Mesh-Based Fashion Starts to Appear in Second Life

Though mesh is still in Beta in Second Life, we're starting to see mesh-based fashion items appear in SL -- and in the lines of established fashion designers. Metaverse celebrity Angie Mornington just passed along this photo from a larger shoot she posted to her blog, and while we've already noted what mesh will do to SL fashion, here's a closer look at an actual item you can now get. This is the Eau De Hucci Jumpsuit (!) the first mesh release from Eboni Khan, a longtime SL entrepreneur. [SLurl teleport to store at this link] Normally, the shadow folds you're seeing would be "baked" into the textures of the item, but with mesh, that's not the case -- these shadows are real, so to speak.

"Yup that [photo] was on one of mesh sandbox sims," Angie tells me. "I used the regular default daylight setting, I didn't have shadows enabled in preferences, and I didn't edit the pics at all except to crop them in size." She used the Beta Viewer 3, which is mesh enabled. "So all of the detail you see is in plain SL daylight." See more from Ms. Mornington here. We're likely to see much more mesh fashion soon, and then start transforming the broader industry soon after.

Update, 11:35am: For fellow designers, Damien Fate now is selling full permission mesh fashion clothing templates.

Comments

[Eggy Lippmann]

Let me know when I can get on a webcam with someone and they'll upload a mesh of my face into SL.

[Adeon Writer]

The shading is a natural consequence of the fact that clothing can now use actual real shape rather than simply being textured - Second Life already shades everything that isn't flat, and does it rather fast and and easy, so we get nice shading with no real performance hit. =D

[Danielle]

@Eggy - There are several programs around which can generate a 3D model from two or more photographs. Here are links to a couple of them:

http://www.photosculpt.net/
http://www.strata.com/products/strata_3d_cx_suite/strata_foto_3d_cx/

So yes, if you want to upload your face to SL, that can be done.

[QueenKellee Kuu]

Hamlet, that is a baked in shading. Yes, the mesh has a shape. Yes that shape will interact with the lighting in SL. But to imply that top has no baked in shading is not correct. (I've inspected it myself in world) It has both real topography and baked in shading/highlights, and most mesh items will have both, simply because shading will do a lot to increase detail without increasing polys. Even attached rigs will have to be optimized.