Day 101: Creating Prim Shoes Part 2 (Heels)

This is Part 2 of the creating prim shoes tutorial. In this tutorial, we are going to be making a pair of heeled pumps, complete with an invisiprim.

In Creating Prim Shoes Part 1, we made a pair of flat Roman sandals. I am going to assume that you did Part 1, so I will skip the detailed explanations on some of the steps.



Like Part 1, I am going to show you how to make a basic pair of prim heels. I deliberately simplified the design to make it easier to build. After you complete your first pair, you can add to or change the shoe design as you like. You can adding straps, decorations, textures, or styling. Or you can build new heels or heeled boots using this as a guide.

Aside from appearance itself, there are only 2 major differences between the Roman sandals and the heeled pumps: The heeled pumps use different settings for the SL Shoe, and the heeled pumps have an invisiprim.



The invisiprim is used to hide the parts of the SL Shoe that cannot be covered by the Prim Shoe. When you create the SL Shoe and adjust feet size, heel height, and platform height, your avatar's feet will grow a flesh-colored heel and platform! Yikes! And no matter how hard you try to shrink it, the SL Shoe heel is big and ugly. Not something you can easily conceal with your Prim Shoe. Certainly not with the heels!

Invisiprims are regular prims with a script inside that makes the prim transparent. It has the added bonus of being able to hide your avatar's body. So invisiprims can make the flesh-colored heel and platform magically disappear, leaving behind only the heel.

You will need a Full Transparent texture (with a black Alpha Channel) and the Invisi-Prim Script (Invisibility Prim Public v1.1b) to make this shoe. You can pick up both of these items for free at the Sirena Hair & Fashion store (in the Freebie section). You can go through the steps without these items, but it would look like you are wearing a white sock until you apply the texture, and you cannot finish the heels without the Invisiprim script.

So lets get started:

1. Creating the SL Shoe

Again, we need to prepare your avatar's feet to receive the prim shoes. This is done via the Appearance... screen.

First, detach and take off any SL or prim shoes you are wearing.



Right-click on yourself, and select "Appearance..." from the menu. Select the "Shoes" tab. Press the "Create New Shoes" button (if you dont see this button, press the "Take Off" button first). Enter the following settings:

Shoe Height: 0
Heel Height: 40
Heel Shape: 0
Toe Shape: 0
Toe Thickness: 0
Platform Height: 0
Platform Width: 0

Next, click in the square box above "Fabric". This will bring up the "Pick:Texture" window. Select the Full Transparent texture (either one from your own Inventory or from the Sirena Hair & Fashion store).

When you are all done, press the "Save All" button and the "Close" button. You should have a new pair of SL Shoes named "New Shoes" in the Clothing folder of your Inventory. Go ahead and rename these shoes to something like "Heeled Pumps Base".

BTW, these settings create what is commonly known in SL as the "Size 0 Feet". That means that everything is 0 except for Heel Height and Platform Height. You probably notice that your toes are all scrunched into a point. Dont worry, this will all be covered up by the prim shoes. You can always make non Size 0 shoes later if you like :)

Also, Hooker Heels are basically Size 0 Feet with Heel Height = 100 and Platform Height = 100. Youve probably seen these extreme heels around SL. Hooker Heels would require straps and other supports to make the shoe believable. So I will leave that for your next heel project :)

2. Creating the Prim Shoe (Heeled Pump)

Like the sandals in Part 1, we are going to build the heeled pump BIG first (at 10x the final size), then shrink it later.

The heeled pump is made up of 8 prims. In addition, we are going to make a sizing board to make it easier to fit the shoe together and resize. Note that most heels you purchase in stores have 20+ prims, some in excess of 100! Most of these prim are used to enhance the styling. Once you have the basics down, you too can do the same :)

Rez a prim on the ground. Press Shift-X. This moves the prim to the nearest 0.25M point. This helps us line stuff up later.

