Create Clothing For SL

Creating clothing with Marvelous Designer, 3D Studio Max, Substance painter, and Blender with Avastar

Requirements:

  • Marvelous Designer 7
  • 3D Studio Max 2017 (Can use 2015 but 2017 recommended)
  • Blender 2.78 or Higher
  • Avastar 2.1.0
  • Substance Painter 2

Setting up the files:

Unpack the files included. You should have a blender folder with files within, A 3Ds Max folder with save files in there, A Marvelous Designer folder with Avatar files.

Lets Get started with Marvelous Designer

Setting up MD

  • (IMPORTANT!) Only one quick setup we need to do quickly. We need MD to use Quads and not triangles!
  • Click settings at the top –> User Settings –> In the new window on the left click on Others –> Then in the Middle under MEsh make sure Quad is checked –> click close
  • Close MD then reopen it again for the program to use Quads!

Adding an avatar

  • Open Marvelous Designer
  • Go to File –> Open –> Avatar
  • Pick the avatar you want to use from the MarvelousDesigner Folder you extracted earlier.

Making a quick Skirt in MD

  • On the Right pane you will see a silhouette of the avatar.
  • We arent going to get fancy for this quick tutorial. If we were going to be fancy we would use the polygon tool and layer cloth etc. But for the purpose of this tutorial we are going to make a VERY simple 2 pieces to make a skirt.
  • Click the Rectangle button at the top of the 2D Pattern Window:

  • Then make a quick rectangle about where you want the skirt to go on the avatar on the right pane:

  • You will see the piece show up in the 3d window as well on the left
  • Right click on the Rectangle you just made in the 2D window –> Copy
  • Right click anywhere now and select Mirror Paste. Move the Mirrored pasted Rectangle off to the right

  • Now that we pasted it we need to flip the piece we mirrored horizontally.
  • Right click on the Piece on the right and select Flip Horizontally.
  • Ok now in the 3D pane on the left, Middle mouse wheel click to make that window the focus
  • (Quick camera controls: Middle Mouse button Pans, Mouse wheel spin Zooms in and out, Right click rotates the camera)
  • (Quick Keyboard Camera controls: 1 = 3/4 Right view, 2 = Front View, 3  = 3/4 Left view, 4 = Right View, 5 = Top view etc)
  • Press your 5 key to go to top view and then click on the Piece thats off to the right, you should get a gizmo

  • Now move that piece Behind the Avatar so it will be the back of the skirt

  • Now we need to stitch the pieces together.
  • Click on the Segment sewing button on the 2D pattern Window

  • We are going to Click the Left side top of the left panel of the skirt fabric then Click the top part left side of the skirt fabric thats on the right side.

  • In the 3D window you should see the side has a reference of the stitch in all strait lines like this:

  • If your Sewing looks like this by accident:

  • Then we need to reverse the stitching by clicking the Edit sewing Tool –> Right click on one of the sides of the stitches you made in the 2D panel and select –> Reverse Sewing (Remember this step is only if your sewing is reversed!!):

  • This will straiten your stitches if they are reveresed.
  • Ok now lets do the other side and stitch that as well.
  • Click the Segment sewing tool and connect the Right sides. It should look something like this:

  • Now its time to Test this and see if it will hold (We may need to pin parts of the Skirt to the avatar if it doesnt work, I will cover that after we at least try.
  • Click the Simulate button:

  • Uh oh! Her skirt fell off!!!!

  • Lets fix this. Press CTRL Z to undo
  • Lets tack a couple spots to the avatar so its less likely to fall down to her knees. Click the Tack to Avatar button, Then click the Front top of the fabric, then click on the avatar where you want a front piece to tack to:

  • Lets do the same to the back piece as well and tack it above her butt. After you do this make sure you unselect the tack on button by Hitting the Select/Move tool thats next to simulate
  • Lets hit that simulate button again and see what happens!
  • Oh boy, My skirt is droopy:

  • We can fix this 2 ways, The easiest way is to scale the fabric.
  • Click the Transform pattern button and click on on pattern and scale the horizontally for both front and back By grabbing the circles:

  • The second way is you can click the Edit pattern tool and select the points individually and move them:

  • Ok lets click the Simulate button again and see what happens
  • Meh kinda diaperish. We want to fix that, but we dont need to CTRL Z undo anymore since it seems to place on the body properly now.

