Creating custom alphas for under worn mesh objects?

[Maxwell Graf]

I'm wondering if it is possible (and if so, what the process is) to make a custom alpha layer to be worn under specific items of mesh clothing. For example, if I make a V-neck sweater out of mesh, currently the upper body alpha can be worn underneath it to prevent the body showing through. However, this would block out any polys on the entire upper body. Can I design a custom alpha texture to be worn with that specific garment so that it would still, as in the case of the v-neck sweater, show the areas of your skin the sweater does not cover, such as the neck portion and the hands, etc? I would prefer to be able to generate an alpha to be delivered with each item of clothing, specific to its shape and coverage.

I am aware that currently you can only use a maximum of 4 alpha layers (though I may be wrong about this, if so, please correct me), though customizing them is something I cant find any information on. The older method of making an invisaprim for wearing with shoes required a script, if I recall correctly, which would make the entire prim alpha and this could offer limited control of coverage, but not sure how this can be achieved with clothing alpha layers.

Thanks in advance for any answers or help.

[Ashasekayi Ra]

At the moment, I start my alpha base by baking the diffuse texture (plain bright color) of the clothing item to the SL avatar texture in Blender. At that point, I can clean up the texture in Photoshop so that the only pixels in the picture are the ones that are supposed to be visible on the avatar. The rest of the picture is transparent to represent the parts of the avatar that are supposed to be invisible.

[Maeve Balfour]

Alpha masks worn on the AV are a perfect way to get a nice snug mesh clothing fit, and are fairly easy to make.

On the main grid, custom alphas are already being used in conjunction with sculpted clothing (footwear mostly), so will be ideal for use with mesh as well. (Assuming the user has a V2 compliant viewer, in order to use alphas - I think most are now capable of this as far as I know).

To create one, it is simply a matter of painting one in the shape you require over the AV - If you know how to paint clothing, you can easily create an alpha map (tons of tutorials out there in regards to clothing painting, usually also explaining how to create alphas as well). In essence, in a graphics progam you would create the alpha map (eg Photoshop, you would create an alpha channel, fill it with black, and anything you paint in WHITE will be what is VISIBLE on the AV, and any area in black would be invisible - save this out as a flattened TGA file and upload to SL; grey areas are intermittent levels of invisibility).

I'm not sure of the limits of wearable alpha layers - in V2 (which I use), I can apply multiple alphas simply by choosing to ADD instead of WEAR (eg, feet and torso alphas (this also works with tattoo layers)). However, apparently this isn't a common feature with TPV's (I know that Phoenix doesn't support this as yet).

I hope this is helpful to you - but yah, alphas can definitely be your best friend for clothing :matte-motes-smile: