Beginner Alpha Editing

[Bonita!]

Editing alphas isnt as hard as you think! :)
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The mesh I am using looks like this:
http://89.149.194.98/sim2-fashion/datenbank/content/images/meshes/clothingmesh_red_tex_stola_mini.jpg

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page1.png
This is a dress I want to skin, so let's get started. I have just the core image ready, and now we can begin.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page2.png
First thing I want to do is open my body~stdMatNormalMapTextureName.bmp. Then I want to paste my image onto the file.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page3.png
As you can see, it does not fit all the way so I will go to Tools>Transform Tools>Scale.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page4.png
I am going to scale it so it all the parts fit in.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page5.png
Now that that is done, I am going to anchor the layer so I can focus on the other parts of it. But, as you can see, there are still some white parts of it showing.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page6.png
I am going to black in the white parts that are showing, above the top part. Do not fill in the other white parts that are showing.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page7.png
To make time shorter, you can repaste your skin image onto your file and allign it with the original image. After this is done, you are going to fill it in with the white color...

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page8.png
So it looks like this. But, there are still some parts of the orignal image. Just fill it in with the brush tool.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j261/G_S_2006/Page9.png
Refreshed in BS it looks like this.

For the finished product after adding textures, I have this:
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h261/cacheelegant/snapshot_b1c7a141_f1c7a184.jpg

Hope you liked it. :) Thanks to:
Sims 2 Fashion (www.sims2-fasion.de) For their meshes.
Maxis for BS
And the many tuts that taught me to skin. :)

[Drakesecaravdis]

ok so I have an image of the shirt I wanna use but I'm having intense difficulties. how does the mesh figure in w/the body? do I need to download a mesh before doing anything else?
i get stuck at trying to copying the image to the file. i'm not sure if I'm using the right file but the whole canvas kinda doesn't look right, that's all I know.
*you can see from the pic that the neck and arms of the person is shown and I don't know if that makes a difference. I would crop it more but that would take away the shoulders and sleeves of the shirt. the only way I know how to crop is straight.
*also I had to crop the bottom of the shirt, otherwise I would use the guy's guitar as my outfit cuz the guitar is covering the bottom. does that mess the whole thing up?
here's the picture of what I've done so far:
http://img115.imageshack.us/my.php?image=personli7.png

[HystericalParoxysm]

Um... Drake... you can't use that picture for that purpose. It's not even nearly straight-on. To photoskin like is being shown here, you need to have straight-on, flat, big pics. I suggest you go read some of Faylen's clothing recolouring tutorials to get some of the basics down.

[Bonita!]

Yes, that shirt is not straight on, so you can not skin it. If what straight on you could take the clone tool and clone a part of the shirt to cover his arms.

[Drakesecaravdis]

i'm new to this whole artist thing. how do I use the clone tool? cuz when I go to clone and click anywhere on the picture it doesn't do anything except show that cancel symbol.

[HystericalParoxysm]

Err, you COULD use the clone tool for that, but what the clone tool does is pick up a little spot of image and drop it somewhere else. While you certainly could cover a part of a shirt with it, it's not going to look right. If you want to make that shirt, your better options are going to be:
1) Find a better picture of that shirt, straight on, with as little extra lighting, shadow, folds, etc., and nothing in the way to use to photoskin it.
2) Recreate the shirt by recolouring an existing Maxis tee shirt to the base colour of it, and then slowly adding the design to the shirt on a new layer by hand painting the design on, bit by bit.

If you need to know how to use a particular tool, check out the help file for your graphics editing program... they usually tell you exactly what you need to do for each tool, and offer some great tips, too. :)

[Bonita!]

Yes, I agree. If you can find a better pic, even without folds, etc, you can make your and handskin the dessign back on.

[Bonita!]

Yes, I agree. If you can find a better pic, even without folds, etc, you can make your and handskin the dessign back on.

[Drakesecaravdis]

i can't find any pictures of shirts that come anywhere close to that but I decided to use a regular pic, like oh say this one:
http://img210.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1388857292fb7.jpg
^will I be able to make a shirt w/this?
I tried it anyway w/this picture but it didn't show up. i think I was supposed to do something extra so how'd you get from the next to the last one to the last picture?

[tiggerypum]

Drake, I'm afraid you're confusing two different things. Alpha editing is changing the shape of say, the neckline (which you can sometimes change). Recoloring like putting a design onto a t-shirt is fairly straightforward, you don't really much need a photoskinning tutorial for that. Follow a couple of the basic skinning tutorials. Pick a t-shirt from the game that you want to change the graphic on. Then paste your graphic in and resize it to fit the front center of the t-shirt. Save it, refresh in bodyshop.

[Bonita!]

Yes, alpha editing is changing the shape as the mesh allows it, for example, many Male T-Shirts have a collar. YOu will not be able to change that as it is part of the mesh. Photoskinning is a whole nother thing, I will make a tut one day to help you.

[Starfish of Terror]

I'm afraid I'm a bit confused as to the mechanics of this...What program are you using to alpha edit this? What file do you load, the one in the Projects folder or the exported one in the SavedSims folder? I know I'm slow at all this, but hey. We all were at one time, right? ^^;;

[tiggerypum]

Starfish of Terror, this is not a very thorough 'tutorial' and is not in the tutorials section because of it. To learn how to edit clothing (and eventually the alphas) please go to the tutorials section and find the set for your graphics editor of choice - either photoshop, gimp, or paint.net. (Gimp and paint.net are free downloads from the web)

They'll start you off with beginning stuff, and within a few tutorials will also show how to edit the alpha. Once you have done the set for your graphics program, then you can look at the others to see if there are some other techniques/ideas you'd like to try - you'll have to be able to look at the instructions and then follow along in your editor, which will require you to be familiar with how to use it...