Spinell

Gaia, you are a lifesaver! It works perfectly now. I still haven't tested textures yet, just wanted to get the model perfect before I texture it, and now the model's working perfectly. I actually think the problem was that I never even knew there was an "export to SL" option when I saved collada. It's very missable, tucked away in the lower left corner. Only when I went to specifically look for it did I find it. After that, I just the upload like I normally do and it worked like a charm. Thank you so much! Your explanation was spot on.

I'm telling you, for every hour I'm working in blender (2.6) I spend 2 hours looking for answers to bizarre problems on google... Anyways, Hello everyone. I'l still learing and I've come across some problems I can't find an answer to. I'm doing puffy sleeves in mesh, right and left sleeve, so after finnishing rigging and testing it within blender, I save each sleeve in .collada and go to the SL test grid to upload. No problems here, but the mesh wasn't moving with the avatar. Which was the mainr eason I wanted to learn mesh; I like the way the clothes move with the avatar. A little research latter and I realise I had to actually"apply" the modifier called armature (I didn't even know it was a modifier!). So I did that for both sleeves and saved a new collada file for each. They are exactly the same mesh, but with different dirrection. Now I go to upload and three things have happened. 1. The file refused to load, for no reason. It tells me to check the log, but I don't know what that means and I get no info on what the error was. After deleting the collada files and making new ones (and I had to this several times with exactly the same file), it stopped giving this error. No idea why, or how, or... *shugs* 2. the file loads and I can check the box to enable skin weight (note: if I try to check the box about bone joints, it gives me the loading error again), but after I load it and wear the object, it doesn't show up. If I rezz the object in front of me in a sanbox, there it is, but it doesn't show at all when I wear it. 3. Now, one sleeve has the problem I described in 2. but the other sleeve, which is exactly the same, modifier and all, doesn't let me check the box about skin weight. PLease, someone help me figure all these problems and explain to be, WHY are they happening. I want to understand them. I have now exhasted both my resources and myself looking for answers, tutorials, forum answers and everything else. I'm more than willing to share the blender file for you to look at (tthough, you have to tell me how to do that). Thank you so very much for any help you can give me.

Using Blender 2.6

Hello everyone, I'm still very new in learning mesh and baking textures has been something I have yet to get functioning properly. I have made my mesh clothing, rigged it properly and everything's in check, so I want to make the alpha layer so I can import this to SL to test how it looks. here's the steps I've taken, just to clarify: 1. Select the upper-body of the 3-part avatar, open a UV map window, go into edit mode, select all vertices both in the avatar upper-body as well as in the UV map and save the image. 2. Assign a material with a strong colour to the upper-body 3. Shift-select both the layers with my mesh clothing and the layers with the avatar so I can see them both 4. Select the mesh and the shift-select the upper-body of the 3-part avatar 5. go to render, bake, tick the box "selected to active", select from the dropdown menu "textuires" and press bake. Unfortunately, the bake image I get in the UV map doesn't correspond with the clothing at all. I have tried every option form the dropdown menu, but none show me the clean UV map that I want to use to make the alpha. What am I doing wrong? Thank you so much for the help!

Haven't had much luck searching for the cleavage modifyers, althought I found some physics bundles I have yet to try. But they focus on booby bounce, which is the oposite of what I'm looking for... But I haven't looked around the pricy stores, yet. Still, if anyone has any suggestions or if you've seen something like this in your favourtite shops, post the link. As for the deforemer, that's anotehr question I had. I DID think that mesh could squeeze the avatar. Bone structure I get, since I've already rigged clothing in blender and I understand how the bone structure works and played aroun with it. But as for the "fleshy" part of the avatar, I thought that mesh could change it. Never heard about the deformer, but I'll look into it. Is this was those BDSM content makers use to make those corsets you can tie up really tights? Because I've seen corsets for sale that actually DO squeeze your avatar; how are they doing that? I thought it was mesh clothing. Thanks for all the help. I'm really earning a lot!

Thank you Ceera, you helped clear up some of the questions I had. I knew that you had to create the alpha layersto hide the torso portion of the avatar, so I wasn't too worried about making the corset a little tight. I was just unsure how the avatar sliders would affect my mesh in the boob area. Including the slider values is, however, an excellent idea. I'll have to play around with the mesh in the SL testing grid to see if I can get the desired affect. As for the lacing on the back, don't worry, my design didn't include it. I'm making a dress in an Elizabeth II sort of style, so the entire corset is going be to decorated front and back, with no need for the straps. thanks you very much for the advice! I'll keep working hard on it.

Hello builders. I've been folloing around with blender lately, watching a lot of good tutorials and I models, so I'm feeling confident to start making someclothing for SL. I want to do a fancy corset so I researched up a SL avatar model and got to work. When I got the parts I wanted to make the corset, I started modeling and sculpting until I realised one thing: I'm not sure how the "boob" area works. I'm not sure what size I should do the cleavage are of the corset; in real life, if you tighten up the corset after you put it on, you would get more cleavage. I wanted to get that effect: my corset is going to be a little tight around the waist to define it, so I wanted that, no matter what avatar shape you're using, when you on this corset you would get more cleavage and the boobs would be a little higher up. Again, I'm still not too sure how mesh works with the SL avatar, so I'm having troble picturing how to make this work. Caouls I have a little help? Thank you!

Lovely! Thank you so much, guys. Some of the adjustments options I never tried before because I didn't know what they did (like the variations one) and I will try the highlights trick as well and play around with it. Thanks so much! You're tips are all so helpful!!

How did you do the highlights? Was it manually? I also got a great in-game tip to use the texturize option. It really helped.

