Making Flexible Clothing - Flex Properties of Prims

Flexible clothes, such as the dress on right, can be made using a special ‘flexi’ property of prims. Of course, proper texturing is also important, otherwise the dress will look like a swaying piece of wood :)

When the flexi properties are set, a prim can spontaneously move. This movement is subject to forces in present in SL, including the movement of the Avatar, and other forces such as gravity and wind that are normally present in SL.

I will not cover making flexi prims in much detail since other resources are available which explain this very nicely. To learn more about flexi properties, please consider taking a NCI class. Also useful is the information on the SL web site.

Using flexible prims, we can make many types of garments, such as a realistic looking neck tie for men that bounces when he walks, a bow with ribbons that freely blow in the wind, a stiff long coat or mantle, long flexible sleeves or a full skirt that flows with every move that you make.

Today we will make a full-length skirt that consists of multiple, linked flexible panels. Before we get started, there are three important things to know about a flexi prim when making clothes:

First, only 3 types of prims can be made to flex. These are a box, a cylinder and a prism. The reason is in the name: ‘Flexible Path’. Boxes, Cylinders and Prisms are generated by extruding a 2D shape (square, circle [sorta] and triangle, respectively) along a straight path. On the other hand, Tubes, Torii, Rings and Prisms are created by extruding those same shapes around a circular path. Only objects extruding along a straight path can be made to flex (one end is loose).

Second, a flexi prim is always phantom (even if you are not wearing it). That means that a flexi skirt will swoosh right through your partner. Also, the skirt may sink right through your legs - and even the chair - when you are sitting down. That’s why so many ladies are standing at parties :)

Third, only one end of a prim is flexible. Sadly, you cannot attach anything to the flexible end of a flexi prim. This means that flexible end will always be hanging loose. It also means that individual flexi prims can only be joined (linked) together at their non-flexible ends.