Clothing

Every garment in the game, all 960 of them, is a mod file: a .ulcloth description plus a mesh. There is no clothing database in the engine. Yours sit next to them with the same powers.

#A garment

textMods/yourname_streetwear/
├── Clothes/
│   └── Tops/
│       ├── Neon-Hoodie_1_F.ulcloth
│       └── Thumbs/
│           └── Neon-Hoodie_1_F.png
└── Meshes/
    └── Clothes/
        └── Tops/
            ├── Neon-Hoodie_1_F.fbx
            └── Textures/
                └── Neon-Hoodie_1_F/
                    ├── Default_BC.png
                    ├── Default_N.png
                    └── Default_M.png

ini# Clothes/Tops/Neon-Hoodie_1_F.ulcloth
DisplayName: Neon Hoodie
Gender: Female
Slots: Outerwear
MeshId: Clothes/Tops/Neon-Hoodie_1_F.fbx
Color: 1, 1, 1, 1
Rarity: rare
Stats: attractiveness +2, interpersonal +1

.ulcloth files are found anywhere under Clothes/; subfolders are only for your own organisation.

A scene asks what someone wears with Actor:getEquippedItem("Top"): { id, name, rarity, stats } or nil.

#Rarity tiers: Items/*.ulrarity

json{ "rarities": [
	{ "id": "common", "name": "Common", "color": "#A7ADB4" },
	{ "id": "cursed", "name": "Cursed", "color": "#B3261E" }
] }

Tiers rank in file order, lowest first. A later mod's tier with an existing id renames or recolours it in place; a new id is added after the others. .ulitem takes Rarity: too.

#Slots

Top, Top_Under, Bottom, Bottom_Under, Foot, Foot_Under, Outerwear, Torso, Neck, Head, Hood, Mask, Eyewear, Ear, Wrist, Finger, Waist, Collar, Chastity, Blindfold, Gag, GagOpen, Handcuffs, Thighcuffs, Shincuffs, Accessory.

• Two garments that share a slot cannot be worn together.
• The first slot decides the wardrobe category (Top, Bottom, Outerwear, Underwear, Shoes, Socks, Headwear, Accessory). A garment covering both Top and Bottom is listed as a Dress.
• An unknown slot name is dropped with a warning in the log.

#Cuts

One mesh can be worn several ways: sleeves long or short, a top full-length or cropped, a skirt at the knee or a mini. Each way is a shape key in the FBX (an ordinary morph target) that moves the part being cut away. The .ulcloth names them in groups:

iniCut: Sleeve | Long | CutSleeve=Short
Cut: Hem | Full | CutHem=Underbust | CutHemMid=Midbust

Cut: <group> | <label for the mesh as made> | <shape key>=<label> | …

• The wardrobe shows one row per group, in file order: the first button is the garment as made, then one button per shape key.
• The options of a group exclude each other; groups combine freely (short sleeves and cropped).
• A picked shape key is set to 1, the others of the item to 0. There is no slider: half a cut never looks right.
• A label ending in +N (CutHem=Cropped +1) raises the garment's Sexiness by N while that cut is worn; the +N is not shown.
• The choice is kept per garment, in the wardrobe, saves and character presets (CLOTHING Cut: 100% <id> CutSleeve,CutHem).

Making the shape keys: the part cut away must disappear in every pose, not only in the rest pose. A sleeve piled up at the shoulder is still skinned to the forearm and swings out when the elbow bends; tuck it inside the limb where it is instead, and keep only the first centimetre or two to form the new edge. A hem raised on a top can be collapsed onto the cut line. For a skirt with a decorated hem, remove a band above the hem and lift the hem up, so the ruffles stay whole.

#Patterns

Any garment can wear a pattern over its own texture: stripes, leopard, a monogram canvas, fishnet. The player picks one on the wardrobe's Pattern page, with its two colours and a size; some passers-by wear one too. Patterns are mod files, so yours sit beside the base game's:

textMods/yourname_prints/
└── Patterns/
    ├── Signature-Canvas.png
    ├── Signature-Canvas.ulpattern
    ├── npc.txt
    └── Thumbs/
        └── Signature-Canvas.png

ini# Patterns/Signature-Canvas.ulpattern
Name: Signature Canvas
Kind: color
Scale: 30
Colors: #FFFFFF, #FFFFFF
Group: Luxury
Npc: 1

Kinds

• duotone: a greyscale picture. Black takes colour 1, white colour 2, greys a mix: one picture of a leopard is every colour of leopard. The player chooses both colours.
• color: a full-colour picture, drawn as it is (tie-dye, a printed canvas). Colour 1 tints it; white leaves it alone.
• cutout: white is cloth in colour 1, black is a hole (fishnet, lace, slashes). A cutout adds 1 to the garment's Sexiness, and nobody under 18 can wear one.

