Over on the Insert Funny Name Here blog there is a new basic Materials Tutorial for those SL’ers building with prims.
See: Grown Up.
To learn how the new maps work see: Specular Maps Tutorial.
Category Archives: Materials
Flat Berry
Last Thursday Strawberry Singh did a tutorial on how to make a cutout for making Flat Whoevers. See: Making a Flat Cutout for Second Life using Photoshop. The tutorial is simple and straight forward. You get everything you need to know to make a decent cutout. But, there are some Photoshop tools that make the process much easier and provide a much better result.
The new Photoshop CC and CS6 (think it is in CS5.5 too) have a feature called Refine Edge. If you are trying to trim hair or fur out of a background, you have to learn about this tool. Check out the 10 minute video.
The video is made by Howard Pinsky. It is on the pro side, which for me means no rambling, tangents, or umm-haa’s. It is to the point, clear, and crisp. I subscribed to his channel. If you use Photoshop and are still learning, and who isn’t still learning, then this is a good channel for you. Continue reading
More on Second Life Mesh
Loki Eliot has a post up about his experience with mesh: Materials Post Mortem. It is a good article. You can visit the region named Escapades to see what things Loki has built.
…up stairs… at Loki Eliot Store
Loki is pointing out some of the problems when trying to build for ALM-Enabled people and ALM-Disabled people. (ALM = Advanced Lighting Model) I think it becomes clear builders are having to decide if they will build for ALM-D or ALM-E. Building for both degrades both. Continue reading
Materials
Juicy Bomb has a nice example of hair made using the new Materials System. It is really nice. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this type of hair.
There is also a cute picture of her in a Tulle Skirt. I’ll have to go check out that skirt and see how the demo behaves.
See the article: Monso, Lizzy hair.
Second Life Materials Experiments
Toysoldier Thor has a blog post that went up a couple of weeks ago. I missed his email telling me about it, an overactive spam filter, until today. For those that are new to 3D modeling and texturing of models, Toy’s article is a good starting place. Check out the 8+ minute video for a quick overview.
Toy’s blog has more information in a post: My Experiments with New SecondLife® Materials System. If you are new to this, it is worth your time to read the article and watch the video. The video is somewhat a quick summary of the blog post.
Second Life Materials Bugs
I’m enjoying the new Materials enabled SL Viewer. But, some people are running into problems. Here is what’s coming up:
Whirly’s Example – Notice the red colored area.
MATBUG-171 – Shiny objects or objects with reflections look shiny white. Description: When I activate the Advanced Lighting model in the viewer for the materials features, all shiny objects and objects appear shiny white as if glow was very high. — ATI Radeon HD 4870 OpenGL Engine 2.1 ATI-1.6.36 Continue reading
Second Life News 2013-26
We are midyear already…
Chip Midnight Materials Example (enlarge)
Chip Midnight, the maker of the clothing templates that many of us use, has put up some interesting posts about Materials over on SLUniverse. Chip is working with materials. The image here is an avatar he made. Continue reading
Materials Information
Everyone seems to be playing with materials. For those interested there are changes and new pages appearing in the SL Wiki.
- Second Life’s Light Model For Materials
- Case Study – Katana Using Normal And Specular Maps
- Case Study – Sequined Bear Using Materials
- Case Study – Example Wood Crate Using Materials