Sheesh. What a nightmare. I have been re-texturing and transmapping the Vicki Catsuit to make some of the clothing items I need... so far that seems reasonable :) But sheesh! Matching up the front/back textures where a nightmare so I wound up using Deep Paint (the demo for now) to do it and while that makes it much easier it is still a pretty flawed tool/process. So what is the secret... how do you guys get left/right side symmetry in clothing and so on and how do you get the front/back to line up without endless re-renders?

The secret tool i use for making the side look just right is.....patience and like you just mentioned, endless re-renders :)

In Deep Paint are you using the projection mode? In the regular mode (non-projection) it is still a nightmare, but in projection mode it is quite a bit easier. You'll still have to be very patient, but sometimes in projection mode when you get it close you can use a smudge tool on the seam to even things up a bit.

Yeah, when it gets close I am in projection mode. Fortunately I am working on simple textures.

if you use photoshop, use the guides. and "snap to guides" is sometimes a pain, but for straight up/down or diagonal lines, this really helps. also, with some clothing items, i prefer a cylindrical uvmap as opposed to a planar map. with cylindrical, there is one seam, usually in the back (and that's at least realistic, right?)... the texture may "smear" just a wee along the hip area, but nothing really bad. just looks like stretched material.

I've seen people do things like fishnet stockings for the Posette, and get a perfect match on the sides, I don't know how they do it, except by trial & error. The problem is not just getting a match up. but there is a twist there as well that has to match.

You can count the polygons on the sides of the images. And, i think there's something SnowSultan (?) in free stuff that color-codes the side polygons. Jim is right about the twist, but this will help some.

OK, that was SnowSultan's color coding for Victoria's body and head, it is definitely in Free Stuff. The same techniques would probably apply to the cat suit. i had to do the same thing myself when i went to make a tank top for Vicki, using the cat suit. You just gotta count. My guess is, using point-sampled colors and/or the stamp tool in Photoshop is how one gets things to match. Very much the trial-and-error process.

Search the freestuff areas in these forums for "guide" and you should find the templates with color-coded areas for matching seams. I don't know what they have for clothing, but there are 2-3 guides for the people. Ah! Just checked the other computer. I have a folder called seam map which has .gifs for catsuit, haltertop and leotard... all nicely color coded. Unfortuntely, there is no readme file or ID. I can't redistribute it without permission, and don't know whose helpful files these were. :( Search under "seam map" or "seam" as well as "guide", and maybe it is still on the boards. Carolly

OK, there was no ID on the catsuit, but curious me checked the other 2 files. Snow Sultan made them. If they aren't still available, you can ask him for help. Carolly

I actually did this recently with the sexy suits transmaps, and I can tell you it just takes a hell of a lot of patience. I did find it helpful to use the uvmapper and make it coloured by group and then export the map and then take a look at it on the actuall model.