Opening your torso mesh. For this tutorial, I used the female one.
1.1 (Optional):
Most of the time, I like working with a white mesh, rather than a black one. For me, it's a little easier to see what I'm doing when I lower the opacity of my working layers. This is purely optional. But if you'd like a white mesh instead of black, select "Adjust" from the top menu. Then move your mouse pointer down to "Negative Image" and click. You can change your mesh back and forth just by selecting "Negative Image". Be sure you have your background layer selected before doing this, as selecting "Negative Image" while another layer is selected will affect that layer.
1.2 (Optional)
I maximize the current working window that I'm in as I usually have multiple images open at once. This is also optional, and up to user preference.
1.3
And since this first image is rather uncluttered with notations, I will mention the layers panel here. This little panel is the key to layer visibility and opacity. Clicking on the "eye" symbol toggles a layer between visible and invisible. The gradient filled bar to the right is the opacity slider. Clicking in this slider and dragging your mouse back and forth sets the opacity for the current working layer. The open space to the left is the layer list. As you can see it's fairly empty right now. But as you get into designing clothes and start working with multiple layers and transparencies when compositing new clothes, it can fill up fairly quickly.
Step 2:
This step is short, but it serves to get your file saved in Paint Shop's native .pspimage format. Paint Shop's .pspimage format saves all layer information to make it easy to come back and work on later.
2.1
Select "File" in the top menu, then "Save As". Alternatively, you can press F12 to bring up the "Save As" dialog.
2.2
If "Save as type:" doesn't show "Paint Shop Pro Image" click on the drop down box and find it in the list.
2.3
For the filename, I have called this file UFUT_Liaria_TutorialShirt.pspimage
Liaria is my tag. If you'd like to tag your creations so that people know you made it, then you will need to come up with one. And if you need help with the naming conventions of clothing textures, there are some very handy guides on that in the forums, as well as some very helpful people.
Step 3:
Ok the next few steps will probably look a little confusing, due to my propensity for compositing images when making graphical tutorials. I try to get as much helpful information into one image as possible. But everything is circled (hilighted, squared, etc.) and neatly numbered. So if you read each step and follow along in the images, it should all make sense.
3.1
The little dotted rectangle in the toolbar on the left is the selection tool. If you click the down arrow next to it, a list will pop up, showing "Selection" "Freehand Selection" and "Magic Wand". Click on "Freehand Selection".
3.2
Now would be a good time to create a new layer while we're at it. At the top of the Layers panel is a number of buttons, but we will only concern ourselves with the first button on the left for now. This is the "New Raster Layer" button. Click it and the new raster layer dialog will pop up. You can leave the default layer name as is for now (Raster 1) and click OK. In time, you may want to start naming your layers, however, as it can get confusing trying to remember which layer has which data when they're named something like Raster 1, Raster 2, Raster 3... etc.
Now that you have more than one layer, notice how one layer is highlighted in blue, while the other is not. The blue highlighted layer is the current working layer. To make any layer the working layer, just click on it in the layer list. Also, the layer stack is pretty straight forward. The list from top to bottom determines the order of the layers in your image. Layers at the top of the image will show on top of layers lower down in the stack. Layers at the bottom of the list will be hidden under the upper layers. You can rearrange layers simply by clicking on a layer in the list and dragging it up or down.
3.3
Make sure that the new raster layer is the current working layer (click on it so it is highlighted). Then, using your freehand selection tool, click and drag around the main torso part of the mesh, leaving a bit of overlap so we don't get those annoying seams present on some of the stock UV textures.
Step 4:
4.1
Click on the paint bucket in the left hand toolbar.
4.2
Then pick a color from the materials panel on the upper right.
4.3
Now click inside your selected area to fill it with the new color. To deselect any selection you have made, click on "Selections" in the top menu, then "Select None" or press Ctrl D
4.4
Now go back to your selection tool and click the down arrow. This time click "Selection"
4.5
In the tool options just above, under the "Selection Type:" drop down menu, click "Ellipse".
4.6
Just a quick mention. If you want to zoom in and out of your image while working on it, there are three easy buttons on the right just under the preview window. Magnifying glasses with a minus, plus, and circle with a slash, for zooming out, zooming in, and no zoom level.
Step 5:
Ok a simple step again. Here is where you will use the ellipse selection tool to create the neck opening of your shirt. Even though I myself also like low necklines and to show off my cleavage, I just selected an arbitrary size for this tutorial.
5.1
Lower the opacity of your shirt layer so you can see where you are making your selection. Click on the gradient filled bar to the right of the layer name and drag your mouse left or right until you are comfortable with it.
5.2
Make sure your shirt layer is the active layer, and with your ellipse tool, click and drag to make your selection. If you misplace your selection and need to try again, press Ctrl D to clear the current selection. Clicking inside of an active selection and dragging your mouse, will drag the selection along with any data selected in the layer and make it a "floating selection". So a good idea is to clear any selections before trying to make new ones.
When you are satisfied with the size and positioning of your neckline selection, pressing the delete key on your keyboard will erase that area, leaving a nice open neck for your shirt. Then just click the opacity slider of your shirt layer again, and bring it to 100%, or to any other number if you want to make a slightly see thru, or sheer shirt.
Step 6:
Ok, final step. The one that takes out the background layer and saves your image as a .png with transparency. Woohoo! Almost done!
6.1
First things first. To remove the background layer so you don't have those mesh lines mucking up the arms and neck of your shirt, click the eye symbol to the right of the "Background" layer. The eye will now have a red x over it, and the background layer will be invisible in the work area.
6.2
Then click on "File" and "Save As". In the dialog, click on the drop down under "Save as type" and select Portable Network Graphics (.png). Now Paint Shop Pro might not save your image with transparency by default.
6.3
So to be on the safe side, click "Options".
6.4
Then click on "Run Optimizer".
6.5
In the PNG Optimizer dialog, click on the "Transparency" tab.
6.6
Select "Alpha Channel Transparency" and "Existing Image or Layer Transparency". Then click OK, and then Save. And you're done. Now all you need to do is copy your new shirt texture to your C:\Program Files\Utherverse Digital Inc\Utherverse 3D Client\resources\female\textures folder. If you do a male shirt, it goes in C:\Program Files\Utherverse Digital Inc\Utherverse 3D Client\resources\male\textures