  • Also there is another problem. Seasoned modelers will notice the back of my skirts normals are wrong.
  • Lets correct that really quick (Always correct normals AFTER your stitching so that way the stitching stays properly)
  • Left click on the piece in the 3D window, Then Right click and Select Flip normal

  • Now lets delete our Tacks we tacked onto the avatar.
  • Click on the Edit Tack tool, Then click on the tacks you have on the front then press the Del Key. Do the same for the back

  • Always remember to deselect the edit tack button and select the Select/Move tool next to the Simulate button after.
  • Click the Simulate button to check how the skirt is going. If you still have a Diaper looking loose top part of the skirt like I do, then click on the Edit Pattern button and select the points of your pattern and make it a more a Trapazoid shape. (Tip: If you hold the Shift key you can move points along perfect lines)

  • Lets hit simulate again and see how it looks:

  • Not bad, but here comes the beauty of MD, we can interact with the clothing!!. See that spot on the top front thats kinda folded? Make sure the simulate button is still orange and active and that your select/Move tool is selected and click and hold on the fabric pirce in the 3D window and pull it up or down, it will interactively move it. Try moving it around to stretch it the way you want it to look. You can CTRL Z undo if it boinks up!
  • We are almost done, I just want you to know how to check the polygons now and how to increase or decrease them.
  • On the Left pane you will see some options that look like this:

  • We want to click on the blue Fabric looking one and select the wireframe view:

  • That looks like plenty of polygons. but lets just say that it wasnt enough. To increase the amount of polygons you have to do it for both sides. So first click on the front piece of your fabric
  • On the farrrr right side you should see a Property Editor window.
  • Particle Distance is the amount of polygons, The higher the number the less polygons, The lower the number the MORE polygons.
  • Warning dont go too low as your PC might catch fire! 15 or even 10 should be WAY more than enough polygons for most projects.
  • Heres what the Skirt above looks like with Particle distance set to 10:

  • Thats way too many polygons for what we want so I am going to leave it to the default of 20 (Remember you need to change all the pieces you want more polygons, so front and back etc.

Exporting from Marvelous Designer

  • Now is the time for glory!!!! Lets get this incredibly masterpiece out to 3D studio max so we can weight it!
  • Click the Transform pattern took in the 2D pattern window, Then Highlight all of your patterns (In our case its just the 2 pieces front and back)
  • Click File at the top –> Export –> Obj (selected)
  • Browse to a place to export it to, Name it whatever you want.
  • Then make sure the following options are CHECKED!!:

  • Click OK!
  • We are done with Marvelous designer part of the tutorial!

3D Studio Max

Setting up 3D Studio Max

  • The immediate first thing we need to do is set up the dang Units to Meters since SL uses Meters and so do most other programs!
  • Click Customize at the top of 3D Studio Max and select units setup.
  • Set the Display Unit scale to Metric

  • Lastly Click the System Unit Setup button on that same window. Make sure the window that pops up says Meters (Also make sure the other options match whats listed, Checked etc):

  • Close 3D Studio Max to ensure the changes are set!

Quick Camera and Controls Overview

  • F Key is for Front View
  • B is for Bottom View
  • L is for Left view
  • Middle mouse wheel button is for pan
  • Mouse wheel scroll is for zoom in and out.
  • ALT and middle mouse wheel button is for rotate the camera
  • F3 is for wireframe mode F3 again takes you back to standard mode
  • F4 is for edge face mode showing you the wireframe on the mesh without being able to see through it. F4 again retruns to normal mode
  • On the bottom Right of 3ds max is the following controls:

  • 1) This will swap to 4 window views or just the one you are working in
  • 2) This is the rotate type button, PLEASE set this to the one that shows in the image where theres a sliver of blue. Hold down on it and select rotate sub object which will look like the one shown in the image.
  • 3) if you lose your model in your viewe and you are like OMG where did it go? I rotated into space and cant find it. Click this button and the camera will put the object you have selected into view.

