How to start making mesh clothing for Second Life

Mesh clothing is made outside Second Life and uploaded into it. Nothing about it is hard on its own - there is simply an order to the work, and beginners get lost by skipping ahead.

What you need

• Blender (free)
• A Second Life account that can upload mesh
• The developer kit of the mesh body you want to make clothes for
• An image editor or texturing program

Steps

1. Pick one body. Choose one mesh body (for example Maitreya, Legacy, Reborn or Kupra) and ask its maker for the developer kit. Make your first pieces for that body only.
2. Model a simple garment. Start with a top or a skirt, built over the kit body in Blender. Keep the mesh light and even.
3. Unwrap it. Mark seams where a real garment has them and unwrap, so textures can be painted without stretching.
4. Texture it. Bake shading from a detailed version, then paint colour and material maps.
5. Rig it. Bind the garment to the Second Life skeleton and copy the weights from the kit body, then correct them by hand.
6. Upload on the beta grid first. Export Collada (.dae) and upload on the Second Life beta grid, where uploads cost nothing real. Wear it, move, change your shape.
7. Upload for real and pack it. When it holds up, upload on the main grid, set permissions and box it for sale.

Tips

• Finish one plain garment completely before starting a complicated one.
• Test with several body shapes: thin, curvy, tall.
• Keep every stage as its own .blend file so you can go back.

Next

• How to rig clothing for Second Life in Blender
• How to UV unwrap clothing in Blender
• How to upload mesh clothing to 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.