FASHIONCAD.INFO

INTRO SECOND LIFE FASHION SERIES

Open CourseWare by
Elaine Polvinen Professor,
Buffalo State College
Fashion Textile Technology

How Clothes are Made in Second Life

Clothing in Second Life is created with the APPEARANCE menu, adding TEXTURES, adding UV Mapped garments and creating PRIM garments and accessories that are constructed with the BUILD tool. The most popular of these PRIM garments is the flexi-skirt.

A very easy way to make your SL APPEARANCE clothing look more unique is to create and upload your own textures. Before you begin using this method you should understand how textures work in SL. Textures work differently in the APPEARANCE MENU then with the TEXTURE TAB in the BUILD tool that is used to create PRIMS. I created a video to explain the difference for you – pasted below is the About Textures in Sl video.

About Textures in Second Life
Getting Started with Fashion in Second Life Series. First in the series. This video explains the difference when using textures in Appearance and Create functions in Second Life.

Once you understand how textures work differently in APPEARANCE and with the TEXTURE TAB in the BUILD tool you can make adjustments when you create and upload your own textures. In a nutshell – the textures that are on a prim [like a flexi-skirt panel] can be tiled and flipped and set into different scaled repeats – this is not possible in the APPEARANCE. I personally think this is a BIG DRAWBACK for flexibility and creative expression using the APPEARANCE menu with custom textures in Second Life but we have to work with what we have.

There are lots of student-created free fiber design seamless textures on the Buffalo State island and I made a video that will demonstrate how you can insert them into garments you create using the APPEARANCE menu in SL. There is a color set and a grayscale set that you can add your own tints to. Pasted below is the Fiber Textures in Second Life video.

This is the SURL LINK that will take you to the location in Second Life [pictured above] where there are plentiful textures and pre-made garments for you to experiment with and the permissions are all opened for you.

PRACTICE APPLYING TEXTURES IN APPEARENCE
& ON FLEXI-SKIRTS

I have created a series of videos that will demonstrate to you step by step how to change colors and textures on UV clothing and flexi-skirts. Flexi-skirts are made from PRIMS. All of these items (textures, UV mapped garments, flexi-skirts) in the videos are available for you with the permissions open so you can modify, and or transfer them and customize them to make them your own. Here is a SURL link that will take you to the location on the Buffalo State island [pictured above] where these garments are available so you can follow along with the videos. All permissions on the garments and textures for the video tutorials are open.

Flexi 3 Fiber Texture -8 Make a Garment in Second Life

ASSIGNMENTS

1. Using the video tutorials above as a guide create one outfit containing several pieces using the fiber design textures that are available for you to use.
   
2. Using the videos above as a guide - modify the color and change the textures or add to the outfit using the APPEARANCE menu on one of the flexi-outfits above and select CREATE OUTFIT to save a copy of the new outfit.

Module Five How Clothes are Made in Second Life: TEXTURES