Importing your clothing into 3Ds Max

  • Open 3D Studio Max 2017 and select the file from the 3ds max folder included for the body you made the skirt for.
  • (Important!!) Make sure that your animation is on frame 170 at the bottom of the screen there is a slider bar after you load the file!!:

  • The reason we do this is to match the “A” Pose from Marvelous designer.
  • If the file includes 2 bodies make sure you hide the body you are not using by clicking the Eyeball next to it On the Left Layers Side of Max:

  • Import the object you created in Marvelous Designer Make sure to select the exact same options!:

  • The skirt should now be in the scene

Weight Painting in 3D Studio Max

  • On the layers pane on the left click the Down arrow next to the body you are using and click on the name of the body:

  • Now on the Modify panel on the Right side you will see Skin and Editable Poly.
  • Right click the Skin modifier and select Copy:

  • Now click on the Skirt you imported and Right click on Editable poly and select Paste.
  • If you get the skirt bending oddly like so:

  • Then click the Arrow next to Advanced Parameters on the modify panel and uncheck Always deform, then Recheck it again

  • it will be show properly now:

  • The files I included have animations in it to show you how the bends would work.
  • You can drag the Bottom bar to the right to have the Avatar bend around etc:

  • If you notice there are some bad bends etc. We need to blend some of those weights to make the bends look much smoother.
  • With the Skin modifier selected on the right, Click the Edit Envelopes Button.

  • Scroll down Until you see Paint Weights, Click on that, Then click on the … Button next to it.

  • You will get a painter option window. Set the Max Size to 0.1m:

  • This lowers your brush size. Now lets Blend the Problem bones, You can even do this while past the 1st animation frame.
  • Theres a Bone list if you scroll back up on the Modifier panel for the Skin modifier, Scroll up from where you clicked the paint weights and you will see this window:

  • From that menu select the mPelvis bone. (Keep in mind the bones with CAPITOL names are the fitmesh bones that work with the sliders. The one slight need for a bone thats not fitmesh is the mpelvis bone because you may need certain areas to stay close to the body, this is true with underwear etc too!)
  • Your dress will now color code, Anything RED is HIGHLY weighted to that bone, orange less so, blue almost not at all, and grey not weighted to that bone

  • We are going to take our brush and click a bunch around the edges of the red and get a smooth transition of the colors. (Do not drag the paintbrush, just keep clicking like you are dabbing the spot, which is essentially what you are doing)
  • it will look a little smoother like this:

  • Move the animation slider to see what happens when you bend a leg:

  • Lots of clipping so we still have work to do.
  • put the animation back to frame 0 for a moment then on the Right pick the R_UPPER_LEG

  • This is a fitmesh bone. Already you should see that the weighting looks poopy for that bone. It should probably be larger. Lets blend it a little then test the bend, so blend the edges by dabbing (Clicking a lot) around the edges of the yellow. Widen the blue area this way too.
  • Mine ended up like this:

  • This is much better but there still is a problem when bending the leg, a couple of holes:

  • Looks like we need a little more aggressive painting in this area instead of just blending it.
  • Under the paint weights button UNCHECK the Paint Blend Weights button

  • Next to your Paint Weights button click the … button and the brush options pop back up. Set the Max strength to 0.1. You can change your brush to something lower but you will have to manually enter it so you can even go to something like 0.05m

  • The reason we set the Max strength that low is because the brush is incredibly strong when not set to blend weights. You can even go lower but you must type the number in manually like 0.05m for example
  • Now click on the problem hole (easiest way to do this for the skirt is around frame 8 or 9 in the animation)
  • When you are not using the blend weights option like this you can Click and Drag, Just remember where you click plops a hard weight where you click. when you drag is smoothes out.
  • Now what happened to me might happen to you, where you paint the R_UPPER_LEG and there no holes there but now there is a hole above it. like this:

