How to make fitted mesh clothing for Second Life

Classic rigging only follows the skeleton. Fitted mesh also listens to the avatar's collision-volume bones, which grow and shrink with the shape sliders - so the clothing changes size with the wearer's body.

What you need

• Blender
• A fitted-mesh rigged body from a developer kit
• A garment fitted to it

Steps

1. Know the two bone sets. Skeleton bones start with a small m (mPelvis, mChest, mHipLeft). Collision-volume bones are written in capitals (PELVIS, BELLY, CHEST, BUTT, L_UPPER_LEG). Fitted mesh uses both.
2. Copy weights from a fitted body. Transfer the weights from the kit body. Because the body is weighted to the volume bones, your garment will be too.
3. Check the slider areas. Look at the vertex groups for CHEST, BELLY, BUTT, the upper legs and upper arms. They should cover the garment where the body under it would swell.
4. Limit to four. Limit Total (4) and Normalize All. With two bone sets it is easy to end up with too many weights per vertex.
5. Test in Second Life. Upload on the beta grid, wear it and drag the body sliders through their range. Fix the areas that tear or lag behind.

Tips

• Volume bones only scale and move; rotation still comes from the m-bones. A garment weighted only to volume bones bends badly.
• Each mesh body is weighted differently. Clothing fitted for one body will not follow another body's sliders the same way.
• Keep a little space between body and garment at slider extremes, or use the body's alpha cuts.

Next

• How to rig clothing for Second Life in Blender
• How to fix clipping in Second Life mesh clothing

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.