Avatar Body Parts

Contents

Creating Clothing for Avatars

Making clothing products for avatars in IMVU is rather unique. Instead of creating just a shirt or pair of pants that cover an underlying avatar body, you are actually making something that will replace one or more pieces of the avatar. These pieces are called Body Parts. Therefore, when creating mesh clothing for avatars in IMVU you are creating the parts of the avatar body that go with the clothing product including the avatar’s skin if it is revealed by the clothing. Examples of this would be a short sleeve shirt and bare arms or a skirt and bare legs. Because of this you are free to create the look of the body type that is underlying the clothing. Many creators who make clothing actually make XXS, XS, S M, L, XL, XXL size versions of there clothing products to suit different avatar body looks.

The only exceptions to this approach are Avatar Attachments and Layerable Products. Avatar Attachments are a completely different type of product which has its own skeleton and are designed to be “attached” to any one of the avatar’s bones. Layerable Products are an advanced approach to creating clothing and other products such as hair which can be worn at the same time as the body part products described above without replacing them.

Body Parts

Each IMVU avatar has 10 body parts, and each one has a corresponding “body part ID” that goes from 0 through 9.

When you create products that modify the way the avatar looks, it is important to specify which body part ID the product will override. This will affect the other products that the avatar may use, since an avatar cannot have two products overriding the same body part ID. For example, if you have an item that overrides body part ID 1 (the hair), wearing another item that also overrides body part ID 1 will not work.

The body part IDs correspond to the following body parts:

0 – Head

1 – Hair

2 – Upper Body

3 – Right Hand

4 – Left Hand

5 – Abdomen and Hips

6 – Left Leg

7 – Right Leg

8 – Left Foot

9 – Right Foot

For more information on Body Parts and a complete list of community supported Body Part IDs see this help page Mesh Channels & Body Parts Reference Guide (standardization)

How to Access the Body Part ID Overrides

STEP 1: Go to the right side-panel and select Info .

STEP 2: Click three dots next to body parts.

STEP 3: Click Override Body Parts.

STEP 4: The Override Body Parts pop-up will appear.

To override a body part, simply tick the check box beside its corresponding ID. To remove the override, just untick the same box.

Click the Preview button on the upper-right to see the changes.

Remember that you can override as many body parts as you need in the same product. This is useful in resolving visual issues such as clipping. However, be careful as overriding too many body part IDs can result in your product conflicting with other items the avatar may be wearing.