Go to the General tab, and change the Name to "1". Go to the Object tab. Change the Building Block Type to "Cylinder".

Go to the Texture tab. Click on the square above "Texture". This will open the Pick:Texture window. Click on the Blank button and the Select button.

Click on the square above "Color". This will open the Color Picker. Select a color for the heeled pump. At this point, choose a different color for each prim. This makes it much easier to line things up. We will change the colors later just prior to linking.

Prim "1" will be the front bottom of the heeled pump. We are going to clone it to make all the other prims.

So make sure Prim "1" is selected in Edit more, and you can see the Red/Green/Blue movement arrows. Press and hold the Shift key, then click on the Blue arrow and pull it up. This will make a copy of Prim "1" perfectly lined up above.



Do this 7 more times until you have a total of 9 prims.

Starting from the bottom, Edit each prim and change the Name to a number from 1 to 9. The one on the bottom should be "1". The one on the top should be "9". This will helps us reference the prims below.

Now go back and Edit Prim "1". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.920
Size (meters) Y: 0.200
Size (meters) Z: 0.940

Rotation (degrees) X: 90.00

Path Cut B: 0.500
Path Cut E: 1.000

Taper X: 0.65
Taper Y: 0.25

OK, now Edit Prim "2".

Leave the Building Block Type as "Cylinder". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.860
Size (meters) Y: 1.100
Size (meters) Z: 0.900

Rotation (degrees) X: 90.00

Path Cut B: 0.000
Path Cut E: 0.500

Hollow: 95

Taper X: 0.65
Taper Y: 0.70

Edit Prim "3".

Leave the Building Block Type as "Cylinder". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.200
Size (meters) Y: 0.920
Size (meters) Z: 1.100

Rotation (degrees) X: 300.00
Rotation (degrees) Y: 0.00
Rotation (degrees) Z: 270.00

Path Cut B: 0.250
Path Cut E: 0.750

Taper X: 0.00
Taper Y: 0.25

Edit Prim "4".

Leave the Building Block Type as "Cylinder". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.690
Size (meters) Y: 1.000
Size (meters) Z: 0.200

Path Cut B: 0.000
Path Cut E: 0.500

Taper X: -0.80 (Note: this is a negative value!!)
Taper Y: -0.90 (Note: this is a negative value!!)

Edit Prim "5".

Change the Building Block Type to "Sphere". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.690
Size (meters) Y: 1.000
Size (meters) Z: 1.620

Path Cut B: 0.000
Path Cut E: 0.070

Hollow: 95

Edit Prim "6".

Leave the Building Block Type as "Cylinder". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.200
Size (meters) Y: 0.400
Size (meters) Z: 0.490

Rotation (degrees) X: 0.00
Rotation (degrees) Y: 0.00
Rotation (degrees) Z: 270.00

Taper X: -0.65 (Note: this is a negative value!!)
Taper Y: -0.85 (Note: this is a negative value!!)

Edit Prim "7".

Leave the Building Block Type as "Cylinder". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.200
Size (meters) Y: 0.200
Size (meters) Z: 0.200

Rotation (degrees) X: 0.00
Rotation (degrees) Y: 0.00
Rotation (degrees) Z: 270.00

Taper X: 0.50
Taper Y: 0.40

Edit Prim "8".

Change the Building Block Type to "Box". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 1.500
Size (meters) Y: 0.920
Size (meters) Z: 0.590

Rotation (degrees) X: 0.00
Rotation (degrees) Y: 0.00
Rotation (degrees) Z: 270.00

Taper X: 0.65
Taper Y: 0.20

Top Sheer X: -0.33 (Note: this is a negative value!!)

Edit Prim "9". (OK last one :D!)

Change the Building Block Type to "Box". Enter the following settings:

Size (meters) X: 0.920
Size (meters) Y: 2.370
Size (meters) Z: 0.100

Go to the Texture tab of Prim "9". Click on the square above "Color" to open the Color Picker. Click on the bright Red square on the bottom row and press the Select button.



