Second Life

My Skirt in a Video!

Mon, 02/20/2012 - 16:02 — Maggie

*Does happy dance*

2 comments

Perception Shetland Wool Skirts

Mon, 02/06/2012 - 14:24 — Maggie

*Perception* Shetland Wool Skirt: Available on the SL Marketplace and in-world at *Perception*
I've finally finished some rigged mesh!
It's up on the marketplace and at my in-world shop, currently in five colors (grey, black, red, navy, and purple.) I'll probably put up some additional colors too.

I finally caved and started using the Standard Sizing, largely because I didn't have any better ideas. The parametric deformer should make sizing less of an issue once it's implemented, but it hasn't been yet and I may as well go with what's available. They're saying it's going to be specified on upload, so meshes made with standard sizing now shouldn't break when the deformer goes live. (And may continue to look better, depending on how things go.) Besides the five standard sizes, I did an additional one I'm calling "Medium plus" that's based off of Inhandra's shape, meant to fit a curvy shape that seems to have been left out of the standard sizing.

Eku and Ame were my guinea pigs, and great guinea pigs at that! Eku had some really great advice, although seeing her in-world was rather disorienting; I'm used to that adorable little-girl-with-a-giant-strawberry-stuffed-in-her-mouth forum avatar.

For you seamstresses thinking I'm crazy, it's Shetland wool because I used the GIMP resynthesize plugin to create the base texture from a photo of some Shetland wool. :P (Yes, I know, you still think I'm crazy.)

4 comments

More Second Life Shoes

Thu, 12/22/2011 - 16:34 — Maggie

In-Progress Sweater BootsIn-Progress Wedge BootsIn Progress WedgesRandom Shoe Parts in Blender Yes, I know it's strange, I'm not a shoe person in real life. But SL shoes are fun. And SL heels don't make my avatar fall on her face.

So I've been sculpting shoes, in various phases from half-started to half-finished. Some of them are getting there, though! I've worked on the sweater boots a bit more since I took this picture, I should have them up in-world soon.

I'm doing these as sculpties. It doesn't really make sense to do rigged meshes here-- between fitting issues and the fact that plenty of people still aren't using mesh-capable viewers, the advantages of rigging just wouldn't be enough.

1 comment

New Sculpties

Sun, 12/11/2011 - 14:32 — Maggie

Sculpted Ballet FlatsFree Christmas Ballet FlatsSculpted FurnitureSculpted Display FurnitureSculpted Curtains Yes, I've been working on stuff.. but most of it has been digital.
I bought the development version of Primstar 2 so I've been doing mostly sculpts rather than mesh. A lot of people still aren't using mesh viewers, and sculpties are more efficient for a lot of purposes.
I finished up the sculpted ballet flats I've been working on, although I've only got the black up for sale in my shop, Perception. (And the free Christmas version, which is sitting on the desk.)

I've done some furniture sculpts, mostly stuff like the clothing rack, shelves, and easel that I wanted to use in my shop.

The sculpted curtains still need a bit of work; they look fine, but the angle is off so they don't really stretch easily. I've also been doing them as planes, which makes them one-sided. I should probably try them as cylinders, but of course then there won't be as much detail. Eventually I'll have both plane and cylinder versions, I guess.
The bottom pieces of the jeans are also sculpted. Weird things happen at the ankle in SL's standard system pants layer, especially on anything that's not skin-tight.

Add new comment

Is This an Excuse?

Sat, 09/24/2011 - 21:16 — Maggie

Shoes on Aditi -- Solid
Probably not, huh? I'm still playing with mesh in Blender and SL. And playing with textures in GIMP, although less of that since I'm using the specular baking.
Specular baking is where you use the 3D program (in my case Blender) to "bake" the reflections of the lights onto the texture of the object, to give it a more realistic look. The specular colors generally depend on angle, so it's rather convoluted going about trying to actually bake them into the texture. It involves nodes which are essentially a pipeline of texture factors. I actually found the Tutoral on SLU by Googling.
Shoes on Aditi -- Animal Print
Then I found this blog post that directed me to the Rotating Brush Assistant GIMP Plug-in which was how I learned the easy way to create a stitching effect. ..and any other effect that requires the angle of the brush to change with the angle of the stroke. How I managed to live without knowing about this plug-in and how to make animated brushes, I don't know.
Shoes on Aditi -- Plaid
So I'm improving at box modeling, learning how to use materials and material nodes (or is that node materials? ..now I'm not clear on the difference. Or maybe material nodes are the nodes and node materials are the materials that use nodes.) setting up lighting, combining lighting types (it seems to turn out better with a couple of white specular/diffuse point lights and then some more specular-only lights in different colors.) effective/efficient UV unwrapping, using the different modifiers, and picking up some additional helpful GIMP skills like animated brushes.

So I've been playing with digital shoes and digital lighting effects and digital textures. It's not completely not real, though. I mean, anybody can hop onto the grid and see 'em. Fine, currently I'm just playing with them on Aditi [the beta grid] but I'll upload them to the main grid [Agni] at some point.. when they're ready. I need to do a few more different plaids, I think. And some more animal prints. And maybe something else. Polka-dots? Random prints, like hearts and skulls and stuff? I dunno. Maybe all of the above.
Shoes on Aditi -- Sparkley

Add new comment

Still Working on Mesh Garb

Thu, 09/15/2011 - 17:28 — Maggie

French Hood on Aditi (SL Beta Grid)
Yea, I'm still lost in SL. Working on garb! Yes, I know it's not physically real garb. Except to the physics engine, but that not real physics.

But anyways, I've been working on a French hood. It's not rigged, I think it'll probably work out better as a normal attachment.
French Hood in Blender
It still needs some work, but it's getting there. I tweaked it some more in Blender, and now I'm having trouble uploading it again. I'm not sure if it's because of the mesh or because Aditi is being really really really slooowww. So the second picture is just from Blender.

I did some more shaping around the part that goes over the ears, widened the bottom of the outer part, and pulled the veil back a bit to help with the clipping. Maybe I should shorten the veil a bit, because there will probably be clipping either way if it's not rigged and it's that long.. but I kinda like the way it looks. If I can eliminate most of the clipping and get it to look decent, I'll probably leave it this length.
It probably needs some kind of other trim besides the pearls, too.

Add new comment

Cloth Simulator! It works!

Wed, 09/07/2011 - 20:41 — Maggie

The Blender Cloth Simulator Works!I have a new best friend. The Blender cloth simulation modifier.

Fine, I haven't actually done anything interesting with it yet, but look! It makes the pixels act like fabric!

I used this video tutorial on Blender Cookie and it was actually pretty EASY! (Did I just call something in Blender easy? This may mean that something very bad has happened to my brain..)

This is way better than sliced bread. Sliced bread is all well and good for sandwiches, but pixels that behave like fabric are just amazing. And this is just the still picture of the applied effect!

*does happy dance*