  • The orange area looks fine but i think the area poking through is the PELVIS bone is not weighted enough to that spot now so we need to fix that now.
  • In your bone list on the right look for PELVIS all caps. Click on that and proceed to try and fill in that hole. I would reccomend setting your max strength to 0.05m or lower and click and drag slowly over the problem spot.
  • You may have to click on R_UPPER_LEG again and fix holes you make there after painting PELVIS. the Hip skirt area happens to be the bane of weighting smoothly without getting holes. Thats why we are doing it for the tutorial.
  • Also you can check the Paint Blend Weights Check box again and try to blend the weights a bit. Keep in mind you will NEED to set your Max Strength of your brush to almost 1.0 when you have this option on or you wont see much blending of weights happen.
  • Keep using the methods of Blending weights, painting and swapping between the PELVIS and the R_UPPER_LEG bones until you are satisfied with the result.

  • Ok now lets do the same thing with the other side L_UPPER_LEG and PELVIS. Use what you learned and blend the weights first then paint them without blend weights on etc.
  • One thing I noticed after toying around with moving the animation frames was that at around frame 40 the leg comes through the side:

  • So we need to fix that. For my problem it seems to be the L_UPPER_LEG bone, So select the L_UPPER_LEG bone from the bone list on the right and Paint (Not blend) around that area.

  • You may need to check the other side around frame 50 (Keep in mind the animation frames might be different depending if you are using the same body I am in the tutorial)
  • Ok Lastly for the weight painting you may want to check the Tush part. Theres usually a bad weight seam on the middle of the butt.

  • The BEST way to fix this is to check the Paint Blend Weights option. Set your Max Strength to 1.0 and Click (Dab) the middle of the tush swapping between the L_UPPER_LEG bone and the R_UPPER_LEG bone. You also may need to blend the PELVIS bone occasionally with this for better look.
  • Once you are satisfied, Scroll the animation bar and check to see if you have any holes you may want to fix before going to the next part.
  • Set the animation frame to Frame 0

  • Click the Edit envelopes button in the skin modifier so it is no longer active.

Adjusting the Mesh in 3D studio Max

There are times when you may want to adjust the mesh, you know like push, smooth, or pull the mesh a little in problem areas, or maybe you just want to pull a piece of the cloth away from the avatar body a little.. Well we can do that with the editable poly brushes.

  • Click on the Editable Poly Modifier in the modifier panel:

  • If you get a warning pop up box simply click Yes. You can even click the box not to warn you again before hitting yes.
  • You should now see a plethora of options now at the top of your scree! If you dont then click Freeform at the top and you should see something like the following:

  • If we want to push or pull part of the mesh away from the body, Click on the Push/Pull Brush. Then set the size Strength and offset to about 0.100

  • Clicking and dragging with the brush on the mesh will pull the mesh out. Holding the Alt key while clicking will push the mesh in. CTRL and clicking will revert the mesh to the original state.
  • Here you can see where i clicked and dragged the mouse around in the upper spot pulling the mesh out (Doesnt look good but you get the idea:

  • Relax and soften work very well also for areas that may need it.
  • Keep in mind when you Upload to SL you may find spots where it is better to use the Push/Pull brush to pull the mesh away from the body a little for less chance of poke through.

Exporting from 3D Studio Max

  • Lets get ready to export
  • (Important!!) Make sure you are on Frame 0 of your animation!!! Otherwise you will have undesirable results!:

  • Click the skin modifier in the modifier panel so that we are at the top of the stack now before we do anything else.

  • On the left side where the layers are we need to UNHIDE all the bones by clicking the darkened eye icon so the eye shows, you should see many more bones in the scene
  • Hide the body, Head, and hands (hide/show as shown):

  • Ok Hit Edit at the top –> Select All or press CTRL A on your keyboard which will also Select all
  • This will select your skirt and ALL the bones in the scene.
  • Click the 3Max button on the top left and select The arrow next to Export –> Export Selected
  • Save as Type: Autodesk FBX and save the file to a location you will remember.

