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I feel so dumb can someone help?


nastyways
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I see right there on the ad that the creator tells you that you need to understand about many of the more arcane aspects of Second Life and how clothing and attachments work.  Smart creator!

Avatar appearance has, over the years, become a minefield for the new resident.  Here is an explanation of some basic concepts.

The most basic part of your appearance is your shape.  This defines your height, weight, body and facial proportions, using the Appearance sliders.  But these sliders only affect the "standard" or "classic" avatar body, which has some limitations.  For example, at high settings, breasts and buttocks begin to look "blocky" instead of smoothly rounded.

The classic avatar body can also be textured with several layers.  These are bitmapped images that are painted onto the avatar.  From the inside out, these layers are:

  1. Alpha (a layer used to hide part or all of the avatar body to keep it from showing through attachments)
  2. Eyes
  3. Skin
  4. Hairbase and shoe base
  5. Tattoo layer
  6. Undershirt and underpants
  7. Stockings and gloves
  8. Shirt and pants
  9. Jacket
  10. Skirt  (this layer is great for certain styles of skirt, but does not do skin tight miniskirts or any full or flared skirt well)

There is also another, invisible clothing layer called "physics."  This layer controls the bounce and jiggle of your body.

The most important thing to understand about these texture layers is that they affect ONLY the classic avatar body.  They do not affect any type of attachments. 

One other fine point about your standard body:  There are four things that MUST be worn at all times.  They define the "minimum" avatar.  You can't take them off, you can only replace them with another item of the same type.  These "essential four" are shape, skin, eyes, and hair base.  You can only ever wear one of each.  All the other clothing layers you can take off entirely, or wear multiple things by using the "Add" command instead of "Wear."

Attachments.  You have thirty-some attachment points, to parts of your body and also on your screen, for attaching HUDs.  Attachments like jewelry are easy to understand.  But there are many, many others. 

Most hair is an attachment, worn over a "bald head" hairbase.  Most shoes are attachments, worn with a shoe base to distort the foot to fit, and an alpha mask to hide parts of the foot that would otherwise spoil the look.  Parts of clothes that stick out away from the body are attachments, like cuffs, flared skirts, poofy jackets, and collars.

Attachments may be made of ordinary prims, sculpted prims, or mesh.  The latest craze in SL is mesh, and most new clothing coming out is either entirely or mostly mesh.  Strictly speaking, EVERYTHING in Second Life is a mesh, but when we say "mesh" we generally mean something that was made in an external 3D modeling program like Blender, not with the in-world building tools. "Rigged" mesh clothing is affected by your avatar's "bones".  It's designed to bend and move with your avatar...but it cannot be re-sized, and therefore usually comes with several sizes so you can choose the best fit.  "Fitted" mesh has the added feature that it will adjust to your individual shape.  You don't need to worry about what size you wear with Fitted mesh.

The thing about attachments that you have to understand is that they are "phantom."  Both your own body, and other people's bodies, will pass through them.  Put on a mesh dress, and you'll probably see parts of yourself sticking through.  So, those parts are hidden by wearing an alpha mask clothing layer.

So now at last we come to mesh body parts.  You can get mesh replacements for everything...hands, feet, head, breasts, and buttocks.  You can get a complete mesh body (some with head, hands, and feet and some without.)  In order to match up with your standard avatar body, these attachments require several things.

  1. Your shape must be what the attachment was designed for.  My SLink mesh hands wouldn't match up with my wrists until I changed to one of the Standard Mesh Sizing avatar shapes.
  2. You have to match the skin tone.  Most major skin makers also sell "appliers" for the most popular mesh body attachments.  An applier is just a little HUD that you wear temporarily.  It's used to..well, apply...the appropriate bitmap to the mesh attachment.  Clothing makers sell outfits with appliers too, so the right clothing texture can be painted onto your mesh parts.  If your skin maker doesn't sell an applier for your body part, there are also controls in the body part's HUD to manually match the skin you have on.  This requires some cut-and-try though.
  3. An important point!  Mesh body parts that are new on the market can make shopping for clothes difficult.  You may find very few outfits that have appliers for your new mesh bum.
  4. You must remember to wear the alpha layer.  Depending on your shape, and your outfit, you may use a different alpha to get the best blend with your avatar body.  The HUD pictures included with your derriere seem to offer controls for this.

Good luck, and tread carefully in the minefield of Second Life fashion!

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