SL.
I havent actually tried making skins yet (not sure if I want to...). But here are 2 suggestions that I can offer:
1. Airane Brodie has a set of template upper/lower body skins at her site: http://virtualunderworld.net/arianeb/secondlife.htm. She says they are not the best on seams, but at least its a start...
2. I have tried to make close seam matches between clothing parts (particularly between shirt and pants). I think it can be done, but just take a lot of work. I would probably use the Match Lines/Color Stripes/SubDivided UV's layers as guides when something gets close to a seam.
I generally try to reduce the amount of things occuring at seams (use a gradient or something to reduce the amount of textures occuring near a seam). Its much easier to match a solid color :P
You might want to try using "Free Transform" in "Warp Mode" :P Thats the button that looks like a window with arrow below it (next to where you Commit or Cancel a Transform). I found thats a good way of stretching a flat texture around curves (like at the seams).
If you are trying to match seams across template files (like between upper and lower body), I would do a Merge Visible (but dont save it), make a Copy, and Paste into the 2nd template as a layer. Then you can slide this section just above the match point in the 2nd template and use it as a guide.
The Upload Preview is good for seeing problems with shapes and cutoffs at the seams. It is not very good for detailed texture matches, unfortunately.
I know you are trying something that's challenging to do well. You will hit every single match point while making a skin! Good luck, and please let us know how it goes. It should be quite a learning experience! :)
Thanks! I've started a blog, inspired by yours, in which I hope to do the same sort of thing.
I just need to figure out how to do it discreetly where the "naughty bits" are concerned — as a pretty modest person, I'm not really keen on plastering them up on the Internet (even if they are "just pixels") — but they turned out well enough that I actually feel some artistic pride and want to show off my creation (and as someone who likes to teach, I'd like to pass on the technique).
What a conundrum!
Johanna, that is a bit of an issue! :P Actually, thats one of the reasons why I shyed away from working on skins...cause...well...you have to stare at skin all day :P
I learned early on that even displaying skin for sale (with exposed top) in a vendor is considered a "Mature" activity (you cannot do that in a PG sim).
Personally, I think Celestial Studios has the right balance of bits with their Passport skins without getting too much into details (or too unrealistic). I think many people would disagree with me (probably from both liberal and conservative perspectives). Check out their free skin at Free Dove to see what I mean.
But I noted that even Celestial Studios has chosen to produce a line of more "realistic" skins. This is probably the realities of the skin business...
Hy Natalia; your blog is great! I've found a lot of usefull information and your way to explain is symply the best. Wish to thank you for the hard work!
Bye
One Tomsen
One, thank you :) I hope you are enjoying SL! Have fun exploring :)
Hi Natalia! I just started SL a few weeks ago, but your blog has given me a wealth of knowledge. Thanks for all the links and tutorials! I have to ask, you were designing and had your own store by day 40? You're my hero!
Rin, I was mostly taking classes and learning how to make stuff on Day 40 :) I started Sirena on Day 74 cause I had to do a fashion show :P
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