Designing a new collar
Whenever i start a new outfit, i like to see what i can do differently, how can i make it a bit more interesting. collars have been on my mind a lot lately. i've seen a few new designs in world that got me inspired. ways that people have use sculpted prims to make them more dimensional, look more like real collars. something i've been wanting to work on. so i thought, for my next outfit, i'd try to come up with a new collar style.
i decided to start the design in C4D, using a basic SL prim shape ... in this case a box. i was able to flatten it down to a thin box and curve it around the avatar shape, pushing and pulling points to get it into the shape that i wanted. i had already downloaded the SL avatar shape, so i was able to work around the basic body shape as i worked with the collar.
once i had the basic shape i wanted, i was able to export an .obj file from C4D and open it in hexagon, another 3D modeling program, which has the ability to export SL sculpt map TGA files. I could have used hexagon for the modeling, but i prefer the tools and interface in Cinema 4D. unfortunately C4D doesn't export sculpt maps, but the export process in hexagon is quick and gets the job done.
after uploading the sculpt maps to SL, i was able to see how the pieces translated in world. since i was designing this collar for men, i quickly switched into my male avatar shape, and hopped onto a pose stand. with my avatar stabilized, i could size the collar and check the position to see if the 3D model needed any tweaking. in this case, i discovered the collar edge around back needed to curve in towards the neck a bit more, so i hopped back into C4D, made the change, re-exported, did the hexagon translation into a tga, and uploaded the new sculpt map to SL.
Now that i had an idea of how the collar was going to look, i could go over to photoshop and create the fabric texture. the extended version of photoshop lets you open .obj files so you can view and paint the models in 3D.
working in photoshop, i finalized the textures on the collar, and the rest of the outfit. and brought the textures back into second life to create the final outfit.
and a new collar is born!
=^.^= blakopal
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