Hi everyone. I'm still a begginer at photoshop, and by that I mean that I mainly only know 1/4 of all the tools that the program offers. So here's my dillema: I'm trying to make textures for the dress I', building in SL, but I just don't know how I can make them "look better" for SL. Can you guys take a quick look at what I've got and suggest some tools from Photoshop that I could use to make these textures look much better in SL? Here's what I've mannaged so far (excuse the noobiness): I know, they look terrible, but I really have NO IDEAD on how to make these better. Help out a noob? ^.^

Looking for some good Gothic/Dark Victorian locations to take pictures to serve as background for montages. Can anyone suggest some cinematic places?

Sorry, I kept looking at the tittle and had to go back to the first post to remeber: you were looking for BDSM gothic. Didn't want to ruin your thread. I'll leave now. Hope you find what you're looking for, though.

Can't really provide much advice there, since I'm a girl. BUT I'm very curious in checking out your mall, when it opens. If there's one thing I like doing doing in SL is window shopping! And I have to agree with Tiffy: when women want something and can't find it, we build it ourselves. Men don't usually do that.

Ok, here come the pics: I made a dress! PReatty much in the style I want, though it's still nooot completely perfect... I think some gloves are defenitely in order... Still, take a look and tell me what you think of the fashion choice: I know, I know, it still needs a lot of work; I was told my shading was absolutely horrible, but I'm still preatty much a begginer at Photoshop. T_T Still, this is more or less what I'm looking for: vampire gowns with lots of romantism and a touch of victorian fashion.

Truly gone forever? You sure they didn't just move?

Hi everyone, I'm trying to find a place in Second life. It's the popular Fujiwara Geisha Freebie Mall and this place is rather popular amoun kimono lovers (and freebie lovers). The problem is that this place moves around CONSTANTLY! I was only able to find it once and it took me about four hours of searching though every-single-link I could find on the internet, eitehr old or new, until finally, I managed to actually find the place. I, of course, saved the precious landmark that took me so long to find, but when I wanted to return to it a month or two afterwards, the landmark stopped working, telling me that the place didn't exist anymore and couldn't be shown on the map. So, I'm asking in the forums if anyone knows where this place is ad if they have a LM to it. They have a group, but unfortnatly, the members don't speak english, only japanese. I know this place exists in second life but it's incredibly hard to find. If anyone had any help they can give me, I apreciate it.

Found the problem: the stupid previewer isn't working right, for some reason. Looks like I was saving the file right all along, since it's working fine in SL. Thanks for all your ehlp, guys and sorry for the trouble.

At this point, I don't care what save format I use; I'm just desperate to get the transparency working. I've been trying to solve this for 1 day now and I can't find any solutions on the net. PNg or Targa, I just need someone to tell me how to properly save my file so I get the transparency working. Please.

I click "save as..." and chose to save as targa, with alpha channels. I'm doing it wrong? And I'm sorry if it's a dumb question; I'm just new at this.

Avid is more of the typical Gothic, though I did see a few dresses that had interesting details. Nominee is much more my style; I checked his blogue and fell in love with the Catherine design. It's exactly what I was looking for. The only problem would be the skirt length, but if the outfit would be modifyable, I could easily fix that. Still, I won't have the money to buy that design for a long time, but it's good to dream!

After many tutorials, I still can't get my alpha channels to work. I'm creating a top for SL and using a previewer to check before I upload. I preatty much followed this tutorial: http://www.mermaiddiaries.com/2007/04/day-195-creating-clothes-with-photoshop.html for the basics on how to create alpha channels, but for some reason They don't turn up right! Here's the screenshots of my photoshop layers, channels and the preview:

Ok, after a good night's sleep and a more trial and error, I finally fixed it. I still have no idea what the problem was, but at least I can now save with the option of alphas. Problem is, they're not working. I'm going to respot this in the builders forum (I thought that was only for prims and mesh, not photoshop/GIMP) and see if they can help me figure this out. My photoshop is just being stuborn. Also, great tutorial! It's actually the best I've seen and I've seen quite a lot. I'll keep this! Thanks so much for all the help, guys!

No, no, I HAVE the alpha channels already; I know how to make them. That's why I don't understand why it doesn't let me save properly. I'm using Robin Wood's Top template, so I have one alpha chanel for the front top and another alpha chanel for the back top. Could tis be the problem? That I have seperate channels for each part of the top? Still getting the same error message that wrote above, btw. Forgot to add three details: even after I flatten the layers into a single layer I still get the error; I checked for any smart objects but there were none; two of my layers are an "overlay 50% gray", which I used for making details with the dodge and burn tools. (I took that tip from here: http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/109/b7/80285/1.html)

Hi everyone. I'm making my very first top for SL and I'm having a problem: Even after I flatten all the layers of my project, when I go to "save as" and chose "targa" it doesn't et me check the box to show the alpha layers. It gives me a little error message saying "file must be saved as a copy of this selection". Unfortunately, I have no idea what this means. Any help? What am I doing wrong? Thanks for every tip you can give!

Hum, I have a very specific gothic style I like that, unfortunately, I have a hard time finding (thinking of trying to open my shop because of that). It's a combination of gothic, victorian and lolita. Basically, a style that would convei a sence of innocence in a vampire world; very romanticised and based on victorian fashion, mature enought not to be girly like lolita style (knee-hight socks, flarry, frily short skirts, etc.) but not too adult that would look more like a cabaret outfit (lots of tied corsets, lce or see-though skirts, etc). As for details: ornate bodices (from victorian), silk bows and headresses (from lolita) and black lace and ornate crosses (from gothic). And lots of red roses. What do you think? By the way, if anyone knows of any stores I should have a look at, please tell me! ^.^