Why are some alpha layers not the right size?

[Venus Petrov]

I am a consumer of mesh products--clothing, furniture, accessories and my question pertains to mesh clothing.  I am so glad that most designers offer demos of their product.  I am curious about a couple of things. 

First, why do some designers make the alpha layer for dresses too long?  That is, there is sometimes a gap between my thigh and the dress due to the alpha layer.  I love the designs where the alpha layer is higher up under the dress or, better, when the designer has included a tattoo layer to make the area under the hem of the dress blend into the dress texture.  Whenever I try a demo where the alpha is too long, I end up not purchasing the product.

Second, some designers include textures in the pack with what appear to be alpha layers or pieces of them.  What am I supposed to do with these?  I am not a designer myself and I cannot modify the alpha layer.  Why are they there?

Thank you for any information you can provide to enlighten this consumer.

 

[Darien Caldwell]

Lot of questions:

"First, why do some designers make the alpha layer for dresses too long?"

They don't. I"m sure it lined up perfectly on the shape they used when they made the dress. However, Not everyone in SL is the same shape or height.  Whe the Avatar's body shape/size changes, that is accomplished by elongating bones and morphing faces of the mesh body. Naturally that means the 'skin' stretched over the 'skeleton' has to stretch. This stretching results in the Alpha layer edges also being stretched out of position.  That is why if you're taller/bigger than the shape the mes creator used, gaps will form.

 

"Second, some designers include textures in the pack with what appear to be alpha layers or pieces of them.  What am I supposed to do with these?  I am not a designer myself and I cannot modify the alpha layer.  Why are they there?"

Whily you may feel you don't have the skill to modify the alpha layers, many people feel they do, and in fact the process isn't all that hard. So many people demand these layers so they can correct the gaps themselves.

As well users of the old, oudated, Phoenix viewer have no choice, since that viewer only supports wearing 1 Alpha layer. They *must* combine these textures into 1 texture.

 

[Jennifer Boyle]

Let me add my experience.  I, too, am not a designer and never will be.  However, I really love mesh clothing.  I concluded that I really needed to learn to make alpha masks.  One reason was that some mesh clothing that is just gorgeous won't work well for me with the supplied alpha masks.  The other is that I have a lot of shoes that rely on invisiprims, which no longer work, so I need alpha masks for them.

Once I tried it, it was surprisingly easy.  When making them, I wear a tattoo layer with clothing templates on it and I start from the clothing template when making the alpha texture.  I use paint.net, a free download from here.  I also use the temporary upload feature of Firestorm to try out the textures.  As already pointed out, it may be easier to modify a texture that came with something than to start from scratch.

[Venus Petrov]

Thank you both for your replies.

It is a bit perplexing as I have used the 'standard sizing' modifications to get many mesh items to 'fit' however there are other mesh items that are advertized as using the standard sizing measurements but clearly do not fit without gaps when I try the demos.

I am learning that not all 'standard size' clothing is 'standard'.

[Sharie Criss]

Mesh brings more realism to SL - clothes that don't fit! I'm afraid we can blame the Lindens on this one - releasing Mesh without a parametric deformer (which would allow clothing to fit your shape MUCH better) without all this standard sizing nonsense and alpha layers (in most cases - something like a corset will probably always require an alpha.) I think the issue is more of awareness and attention to detail. Most dresses and skirts will flare at the bottom (there are exceptions of course) yet the designer's alpha has been designed to go to the very bottom edge of the mesh. This results in the issue described in the original question. The alpha COULD be stopped much higher as there is no need to mask bits that will never show no matter what parameters you have for your shape. And yes, creating your own alphas for just about everything you buy seems to be the only answer. Some designers have a little more foresight and have created masks in several sizes to help with this problem.