How to make FiveM clothing in Blender
FiveM servers run on GTA V, so custom clothing for a FiveM character is a GTA V clothing item that the server hands to its players. This is the whole road in plain steps, and how it compares with the Second Life clothing work our courses teach.
The steps
- Start from the character. FiveM clothing is worn by the two multiplayer characters, the freemode male and female (mp_m_freemode_01 and mp_f_freemode_01). Bring the body into Blender with the free Sollumz add-on, so your garment is built on the real shape.
- Model the garment. Model or sculpt the piece, then make a clean low-polygon version of it. Game clothing lives on a tight polygon budget, so tidy topology matters as much as the design.
- Unwrap and texture. UV-unwrap the mesh and bake or paint its colour, normal and specular maps. For the game they are packed into a texture file (.ytd).
- Rig it. Bind the garment to the GTA V character skeleton, copy the weights over from the body, then correct them by hand around the shoulders, elbows, hips and knees.
- Export. Export with Sollumz as a drawable (.ydd) with its textures (.ytd), into the right clothing slot: tops, legs, shoes, accessories and so on.
- Put it on a server. The files go into a resource that the FiveM server streams to players, together with the small metadata file that tells the game the new items exist.
Second Life and FiveM, side by side
| Second Life | FiveM | |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | Blender, then upload in the Second Life viewer | Blender with the Sollumz add-on |
| File you deliver | Collada (.dae) and textures | Drawable (.ydd) and texture dictionary (.ytd) |
| Fitted to | Mesh bodies such as Maitreya, Legacy, Reborn, Kupra | The freemode male and female characters |
| Where it ends up | The buyer's inventory, sold in-world or on the SL Marketplace | A FiveM server's streamed resources |
What is the same craft
- Modelling a garment over a body and keeping it close without poking through
- Clean topology and a sensible polygon count
- UV unwrapping, baking and texturing
- Rigging: weight transfer from the body and hand-corrected weight painting
- Checking the piece in motion before you call it finished
What is different
- The files: Second Life takes Collada (.dae); GTA V takes .ydd and .ytd made with Sollumz
- The skeleton and its bone names
- The body: two fixed characters instead of many competing mesh bodies
- Delivery: a server owner installs your pack, instead of a buyer receiving an item in their inventory
Where SL Designers fits in
SL Designers teaches 3D clothing design through video courses recorded for Second Life, and builds Blender addons for clothing creators. The courses do not cover FiveM's own export steps. They teach the part every world shares: making a garment that is well built, well fitted and well rigged. See the courses and the tools.
Questions people ask
Do the SL Designers courses teach FiveM export?
No. Our video lessons are recorded for Second Life. What they teach - building a garment, fitting it to a body, UV-mapping, texturing, rigging and weight painting - is the same craft FiveM clothing needs. The last step - exporting with Sollumz and setting up the server resource - is something you add on top.
Is Blender enough to make FiveM clothing?
For the 3D work, yes: Blender with the free Sollumz add-on covers modelling, rigging and export. You also need a way to paint textures, and a FiveM server (your own test server is fine) to try the result on.
Can I move clothing I made for Second Life to FiveM?
If the mesh is your own work, yes in principle: fit it to the GTA V character, rig it to that skeleton and export it again. Meshes you bought, including full-perm ones, usually come with a licence for Second Life only - read it first.