While a lot of people use Second Life as a glorified chat room, for me one of its greatest attractions is as a creative medium. I’m very interested in creating new things for use/display there in addition to just having a good time. So with that in mind, I’ve focused on modifying my first avatar and her clothing.
Over the last 8 months, I’ve made 7 costumes for myself and others, including a dress for my wife. So I was very eager to see if I could transfer any of the clothes making skills I’ve picked up into Second Life. To do this, I downloaded the fashion templates from Second Life’s download area, read some tutorials, and studied the examples closely. Then like an enterprising Hong Kong tailor, I set about making a knock-off of something I saw on AsiaJam.com.
I did this by using Fireworks MX to import the Photoshop (.psd) formatted templates and doing my editing there which consisted of bringing in the image of the front, back, and sleeves of the top I copied from AsiaJam, and then fitting it to the template forms. Fireworks MX can’t save to 32-bit Targa (.tga) so I saved to 32-bit PNG. I then imported the PNG file into the free Paint.net which I use to save it out as a 32-bit uncompressed Targa file. I upload this file to Second Life and create the new top using the image file as the texture.
Using this technique, I created a skirt and stockings to go with the top. And now I’m on the lookout for more real world fashions from which to create Second Life knock-offs. AsiaJam.com has a lot of things I like, but I’ve also found that the A Dress A Day blog has some wonderful dresses and fabrics too! I’m also planning to create Second Life versions of some of the costumes I made. I should note though, that I’m strictly into the knock-offs for fun. Selling these things in SL just wouldn’t feel right, and probably violates trademark/copyright laws. If I ever want to get into the serious SL fashion biz, I’ll create my own stuff from scratch using what I’ve learned making knock-offs!^_^
