Combining Templates???

[Morgaine Christensen]

I think making SL clothing has got to be worse than anything  I have ever tried to do other than scripting.  LOL, some things simply do not click well. 

The question I have is...is there a way to stack the upper templates and the lowers & shirt where you can draw from one to the next without having the postions screwed up for upload? Would seem to make alignment between the two layers easier.

Example: Making a Jacket...would need the lower/pant layer convering with the bottom of the shirt. 

I am not even sure this makes sense. 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Yes, you can do that.  I've tried it and it didn't work out like I thought it would.  If you will look at the upper and lower template (the two you need for a jacket) or the upper and skirt template (the two you need for a dress), you will notice that the templates are not scaled the same.  It's apparant at the seams along the bottom of the upper template and the seams along the top of the lower template and the skirt template.  That mismatch makes it necessary to resize the individual templates so that the UV lines line up.......and that can be done fairly easily.  But when you resize the templates to match at the bottom or the upper and the top of the lower and skirt templates you don't know what to resize the vertical deminsions to.  I tried keeping them to same as the original..........that didn't work well.  I tried keeping the aspect ratio to make the vertical deminsion change proporationally to the horizontal change.....that didn't work either.  I tried taking a guess and that didn't work.  I gave up after a few hours. 

If you are going to design clothing using the 2D flat clothing templates (like I do) you just have to learn where the critical points are (the waist and sides) and make the adjustments on each template.  A little practice (and lots of patience) you will get pretty good at it.

Don't ask me why the templates are that way.  I've wondered and even asked a long time ago......no one could answer (they were all just as clueless as me about the why).  My guess is that the SL software and OpenGL require textures to be at powers of two along each deminsion and LL wanted square textures for avatar skins and clothing (clothing and skin textrues should always be uploaded at 512 x 512 pixels.......a power of two on each side).  In order to do that and keep the template at a power and two and square the upper and lower/skirt templates were adjusted to compensate.  Whatever the reason we are stuck with working within the confines of the templates.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

 

If you are going to design clothing using the 2D flat clothing templates (like I do) you just have to learn where the critical points are [...]

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Very true. The way to overcome this is using not a 2D, but a 3D tool, which shows the entire model with all its textures.

In Photoshop Extended, Autodesk 3ds max, Autodesk Mudbox and even in the free Blender, you can 3D paint, I'm sure there are more tools. To be honest I've never used it for SL and I think I would make the base for the clothing in a 2D program like Gimp or Photoshop, but to make smoother seams between the head/upper and upper/lower textures, one could use any of these 3D tools.

Maybe someone has experience with this? (Especially in Blender which is free rather than $1500-3500 for the other programs I mentioned).

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Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

 

Don't ask me why the templates are that way.  I've wondered and even asked a long time ago......no one could answer (they were all just as clueless as me about the why).  My guess is that the SL software and OpenGL require textures to be at powers of two along each deminsion and LL wanted square textures for avatar skins and clothing (clothing and skin textrues should always be uploaded at 512 x 512 pixels.......a power of two on each side).

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It was absolutely neccecary for openGL to have power of 2 textures, but that's no longer the case since 2.0.

That doesn't mean we should ask LL to support other textures. Even in 3D programs you really should use the power of 2 rule. While programs like Blender or 3ds max or Maya can perfectly handle your odd shaped textures, they need to convert them to powers of 2 before rendering. I think it's not that difficult to understand that doing that is not an option for a real time renderer. Not to mention the fact the result might not be as sharp as expected.

I found this article which seems to explain pretty well:

Making better textures for games

and this:

OpenGL - why would you use textures that are not a power of 2?

I hope that explains a bit.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

The question was about using the clothing templates.  Those templates are 2D.  And I answered the question as best I could for the use of 2D since the question did not mention using a 3D model for clothing..........I know clothing and skins can be done with editing programs that do 3D but that was not the question and I did not bring it up because it was not the question.  That's not at all unlike someone asking how to cook a prim rib roast and you tell then now to make a Ceasar's Salad......the question was how to cook a roast, not how to make a salad.