The picture: square, seamless (its left edge continues its right one, its top its bottom), a power of two (512, 1024, 2048). It is wrapped around the garment from the front, the sides and above rather than through the garment's UVs, so a stripe stays a stripe across every seam and every garment at the same scale. The garment's folds still shade it. Thumbs/<id>.png is the wardrobe tile, about 128 px; without it the picture itself is shown.

Patterns/npc.txt: chance = 0.2, the share of tops and trousers the game puts a pattern on when it dresses someone (in the pattern's own colours). A later mod's line wins; 0 turns it off.

Scripts set one with Actor:setClothingPattern(slot, id, color1, color2, size) and read it with getClothingPattern(slot) (Actor API). The choice is kept per garment, in the wardrobe, saves and character presets (CLOTHING Pattern: 100% <id> <pattern> <RRGGBB> <RRGGBB> <size>).

#Finishes

A finish is how a fabric takes the light: matte cotton, the sheen of satin, the shine of latex, the grain of denim or leather, metal buttons. It sets the material's roughness, specular and metal, and lays a fine weave over the garment's own normal map. Finishes are mod files:

textMods/yourname_fabrics/
└── ClothFinishes/
    ├── Brocade.ulfinish
    └── Brocade_N.png

ini# ClothFinishes/Brocade.ulfinish
Name: Brocade
Roughness: 0.55
Specular: 0.55
Metallic: 0
Weave: Brocade
WeaveCm: 3
WeaveStrength: 0.6
Materials: brocade, damask
Names: brocade, damask, cheongsam
Types: dress
Priority: 60

How a finish is chosen, for each material of a garment, first match wins:

1. the garment's Finish: <material>=<id> line;
2. a finish whose Materials word is in the material's name (a shirt's Buttons are plastic even on cotton);
3. the garment's Finish: <id> line;
4. a finish whose Names word is in the garment's file name or DisplayName;
5. a finish listing the garment's Type;
6. the Default finish.

Words are whole words, compared in lower case, with any non-letter as a separator: City-Limits-Jeans_1_F is city limits jeans f. Name your materials and files for what they are made of and they are covered without a Finish: line.

The weave picture is a normal map (DirectX convention, like UE's), square, seamless and a power of two. It is wrapped around the garment like a pattern, from the front, the sides and above, so it keeps one scale on every garment. Keep it fine and regular (threads, knit loops, grain), a few millimetres a repeat: the garment's own normal map already carries the folds and seams.

#Held items

A prop in the hand is a garment like any other: an FBX skinned to the hand bone (lHand or rHand), usually in the Accessory slot. What makes it held is HandPose:

ini# Clothes/Props/Pistol.ulcloth
DisplayName: Pistol
Gender: Female
Slots: Accessory
MeshId: Clothes/Props/Pistol.fbx
HandPose: Poses/Pistol.duf

Poses/Pistol.duf is an ordinary Daz pose preset. Save one from Daz Studio with only the fingers of the holding hand selected (File > Save As > Pose Preset), or write the channels by hand:

json{ "scene": { "animations": [
	{ "url": "name://@selection/lIndex2:?rotation/z/value", "keys": [[0, -62.5]] }
] } }

• Only the bones the file drives are posed; list every finger of that hand, the straight ones at 0, or a finger you want straight keeps the curl of the animation.
• Both hands can be in one file (a baton in each hand).
• The catalogue picture is rendered with the pose applied.

#Texture sets

A garment's pictures live in Meshes/.../Textures/<mesh file name>/, one <Material>_BC.png (colour), _N.png (normal map, DirectX) and optional _M.png (white = fabric, black = hole) per material of the FBX. A second look of the same mesh is another folder beside it and a second .ulcloth naming it:

ini# Clothes/Tops/RubyHenley_Breton.ulcloth
DisplayName: Garnet Henley (Striped)
Gender: Female
Slots: Top
Type: tank
MeshId: Clothes/Tops/RubyHenley.fbx
Textures: RubyHenley_Breton

Meshes/Clothes/Tops/Textures/RubyHenley_Breton/Default_BC.png is then its colour. Add VariantOf: RubyHenley and Variant: Striped and the look is offered on the Henley itself instead of filling the list with near-duplicates. The mesh is loaded once whatever the number of sets. A set's _M.png is how a texture alone makes a cropped top or shorts out of a long piece: black below the new hem removes the fabric, the layer underneath shows through. Underlives's own tools paint such sets from the mesh's position map (Tools/Couture/texturing/paint_variants.py), so a stripe, a hem band or a chest print lands where it is on the body, not where it falls in UV space.

