How to make VRChat avatar clothing in Blender
In VRChat, clothing is made for a particular avatar base and added to it in Unity. If you have made clothing for a Second Life mesh body, the idea will feel familiar: one garment, fitted and rigged to one body. Here is the road in plain steps, and how it compares with the Second Life clothing work our courses teach.
The steps
- Choose the avatar base. Decide which base (or bases) you are making the piece for, and work on that base's own model. Check its licence: most bases allow clothing made for them, with conditions.
- Model the garment. Build the piece in Blender over the base, close to the body and without poking through in the poses people actually use.
- Unwrap and texture. UV-unwrap the mesh and make its textures. Fewer materials and smaller textures keep the avatar's performance rank healthy.
- Rig to the base's armature. Use the base's own skeleton with the same bone names, copy the weights from the body and correct them by hand.
- Add shape keys. Match the base's body shape keys (blendshapes) so the garment follows its body sliders, and where needed add shapes that shrink the body under the clothes.
- Export to Unity. Export as .fbx, set up the materials in Unity with the VRChat SDK, and package it. Buyers usually attach clothing to their avatar with a helper tool rather than by hand.
Second Life and VRChat, side by side
| Second Life | VRChat | |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | Blender, then upload in the Second Life viewer | Blender and Unity with the VRChat SDK |
| File you deliver | Collada (.dae) and textures | FBX or a Unity package |
| Fitted to | Mesh bodies such as Maitreya, Legacy, Reborn, Kupra | The avatar base you made it for |
| Where it ends up | The buyer's inventory, sold in-world or on the SL Marketplace | The buyer's Unity project, then their avatar |
What is the same craft
- One garment is made for one particular body - just like Second Life mesh bodies
- Modelling over a body, clean topology, a sensible polygon count
- UV unwrapping, baking and texturing
- Weight transfer and hand-corrected weight painting
- Supporting several bodies means several fitted versions
What is different
- The route: FBX into Unity with the VRChat SDK, instead of Collada into the viewer
- Body sliders work through shape keys, not through fitted-mesh bones
- Performance rank (triangles, materials, bones) matters to buyers
- Sold as files on creator shops outside the world, not as an item inside it
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 VRChat'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 VRChat clothing?
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 VRChat clothing needs. The Unity and VRChat SDK steps are something you add on top.
Is making VRChat clothing similar to making Second Life clothing?
Of the worlds on this site it is the closest. In both you fit and rig a garment to a specific body that many people own, and you sell to the owners of that body. The difference is the last stretch: shape keys and Unity instead of fitted mesh and the Second Life uploader.
Can I bring my Second Life clothing to VRChat?
If the mesh is your own work, yes in principle: fit it to the avatar base, rig it to that armature, add the shape keys and export FBX. Meshes you bought, including full-perm ones, usually come with a licence for Second Life only.