It’s really really hard …

It’s true. My drawing sucks big time, it sucks so much I just don’t feel like humiliating myself by posting a copy here. I have tried and knew how to do it but the design that I originally scanned and posted in here just didn’t work. Then I found so many beautiful wedding gown designs and I felt rather… useless. One bloody simple wedding gown and I still can’t get the top right. Utterly useless. I hope to get a basic done so that I can post a nice on here, to encourage myself. It is just so bloody difficult to draw a straight line and I haven’t even reached the shading and stuff. My aspiration as a SL designer is doomed.

I hit a snag!

I hit a snag! Exactly the title, no point in putting it any other way. The whole thing about drawing with the tablet proved more difficult than I first anticipated but the worst was the alpha channels and transparency. Basically nothing worked. So I went hunting for tutorials on alpha channels, got a few good ones but didn’t get it and the whole very hassle type of idea to it if you happen to design laces which requires some transparency and some fully opaque or whatever section. Then I went back to Mermaid Diaries, hoping to get an article about Alpha Channels in plain language, which I did, but I was still frustrated at how easy it sounds but how difficult it was in execution and then I found this article in the same website. It basically is like PSD files, without the need for alpha channels for transparency. I was so happy because THAT I am very familiar with since I created my website using Photoshop and PSD files and whole thing. Finally a break! Still have to read a few more articles on the issue of transparency. If all goes well, I will be posting some textures I will be using. Drawing though would be hell since I am still not used to the whole pen tablet thing. I shall persist!!

Who says it will be easy?

I just bought a Wacom Bamboo Fun small graphic tablet for RM399-00 after some market research. I wanted white but I went with the silver because it comes with free 1GB Apacer pendrive supposedly worth RM68-00. But white is so iMac and I loved it but then… RM68 free gift, who wouldn’t want?

Anyway plugged it in, installed, everything and used it with my Photoshop CS3. As you can see my message below which I wrote using the pen, I am sure you would be asking “What’s the message?”. Exactly. Still a long way to go before my first handrawn gown. Must practise, fun and yet frustrating. However cool graphic tablet if you ask me, even if it is silver, not my favourite colour or no. 1 choice.

Click the thumbnail to see the full version. My handwriting is not really that messy. It was Wacom’s fault! How to draw if I can’t even write properly?

Wedding dress draft 1

It’s a thumbnail so click it for the big version.

Ok, I drew (or is it I have drawn?) a wedding dress draft 1. What I wrote in it pretty much explained it all and though it seems easy which to me was easy at the time I was drawing it, I realised much later to actually make the so called 3 layers of lace or flexi bow and etc is not easy at all since I have none of the tools. But I am happy to see that I can still draw as in designing draw which I was very good at when I was little until I abandoned it in my late teens. In fact I was very good at hair blowing in the wind, dress blowing in the wind, girl standing with her dress blowing in the wind… anyway now my hand is a bit shaky but I was pretty amazed I could still draw pretty decently. I think I will try to make this wedding dress which of course will be white. I will now look or maybe create my own texture. Must look inworld first so as to save myself some Linden cash but if not I suppose more camping. The trickiest part had to be the veil since I can’t make jewelry and all but I have some ready clips to use by other famous SL designer so that wouldn’t be much of a problem on second thought. Nope, the problem is Linden cash and add having to make the dress flexy and draw it and animate it and whatever as the problems. Come to think of it the entire operation is a problem. Once I get my graphic tablet I am sure I can draw it easily although I have to learn shading, texture, pattern and etc but without the tablet and some useful tools inworld it would be a difficult but not impossible task. Hopefully I can get it done.

I must make a disclaimer though. If there happens to be a similar design, frankly I didn’t know about it. I rarely see wedding gowns inworld and rarely distributed free which are of decent quality. I came up with this design after 2 days of thinking how to make a simplest design to ease my torture in actually drawing it later. So this is my original design but frankly most wedding gowns are basically the same if you ask me. I am going for the more traditional and yet revealing look for no particular reason other than the fact I don’t know how to make puffy shoulder pads and such. Maybe later.

A promise though. If it is decent as in good I will distribute this dress for free inworld subject to finding someone willing to host the gown inworld. It may not be much but I suppose it is a stepping stone.

Now I must go back to drawing dress blowing in the wind, maybe add some hurricane effect to it!

Anyway I will document my progress online for those who are curious how does one make a gown for avatars. Frankly I don’t know myself which is great since we are all learning. If you’re reading this and you know a thing or two about drawing clothes, a bit of pointers would be most helpful.

Wish me luck.

Alpha WHAT?! Sculpted prims?

I was gung ho when I said I wanted to create my first gown. I did some reading, and was trying to find some textures when I stumbled across this website by Nicola Escher. I knew something about the importance of Alpha Channel and Second Life and clothes designing but I didn’t get it until I read that wonderfully informative article by the said Nicola. Now I kinda understood what it meant. Basically when I am creating a graphic with transparent or opacity background or on the image itself in Photoshop, I usually save the image as .gif or .psd bmp and jpeg/jpg does not show transparency or transparency with opacity at all. That was easy. But that won’t work in Second Life. Opacity and transparency in Second Life is created by way of manipulating the one layer in the graphics called Alpha Channel. There I read should only be 1 alpha channel or it won’t show. It must be sved as 32 bit targa file or it won’t show. It was getting really complicated. But after much reading I understood the theory. Black represents 100% transparency, white representes 100% opacity, the levels of grey from 1% to 99% represents the level of opacity which makes the image kinda see through but not invinsible. Ok I got the theory. Then came the bummer.

Prims. WHAT? I was shouting. Worse still, sculpted prims. What the hell? Basically the general template used by Second Life when creating a dress or skirt or pants or sleeves are pretty restrictive. So to make puffy shoulder pads for example, you must create your own sculpted prims as in sculpting your own base or prims. There are many objects or prims in Second Life which is ready made, such as a square box, a triangle, etc and you basically manipulate it to make it long, flat, short, etc and then apply the texture. Then you must attach it to the avatar. I know it sounds complicated because frankly I feel it sounds complicated. But I am sure with some more reading I can understand it all. I understand the concept but the actual execution of it could be a big problem since I don’t see the ability to not just resize but flatten, etc the said object in Second Life itself. Must check out the interface first.

Anyway I came out with my draft design and will post it later for all to see. Question is can I create it?

Do you have confidence in me? Please say you do because I am beginning to doubt myself.