  • The export window will pop up after this.
  • Click the Arrow next to Advanced options, Then Axis conversion.
  • Set the Up Axis to Z-Up Then click ok

  • This should only take a moment.
  • This FBX file you exported will also be used later for Substance painter
  • Now we are ready to go to Blender/Avastar!!!

Blender/Avastar

Avastar install instructions

If you have not installed avastar before heres a quick tutorial on how to install it.

  • Download the latest avastar. I usually put it in the same location as the blender application. Something like: “C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\Avastar2.1.0
  • Open Blender
  • Click File –> User Preferences
  • Click the Add-ons Tab
  • Click the Install from file on the bottom of that window:

  • After this you should see a Object: Avastar Bento option (If you dont see the option you might have to scroll down with the mouse wheel).
  • Check the Check box on that:

  • Then Click Save User Settings.

Setting up Blender

  • Lets set up the controls to match other 3D programs a little more
  • Click File –> User Preferences –> click the Input tab –> Change selct with to Left

  • Then Click Save User Settings

Quick Controls Overview

  • Middle Mouse wheel button = Rotate
  • SHIFT + Middle mouse wheel button = Pan
  • Scrolling middle mouse wheel = zoom in and out.

Prepping your clothing for SL in blender/avastar

  • Open the blender file that matches the body you made the clothing for. File –> Open and look fore the body file in the Blender folder of the tutorial.
  • When you load the file you are going to see just some bones there. We want to Hide these IMPORTANT!
  • On the Right pane under scene you should see Avatar. Click the Eyeball next to that to hide it!!!!

  • Once you have hidden the Avatar it should hide the bones, we are now ready to import your skirt.
  • Click File –> Import –> Fbx –> This browser window is a little different so it might take a minute to browse for your file. But it will start to show up in your recent folder list.
  • Click on your file, then click Import FBX

  • OH my GOD! someone just Barfed all over my render window!!

  • Believe it or not, this is a good thing, this means that the bone data came into blender with your skirt. If you look, your skirt is in there.
  • Zoom in so you can click on the skirt. if it is highlighted it will show up with a bright orange outline and nothing else will be highlighted.

  • Ok now click the Avastar Tab on the FAR left, scroll down until you find skinning tools.
  • (Important!!) Make sure the Snowflake icon for apply visual pose is checked!!!! Then Click Unbind from Armature button.
  • The reason we made sure the snowflake icon is checked is because if it is NOT checked then the skirt will not be in the T pose shape and will not match the shape needed for export later.

  • Great, now we want to clean up this mess (this is why we had to hide the Avatar earlier.

  • Lets select everything in the scene. Press the A key twice on your keyboard to select everything
  • Ok we want to DESELECT the skirt so we have Everything but the skirt selected.
  • To do this we hold the SHIFT key and click on the skirt, if done right the skirt should no longer have a orange highlight around it:

  • Now with everything but the skirt press your DEL key on your keyboard, a tiny popup will appear that asks you to select? Click it:

  • If done right than all the mess in the scene other than your clothing should be deleted.
  • If you lost everything then CTRL Z and try again.
  • This is all you should be left with:

  • Ok now remember that Avatar we hid earlier? We need to unhide it now! So click the eye marker next to Avatar on the far right and you should see the bones and your skirt now:

  • Ok Now click on the skirt, then hold the SHIFT key and click on the bones, this will make them both selected and highlighted in orange:

  • On the Far Left make sure that the Avastar Tab is selected and scroll down to the Skinning tools. Change the Dropdown under Bind to armature from Meshes to Keep (Its Incredibly important to change it to Keep so it retains your weights from 3ds max!!)
  • Then click the Bind to Armature button After you change it to keep:

  • This will take a minute so be patient, the cursor might turn to numbers etc. the more complex your clothing is the longer this will take
  • Once that is done. Click on the skirt so ONLY the skirt is highlighted!
  • If only the skirt is selected then you will NOW see an option on the left pane for Collada.
  • Click the Down arrow for Collada and Then simply click the Export button to:

  • Save the file to a location you will Remember

Importing your clothing to Second Life

Bringing in your mesh

  • Lets test our mesh now in Second life before we decide to texture it!
  • Open your inventory and select the + icon and select Upload –> Model

  • Browse to your skirt .dae file you exported, Click open
  • For the Medium, Low and Lowest you can set them to 0. This is because fitmesh doesnt use those lower LOD’s so its a waste on the server and your filesize.