I know about the OpenGL power of 2 requirement.  That is why, when Linden Lab developed the code for the SL servers. that the power of 2 requirement was put in place.  It's there.  It's a requirement, and if you don't observe that requirement your textures will be distorted (depending on how far off your texture is from the power or 2 requirement will dictate how distorted the texture will be).  It doesn't make any difference at all that OpenGL may no longer have that requirement, the SL code does.  You have to observe it or live with the distortion that will occur if you don't.  It's not likely to change.......ever.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Wow, it sounds like you're offended by my post and I really don't see why.

I gave an alternative to any 2D editing which allows you to make smooth seams, nothing more nothing less. I don't see how that's a bad thing to post. If I thought your post wasn't any good I would have said so, I'm not all that shy.

If someone asks how to boil a chicken, I will answer it will probably be tastier if you put it on the barbecue. That is indeed not answering the question, but it's not pointless I'd say.

And for the OpenGL thing, you said you were not sure and you said nobody had been able to explain. So I confirmed your thoughts and posted two links that do explain at least a bit. I don't see how that is such a bad thing to post either.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Actually, posting alternatives is not a bad thing.  However, it can be a bad thing if you do not state that what you are posting is an alternavtive.......not the answer to the question.  It becomes a bad thing in that the question askers often does not know enough to discern the "alternative" to the question from the "answer" to the question.  That leaves the person asking the question scratching their head without much (if any help......they get two distintly different answers and wonders which one is true.  Had you answered the question "how do you boil a chicken?"  with "put it your oven (or barbeque) and cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes per pound allowing the internal temperture to reach 160 degrees F" is a perfectly good answer.......but not for how to boil a chicken.  In this case the OP clearly stated that she wasn't very familar with creating clothing using the templates provided by LL for use in SL.......that leads me to believe that the best course for trying to help is to stick with the question as asked.  Then, maybe providing an alternative.  But, from the question itself (and the way it was asked) mentioning 3D applications to someone with limited knowledge ofs 2D applications would only cause confusion.

I see many people get completely confused (and consequently frustrated) in these forums.  Then it gets really hard to help further......defeats the purpose of even trying to help someone.  That's the whole point I was trying to make. 

On the OpenGL part.  You said that with OpenGL 3.* and newer the power of 2 is not required.............I've heard that before and I don't doubt it at all.  However, the SL server software still has that requirement.  The requirement as put in place when LL designed the software (because the graphics were going to be rendered using the OpenGL rendering engine......that was to make the graphics cross platform for the Mac and Linux users).  Because the power of 2 is a requirement for the software being used then that's all that needs to be said.  Both conditions have to be met before any texture not at the power of 2 can be uploaded without distortion (depending on how far off from the power of 2 the distortion could be significant).......OpenGL may allow it but SL does not.  It's a requirement because of that.

I'm not arguing.  I'm trying to be straight forward and as accurate as possible with as little confusion as possible.  I'm not here to spout all my experience or knowledge............I openly admit to a novice level.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

You gave an answer with a drawback, I gave an option without that drawback, an option that's not really any harder, on the contrary. It does need some other software, I was pretty clear about that.

If the OP sees any issues, she can ask for further explanation, I'd be happy to give that, so will others.

Even if DirectX9 was used instead of OpenGL, textures would still have to be powers of 2. No matter how the SL software was designed. As far as I know all applications use power of 2 textures to render, because of the mipmapping as described in one of the links I posted. From what I've read DirectX10 and higher support non power of 2 textures and mipmapping, but that would limit the use enormously because not all hardware supports DX10 or 11.

The fact you can apply non power of 2 textures to your objects in the typical 3D application, doesn't mean they are used for rendering. The application probably turns your non power of 2 texture into a power of 2 texture before rendering, depending on your hardware and the applications ability to recognise it. What LL did is move that step forward a bit, so it doesn't have to be done real time.

