Alpha Texture for Clothing/Limbs

[Dardissounet]

Hi guys, I'm wondering how does one go about making an alpha texture for mesh clothing (shoes especially) and create a specific alpha texture to cover the avatar's feet for example so there is no bits of skin coming through anywhere on the shoe. Any help would be duly, truly and verily appreciated :)

[Claireschen Hesten]

check out http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Clothing_Tutorials making an alpha layer is quite easy you need to download some avatar uv templates i use Robin (Soujourner) Wood's ones if you need reference on how to make an alpha layer pick up a free pack of https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Avatar-Alpha-Overlays-101311-update/2312783 if you are making shoes you might find some of those alphas take out the need to create your own. i'm in the process of trying to make my own alpha and it's a right pain as the product i'm creating the alpha for  has a problem of skin poking through no matter how perfect my alpha layer is

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Using the same templates that are available for free on the clothing link above.  Make the template trasparent where appropriate and make everything else white.  Then import into SL and apply your texture to a new alpha layer in appearance.  For shoes you'll need the lower template.

[Jennifer Boyle]

Something that really helps me when I make alpha masks is wearing a tattoo layer with the clothing template textures.  You could also make a skin with them if you didn't want to make a tattoo layer.  

Paint.net is a nice image manipulation program that you can download for free from http://www.getpaint.net.  It is fairly easy to use and has layers and transparency.  You just erase the part of the template that you want to be transparent.

I am not very talented, so it usually takes me 20 to 40 attempts to get an alpha mask just right.  It is a real money saver to use a viewer that has temporary upload of textures, like Firestorm, though I guess you could also use the beta grid or Opensim.