A high-level overview of layered accessories on Roblox.
Create and sell your first basic layered accessory.
Layered accessories, often referred to as layered clothing, are 3D assets that stretch and fit on an avatar's body according to their rigging armature and cage meshes. When users purchase layered accessories on the Marketplace, such as jackets, dresses, and cardigans, they expect it to move with the character's animations and layer appropriately on top of existing clothing the character is wearing.
There are three main layers of a layered accessory that structure how the accessory looks and works on the platform:
- Mesh & textures that make up the layered accessory's visual appearance.
- Rigging armature that determines how the character moves and animates with the layered accessory.
- Cage meshes & attachments that determine how the layered accessory stretches, fits, and layers over the character's body.
While you can create most of these layers manually in third-party modeling tools like Blender or Maya, cage meshes and attachments have strict configuration requirements to meet Roblox's technical layered accessory specifications that guarantee your layered accessories behave consistently from game to game. Before you create your first custom layered accessory, it's recommended to:
- Understand the essential components of a layered accessory and how they work together.
- Review all resources that Roblox provides to standardize and expedite the creation process, such as Blender and Maya project files, Studio tooling, and step-by-step guides.
- Follow the basic layered accessory creation tutorial that covers how to create your own avatar-ready sweater from scratch in Blender.
Once you have a custom layered accessory, you can import it into Studio and use the Avatar Setup tool to process your creation into an avatar asset that's ready to be sold on the Marketplace.
Unlike layered accessories that stretch and wrap over a target until it fits over the character's body, rigid accessories don't deform and only attach to a specific point on the avatar. For more information, see Rigid accessories.
If you are a game developer and are looking for information on manually equipping or configuring layered accessories within a game, such as implementing layered accessories on a non-standard character model, see Character appearance.
Layered accessory components
All layered accessories are made up of the same fundamental components that allow users to equip 3D items that stretch, fit, and layer over a target character and existing clothing items with consistent behavior regardless of the character's body type.
Mesh part
All layered accessories require a single mesh object that represents the accessory's geometry. In Studio, this mesh object is represented as a MeshPart nested under a single Model.
Textures
Textures are image files that define the surface appearance of your layered accessory. You can create textures within a texture painting program or 3D modeling software.
In Studio, you must import textures as image files and set them to MeshPart objects by a child SurfaceAppearance object or the mesh's TextureID property.
Rigging armature
Inside of the avatar's physical body is a non-rendered rigging armature that allows the character to articulate its limbs. Often referred to as joints or bones, a rigging armature includes skinning data that allows connections between limbs to bend organically, such as the character's knees and elbows. In Studio, this rigging and skinning data is saved to the mesh geometry.
The rigging armature also defines how layered accessories move and deform as the character moves in the 3D space. Using rigging and skinning techniques, you can configure areas of your layered accessories to move naturally with the character's joints, such as a shirt sleeve following the natural movement of the character's elbow and shoulder during a walk cycle.
Cage meshes
Cage meshes set the inner and outer surfaces of a layered accessory. For example, the inner cage of a t-shirt defines how a layered accessory t-shirt stretches and fits over a character body, and the outer cage defines how other layered accessories can stretch and fit over the t-shirt itself.
In Studio, these cages are represented by WrapLayer objects.
Attachments
Attachment points for layered accessories set which body part the accessory is attached to when the character body ragdolls or dismembers in a game. In Studio, attachment points are represented by Attachment objects.
You can automatically generate attachment points for your layered accessories using the Accessory Fitting Tool.
Creation process
When designing a layered accessory in Blender or Maya, you must export all of the avatar components in a single .fbx or .gltf for import into Studio. Since 3D creation isn't a linear process and always requires reiteration and testing, the process of creating a layered accessory can differ between individuals and various creation workflows.
In general, the creation process follows the following workflow:
Resources
There are a variety of resources available for creators of all backgrounds to get started with layered accessory creation. Review the following table for specific topics and resources:
| Topic | Resources |
|---|---|
| Tutorials | Create your first layered accessory |
| Reference files | Accessory and clothing reference files |
| Technical specs | .FBX export settings General mesh specifications Accessory specifications Marketplace policy |
| Cosmetic creation | Accessories overview Layered clothing overview Create face accessories Accessory Fitting Tool Accessory specifications Marketplace requirements |
| Texturing | Texturing requirements PBR textures |
| Rigging and skinning | Rigging and skinning overview Humanoid rigging requirements Rigging facial bones Auto skin transfer Skin facial bones |
| Testing and validation | Calisthenics tool Clothing validation tool |
| Publishing and Marketplace | Upload to Marketplace Marketplace policy Fees and commissions |