# Accessorizing Your Ready Player Me Avatar

## Overview

In our previous tutorial, we ran through how to create a personalized avatar for free using Ready Player Me and brought it into Mona Gallery and Mozilla Hubs. The Ready Player Me avatar creation tool provides an extensive array of personalization options, but what if we want to add some custom flare? In this tutorial, we will look at how to add items to your avatar and adjust textures using Blender.

## Sketchfab

Sketchfab is a 3D asset marketplace that allows users to upload their 3D content to distribute it online. In this tutorial, we'll be using a free hat from Sketchfab to accessorize our model.

Head to the Sketchfab website and search for 'glasses'. Be sure to filter by 'Downloadable' to ensure the file can be used.


We're going to use the [pair of glasses](https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/glasses-d25f2b7d0b094eea960e7b6c5277e60e) below, but feel free to test any asset you'd like. Click the download button and download the *Autoconverted format (glTF)*.


## Blender

Blender is an open-source 3D modeling tool that is commonly used throughout the 3D design world. Head to their [website](https://www.blender.org/download/) and download the latest version. Note that we'll be using Blender 3.0.1, so if you'd prefer, download this version [here](https://download.blender.org/release/).

I would highly recommend watching a YouTube tutorial on the basics of Blender and [navigating the viewport](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILqOWe3zAbk). Even if you never plan on using Blender again, it's a great way to familiarize yourself with some of the workflow that 3D modelers use. 3D modeling is a foundational aspect of the metaverse.

Once Blender is downloaded, open it and create a new 'General' File. This will open a new project with a 'default cube'. Since we won't be using this cube, press 'x' to delete.

## Importing Assets


Next, we are going to import our GLB file that we downloaded from the Ready Player Me hub. To do so, click *File -> Import -> gLTF 2.0* and select your model.

Once you've imported your model, you will see your RPM avatar in the *viewport*. You can then change the rendering mode of the viewport to *Material Preview* by selecting it in the top right corner of the viewport.



Now it's time to import the glasses. Ensure that your unzip/extract the downloaded zip file, and in Blender again click *File -> Import -> gLTF 2.0*. This time, we will select the 'scene' file.

Depending on the model you use, your imported model may be much larger than your avatar. Not to worry, but there's a few things we need to do prior to fixing that.

In your scene collection, *Shift+ Click* the arrow next to your Sketchfab model. This will show you the hierarchy of what's in the model. What we want to do is delete everything except the *meshes* (think of these as the visual representation of the 3D object) which is annotated with an upside down triangle. To do this, simply press the delete key to remove all the empty objects.



Now that we've cleaned up, we want to join all these meshes together so that the glasses are one mesh rather than a set of multiple meshes. To do this, select all your meshes, hover your mouse over the viewport and press *CTRL + J*. Rename your mesh to something appropriate.

## Positioning

Now it's time to position our glasses. This process can be tricky - especially for beginners. We're going to use a combination of scaling, rotating and positioning to get these glasses in the right place. Here are the shortcuts for each.

- Scale: *CTRL + S*
- Rotate: *CTRL + R*
- Move: *CTRL + G*

It's also helpful if you rotate and move based on an axis rather than doing this freeform. To do so, press *X, Y* or *Z* when scaling/rotating/moving to lock the adjustment to the corresponding axis.

Your end result should look something like this.


As you can see, it's not perfect, but if you wanted to, you could sculpt the mesh to better conform to the face.

## Armature Parenting

You may be thinking that we're good to go, but prior to signing off, we want to link the glasses to the head. Right now, the glasses have no relationship to the avatar, so if we move the avatar, we won't move the glasses.

To create this connection, we must parent the glasses to the head. To do so, select the *Armature* object in your scene collection change your object interaction mode to *Pose Mode*. We are also going to enable *X-Ray* mode so that we can see the armature through the mesh.



Once you're in these modes, your viewport should look something like the below.


Without providing a detailed explanation of the armature, you can think of it as a structure that's analogous to the human skeleton and helps provide a reference when we're posing or animating a 3D object.

To reiterate our previous point, you'll see that if we rotate the head bone, our glasses don't move with it.


To fix this, select the head bone of the armature (highlighted in blue below) then the glasses in the scene collection. Hover your mouse over the viewport and press *CTRL + P* and select *Set Parent to Bone*.

Once this is done, you'll see that we can now move the head and the glasses stay with it.


## Conclusion

So that's it. Now that we've accessorized, it's time to customize our look further by augmenting our wearables with different textures, but we'll leave that for another time. In the interim, deck out your avatar with whatever accessories you want and further familiarize yourself with Blender. Andrew Price's [Donut Tutorial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIoXOplUvAw&list=PLjEaoINr3zgFX8ZsChQVQsuDSjEqdWMAD) is an education staple within the Blender community, so if time permits, give it a shot.

:::warning
Ready Player Me is available for free for all developers. Any avatar created using the Ready Player Me website is under the Creative Commons 4.0 license, allowing non-commercial use.
:::

:::info
*Meta Mike is the co-founder of VERSED and leads Partner Success at GigLabs. He has a passion for contributing to the education and enablement of the open metaverse.*
:::

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