How to fix clipping in Second Life mesh clothing

Skin showing through cloth has three possible causes: the garment is too close, it moves differently from the body, or the body under it should simply be hidden.

What you need

• Blender with the garment and the body
• The mesh body's HUD in Second Life

Steps

1. Find when it happens. Standing still means a fit problem. Only in movement means a weight problem. Only with certain shapes means a fitted-mesh problem.
2. Fix the fit. In Blender push the garment out a little where it touches: sculpt with the Inflate brush, or use a Shrinkwrap modifier with a small offset against the body.
3. Match the weights. Re-copy the weights from the body to the trouble area and smooth them. Clothing that is weighted like the skin under it moves with it.
4. Check the extremes. Bend the joints fully and try large and small shapes.
5. Use alpha cuts. Tell customers which sections of the body to hide with the body's HUD, or set the garment up for the body's automatic alpha if it has that system.
6. Remove hidden body-facing faces. Inside faces that nobody sees only cause flicker and cost triangles.

Tips

• A tight garment needs denser mesh at the joints than a loose one.
• Do not solve everything with distance: a top floating a centimetre off the body looks wrong too.
• Test with a few popular animation overriders, not only the default stand.

Next

• How to weight paint clothing in Blender
• How to make fitted mesh clothing 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.