  • We dont need to worry about the Physics tab because it will not have physics.
  • Click the upload options Tab.
  • Check the Include Skin weights check box:

  • Click “Calculate weights & fee button on the bottom left. Then click upload. (Cost should be about 11L)
  • Wear it on your avatar and test it and see how it looks! (Keep in mind it may take a couple minutes to load a new mesh on your second life avatar, depending on what server you are on so be patient)
  • Tadaaa!!!

  • Ok if you are getting a lot of holes or pokes, you may have to go back to 3ds max and toy with weighting a bit then bring it back into Blender to export again. Also keep in mind you may have to pull some parts away from the body a little using editable polygon mode shown earlier in 3ds max then export again to Blender.
  • Keep at it until you are satisfied.
  • We are ready to texture it!

Substance Painter 2

Resources and how to install them

Here is an amazing resource for additional materials/smart materials for substance painter and its free! Just sign up: Substance Share.

  • To install new materials/Effects/Smart Materials etc. you need to put the downloaded (Unzipped) materials into your: “C:\Users\YOURUSER\Documents\Substance Painter 2\shelf” directory.
  • The way to tell what directory to put them into in the shelf directory structure is, whatever material you like from the site, make note of what type it is on the left side before you download the asset.
  • So for this example I want a sofa looking material so I found one and its located in Materials –> Fabric
  • So you need to unzip the file into that directory in your shelf folder:

  • I extracted the sofa and the files in it there.

Prepping your object

Remember the FBX file we exported last from 3Ds Max? We want the latest version of that FBX file. Whichever one was the one where you were satisfied with the result so it maps properly.

  • Click File –> New
  • Whent he window pops up click the Select Button Next to Mesh:

  • Select the last .fbx you exported from 3ds Max, then click open.
  • Click ok now on the next screen:

Quick Camera controls

  • ALT key plus Middle mouse wheel button will pan the scene
  • ALT key plus Lft click will rotate the scene
  • ALT + SHIFT + Left click will snap the camera to certain views, like Left, Front back etc.
  • ALT + Right click will zoom, you can also do this with the mouse wheel.

Lets get painting! (Very basic texturing Tutorial)

  • lets get familiar with a couple of things
  • First thing is first, we want to make sure we are not on the log panel so we can see brushes and Materials etc.
  • At the bottom of your screen, click the Shelf Tab to show your tools. (Sometimes when doing things it might swap to show you the log, simply click the shelf tab to return to your brushes etc)

  • Lets bake some texture files. We want to auto generate the base texture files, AO maps etc.
  • The textureSet Settings tab is on the bottom middle. Click that then click the Bake Textures Button

  • Leave everything checked and click the Bake the default texture materials:

  • This will take a minute, it will also show the log window on the bottom, You can ignore any errors about baking colors, since there are no colors yet.
  • Make sure you click the shelf tab on the bottom right again.
  • Lets make the base material of this skirt a good denim. On the far left of your shelf at the bottom, click the All option:

  • in the search box on the right of where you clicked All type in: denim
  • you should get a couple of materials popping up.