I'm not spouting anything here either, I just thought you were interested, since you said nobody was able explain it to you. That lets me believe you had been asking about it. I am very sorry for taking the time to look it up and trying to find you an answer.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

"... If you will look at the upper and lower template (the two you need for a jacket) or the upper and skirt template (the two you need for a dress), you will notice that the templates are not scaled the same.  It's apparant at the seams along the bottom of the upper template and the seams along the top of the lower template and the skirt template.  That mismatch makes it necessary to resize the individual templates so that the UV lines line up.......and that can be done fairly easily.  But when you resize the templates to match at the bottom or the upper and the top of the lower and skirt templates you don't know what to resize the vertical deminsions to.  I tried keeping them to same as the original..........that didn't work well.  I tried keeping the aspect ratio to make the vertical deminsion change proporationally to the horizontal change.....that didn't work either.  I tried taking a guess and that didn't work. ...

...

Don't ask me why the templates are that way.  I've wondered and even asked a long time ago......no one could answer (they were all just as clueless as me about the why)...."

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This is what I was referring to when I said I didn't know why the templates were designed that way......and, yes, I have asked around (Chosen Few for one, a few years ago......he does 3D graphics for a living and has worked for some very large, well known companies that require expert 3D graghics artists).  He did not know the why either.  So the question remains a mystery.......at least to me.  It's not all that important really but it does present problems with seam matching using the SL templates.  And, as I stated, once you are aware of the problem you can work around it and, actually, get pretty darned good at it.  Using a 3D graphics editing problem eliminates the problem for the most part......us 2D users have to go through the learning curve.

I then offered my guess as to why LL sized the templates to 512 by 512 pixels (which is a square).  I probably should have started another paragraph to make the distinction a little more obvious.  Sorry, I'm pretty good at grammar but on a forum I, like most, get a little lazy.  I was not saying that I did not know why LL chose powers of 2 for textures..........I know the why (the OpenGL requirement at the time LL developed SL).  And I also know that LL is very unlikely to change that requirement since it's already been in place for so long that doing so would really cause problems and a great deal of confusion.  We get enough of that with other things LL does after the fact.

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Ok, maybe I read it the wrong way, no biggy, I do not read the forums like I would an article most of the time.

I can share my thoughts on the odd templates though. (And somehow  I think you already know everything I have to say)

A big deal in making UV maps is efficiency. The more of the canvas is used, the better the quality/performance ratio. The pants are using more or less the entire height of the map, so upscaling that is more or less impossible. I think LL decided to blow up the upper template a bit for better detail.

The strange way of unwrapping might be used to make it fairly easy to put a photo of the front and back of piece of clothing onto the avatar. If you look at the more common unwraps, you'll see a lot of strange bends and rotations to match the unwrapped texture as close to the model as possible. That way you can get a better result, but the novice artist (and that's the vast majority of SL users) would have a terrible time making textures that aren't warped.

They overlayed the arms for texture area efficiency again, strangely enough they did not do this for the legs. (It really bugs every tattoo artist in SL).

All in all I think they made some poor decisions, but I think they did not do it without a reason they thought was good.

 

The use of OpenGL is really not the reason I think for the power of 2 textures, it's overall performance by being able to mipmap the textures and that's not a software issue. Someone once told me it also had to do with efficient memory usage, but that was over ten years ago and I can't find any good references, all I can find it's also better for memory use while mipmapping. The person was a 3D artist and knew what he was talking about, that I do know.

Sorry, I'll stop:)

[Peggy Paperdoll]

No harm, no foul.  I'm stopping too.........I believe the question was, at least, partially answered.  Haven't heard anything back from the OP to confirm the question was answered so, until, there's a question by the OP and needs further explaining, I'm done.

Take care.

[Morgaine Christensen]

Yes, the question was answered and I thank you both very much. I have been away since the original question was posted.

Just to clarify, I was asking if there was a way to combine the upper an lower  AV  templates flat 2-D in Photoshop. Peggy confirmed what I already suspected, but I do not always think outside of the box nor have as much skill with photoshop as others may have.  I asked because I wished to confirm what I was thinking is correct.

Working in 3-D is a good answer and alternative.  Unfortunately my skills using that method are next to nil.  I need to find the time to learn the 3-D method in CS-5 Extended.  I have read/watched  the  tuts by Robin Sojourner (?sp) but they don't make a lot of sense to me.  I have looked at others that made it perfectly clear but have not had the time to delve into it further.

Anyway, thank you both.