When you are all done, you should now have a column of prims that look something like this.

3. Assembling the Heeled Pump

We are now going to put all these prims together!

The red Prim "9" is our sizing board. The finished heeled pump should be the same width and length as this board. Because this is a heel, you need to move the sizing board up and down along the shoe to check the size. If you grabbed the Blue arrow and moved the sizing board up and down along the finished shoe, you should not see any part of the finished shoe stick out past the sizing board.

Edit the red Prim "9". Move this to the very bottom of the stack of prims.



Now edit Prim "1". Use the green arrow to move Prim "1" to the left until the left edge is lined up the red Prim "9" sizing board.

Next, move Prim "2" on top of Prim "1" to cover it. This is the toe cover. It should sink very slightly into Prim "1".



Move Prim "3" to the right of Prim "1". Make sure that the left edge of Prim "3" runs slightly into the right edge of Prim "1".



Move Prim "4" to the right of Prim "3". Prim "4" should join up at a nice angle to Prim "3". This is the heel insole where the heel of your foot will rest.



At this point, move the red Prim "9" sizing board up and down along Prim "1" to Prim "4". You should not see any parts of these prims stick out the left and right edges of the sizing board. If any part sticks out, you should adjust the prim positions to make them fit within the sizing board. Dont worry, this isnt an exact science. Just kinda smush them together til they fit :)



Move Prim "5" just above Prim "4". Prim "5" should fit perfectly into Prim "4". This is the back of the heeled pump.



Move Prim "6" below Prim "4". This is the heel stem.



Move Prim "7" below Prim "6". This is the heel outsole (the part that touches the ground). For an exact fit with Prim "6", you might want to copy the Position Y from Prim "6" to Prim "7".

Also, you should move the red Prim "9" sizing board just below Prim "1" so you know where the "ground" should be. The bottom of Prim "7" should just touch the "ground".

Before we put the invisiprim in place, we should change the color of the shoe to its final colors.

Make sure you can see the whole shoe. Move the red Prim "9" sizing board up and away from the shoe. Right-click on any prim and select Edit.



Click and hold outside the shoe, and drag the yellow window around the entire shoe. The entire shoe should be outlined in yellow.

Now select the Texture tab. Click on the square above the "Color" to open the Color Picker. Click on the light grey square on the bottom row (second on the left) and press the Select button. You can pick a different color if you prefer.



Now click on the Prim "7" heel outsole. Select the Texture tab. Click on the square above the "Color" to open the Color Picker. Click on the black square and press the Select button.



Your heeled pump should be looking like the finished product!

4. Adding the Invisiprim



Prim "8" is the invisiprim. This prim will become transparent in a minute. Positioning Prim "8" is tricky, because we want it to hide the heel, but not any part of the foot above the insole (where the feet touches the shoe).



Move Prim "8" below Prim "4" until it runs slightly into Prim "4". Slide it left until it runs partly into Prim "3", the center of the shoe. Its OK for this prim to run slightly below ground. Also, its OK for the invisiprim to stick out beyond the red Prim "9" sizing board.

Next, we will put the Invisi-Prim Script from your Inventory into Prim "8" (the one from the Sirena Hair & Fashion store).

Right-click on Prim "8" and select Edit. Select the Contents tab. Drag and drop the "Invisibility Prim Public v1.1b" file from your Inventory into the Contents tab of Prim "8".

Close the Edit window to exit edit mode. Wait a few seconds (could take up to a minute depending on lag). You will notice Prim "8" will disappear. Dont worry, its still there. :) Just transparent. But you should now be able to see the heel clearly.

5. Linking and Shrinking

Now we need to link all these prims together and shrink it.

For the heeled pump, we want the Root Prim to be Prim "1", the front outsole (the front piece that touches the ground).

Note that we are going to link in the red Prim "9" sizing board as well. We will unlink Prim "9" after resizing.

