Is this the future of content creation in Second Life? Recently the Lab has focused on better integration between Second Life and the web. Delaney Whippet’s Mirrorlabs flash based skin creator is a mashup match made in heaven to illustrate the way it can work. (You may remember Delaney’s funky-cool clothing line Microphage which made a splash in 2007.)
Using Eloh Elliot’s open source BSD licensed skins, Delaney built a flash interface to layer PNGs textures onto an avatar mesh in real time so you can see exactly how it’ll look before anything’s imported into Second Life. You can control the skin tone, blusher, lip stick, eyeliner, eyeshadow and glitter and use custom color selectors to precisely add the color combinations you want.
Once you have a skin you love, you can export a set of demo textures for free as shown to the left – or you can visit Delaney’s sales kiosk at her store parcel on Saturn and purchase a set of full download codes (skins are L$500 for singles, with discounts for bulk purchases) to download textures ready for direct import into Second Life. Since these are textures that you own and import yourself, you get them full permission (naturally!) so you can give them away to your friends, n00bs or random passers-by.
Here’s the skin I designed on the website as it looks imported into Second Life. Since the site is still in “early alpha release” there may be glitches in order fulfillment, but once you use a download code on a skin, you’ll be able to attempt downloads on it more than once – and Delaney has been really good about responding to customer service requests.
Future enhancements are planned and include adding things like custom tattoos, additional base skins and more. Delaney is actively seeking feedback for other ideas. You can read her full list of plans by checking out a blog post here.
Seen above: Skin by Mirrorlabs, Saturn (155, 17, 29); Phoebe Lingerie by Shai Delacroix (Autumn) Casa Del Shai (148, 127, 692); Donna Platform Shoes (Tartan) by Kookie, Juicy (30, 69, 24).
