Gavin Vidor

Followed everything you guys said. Enabled Culling. Didn't fix. Then went to wireframe mode to see anything being stretched or out of place. The mesh geometry is a bit whacked compared to what I have in Blender. The two cuts on the collar are not in Blender in any form. Not even in weighting. I am 100% lost. Suggestions?

Hey everyone, trying to get my first mesh uploaded and am getting quite frustrated. I do everything proper in Blender get my mesh shirt looking good and then when I upload on the test grid I get missing areas and jagged areas around the collar of the mesh. One thing to note is it is not the viewer or my settings. It looks like this all the way through poor to high quality settings. So I assume it's in my mesh but my mesh looks good in Blender. I am completely comfused. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Yup. This all started happening yesterday afternoon. I'm pretty sure its a server problem with my account or something. Who knows.

Well a temp fix is to go to an SSA sim for a sec but eventually I will become transparent again. This is disappointing. Any tips?

I am having a huge alpha layer problem. Not sure if this is server side or not. Basically I can't use any alpha layers, if I do, it makes my entire avatar invisibile except for mesh/prim items. Edit Shape makes it reappear but as soon as I save, the avi goes back to transparent. I've tried rebaking, deleting cache, changing groups, taking off items, etc. Only does it when I Add just one alpha layer. Viewers I have tried: Firestorm, SL Viewer, and Phoenix. All have the same result. I also tried other alpha layers to see if that was the problem and it wasn't. All alpha's cause this for me. Also tried lowering and upping my settings to no avail. I'll include a screenshot to better show.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Gavin Vidor wrote: There are a plethora of mesh, building, and clothes tutorials out there but VERY VERY few for skins. Like it's the secretive "either you know it or you don't" deal. What are some of the processes they may use? Or better yet, if you are one how about some tips? Creating realistic skin is one thing but getting the shadows and highlights seem to be the hardest. Would you guys/gals agree? Texturing a human is no different than texturing any other 3d object. Basically you can make a big patchwork of photographs and blend them together or you can do it from scratch. The principle hasn't changed ever, so I wonder what you mean by "out of date". If you want to work from scratch and make your own lightmaps/occlusion maps/shadowmaps, you will need the SL avatar model, a 3d program like Blender and lots and lots of patience and hard work. (which can be quite annoying but also very rewarding). You can load the avatar model in the 3d program, subdivide it for a smoother result, then bake your own base maps. Colour and extra detail you can add in either the 3d program by directly painting on the model, or you can leave the 3d program open with the textured 3d model and do the texturing in a 2d program like photoshop or gimp. Most 3d programs will update their textures realtime, so you can see the result on the model. I can't give direct help on how to do this in Blender, since I use 3ds max. Plenty of others can and will, as long as you ask direct and clear questions like "how do I bake an occlusion map in Blender?" Here are some tutorials: Texturing a face with photo as base (The UV layout is different, but the workflow would be the same for SL) Texturing Skin from scratch in Adobe Photoshop Part 1, part 2, part 3 Here's a cool demo what can be done with mudbox: Excellent input! I think baking my own base map is the aspect I was missing as far as drawing and highlights/shadows from the there. I really do appreciate everyones posts. 20x more information than I have gathered searching on these forums.

Now that's a post! Thanks Poe for taking the time out to post all of that. I assume as well since skins are in the thousands everyone is gonna be hush hush. Oh well.

Theresa, thank you for the cut and paste reply. Shelby, thanks for laying it out for me and I completely understand it's a trial and error approach, but what I'm saying is unless you have a major degree in texturing it seems to be impossible to skin at least decently in SL and that's a shame. Too many skinners are quiet on their methods and tricks that might save a few people some time on making SL a more diverse place skin wise. What about male skins? Is there any like the Eloh female skins for men?

Hello everyone. I've recently got interested in the art of skin making. I was wondering if there are any MODERN tutorials out there or template kits that do not have the base shadows and highlights already drawn in. Reason being is I want to study how a skin is made from start to finish, not just the kits that have you replace certain features. Yes, I have searched this forum, marketplace, google, and youtube. It seems all the tutorials everyone is being referred to are extremely out of date. Are skin designers that secretive of their processes? There are a plethora of mesh, building, and clothes tutorials out there but VERY VERY few for skins. Like it's the secretive "either you know it or you don't" deal. What are some of the processes they may use? Or better yet, if you are one how about some tips? Creating realistic skin is one thing but getting the shadows and highlights seem to be the hardest. Would you guys/gals agree?

What I am looking for which I can't seem to find a tutorial nor a video explaining creating a piece of clothing from scratch. Meaning using a model, creating the mesh, uv mapping, weighting, and texturing. Basically an example of workflow from start to finish. Being a visual person and seeing the process from beginning to end would be far more helpful for new mesh creators than the piece by piece tutorials out there. Just a simple video of you creating a t-shirt or any other article of clothing from start to finished product. You can add text/voice if you want but it is not needed. I just need a visual guide that isn't broke up in to sections by different people doing different things. It gets confusing. Please let me know if this is something you are interested in and thank you for your time. This would be a paying job.

I appreciate all the tips and points in the right direction. Now, I have both Blender and Maya (Yes, legally). I'm not partial to either program. So help with either work. What I am looking for which I can't seem to find a tutorial nor a video explaining creating a piece of clothing from scratch. Meaning using a model, creating the mesh, uv mapping, weighting, and texturing. Basically an example of workflow from start to finish. Being a visual person and seeing the process from beginning to end would be far more helpful for new mesh creators than the piece by piece tutorials out there. I'd even be willing to pay for such video. Any freelancers out there willing to produce a generic video like this? Again nothing super in depth, just a basic start to finish. Then we could "google more" about advanced techniques. Any takers?

Thanks Chosen! What would be some of the better tutorials on how to make a mesh t-shirt for SL?

I'm somewhat new to mesh in SL but not that new to mesh modeling. My quick question to whomever would be kind to respond though is, would it be easier to find a fashion kit and just texture it or would be building my own t-shirt mesh be best? I mean if there are good base t-shirts, I don't really see the need to create more meshes if it isn't really needed. Does anyone know of any QUALITY fashion kits for t-shirt making or are most of the quality shirt meshes kept secret? Thanks! :)

I'm implying I don't have as much fun as others shopping. No need to read deep into it. Not a sexual preference thing.

Howdy grid-goers. Like many long timers, I've recently came back from a long break and am need of some good people to hang and chat with. Not really looking for romantic stuff. Just pure hanging and chatting. Been in world since 2006. I shop a little bit but I'm a straight guy, so I can only do it so much. I like sports, indie music, computers/web design, and a bunch more you will just have to find out. I live in EST time zone. 29 years old. Need some company and interesting things to do while in world. Flying solo get's extremely boring after awhile. I am drama free. Really laid back, and pretty sure I can make you laugh.

Thanks everyone. Lots of super useful tips in here. Mucho appreciated!

This is somewhat avatar related so I figured I would post it here. Basically, I've been playing for a long while and not until recently I wanted to start being more OCD about my inventory. My problem is I have over 17k items and most are unsorted and unorganized. I was wondering what would be the best way to organize a gigantic inventory? In world? Other PC software? Thanks :)