Originally Posted by Summer

How come that fashion reporter from CNN looks like a newbie crap?

Originally Posted by Hypatia Callisto

it is actually easy to do, nearly automatic. It's just a simple texture bake from V3 to the SL av. You can do this in modo pretty easily, and Zbrush as well (Zbrush is more complex though, and I am unsure if you can do it with the texture, probably not... but you can pull off the details from V3 in a normal map with Zmapper to the SL av, if you fix the uvmapping issues Zbrush has with multiple uvmaps).

Originally Posted by Cindy Claveau

Hypatia's explanations are much more detailed than I could offer, however I wanted to interject a fine point:

In order to create clothing or skins specifically designed for the SL avatar, it's best to use one of the avatar templates -- Chip Midnight has probably done more for the benefit of content creators than anyone I know with his high resolution, layered templates. They even have a color coded layer to help you match seams.

The Poser model/mesh is based on Poser's P2 (that's version 2), and is used for two main purposes: creating animations/poses or for trying on the clothing offline which you create with the mesh template.

Other methods may work, but in my experience the link between the SL avatar and Poser is only close enough to provide a few rudimentary tools. Clothing created for Poser normally comes with a bump map layer which is already baked into the SL mesh, so you'd have to really know what you're doing to come up with a good finished product.

For me it's just much easier to start with Chip's templates and create my own stuff.

Originally Posted by Chip Midnight

It can be done in Max using a projection modifier, once it's set up, but it's not easy to set up and far from foolproof, and would still require a lot of cleanup afterwards. I don't think it can be done in Zbrush but I could be wrong. Does Modo have a similar feature to Max's? I've never used Modo.

Taking a low resolution mesh and then subdividing it, sculpting it, texturing the new high res mesh, and then baking texture, normal, and displacement maps back to the low rez mesh, which is the workflow of modo, mudbox, and zbrush isn't the same thing at all. Not saying you're wrong, but I'll be surprised if there's an easy or automatic way to bake the textures from one mesh to another mesh unless one was sculpted from the other.

Originally Posted by Dolcecakes

I do have a tutorial for that, and use baking on my garments often. And yes, I did write a tutorial on it- not a great one, but I tried.

It is true that with baking process, the output is a flattened image. I and every other texture artist I know still goes through the complex-psd process for the bases that go into the channels that will produce the render. In most cases with baking, not only are you producing a color map but also maps to control specularity, light diffusion, and bump levels- so in theory, for light-baked maps, there should be a pretty obvious image trail to support the production of the final maps.

In this case though, the fine point is really in the whole distribution argument. Questions of derivative or not aside, it seems pretty clear that distribution was prohibited per the liscence.

-Nephi
(oh yeah. Cris can you PM me about options for resetting the email adress that my Nephilaine Protagonist account is using? I can't remember which one I used and I think it may be the one I don't have access to anymore)

Edit:
Those group messages were scary.

Edit Edit:
Yep Modo was made by a bunch of people who, if I recall correctly, got fed up with Newtek (they make LightWave 3d) and left to made a better product.

Edit The Third:
Yes, ogling a shape you are wearing in world is occasionally useful. Otherwise you are baking to what amounts to Ruth- not the optimal situation. Ogle records the mesh plus slider deformations, so it comes in handy when you are doing garments with loose sleeves, ect.

Originally Posted by Cindy Claveau

Hypatia's explanations are much more detailed than I could offer, however I wanted to interject a fine point:

In order to create clothing or skins specifically designed for the SL avatar, it's best to use one of the avatar templates -- Chip Midnight has probably done more for the benefit of content creators than anyone I know with his high resolution, layered templates. They even have a color coded layer to help you match seams.

The Poser model/mesh is based on Poser's P2 (that's version 2), and is used for two main purposes: creating animations/poses or for trying on the clothing offline which you create with the mesh template.

Other methods may work, but in my experience the link between the SL avatar and Poser is only close enough to provide a few rudimentary tools. Clothing created for Poser normally comes with a bump map layer which is already baked into the SL mesh, so you'd have to really know what you're doing to come up with a good finished product.

