With the addition of mesh objects we have some nice possibilities for creating new things in Second Life. Ashasekayi made a great 6 part clothing/rigged mesh tutorial. Gaia also makes wonderful tutorials for working with sculpties, going from sculpties to mesh, and mesh. They have the basics pretty well covered. I want to get beyond the basics and find more Blender features. I have found several features that can help with modeling and in particular with making clothes. This article is about one of the Blender features.
Nice Clothes Example
Looking through loads of tutorials I’ve found some I think are pretty good examples of how to use the feature for making clothes look like they are made from real cloth. This is not a complete how to make a top. This is about a feature you can use in making a blouse.
Feature
Cloth Simulation – This is a feature in Blender that I have seldom seen discussed in Second Life circles. I wanted to explore what it can do and try it out. I used Blender 2.59.
Update: 2012-03-08 – The coming Mesh Deformer is going to change some of the thinking in this tutorial. At the time I wrote this and these tutorials were being made the thinking was using our avatar shape to make custom mesh clothes was a good idea. In some ways it still is. But, for those of us that sell clothes, not so much. The Mesh Deformer will allow mesh clothes to be adjusted by the viewer to any avatar. This means making clothes for the base avatar is probably the better choice.
UPDATE: 2012-05-13 – There is a Mesh Deformer Project Viewer available with the 0.3.3 version of the Deformer. You need this viewer to upload mesh that will use the Deformer. This the only SL Viewer that recognizes mesh deformation and displays and uploads it. A number of TPV’s have the Deformer in test versions.
You can get a copy of the Deformer Project Viewer from:Downloading Viewer Test Builds. I also have a link in my blog’s left column. You can find lots of information on the Deformer in this blog, just click Deformer in the tags section of the right column. There is additional information in JIRA STORM-1716.
Ashasekayi has made a 6 part video tutorial on making mesh clothes. The tutorial uses Blender 2.49 rather than 2.5x. That is good and bad news. The good news is that Blender 2.49 has been doing a better job of making importable clothes than 2.59. The bad news is everyone is moving to Blender 2.59. Linden Lab is working to fix problems with Blender 2.59 clothes imports and has it mostly fixed. Following are my tips to help get you through the tutorial, avoid some gotchas, and descriptions of each video part’s content.
Mesh Clothing Video Tutorial
I suggest you use Blender 2.49 if you plan to follow the tutorial, especially if you are not familiar with 2.59. I started out using Blender 2.59 to follow the videos. It is not too bad. Keyboard shortcuts are mostly the same between 2.4 and 2.5. When I reached the point where I needed to copy bone weights I ran into problems. Over the last couple of days those have been worked out. Read this article and you’ll know how to use 2.59 for the bone weights work. I used Blender 2.49 while I worked through the problems with 2.59. Then redid it using 2.59.
I remember Robin from when I was first learning about Second Life and how to build and texture things. She now has a new 3 part video tutorial out. These tutorials are nice because she starts at the beginning and explains all the basic concepts of how mesh objects work in SL. I think these … Read more
Or how tall are you? Really? There is a great post by Penny Patton in the SL Forum. See: A Matter of Scale – How scale affects content creation and land ownership in Second Life. Every builder should stop by and read the post. I doubt many people think this through before they build.
Gaia Clary makes sculpty and mesh tutorials. I’ve linked to several in previous articles. I think they are very well explained tutorials. Gaia has a revised tutorial out about mesh. Revised may be unfair, but I’ve seen an earlier version so… but you may find this a Finished Version of the tutorial. This is a … Read more
For those of us that blog, something to help bring more readers is a bit of the Holy Grail. Today Hamlet posted an article on New World Notes about the Facebook LIKE button we see on his site that brings in more readers. Checking it out, I found the links leading to the rather geeky version of the button. So, if you are a casual or super geek, here is how to get the button working… not that you need my help if you’re a supper geek…
There are 3 basic ways to install a new function in a blog; add a widget by uploading the thing, add a widget via the Plugins Panel, or add some code to the blogs programming.
