How to assign material faces for Second Life in Blender
What Second Life calls a face is simply a Blender material. Every material you assign becomes a part of the garment that can be textured and tinted on its own.
What you need
- Blender
- A garment mesh
Steps
- Plan the parts. Decide what customers should be able to change separately: body of the dress, trim, buttons, lining.
- Create materials. In the Material properties add one slot per part and give each a clear name.
- Assign. In Edit mode select the faces of a part, select its material slot and press Assign.
- Stay within eight. One mesh object may have at most eight materials in Second Life. If you need more, split the garment into two objects.
- Keep LODs consistent. Every level-of-detail mesh must use the same materials as the high one, or the upload fails.
- Check after upload. In Second Life edit the garment with Select Face and click through the parts.
Tips
- A coloured viewport material per face makes mistakes visible at once.
- Fewer faces means fewer draw calls: do not split what nobody will recolour.
- Texture changer HUDs address faces by number - note the order.
Next
- How to make a texture changer HUD for Second Life
- How to export Collada (.dae) from Blender for Second Life
Words you do not know? See the glossary. All guides: how-to guides.
This page is a written overview. In the SL Designers video courses you watch clothing being made from start to finish, and our Blender addons take over much of the technical work.