Tutorial for making a furry avatar from scratch?

[amymist]

I know, I know. It's been asked and answered a million times.

I have a character (my own character, to be clear), that I'd like my SL avatar to look like. I know a little bit about modeling and texturing, but I have't the faintest idea how to apply any of that to SL. 

I used to have a tutorial on YouTube bookmarked, but when I went to check, it had been made private.

[AssaholicDirector]

It'd probably do best to make this on a program like Blender or even Sculptris. However, if you make it on Sculptris, it'd have to be reuploaded into Blender to make it low poly and to rig it. This is only if you want to make a mesh avatar. There's not a lot of tutorials about making things for Second Life on YouTube, however it is quite similar to making things for any other game. So just search things like "how to head on Blender." stuff like that. There may even be 3D artists who make furry characters that you can learn tips from.

Now if you wish to make the avatar out of sculpts then honestly I have no idea how it's done.

You can probably also find full perm mesh parts on MP or Builder's Brewery so that perhaps you don't have to do any actual modeling on Blender.

You may also be able to mix and match things already made and found on MP or in-world.

I hope you find what you're looking for.

 

 

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Have you asked in furry groups inworld? You'll probably have better luck with a focused audience. And for specific mesh modeling and texturing questions, try the Creation Forum rather than the People one.

Starting with smaller projects makes sense to me, but suggesting that just seems to anger people and I don't want that so I'll just wish you luck with your building.

[Nyx Karas]

Builder's Brewery is also an excellent inworld group for help with building, modelling, texturing, and everything related to that. They hold regular classes too, and I'm sure there are people there willing to help answer specific questions on how to bring models into Second Life. I also definitely reccomend Blender for your modeling program. It's free and there are a ton of tutorials out there. Blender Cookie is one website with a lot of info, and I'm sure you can find a lot on youtube as well.

Good luck!

[amymist]

Thanks for the adice, everyone! Blender is definitly what I would end up using, since it's what I'm most familar with.

Also, the suggestion to mix-and-match avatar parts is a good one. I think the head I want is one I'll prbably have to do myself, but I've gone ahead and picked up Orange Nova's Bifrost Bunny, and I'll see if I can make a new texture+head for it.

Starting with a smallert project also sounds very reasonable! I'm not sure how the difficulty of these things scales, though- would making a clothing item be easy enough, or should I start with something static, like a piece of decor?

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

Clothing requires additional steps, and corresponding skills, to get the item to move with the avatar correctly. I've read that mesh heads are animated, which requires multiple meshes and scripts to switch between them smoothly.

Static objects let you focus on learning how to use your modeling software, lay out a UV layer and texture, and start to get an idea of how to build efficiently for SL, like the importance of using low poly approaches and building good models for the lower LoDs. Diving in at the deep end is a lot of stick before you get to the nice carrot of uploading a finished item. And living with the item you thought was finished is a good way of learning what you need to do to make it better for SL. :matte-motes-smile:

Some wearables are essentially static items because they don't need to be rigged. I don't have much experience with this, but would guess that a collar or ears would do the trick.

Have you taken the mesh upload test yet? You have to do it for both the Main and Beta grids. Do you know about using the beta grid to avoid having to pay for every trial mesh upload? And using the local textures feature to do the same with textures?

[wherorangi]

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amymist wrote:

Starting with a smallert project also sounds very reasonable! I'm not sure how the difficulty of these things scales, though- would making a clothing item be easy enough, or should I start with something static, like a piece of decor?

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i think starting with a pre-existing kit which is mod is the way to begin. A lot of the furry kits are mod (I am most familar with the kemono, but there are others as well)

i just use the kemono as a example

basically the maker of the kemono encourages us to experiment and make stuff for the avatar. Is lots of youtube tuts and stuff about how to create appliers (textures) and is also a basic kemeno mesh model that can import into Blender as a guide to making own mesh clothes and attachments