For me it's just much easier to start with Chip's templates and create my own stuff.

Originally Posted by Hypatia Callisto

I really can't say if Minnu is going to be guilty of breaking the licensing terms, it is clear that she's used the texture of Danae's though. If she claims "yes I used Danae's texture, I paid for it on Renderosity and I believe I have the right to use it" she may have a real leg to stand on.

If she claims "gosh I got it from 3dsk/googleimages and omg I think we accidently made the same exact skin and how dare you accuse me of taking your texture blah blah lie blah" then I'll have no respect for her and she will lose. The skin creation process is too complex to "accidently" make the same exact skin from the same resources, and the fact that Danae used several models in her skin creation makes this even more unlikely. It's quite literally impossible to do it.

Originally Posted by Hypatia Callisto

It's just a matter of setting up the two models to share a similar space and setting the bake distance from the high res object in the background to the lowres in the foreground, and Modo will translate from one set of uvs to the other automatically as it bakes, using a diffuse coefficient as your render output.

Originally Posted by Chip Midnight

Yep, Lightwave can bake avatar textures. So can any 3d app that supports texture baking and will load an obj file. They all depend on the mesh being used. It has to have UV mapping the same as SL's (or provide a method to convert it). I use the downloadable meshes. They work fine. You just can't bake shading specific to a non-ruth shape.

Originally Posted by Tary Allen

I do agree that it is an issue to be taken care of by their legal representants. And such an issue it is not to be public debate on a blog by them.

But what we can´t take aside was the recent drama involved in the stolen skins incident, I was there when people were trying to close the shop and as I'm portuguese i could follow most of what was being said by the brasilian theft. I do remeber people literally camping outside the thieve shop and preventing him from selling. Not that i disagree with that, but Minnu had a say there, she was strongly involved and actually said she will not be releasing any new skin if this content theft was not stopped by Linden lab.

That is why i do find odd that she doesn't have nothing to say now, even if it is only an official statment saying that the matter is being taking care in RL by her attourney.

At this point I don't know if she has stolen Danae or not, everything is plausible, but as a leading face of the Stop content Theft campaign it sure is odd this silence.

And if i were a costumer of MMskins, right now , i would be in a drama myself, because without a public staytment from the creator I don't think I would wear the skin.

Originally Posted by Vivianne Draper

I just want to say, your English is amazing. You must have been speaking/writing it for a long time.

Originally Posted by Vivianne Draper

I just want to say, your English is amazing. You must have been speaking/writing it for a long time.

Originally Posted by Cristiano

I am not a native English speaker either.

Originally Posted by Chip Midnight

Okay, that's how max does it as well. I've used it to create normal maps from the Poser models so that I can bake shading from the SL av with more complex anatomy. I use them for doing body suits, swimwear, and things like non-human metallic skins and such. I've never found baking to be very useful in regular skin making since I can't bake subsurface scattering effects, but I do a lot of planar projections of source photos and bake them back to SL's UVs. Modo looks like a great app. I came close to buying it while waiting very impatiently for GhostPainter to be updated to Max 2008/2009 support.

Originally Posted by Joshua Nightshade

I really think anybody working professionally is not going to not save and have backups of their stuff.

Originally Posted by Hypatia Callisto

And yes, its easy. It's just a matter of setting up the two models to share a similar space and setting the bake distance from the high res object in the background to the lowres in the foreground, and Modo will translate from one set of uvs to the other automatically as it bakes, using a diffuse coefficient as your render output.

Originally Posted by Daisy Rimbaud

Depends what you consider to be "working professionally" - if you mean "sole source of income", maybe. If you mean "hobbyist making some money" then no. I'm proof of that!

Originally Posted by Daisy Rimbaud

All very well if you have one of these rather expensive high-end applications ...

Originally Posted by Nephilaine Protagonist

Yes and no- the shading it bakes will be affected by the shape of geometry in the render, so say you have really large breasts on a mesh, the breast shading would be darker than if you baked from the geometry available on the sl site. But it conforms back to the shape of the UV map, so the actual placement of the darker shading relative to the UV map template would stay the same- its so hard to explain. Chip you might be better at this haha.