Editing and Texturing 101, Where do I start?

[JakeCWolf]

So I've been in Second Life for a few months now off and on, And am getting the hang (finally) of editing clothing and objects for the sake of portions and to fit my Avatar, but I've long wanted to edit things on a much more in depth scale, but am utterly lost, not sure if I (should/can) do it in SL itself (I use Firestorm Viewer btw) or I should export things to a program like Blender or Gimp and do everything there and re-import it for use, and where to even start with either the former or the latter.

Well before I ramble on further, here is what I want to do, I'm a furry in SL (huge surprise, kinda rare in SL I hear... :P) and my Avatar has digitigrade legs, I recently bought a Sister of Battle Power Armor outfit from the Marketplace, and want to use a pair of nice looking (yet simple) digitigrade boots and retexture them to fit with the outfit, using the textures of the standard boots.

One of the many problems I run into is that the item is a single piece, instead of separate pieces like jackets and the like, and that rezzing it in a sand box causes it to be unelectable and invisible, and I have no clue why, both the boots I want to use and the armor itself both have permissions for modifying, I'm just stupid and don't know how.

 

Anyone able to enlighten me in pointing me to some easy to follow tutorials or even better, coming in world with me and showing me first hand? ADD really hampers my ability to learn sometimes. Any help would be wonderful.

 

Here are links to the two items I am looking into combine:

Sisters of Battle Armor by Umbra (top notch work btw...)

Shadowhound Digitigrade Boots by !ASI (more great work, digi friendly gear, bit pricey but nice... :)  )

[Sassy Romano]

The issue that you have is that the objects you refer to are rigged mesh.  They are made outside of SL and imported and because the item is rigged such that the vertices move with the skeleton, it's not possible to edit it within SL for size or fit.

Modify permission for a rigged item will allow you to re-texture, add a script and link other items to it but that's it.

If you wanted to change the texture then you'll need a template around which to work.  Ideally, you'd have the UV map, just like that which you can download for the SL avatar.

The UV map isn't essential however and you can do it using the existing texture as a guide, though because it would create FAR too much dramatainment with accusations of copybotting/theft and so on, I'm not going to post here how you can do it although it can be done with the standard SL viewer without any difficulty at all.

To make items such as this, then you will need to learn a 3D modelling program such as Blender.  Blender is free and has fantastic support within the SL community.

[JakeCWolf]

Bollocks, I was afraid of that, so on a scale from 1 to 10 how hard would this be too do, like I said my ADD can really hamper my ability to learn things, but once I learn something I never forget.

 

Also what do you mean "accusations of copybotting/theft"? I'm still newish to SL and not familiar with some of the in world terms, theft is clear enough, what the heck is copybotting?

[Sassy Romano]

"copybotting" has become a general term for the duplication and illegal use of content, thus copyright infringement of intellectual properly.  In other words, its the term for "ripping content" as you might with a CD to create MP3's.

"copybotting" is NOT making something yourself that happens to look like something that already exists but rather an automated or scripted/programmatical (that's the "bot" part) method of duplicating ("copy") the work of someone else with you as the resultant creator.

To start from scratch with no UV template for texturing, that's probably off the 10 end of the scale by several orders of magnitude.  With the UV or texture template it comes down to a 1.  Where in your 1 to 10 scale the resultant figure resides as far as quality goes is down to your skills.

I'd be inclined to contact the creator and explain that you'd like to have a go at self texturing, would it be possible to have a copy of the UV map and any other resources that may help.  The UV map is specific to the product and it's not as if it's any use without the mesh armour itself.  I give away the UV map and additional resources where appropriate for my mesh items for this very reason, included with the product.  I figure that if some can texture it better than me (and many likely can), then go for it!

[JakeCWolf]

I think I will do that, prehaps the creator could even teach me first hand? One can only hope... :

Thanks for your help Sassy.