How to Make Second Life Viewer Skins

Starlight Skins

Starlight Skins

Above is a new skin for the SL Viewer 2 (SLV2). Notice the Profile Description is fixed. Would you like to know how to make those kinds of changes? Well… this is not a tutorial. But, if you want to learn and wonder who to ask about making viewer skins, read on.

Hitomi Tiponi has made a number of skins and makes skins found in many of the TPV’s. As you read the notes and details in many of the TPV sites you will start to notice the name Hitomi. Amazingly Hitomi has made a new skin for the SLV2 viewer that fixes a number of problems and annoyances that I have with the viewer. You can see it in the Second Life Wiki: Viewer Skins/Starlight. There is also one for the Development Viewer.

LordGregGreg has a wiki page on making skins over on the Phoenix Wiki. See below.

For those using the SL Viewer 2.1 there are a few skins available. See below.

The SLV2 makes creating skins easier. It is not as clean as most would like it, but it is far ahead of the process for the SLV1 viewer skins. I have yet to try to build a viewer skin and it’s not really something I find exciting. I have seen an item down in the backlog (or is it in the JIRA?) about making a skin building tool. Until Linden Lab has all the stuff they want to do done I doubt we’ll see any movement on such a tool. Until then it is a skill with a learning curve and some complexity. Like much of Second Life, it is not like calculus or trig, but more like long division… easy but detailed and tedious. I think with some reading, patience, and a desire the average bear could make a skin.

The wiki page (linked above) does provide a nice skin for SLV2 and the skin is frequently updated. Read the caveats before installing. Version mismatches are a problem and SL Support does not help with messed up skins.

For those wanting to make their own skin see these resources:

Second Life Skinning HowTo/BasicsBasic instructions – Nice resource list at the end.

Category:Viewer SkinsGet skins here

Creating a Custom UI Skin – How to article on Phoenix Wiki – Links to free helpful tools

Second Life XML & Skinning – Forum section on SLUniverse

Viewer:UI/Widgets – Information on User Interface Controls. This is a new in progress page and is incomplete as the new SLV2 information is being added.

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