State of Second Life Clothes Making 2022

The fashion industry in Second Life™ is massive and profitable. Ten years ago, I was writing tutorials for making SL clothes. Since then, I made the stuff I wanted and just coasted along. Then playing with friends inside SL I stopped making mesh anything.

There are a couple of things I now want to make. So, I started updating Blender, renewing, and updating AvaStar™. I find Blender has changed… a bunch, AvaStar has changed… some, I assume MayaStar has too – but I don’t use Maya.

There are also now more tools for making clothing for 3D models. So, I need to get my skills and knowledge updated and may as well add an update to the blog.

Here is what I am finding; (starting with a video)

The Amazing Tools for Blender

Pretty neat stuff. Not all of it is specifically for clothes or Second Life, but some of those tools have possible uses for those of us playing in and modeling for SL.

The Cadillac of clothing design tools is Marvelous Designer (MD). Design is done in MD and then transferred to Blender where the design is tweaked and rigged to the various brands of bodies. For me, the big drawback is the cost of MD. Slink people in Discord talk about some clean-up work needed for things made with MD.

The ubiquitous tool for 3D modeling by Second Life people is Blender (free – donation appreciated – All previous Blender versions are here). To adapt Blender specifically to SL modeling the standard addon is AvaStar. While not required, AvaStar simplifies the process and handles gotchas that are a pain to learn about and remember to deal with. Well worth the money. (See AvaLab.org.)

AvaStar solves the initial problem of where to find the Classic avatar body made by SL. Way back when I went through ‘how to find the SL avatar model’ and which was the best source. It is tedious figuring it out. But, that work has been done and the result is in AvaStar, which includes the SL Classic avatar model. Or you can go through my old posts in the category: Clothes Skins Etc. (234 articles as of 5/2022)

Blender and AvaStar are the basic tools for SL developers, at least for me. My other considerations for this update are;

Marvelous Designer – Individual License: US$39/mo.

Recommended for Blender 3 and up. Slink Dev Kits recommend Blender 2.93. From what I can tell whether you can use various things with the latest Blender or have to use the specified version depends on what you are doing. Meaning the only way to know which version of Blender or addon to use is determined by experiment.

I am passing on this as the only use I have for MD is for making SL clothes. The cost will eat up all my profits as I don’t make or sell that much in SL.

Gumroad’s Garment Tool Addon – Individual License: US$40

Recommended for Blender up to 2.93. Everything is updating so with any luck this one will update soon. Most 2.9x Blender stuff works in the 3.x versions.

Simply Cloth – Individual License: US$33 to $80

There is a free demo and the manual is online. Recommended for Blender 2.93 & 3.1.

Installing the addon in Blender 3.1.2 resulted in a series of errors with the demo. Using 2.93.1 the install was not reporting errors but I couldn’t get it working and the warning ‘written for 3.00’ popped up. So, I downloaded Blender 3.00. But I still got errors when installing. I emailed the author and asked about the demo.

About 36 hours later I got an answer. Basically, use 2.93.0. So, I installed 2.93.0. That was a bit tricky. The portable version does not unzip/install the same as other versions. The unzipped folder is misnamed, IMO. Not a difficult fix but it does not sort into the list of Blender folders the way I expected. With the misnaming, I also ran into problems with AvaStar, which may or may not have been folder name-related. Whatever…

Modeling Cloth – Individual License: FREE – DONATION

Free software. Recommended for Blender 2.80. Last updated September 2019. So I am concerned the developer is not going to provide future updates.

This is named Cloth not Clothes. A video is here.

Simply Micromesh – Individual License: US$27

Recommended for Blender 2.9 to 3.1

This too is for cloth more than for clothes. But it has an interesting use in detailing parts of mesh clothes. A video is here.

Cloth fx – Individual License: US$40

Recommended for Blender 2.79 to 2.93

Again, for cloth and specifically for tearing cloth. A video is here.

Molecular Script – FREE

For Blender 2.93

This is a special simulation tool for animation within Blender. It can be used to make static models of collapsed things for SL. A video.

Cloth Weaver – Individual License: US$39 & $49

Recommended for Blender 2.8 to 2.93

This is a clothes modeling tool. A set of videos is here.

Summary

I’ve got my AvaStar and Blender updates installed. Now I am relearning Blender… stuff is moved around and several things work differently. In general, things are more intuitive. But it is still a challenge to find and figure out how to do things that were muscle memory ingrained. (sigh)

I plan to write more later to get into my experience with Slink’s new Cinnamon & Chai Dev Kit.

Last AvaStar Update For Blender 2.79

AvaStar is updating. This is the last set of fixes and improvements for AvaStar targeting Blender 2.79. The next release will target Blender 2.8. This is significant because Blender is undergoing a radical change. Those of us with work-in-progress are likely to stay with 2.79 for some time. I probably won’t change over until my current projects are complete. So, I want as good a version of AvaStar as possible.

Blender 2.8 Pre-Alpha Splash Screen

Also, I will keep 2.79 on my computer for a long time in case I have to make a change in a project made with 2.79.

Machinimatrix made this announcement.

We are at the junction point!

The plan for the near future is:

– Release Avastar 2.6 around 13-july-2019.
– Plan for Avastar 2.6 to be the last release for blender 2.79.
– Start the final migration from Avastar 2.6 to Avastar-2.8 for Blender 2.80 around 15-july-2019.