  • Lets use the blue one on the left
  • Click on the Blue Fabric denim and Drag it up into your layers on the top right, under the Layer 1

  • Once you do this you should now see a denim like texture on the skirt itself.
  • We can make some little tweaks to how the texture shows up on the Skirt.
  • on the Far bottom Right you will have a Properties for the fill we just applied.
  • The UV Scale will change the scale of the repeating texture on your skirt. You can toy around with that by clicking and dragging or double clicking to enter a number manually.
  • Under Materials make sure nrm is On for normals
  • The Roughness Slider will actually determine how strong the roughness will be of the normal map, how deep the holes are etc.
  • If you click the Arrow next to Technical parameters you can toy with more tweaking of the normal map

  • Ok now that we are done oggling the bump map, lets try something else.
  • The color of the skirt is pretty blarggg (Its a word i just made up) Lets change the color of it.
  • Right click on the Fabric denim base that we added in the layers panel and select Add Fill:

  • This will turn the skirt fill color white.
  • We only want to add a tint of a lighter blue so lets do this.
  • Click on the fill you created in the Layers and  lets change the alpha of the color to around 41 or so, you can click and drag on the number or double click it to change it manually, Then on the Bottom right under properties fill lets change the Uniform color to a nice blue by clicking on the box under Uniform color (When you click on the uniform color box, a new window will come up as a color picker):

  • Your Skirt should now be a nice little light blue, You can toy around with the options to change different effects etc.
  • one Recommendation would be to change the Roughness of the Fill to something lighter like this:

  • This will give it a more Denim look.

VERY Quick Masking Tutorial

A good Video tutorial on this is shown here: Substance painter masking. I start the video at the UV selection area but the whole video is fantastic!

  • Lets say I ONLY want to paint or put a material on the backside of my skirt. a quick and easy way to do this is by selecting the UV map dedicated to the back side of the Skirt.
  • On the Empty Layer 1 that is in the layers panel. Right click that and select Add black Mask

  • At the top click the Polygon Fill tool:

  • now on the FAR Right it will Say Properties – Polygon fill.
  • Click the UV button, Then click on the back of the skirt in your UV map window

  • If you look in your layer window, the Mask will now have a white area where the skirt was. Now on that layer you can paint only in that area and not affect the front.

  • (A side note, you can Right click on the Alpha Mask and select Copy Mask, Then you can Right click any other layer that you make a black mask and insert into mask, that will make a copy of a mask you made into the other layer)
  • (Important) make sure you put your tool back to the paint brush!

Adding Stitches

Remember this is just a VERY basic tutorial. to get fancy there are a bunch of tutorials out there to help you better understand substance painter

  • Lets start from square 1. Click on Layer 1 and press your DEL key. It should vanish.
  • At the top of the layers panel click the Add fill Layer

  • Right click on that Fill Layer and Select add black mask.
  • With the Mask layer selected, go to your Shelf at the bottom, Make sure that All is selected and type in the search Stitch
  • Then Click on Stitches Small

  • Now I dont know about you, but I am AWEFUL at hand painting strait lines etc. Thankfully for us there is an easy way to do this.
  • Lets turn the skirt in the 3D view to a side view:

  • Double check that you have the alpha mask selected in the layers, Then Click at the very bottom of the skirt and then hold Shift and drag that line and click until you get a full stitch line upwards
  • When you hold Shift you get a sort of strait line Guide for painting. Try to get one line like this:

  • Now lets do a secondary stitch line in front of that one:

  • Ok lets do something cool and click on the White part of the Fill Layer:

  • With that selected under The Properties fill panel look for the Height option you might have to scroll down. Move the dial from the middle to somewhere on the left and watch what the stitches do.

  • You should see the stitches will now deepen like this:

  • Lets do the same thing on the other side!
  • Make sure you have the Alpha Mask selected before you work on the other side
  • Lets rename the Layer Side stitches
  • Double click the layer name and rename it as Side Stitches

  • Lets add some detail now around the side stitch. We want to make the seam of the stitches. But we want it to be the same color as the denim for the moment.
  • Right click on the Fabric Denim Base and Select Duplicate Layer:

  • This will make a layer called “Fabric Denim Base copy 1”
  • Lets rename this to whatever side seam we are working on. In my case I am going to name the layer “Left Side Seam”
  • So we can see the changes we are going to do then UNCHECK the Fill (Another way you can do it is create a temporary fill on the Side Seam by Right clicking on the Side seam and selecting new Fill) But unchecking the fill should show the skirt in a different color which we want to see where we are working
  • Right click on the Side seam layer and select Add Black Mask
  • With the black mask selected Go to the Bottom at the shelf and Select Brushes and Look for the Default Hard Brush

  • Now on the Properties Pane set the brush size to something like 5.5 or whatever looks like it will cover the 2 stitches. You can check the size of the brush by mousing over the stitches and see.
  • The White circle in the picture below shows me mousing over to check the size of the brush VS the stitches.

