Fabric patterns: how to make them match the upper and lower body?

[Danii VanDouser]

Hi all :-)

I recently started designing clothes for my avi, and I bumped into an issue which I'm sure has been spoken about before... I looked around, but couldn't find the thread...

Well, I'm designing a sweater, and I want it to be a bit longer, so I know I need to extend it to the lower body. With a solid colour, there's no problem; but when I'm using a pattern, I can't make it match on the upper and lower body.

How do you do it?

Cheers, 

Danii

[Trix Braveheart]

You can preview the seams using the AV Painter. You'll find it on Marketplace here

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/AvPainter-SL-Clothes-Design-and-Preview-Tool-Full-Version/166800

scroll down in the description and download the preview version, it's FREE...the save function is disabled in it.

I hope you are using Robin Woods or Chip Midnights templates to get the seams nearly matched up first

http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLPages/AVUVTemplates.html

Good luck

 p.s. I've been tempted on occasion to download the paid version, but, I just just fiddle with the previewer. I keep it up in the background and make each little change on Gimp save and then upload them onto the avatar form in AV painter...it's tedious, but, it does in the long run save time. And it takes a lot of the guesswork out of how things fit and match up.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Using the templates it can be pretty tedious.  You'll notice that the templates are not at the same scale (or resolution).  On the upper template you'll see that the front is a little wider than the back.....actually it's also a little longer than the back too.  And then the lower template is smaller than the upper template.  All that makes life difficult when trying to match patterns (which is why you often see clothing in SL that has plain textures at the matching points or belts to cover the slight mismatch where the template all meet up on the avatar).  It can be done but until you figure out the difference it will take some trial and error to find the correct scale for each template part.  You can use the beta grid (Aditi) to experiment with so that you don't wind up spending lindens for experiments that didn't quite work out (the lindens you have in Aditi are gimme lindens which don't come out of your Linden dollar account......play money, if you will).

 

What I've done (and it took me a while to do it) is to use Robin Sojourner's templates instead of Chip Midnights.  With her templates you can easily cut out the front and back and save as separate "sub-templates".  And do the same with the upper to lower templates.  I use those "sub-templates" to match my seams then when I'm done (or think I'm done ), I'll place my clothing texture on the un-modified templates (either Chip's or Robin's) and scale the front and back (or upper and lower) to fit the templates so that when you upload the final clothing item it fits the avatar properly.  That way when you resize the different parts of the clothing, the pattern also sizes accordingly.  It works, but not perfectly........I still have to upload to check and then tweak some and upload again.    Like I said it can be tedious............but, it's fun in a sadistic sort of way.  :smileyhappy:

[Danii VanDouser]

Hi :-)

 

thanks for your help! 

I am using Chip's templates, and I haven't had much issues with seams, tbh. It's only when i work with patterns. For instance, I was doing a top with a small flower pattern, and i gave up on making it longer, because there was no way the seams would match...

I'll keep on trying, and see if i can sort it out. Otherwise, I'll just come up with an excuse for it hehe :-)

 

Cheers!

Danii

[Sassy Romano]

I've never used this but there's this on MP https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Wiz-Blender-Cloth-Texture-Generator/1372420

[Princess Verwood]

I've never used the AvPainter, but there is a free version of it that is similar. You can't paint or make things in it, only upload your clothing textures to it for viewing. I've used it and it works pretty well if you just want something to view your creations on its called SL Clothes Previewer (http://metaverse.mitsi.com/Secondlife/Posts/SLCP/). Maybe try that and see if it can be something that can help you.

**Update: seems the link given previous was no longer available. Above is a new link for the SL Clothing Previewer

[Millicent Warcliffe]

Looks like slcp is Mac only, though. Gotta find a Windows-friendly one...

[Ry0ta Exonar]

I'm using windows version. Try this page. http://metaverse.mitsi.com/Secondlife/Posts/SLCP/

 

[Shelby Silverspar]

Hi Danii - you've run into one of the major annoyances in clothes creation. The lower half of the avatar template is right about 75% smaller than the top half, if that helps at all...

[Betty Doyle]

I use Blender to bake patterned fabric first and then bring it into PS as the fabric layer.  There is a tutorial here on how to do this: http://anothertutorial.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/secon-life-waist-seaming-tutorial/

It's a bit different in Blender 2.5 and 2.6.  Unfortunately, I'm out of town right now and don't have my notes in front of me about where the changes are.  If anyone wants the newer Blender instructions, I can post them after Christmas when I get home.