Since Avastar is a huge Addon we currently can not tell when the migration will be done. We try our best.

cheers, Gaia

Continue reading

AvaStar 2.5 Released

A new version of AvaStar is out. The official announcement is here, AVASTAR-2.5 IS OUT. There is a link to the download on the page. You will find the detailed release notes link on the download page.

There are the ubiquitous bug fixes, of course. There are also a good number of improvements in how things work and how the user interface is set up. Check the announcement to get the overview.

Naufragé

Naufragé (castaway)

This release still targets Blender 2.79.

If you have been watching the various announcements and demos of Blender 2.80, you know it will have a very different user interface. I assume AvaStar will have to redesign its interface too. So, this update might be a version to skip… or not. It is sort of learn the AvaStar UI changes now and Blender 2.8 UI changes a bit later and AvaStar 2.6 (?) revised UI after that.

So, my current plan is to stay with Blender 2.79 until I see an AvaStar revised for 2.80. Unless there is something in 2.80 I just MUST have… which I doubt at this point. Deal with just one period of relearning the UI’s. Or not… Just depends on where I am in my projects… and mood.

AvaStar 2.5 to Release 10/27

It has been in the works awhile. Now there is a planned official release date, October 27, 2018.

The announcement is here: AVASTAR 2.5 RELEASE DATE 27-OCTOBER-2018.

Magicae House

Magicae House

The listed highlights are;

  • Improved support for Male characters
  • Improved Collada export of characters with custom Shapes
  • Improved User interface
  • Rig Converter stability
  • New Weight Copy Panel
  • Complete rework of the Help pages (text only)
  • Many dozens of smaller fixes

Coming behind this update is going to be the Blender update with its heavily reworked User Interface. Ugh… I have no idea how this Blender change will affect AvaStar. I do know I will suddenly be looking for common tools again and relearning Blender. So, I suppose that means AvaStar too.

If you have purchased support, this is a free update. I have and I plan to update my plan when it expires.

Second Life: Updating AvaStar with Slink Dev Kit

I happen to like Slink, so I build what I can wear. For me that means using the Slink Developer Kit. Finishing some stuff up I decided it is time to update my AvaStar, Blender, and Slink Kit before moving on to new things. Also, I wanted to try out the AvaStar feature that adds Dev Kits.

AvaStar 2.4-1 and Slink v9

My previous updates I have written about here; AvaStar – Add the Slink 2017 Model – (5/2017) and AvaStar Tutorial: Adding the Slink Model to AvaStar – (3/2017).

Blender Update

The highest Blender I have is version 2.79c. This can get a bit confusing. The official release is 2.79b according to the Blender.org site. The main download provides an MSI file for use with Windows. This is a basic Windows install file. Not what I suspect most developers want. We want the ‘Archive’ file, the one that allows us to have multiple versions installed. You get that from the same download page just look in ‘other versions’ and grab the ZIP file. Continue reading

Second Life News 2018 w30

Servers

There is no Server-Scripting UG meeting this week. Seems the SL Summit meeting preempts it. Nor is there a deploys post this week.

However, my in-world monitor says my main channel region was restarted today. That region is running version 18.06.14.516450. This is the same version it ran last week. So, no roll out just a restart.

::Beached::

::Beached::

From last week’s Beta Server UG meeting we know there are no new versions expected to roll out to the RC channels.

Viewers

Second Life Bugsplat Viewer version 5.1.7.518003 – This is a new RC viewer version. The release notes describe the viewer version as;

This viewer should be functionally identical to the current release viewer, save that if it crashes, the crash report is sent to BugSplat rather than to Linden’s crash reporting system. Continue reading

AvaStar and Slink March 2018

AvaStar is at version 2.3-1 released 17 January 2018 according to announcements in the Blender-AvaStar group. In the products page where I download the file, it is labeled 2.3-2. The release is called a bug fix. It has 10 bug fixes and 4 improvements. See the changelog here. Notice the Dev Kit manager…

Blender is currently at version 2.79a. The Blender download is here. The Portable version is the version I use so I can have multiple versions installed. I’ll explain why later.

Blender Download March 2018

Today I see Slink released an update to their Dev Kit for AvaStar. I find the email got to me yesterday 3/19. It tells me, “The bodies in these kits have been reworked from the ground up, for better geometry, more accurate weighting and better fit!” (Emphasis is theirs.)

Also, Slink Development now has a Discord Server for developers. The link is in the email. Siddean is available 9 to 5 Eastern Australian Time… Australia has 13 time zones… O.O  so… divide by 13 then 24 and multiply by… and turn the world around once… and that gives us 4pm to 12AM SLT/PT. Technically, they are 17 to 18 hours ahead of California, depending on Daylight Saving Time. If it is Monday here it is likely Tuesday there.

If it weren’t for the International Date Line they would be 5 to 6 hours behind California.  Continue reading

AvaStar Videos 2018

The people at Machinimatrix are asking what tutorials are needed for the new AvaStar 2 (now v2.1.1). They are planning to start producing new videos. So, this is your chance to suggest what is needed.

Machinimatrix: What videos are needed most ?

Building a snowman

Building a snowman

We are going into video production again. However, this time we want to make the videos on demand and not on what we think is needed. So here is your chance to influence what videos we will create first.