  • If you See a black Circle instead of a white one. Look under the Properties – Paint and scroll down until you see greyscale and change that to the far right white:

  • Next we are actually going to click BELOW the skirt under the middle of the stitches, THEN hold shift and see the guideline and follow the stitch line to Draw a line following them:

  • Now in the Layers panel click on the Fill part next to the alpha Then click on the fill and Check the box ON again.
  • Then To the Properties pane and down under uniform color Play with the Roughness and Height sliders until you get the look you want (You might have to scroll down to see the Height Slider)

  • you should get something like this:

  • Lets repeat this process for the other side!
  • Ok Now lets get Fancy! Lets learn how to do Symmetry! YAY!
  • We are going to make some Rear Pockets. Lets turn on the symmetry tool at the top of Substance painter:

  • Now there should be a Red Pane showing you the divide of left and right.
  • Copy the Fabric Denim Base, Rename it Rear Pocket Layer Base, Uncheck the Fill layer so you can see what you are doing.
  • Right click this new layer and Add Black Mask
  • Then use a combination of the skills we learned to make back pockets. Shift and hand painting the alpha layer to something like this:

  • Ok Now lets make some stitches for those pockets. Under Layers pane, Click New fill layer. Right click that layer and add black mask. Then Rename it to rear pocket stitches
  • Make sure you pick a Stitches small brush:

  • Ok lets keep repeating the process and add some more lines different places etc. Some things you may need to turn the Symmetry off for.

  • Yay its coming along!.
  • For the purpose of this tutorial I am not going to go over everything like button making etc. You can basically do the buttons in the same manner as the stitches but use metal like textures or materials. then keep adding stitching where it belongs, maybe even a logo in stitching.
  • We May however need to bake the lighting because not everyone has advanced lighting in SL

Baked lighting

  • All this time we have been looking in material mode, which is fine and dancdy, but lets look at how it looks to people that do not have advanced lighting in SL.
  • Click the viewer settings tab at the VERY bottom Middle. Then where it says viewer settings mode: Material, Change it to solo:

  • Once we do that we see what it looks like without all the advanced lighting! EWWWWWWWW!!!

  • Lets fix this!
  • Click All in the Shelf pane and do a search for Baked
  • Click and grab the checkered baked lighting and drag it to the TOP of your layers stack

  • Under materials. Try playing around with the sliders, I ended up on these options:

  • Sun sky options are incredibly important. This is what I settled on, I changed the sun color etc:

  • To add additional lighting for better lighting you can click Light 1 and/or Light 2 and set the intensity up (Also the Angle)
  • For the purpose of this tutorial we are not going to add an additional Light
  • Lets click on Mode Solo to change it back to Material to see how it looks

  • Looks good to me!!

Exporting textures to Second life

  • Click File –> Export textures

  • (Important options!!) The top part pick your file destination (Anywhere you can remember)
  • I usually leave this png 16 bits
  • The Config NEEDS TO be set to PBR SpecGloss from Metal Rough for SL!!
  • Under texture sets no point to go higher than 1024 unless you are going to bring it into photoshop for tweaking

  • Click Export
  • The Diffuse map is the regular texture, The Normal is the Normal map and the Glossiness is your specular map!

  • Sometimes the Specular map works best for it.
  • Upload them to SL and apply them in the texture tab of the object in SL!
  • Try it out!

Final Thoughts

Well I hope this helped you out! Keep in mind this is a quick tutorial for all sections.

It would be very important to look at other tutorials concerning all the different programs we used today for more possibilities and details!

Enjoy and Happy creating!!!