blender 2.6 alpha

[Ronald Greybeard]

hey all i made a clothing item in blender 2.63 but need to make a alpha can anyone tell me how? i used to know in blender 2.49 but this is very different

[Rhys Goode]

You might be able to do it in blender, but I think most people use a graphics manipulation program, like Gimp or Photoshop.  Robin wood has free tempates, and a nice tutorial, http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLPages/AVUVTemplates.html

You can also have a look at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Creation_Portal

[Nacy Nightfire]

Builder's brewery has a class on making Alpha's for clothing.  Right now the schedule appears thin due to the holidays, but when it picks back up, I'm sure it will be repeated.  I haven't taken this class, but the instructor is excellent.

http://www.buildersbrewery.com/calendar/

 

[Ronald Greybeard]

anyone know of any other way?

[Nacy Nightfire]

Select your Avatar mesh and in UV space set up a blank white texture assigned to the UV faces of the part of the body for which you've modeled a clothing mesh.

 

Next select your clothing mesh and go into the Object tab in the Properties tab and set that mesh to Display>Wireframe so it will be set as wireframe view independent of the avatar mesh and and it can be painted through.

 

Light your scene well and reselect the avatar mesh and go into Texture Paint mode.  Set you color to black and paint what you want to be "alpha" on the avatar using the wireframe of the clothing mesh to guide you.  You will see your black paint strokes appearing on white texture you set up and assigned in the UV space. You can correct any mistakes by "erasing" black with white and visa versa.  Save the file.

 

Then set up your Composite nodes to turn the black and white image you just made into an image where Black is alpha, as follows:   

 

 

 

 

From the drop down list in the first node select the image you just saved.  (note the viewer doesn't show the final image, but if you turn on backdrop image you will see it correctly.)

 

 

You can continue to test and correct this image, however each time you make a change you need to reselect that image in the first node otherwise it won't update.  And you can simultaneously paint on both the avatar mesh in the mesh edit view  and the flat image in UV space (set up for painting, of course) if you find you are having a hard time reaching some places.

 

When finished and ready for testing save the texture you painted and processed via nodes, from the UV edit menu. The image should be called something like Viewer Node in the drop down image loaded image list.

 

In SL  set up your new Alpha clothing file.  Instead of uploading your texture the the standard way, select "*local" and then load the file.  This is temporary and it links SL and the file you have just made.  Anyone else viewing your avatar will just see grey.  As you return to blender to refine and make changes, resave the texture  with the same file name.  Then when you return to second life click on that same name you previously loaded into local view it will refresh the file and you will see the changes.  Don't forget when you finalize your texture you need to re-upload it in the normal way otherwise no one will see it.  Again, anything uploaded in local view appears grey to everyone else.  Also if you crash or close out your application you will need to re-establish your link to the file in local view.

 

 

 

There are, no doubt, many ways to make clothing alphas. This is just one I came up with. It's not necessarily the most direct and hopefully those who are actually working with clothes (I'm not currently) can share their method or improve upon this.

 

Merry Xmas!

[Ronald Greybeard]

i cant seem to figure out how to get th texture assigned to the avatar mesh im using avastar

[Nacy Nightfire]

Assuming you mean assigned in Blender you need to select the avatar mesh in Edit mode (top or bottom - whichever cooresponds to the clothing for which you are making the alpha) and in the UV window click X to delete whatever texture might be currently assigned to those faces, and then hit the "+" button to assign a new texture.  In the "add texture" pop up menu you can change the color of the texture you assigned by clicking on the black strip and accessing the color wheel.  Slide the bar up until the texture is white.

[Deezy Abruzzo]

Thank you for these instructions. It seems to be exactly what I need but I am having trouble painting black onto the body. I am making a shirt. So i made the upper body white per your intructions I deselected the mesh clothing and selected the body. changed my paint to black. But, when i try to paint onto the upperbody nothing happpens. I get the paint circle, I left click and the mouse just stops and does not leave any paint. It does however allow me to pain in Vertex Paint Mode. What could i be doing wrong?  Thank you in advance for your help.

[Nacy Nightfire]

I'm not certain what is wrong, but often if I find I can't paint it's either one of two cases: 

1)  I forgot to add a texture and assign the vertices to that texture (Select the vertices in UV sapce and then adding the texture)*

2) Or I forgot to select/highlight what I want to paint in object mode before switching to paint mode.

 

Hope that helps!

 

*Vertex Paint mode applies color information to the mesh vertices not to a texture (although I believe this informationt can be transferred to a texture in Blender - not sure, but probably).  It's not comparable to regular texture paint mode.

[Nacy Nightfire]

I just noticed from checking the class schedule board at Builder's Brewery that the class for making clothing alphas is back on the schedule for tomorrow  (Wednesday 1/30) at 12 PM SL time.  I'll be attending myself (if I don't forget )  as there are many ways to make alphas and I'm always looking for an easier way.  Judging from other classes this instructor teaches which I have attended in the past, this class should be very helpful.

[Deezy Abruzzo]

Hiya, I having a problem setting the model to wireframe and keeping the avitar solid. Im an obvious blender noob. Is there a button i need to press to make them toggle between wire and solid independantly?

And, where exactly do i go to set up the composite nodes?

I am using Blender 2.64

 

[Nacy Nightfire]

This photo above shows where to find the view mode selection for individual objects.

Nodes is another type window.  You can use the shortcut Shift-F3 while hovering over your 3d edit window to change it to the nodes window.  It's icon for selecting it from the menu tab is labled and it looks like two stacked rectagles connected by a piece of spagetti on the RIGHT (I originally wrote left).  To return it to the mesh window, use the buttons on the menu bar or use the shortcut Shift-F5.

 

Edited to add: Clearly I don't know my left from my right.  The "noodle" on the node icon is on the right : / 

[Deezy Abruzzo]

THANK YOU NANCY!

I'll try it out.