So let's link the shoe.

Bring the red Prim "9" sizing board back down below the shoe.

Make sure you can see the whole shoe and the sizing board. Right-click on any prim and select Edit.



Click and hold outside the shoe, and drag the yellow window around the entire shoe and sizing board. The entire shoe and the sizing board should be outlined in yellow. Be sure that the Prim "8" Invisiprim is also highlighted (you should see the outline of the invisiprim wedge at the back of the shoe).

Now press and hold the Shift key. Left-click on Prim "1" to de-select it. Left-click on Prim "1" again to select it. This makes Prim "1" the last prim to be selected, thus will make it the Root Prim when we link. (You might need to move the camera around to click on Prim "1")

To link the prims, click on Tools at the top of your screen, and select Link. You will notice that all the prims are now outlined in blue, except Prim "1" is outlined in yellow.

Next, we are going to shrink the shoe to its final size.

First, bring the shoe at least 1M off the ground. There have been reports of shoes disappearing into the ground when they are being shrunk, so better be on the safe side :)

Then Edit the shoe. Click on the "Stretch (Ctrl-Shift)" button at the top of the Edit window. There should be some white handles around the shoe. Grab one, and push it in towards the shoe until you cant shrink it any more. For your reference, the display at the top of your screen should read: "X:0.092 Y:0.238 Z:0.191".

Lastly, we are going to unlink the sizing board.

Edit the shoe. Click on the "Edit linked parts" checkbox. Now click on the sizing board, so only the sizing board is selected. Click on Tools at the top of your screen, and select Unlink. That's it! The sizing board has now been removed from the shoe.

One last thing: we want to name the shoe.

Edit the shoe. Click on the General tab. And change the Name to "Heeled Pump (L)".

Congratulations! You have just made your first prim heel, complete with an invisiprim! :)

Close your Edit window to get out of edit mode. Right-click on the shoe and select "Take" to take the shoe into your Inventory.

6. Fitting the Heeled Pump

Now that the shoe is ready, we need to attach it to our avatar. Lets start with the left foot, then clone the shoe for the right foot.

To fit the shoe, Right-click on the "Heeled Pump (L)" in your Inventory, select "Attach To >", and click on "Left Foot".



The shoe will initially attach with the wrong orientation. You need to rotation the shoe until the toe portion is in front.

Go ahead and Edit the shoe while it is on your foot. You can do this by hand, by pressing and holding the Ctrl key and turning the color wheels (this is how I did it initially).

Or you can cheat and enter these values :P

Rotation (degrees) Y: 90.00
Rotation (degrees) Z: 90.00

Next, drag the Red/Green/Blue arrows until the shoe fits well on your feet. If you use the numbers at the top as a reference, this is a good position: "X:0.024 Y:0.000 Z:0.006". Dont worry if you cant get an exact match (for example, Z may get stuck at 0.005 and 0.007). Just pick one and move on.

When you are done positioning, Right-click on the shoe and select "Detach".

In your Inventory screen, Right-click on the "Heeled Pump (L)" and select Copy. Then Right-click again on the "Heeled Pump (L)" and select Paste. There should now be 2 copies of the shoe.

Right-click on one copy, select Rename, and change the name to "Heeled Pump (R)". Now Right-click on "Heeled Pump (R)", select "Attach To >", and click on "Right Foot".

Go ahead and repeat the steps above for rotating the shoe. You should not have to change the position.

Just one final note: after you do any fitting with a prim attachment, be sure that you detach the prim after you are done to "save" the settings.

So go ahead and right click on "Heeled Pump (R)" and select Detach.



That's it! You have now created a pair of heels from scratch and fitted it. Feel free to jazz it up with different colors, textures, bling scripts, and add additional prim decorations! If you are adventurous, increase the Heel Height, add some straps, and make a pair of Hooker Heels! :P

In Part 3 of this series, we will add texture and sexy walk (animation override/AO) to these prim heeled pumps.

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