#Two-point restraints

Handcuffs, an ankle chain, a rope round the wrists, a spreader bar: two anchors on two bones and a link between them. The game draws a cuff on each bone and the link (a chain or rope that sags and swings, or a straight bar), and holds the body to it whatever animation plays: when the clip spreads the wrists further than the chain allows, the arms are drawn back together; a bar also keeps the ankles apart. The item needs no MeshId.

ini# Clothes/Restraints/Bdg_Tether_Handcuffs.ulcloth
DisplayName: Steel handcuffs
Gender: Unisex
Slots: Handcuffs
Tether: lHand, rHand, 7
TetherAnchor: Sets/GenCore/Pieces/GenCore/Wear_Cuff_Steel_Handcuff.glb#Wear_Cuff_Steel_Handcuff
TetherOffset: -2 0 0
TetherEye: 0 0 -3.8
TetherLink: chain 0.6 0.62,0.63,0.66

The cuff is turned along the limb and its eye toward the other bone automatically, so one anchor mesh fits both wrists. Put it on like any restraint: Actor:dressBondage("Bdg_Tether_Handcuffs"), the sex menu, an outfit. The old one-piece cuffs (Bdg_Handcuffs) still freeze the arms in their pose clip; a two-point item replaces that pose.

#Single-bone gear (collars, gags, hoods, clamps)

A Tether line with one bone and no second one is a rigid piece worn on that bone, with no link: a collar, a gag, a blindfold, a hood, a box over the head, nipple clamps. It follows the bone through every animation.

ini# Clothes/Restraints/Bdg_Wear_Gag_Ball_Red.ulcloth
DisplayName: Ball gag, red
Gender: Unisex
Slots: Gag, GagOpen
Type: acc_head
Tether: head
TetherAnchor: Sets/GenCore/Pieces/GenCore/Wear_Gag_Ball_Red.glb#Wear_Gag_Ball_Red

The mesh is placed in the bone's own frame: Blender +X runs along the bone (from its parent to it, in the rest pose), Blender −Z faces the front of the body, Blender +Y is the person's left, and the origin is the bone. In practice: model the piece on the G8 body where it belongs, then move it into that frame. The shipped head gear sits on head, the chest pieces (clamps, a sign on a string) on chestUpper, collars on neckLower. TetherOffset (cm) still shifts it.

A gear piece with a printed face (the word on a cardboard sign, a face drawn on a paper bag) uses a Canvas zone like any prop.

#Torn clothes

Actor:damageClothing(slot, holes, rips) punches holes and rips through a worn garment (0..1 each); repairClothing(slot) mends it. The holes are stamped at random places of the garment's UV through its opacity, the same places every time for the same garment, and saved with the wardrobe.

The shapes are images any mod adds: ClothingDamage/Holes/*.png and ClothingDamage/Rips/*.png, greyscale, white for cloth and black for the hole, one shape centred on white (not a tiling pattern), up to 256 px.

#Ripped: holes placed on the body

Worn Ripped, a garment is not scattered with stamps: a file per category places each hole where it belongs on the body, the same on every garment of the category whatever its UV. ClothingDamage/Ripped/Bottom.ulripped (trousers, leggings, jeans) has one line per hole:

Placement: Stamp=UL_Ripped_01 Side=Back X=0 Z=87 Width=42
Placement: Stamp=UL_Ripped_02 Side=Front X=0 Z=91 Width=20

Stamp is a picture beside the file (Ripped/<Stamp>.png, white for cloth and black for the hole, any square size), Side is Front or Back, X the centimetres toward the wearer's right, Z the height above the floor in centimetres, Width the picture's width in centimetres. The hole is projected from that side onto the garment, so a pair of shorts and a long legging both get it at the same spot of the body. A later mod's file for the same category replaces an earlier one's. A category without a file keeps the random stamps of ClothingDamage/Ripped/*.png. Never applied to a minor.

#The mesh

• A skinned FBX exported from Daz Studio, fitted to the Genesis 8 Female or Male figure, with the Genesis 8 bone names. The garment follows the wearer's skeleton; it does not bring its own.
• Loaded at runtime: no import, no engine.

