Jump to content

What type of free software to create Mesh Clothing?


Cassandra Visage
 Share

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4604 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Recommended Posts

This probably has been asked before but I'm completely lost.
This would be my first time creating clothes in SL and I want to try and use mesh.

But there are a couple of things I need to know:
- A free software to create mesh Clothing?
- What is UV Mapping?
- Does it cost to bring the creations; in-world?

Thank-you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Free Software:

For freebie softwares there is Blender and Meshwork (mac).... probably a few others out there if you search google.

If you don't like the look of the free programs, for less than the price of a month's groceries, you can pick up some pretty decent 3D software.

UV mapping:

UV mapping is a more convenient way of texturing. Instead of loading dozens of textures onto various prims and then fudging around to align them, a UV map just lets you unfold your model into 2D so all your texturing is straight forward on one map.

It makes work easier for the texture artist & saves a lot of stress on server, since these textures now take up less space.

If you've seen the SL avatar templates, these are examples of UV maps, since the SL avatar is mesh, same as future SL content creation will be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 


Cassandra Visage wrote:

This probably has been asked before but I'm completely lost.

This would be my first time creating clothes in SL and I want to try and use mesh.

But there are a couple of things I need to know:

- A free software to create mesh Clothing?

- What is UV Mapping?

- Does it cost to bring the creations; in-world?

Thank-you.

Hello Cassandra,

For the free sofware, try Blender .It's the best  there is being free.Note , however that it''s not for the faint hearted.Despite being free, Blender is a professional software and, as is, will ask you to invest some time in the learning process.

To describe what UV mapping is, I usually use the ball of paper example.Imagine yourself crushing a sheet of paper in your hand to make a ball.If you try to color it with a paint spray, some parts, inside the ball, won't get any paint.The best  way to paint the whole ball is to do it before you crush the sheet.That's what uv mapping is doing.It unfolds your 3D model so you can , after exporting the UV template in a 2D Program like Photoshop or Gimp, create a texture for your object.

By the way Gimp is free also, and it will complement admirably Blender.

 

You can upload 3 kinds of things in world presently :

-Images : textures for your objects or sculpt maps used to make objects called sculpties (try to right click in world a scuplt object and select edit.Go on texture tab and watch the rainbow window to have an example of a scuplt map.

-Sounds

-Animations : .bvh files used mostly in one of the Animation overrider you're maybe using..

Everytime you upload an image , a sound or an animation it costs you 10 LS.

Linden Labs are on their way to allow to upload meshes,like the one you 'll create with Blender for example, really soon.However it is not known how much it'll cost right now

Hope I helped you a little .

Have a nice day.

Athena

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For a listing of tools take a look at this:

 

 http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/Tools

 

Blender is probably the top of the line as far as free tools.

 

UV mapping is kinda like when you take the peel off of an orange and flatten it out.  The skin gets stretched out in places.  Well UV mapping allows you to use a flat texture and transfer it to a curved surface.

 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Uv_mapping

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Cassandra Visage wrote:

This probably has been asked before but I'm completely lost.

This would be my first time creating clothes in SL and I want to try and use mesh.

But there are a couple of things I need to know:

- A free software to create mesh Clothing?

- What is UV Mapping?

- Does it cost to bring the creations; in-world?

Thank-you.

As far as I know, Blender is the only free program that allows you to make rigged clothing for SL. What I mean by that is, you can model and attach your clothing to the SL armature within the same program. There are some others that you can model in then bring that model into Blender to finish the process like Wings3D for example.

I made a video series on the subject of rigging mesh clothing for SL with Blender:

. You may want to check that out to get started.

Here is a good UV Mapping tutorial: 



And, yes there is an upload fee. Right now, the price is still in a beta phase. The developers haven't told us the final price. They have stated that it will be a little higher than it is currently when mesh is finally released officially.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are about to reply to a thread that has been inactive for 4604 days.

Please take a moment to consider if this thread is worth bumping.

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...