#Following the body's shape

A garment follows the wearer's body shape (weight, muscle, bust, hips, a pregnancy) through morph targets with the same names as the body's, exactly as in Daz. You do not have to export them all: for every body morph a person actually has set, a garment that lacks it gets one copied from the nearest body vertices, like Daz's auto-follow, and the breast and glute jiggle weights are copied the same way. A morph or a weight you exported is kept as you made it, so export your own where the copy looks wrong (a stiff belt, a corset that should not take the belly's shape, a loose skirt that should hang rather than cling).

The copy only works for a garment fitted on the figure in its default shape (Base Female or Base Male, no morph dialled in when you export). Fitted to a reshaped figure, every copied morph is measured from the wrong surface and the garment floats or sinks into the skin. A garment for a figure other than Genesis 8 does not follow the shape at all.

#Textures

Textures are found by name next to the mesh, in Textures/<mesh name>/:

<Material> is the material name in the FBX.

Lookup order per material: <Material>_BC.png, the name without a trailing _1/_2, Default_BC.png, then the folder's only *_BC.png if it holds exactly one. A garment with no texture at all is plain white cloth. Every garment takes the creator's COLOR row: with no colour chosen the texture shows as painted; a chosen colour keeps only the texture's shading (folds, seams, a printed heart in relief) and replaces its colours, so a yellow top turns exactly the blue the player picked.

The base game's own generated garments (the Couture folders of the ClothingExtended mod, formerly the ul_Couture mod) are generated, not sculpted, and ship with a UV_Layout.png beside their textures: the mesh unrolled as one flat tube at real scale, front centre in the middle, the seam down the back, hem at the bottom, one island per part (bodice, skirt, sleeves). Paint over it, or hand it to an image model with a description of the fabric, save the result as Default_BC.png in your own mod's copy of the garment, and the piece wears it. Patterns (below) need no texture at all: they are projected onto any garment, including a fishnet or lace cutout. Default_… answers for any material without its own files, which is enough for most garments (822 of the 940 base garments use a single texture set).

Keep textures to what the garment needs: a PNG is decoded to 4 bytes a pixel, so one 2048 image is 16 MiB in memory whatever it weighs on disk. 1024 for a top or trousers, 512 for shoes and hats, 256 for jewellery; normal maps half that. Optionally ship a block-compressed <name>.dds (BC1, or BC3 when the image has any transparency, with its mips) beside each PNG: the game loads it instead as long as it is not older than the PNG, at an eighth to a quarter of the memory. Tools/GlbTextures/shrink_cloth_textures.py in the game repository does both.

#Thumbnails

The wardrobe and shops show Thumbs/<id>.png, in a Thumbs/ folder next to the .ulcloth. The base game's thumbnails are renders of the garment worn on the Genesis 8 body of its gender, on a neutral background: match that for a consistent catalog.

#Selling it

Shops stock garments by id: Item: Neon-Hoodie_1_F, 60, -1 in a .ulshop (Shops and items).

#Wardrobes and occasions

Everyone the game remembers (the player and every known person) has a wardrobe: the garments they own, what they wear, and an outfit per occasion. It is kept across rooms and saves. Scripts reach it through getClothes, giveClothing, setOutfit, wearOutfit and Game:showWardrobe (People → Clothes).

Occasions are defined in Clothes/Outfits/occasions.txt, one per line:

# id | Name | outfit list | place words
work   | Work   | work   | work, office, company, bank
sports | Sports | sports | sport, gym, fitness, stadium

• outfit list: the outfits_<F|M>_<list>.txt to draw from when someone has no outfit of their own for it (empty means everyday clothes).
• place words: parts of location tags where people dress for this occasion. They are matched against whole parts of the tag (gym matches city_gym; bar does not match barber).
• A later mod adds occasions, redefines one by repeating its id, or removes one with id | -. everyday must exist: it is what anywhere unclaimed means.

When someone dresses for a place (Actor:dress(), dressUniform with no uniform), their own outfit for that occasion comes first, before the outfit lists.

The base game's interactions Give clothes and Suggest an outfit (ul_Base/Interactions/wardrobe/) show how a scene uses the wardrobe; the acceptance roll of a suggestion lives in that scene, so a mod can change it.

#The outfit-change spin

When someone changes outfit in front of the player (Actor:wearOutfit, Actor:changeInto, the wardrobe's Wear outfit), they spin inside a swirl of light and the clothes change at its peak. Its look is Clothes/outfit_change.txt, key = value lines that a later mod overrides one by one: