Why are mesh clothes often No Mod

[Leffe Levenque]

I'd like to understand why so many designers make their objects no mod. For obvious reasons i can understand why no mod scripts exists, but i can't get my head around why people refuse to provide a mod version when asked.

Everyone that likes dressing up knows that even when you buy fat packs of everything, it mostly isn't the right tone of the color you which to match or the designer did not use the specular settings as you'd like it to be or worse, they make their shoes full bright and you can't turn it off. Often things you easily miss in a demo.

I can understand they don't want to sell sell single colors mod. But why would they care if I would tint the color slightly so it matches another piece of my attire, or increase or reduce the specular, it blows my mind.

I had several answers that didn't make any sence. it went from: "The scripts inside are no mod, so therefor the object has to be no mod"  to  "People can steal my stuff when it's mod" ... well i'm pretty sure that the permissions settings won't prevent any theft (unless you leave them full perm) another one i hear a lot is "sorry we can't give mod versions" ... how on earth were they able to create the item in the first place if they don't have a mod version.

Anyway, i'd be intersted to understand why people wouldn't want to make a mod version available for clothes and wearables. Write any sense or nonsense below :)

[Buttacwup Float]

They want the clothes and textures to look the way they want? They don't want their clothes and textures tinted in unexpected way? I am just speculating...

[HarrisonMcKenzie]

That's a very good question. I just started selling, and I chose to make everything no-mod for a few reasons.

 

First, since it's almost all rigged clothes, you can't really do much with modify anyways. They can't be scaled or prepositioned, which means the only relevant thing to do is rename the item (or the next topic). It's like an animation being no-mod; there's just no reason to have it be mod.

 

The second is for some security. When you buy one of my shirts, you are buying that shirt. So if you bought a Thundercats shirt, you have a Thundercats shirt. It's not hard to rip a texture, which means that leaving in modify permissions kinda of turns the item into a template. Sure, the customer can't sell it afterwards, but they could make their own designs from that point forward. Nd since I use a very, very common template for some of my clothes, it means I could be damaging the entire market but allowing people the get their own clothes.

 

There is also consideration for the creative image. Making clothing, even if you are just making the texture, is artwork. I do consider the colour pallete I use and how it looks as a finished product, and allowing people to change the colour can impact the quality of my work. Especially for something like a graphic tee, changing the colour in SL can make the images look terrible, which removes my ability to present my work as I want it displayed. It doesn't really bother me, but I know a lot of artists who would be offended to see their work tampered with.

 

And lastly, it's about dollars. If I know I can sell a red version of this shirt, that's another product and future sales I can make. That's not to condemn designers who include colour or texture changing abilities; it just means they are using different sales tactics.

[Leffe Levenque]

Thanks for your answer, however they are not resizable, there are many other espects that can be altered like color, specular settings, turning off full bright, transparency etc,

They could make their own texture if they wanted to, however i doubt that the amount of people that would go through that kinda trouble would affect the market (how it it affect the market if someone that has a fatpack requests a mod version and adds a texture from their own?). It is in my experience harder to match your new designed mesh to a texture than quickly create your own texture for a mesh you designed.

I wouldn't consider clothes in SL to be art that is of such significance that it shouldn't be altered. It still is just a commercial product. I know for a fact that i can improve lots of designes that are out there. Also the quality of the individual piece can be slightly sacrified to improve the overal look. Nobody wants to wear greens that don't go together, but with a light tint the total look can be significantly improved. I can give you tons of examples of that. there are millions of colors, but there are usually not that many in a hud.

I can relate to your last point of course, however if someone that bought all the colors already and would like to make some modifications, i wouldn't see why they can't be helped with a mod version.

[Alwin Alcott]

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it mostly isn't the right tone of the color you which to match

the designer did not use the specular settings as you'd like it to be

they make their shoes full bright and you can't turn it off.

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what i would ask is.... why on earth you want to buy it when it's so horrible for you?

you don't get a can of paint delivered with your new skirt/pants in Harrods either...

 

[Qie Niangao]

Not that it does any good, but I'm completely with you on this, and always have been, even before Mesh.

And with Mesh, it's even more important to have the ability to modify -- because (unlike texture clothes) they can be scripted! (Not to resize themselves -- they're mostly rigged anyway, and usually fitted; but if we could script all the content in our outfits, it would completely change the whole experience of wearing outfits!)

This goes doubly for Mesh avatars -- and yet the most popular ones are all no-mod. If the creators hired halfway competent scripters, it would be one thing, but speaking as a scripter... oh, don't get me started!

And clothing creators who fancy themselves artists -- such special snowflake artists that their hallowed products mustn't be tainted by the touch of mere mortals -- they can keep their little pixel scribbles, thank you very much.

 

[Leffe Levenque]

The point is not whether i bought it or not. Often i like the design and i would contact the designer if its possible to obtain a mod version after buying a fatpack. And for your rl analogy. Dye is not included but widely available, although i dont find rl analogy relevant.

[Vulpinus]

Another vote here for mod permissions, and I agree with every word Qie said! I make and sell a little, soon to be selling more mesh stuff, and everything I sell is copy/mod apart from scripts.

I very rarely will buy anything that is not mod/copy permissions. I love to customise what I buy and nearly always it can be 'improved' (at least in my eyes) to fit in with my decor, increase functionality, or whatever. It's part of the fun in SL.

My favourite (and only) mesh body is fully mod and that is great.The creator made a good decision (as with his previous products) to make it so and it has spawned a good amount of third-party products, including my own scripts that sell well. All of this increases sales of the creator's product.

As to clothes, I got so sick of everything being no-mod that I almost refuse to buy finished clothes (not entirely though - there are some designers who are so good I break my rule). Instead, I bought some of the full-perm kits and make my own clothes. Maybe not as good as some I could buy, and would, if they were mod, but at the same time a lot better than many out there.

Changing tints slightly, or adding/removing other effects as mentioned in the thread is a great way of customising an outfit. If a seller wants me to buy more of their work, they can make more significantly different things I want to buy (and maybe still tweak). If the creator is good enough, no amount of mod-ability by me would stop me buying more from them. Those I mentioned above that I break my rules for are an example. If the products were mod, I would still buy everything I have, and maybe even more. Certainly not fewer!

Don't forget that other objects can be attached even to rigged/fitted mesh. For instance, linking a buttonhole to a jacket, or linking all your fitted mesh together into one outfit. It works well (depending on the attachment points used for the clothing), if the clothes are mod. Of course you can just wear the individual items but making a single wearable object is so convenient and with fitted mesh it works really well because each item snaps to the place it should be when attached.

Scripting? Yeah... Qie's covered that one but as another scripter (and soon-to-be mesh head too) I have often wanted to script an item or a piece of clothing to enhance it (or me) in some way.

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The bottom line: I detest the concept of 'you've only bought a licence to use my product only the way I want you to' when it comes to most things in SL. Whatever is behind that, I have yet to hear what I consider an acceptable reason for it. (no offence meant to those who disagree - I just have strong views on this)

To answer two points against mod perms:

If the reason is that if someone could make a small adjustment to your clothing and that means they don't buy another item from you, then frankly if that's how you sell items (minor change=another full sale item) then I won't be buying anything from you at all. A good designer should be able to come out with enough significantly different and desirable designs that I want to keep buying them, and maybe still re-tinting or scripting them.

Then again, if the reason is that you think someone might be steal another of your textures and apply to the one purchase they made (and maybe not even from you) ... get real, and stop treating your customers like criminals-in-waiting. It's ******* insulting! Yes, it's easy to do thanks to SL's lack of any real asset protection, but that's not the point. On the forums I am on it's very obvious from many discussions I see (from consumers of these products) that the vast majority of people don't even have a clue how to; I mean they just aren't that knowledgeable in how things work and aren't interested. They just want to buy stuff. Those that would do that it, will find ways to do such things anyway. Most people are *not* thieves and don't deserve to be assumed to be!

Punished and restricting the freedoms of the majority of decent people due to fears of the misbehaviour of a few miscreants is absolutely despicable.

[/soapbox]

[Tiffy Vella]

As a customer and creator, I vote for mod mesh all the time. All the fears of what could happen if I made my work moddable have never happened, not in 8 years of designing and selling in SL. My work has never been undermined by being tinted a gross hue. It's never been ripped because of mod permissions. I never lost sales of multiple colours because of moddability.

I'm pretty confident that leaving mod perms open increases the value of things enormously.

The worst thing that ever happened? Several times a customer tried to mod something, screwed it up, and needed a replacement (back in the prim days). So I send a new one over to them which takes less than a minute. How easy is that, and how better to build goodwill.

I think I'm fairly creative, and I think what I make is fairly artistic, but what's the use in wasting energy getting all precious over "oooh don't destroy my faaabulous creation". That's so insulting to your customer for a start, and such a waste of passion. Instead, prove how brilliant you are by making brilliant things.

Rigged mesh can't be resized or repositioned on the body, but that is no reason to deny the huge benefits of moddableness to customers. It's pretty disingenuous to say that modify permissions are unneccessary because of rigging and ignore all the other parameters that customers might like to control. For example one designers black will be entirely different to anothers as some use warm tints while others use cool ones, and this is exactly why customers need to be able to minutely add tint to a surface. Not to destroy the artistic integrity, but to create a cohesive look. That makes the creators work look better, not worse.

Over the years, we have largely removed the freedom of modding objects via edit menu from customers, and replaced this with overscripting of everything. Texturechange huds are fabulous, yes...but they have replaced so much freedom that used to be in the customers hands.

 

 

[HarrisonMcKenzie]

I'll try this another way. As a designer, I have yet to see a valid reason to sell clothes with modify permissions. The only arguments I've heard are to change the colour, change the texture, and to script the clothing. There's also other display properties like full bright and transparency, but those aren't relevant to the clothing I make (and I don't use full bright).

 

Having modify left in so you can recolour the clothing is nit something I wish for my customers to do. Again, much of my clothing include graphics it other design elements (like multiple colours) that simply does not allow you to recolour the item using unworldly mechanics. If it were a simple one colour shirt, sure, but that's not what I make. The colour swatch in Edit is a full object colour overlay, nd that makes the work that I have spent hours doing look terrible because you are adding a layer of colour ever the entire piece of clothing, not just changing the base colour.

 

Leave the item open to have the texture change is absolutely the reason why I do not include modify permissions. I'm not saying that my customers are thieves. But there are cases where the ToS of a template prohibit this. If you want to make your iwb textures for clothing, you can but a full perm template to do it. My work as a designer is to create new and unique designs that others aren't making, not to violate my ToS by basically reselling a full perm template.

 

As for scripting, I would love an explanation for this, because I simply don't follow. What kind of script could you possibly put in a piece of clothing that is so important that you would boycott a designer for not letting you do it? I completely agree with having furniture or accessories being modifiable, since those items are meant to be interacted with. I agree that furniture should have modify so that you can include roleplaying scripts or add animations if the item does not have them. If I were selling a teddy bear, I would likely leave modify in so that a holding animation can be added. If I were selling a bookshelf, I would allow the customer to modify it so they can add notecards and stories to the shelf. But I'm not aware of anything you can add to clothing that is at all relevant or necessary, aside from changing the colour or texture, which I have already said I do nit want done.

 

Again, my goal as a designer is come up with new looks, not to sell DIY kits. I'm nit saying that there is anything wrong with doing that, but it is not why I am making clothes.

[Qie Niangao]

Re: scripting: You do know what RLV is, right? It's a sad little subset of what we could do if we could script all clothing to attach and detach in response to cues from an outfit-management HUD. Instead we're stuck with the kludge-upon-kludge of RLV in a viewer. (This isn't the only reason to script clothing, but it alone would make a huge difference, particularly for articles worn on top of mesh avatars.)

I'm guessing your mesh clothes don't have Materials properties, but just a tiny example: One designer, arguably the most technically advanced of Mesh creators since the very beginning, delivered mod-perm clothing specifically to allow users to take advantage of the then-new surface Materials, enabling swimsuits that could get "wet" -- including when triggered by external scripts responding to Linden or prim water and adding other "wet" effects to (mesh avatar) skin and hair. As we know, however, depressingly many mesh designers delivered no-mod products, preventing users from getting much use from such scripts.

Nothing requires you to service that more clued-in market. There's still some demand for basic, painted-template mesh clothes, and if they're cheap enough, nobody will care that they're no-mod.

The thing that's really concerning, however, is that you seem to be under the mistaken impression that making something no-mod has an effect on content misuse. Textures and mesh geometry are both dead simple to rip regardless of permissions. It's all just OpenGL, after all, delivered to the viewer ready-made for ripping. This is true for high-end or basic template-based products.

Now, if the license Terms of your chosen base templates do not permit distribution with Modify permission, then you're certainly bound to those Terms. This would seem superstitious on the part of the template creator: Can it possibly represent lost revenue that some super-motivated end user could repaint a no-transfer mesh they bought as a mod perm product? That's just absurd.

[Leffe Levenque]

More often then not, the color change i apply is just a light tint that actually makes a huge difference to the overall look. You might not believe it, but most of your customers would actually know the limits of how much tinting a design with a pattern can have before it looks aweful. The fact that you spend hours on creating this actually doesn't matter. I spend hours to create textures for my furniture, but i don't mind if some club desires to tint it a bit so it matches better with their interior.

I checked your template supplier and indeed he says "Derived products must be no modify along with no transfer OR no copy permissions."

But still it would be nicer to have a mod version and as i did before and many people who know a thing or two about building will grab the full perm version so they can use it the way they want if they like the design.

With many of my clothes i also added a script that would set and unset the alphas of my mesh body when i wear them or take them off. Or I made them interactive for others. There is so much more you can do with mod things than just changing a texture's tone (which is still a very important factor).

A list of how I modded clothes is: changing specular settings, adding materials for a specific look, disabling full bright or gloss, adding glow in a few cases (for some cyber look), inserting scripts for interaction or making it easy on myself to autohide parts of my mesh body if its a piece that comes off and on a lot, changing the tone of the color to match the overall look, adding transparency, Hiding parts of the clothing so it can be combined with things it wouldn't otherwise, I haven't made any rlv scripts yet, but i can see how it could be useful, removing scripts to a lesser extent and i probably forgot a few.

The feasability and necessity of all the above hugely depends on the type of clothing and how they are made obviously, but i must say that the designers i spend most lindens with are the ones selling mod or provide me a mode version if i ask for it.

[Vulpinus]

The posts above mine have given excellent examples of the potential for script use (I do a lot of RLV-enabled stuff) and pointed out that making something no-mod does not stop the rippers. All it does it limit what legitimate customers can do. That seems the same with many RL laws, I've noticed. The don't stop the criminals doing what they do, they only limit law-abiding citizens.

You said: "What kind of script could you possibly put in a piece of clothing that is so important that you would boycott a designer for not letting you do it?"

It's not a case of boycotting a designer for that one limitation, and that is not what I said. It's a case of boycotting a designer who believes that I don't deserve to have the ability to modify what I have paid for.

Again as already mentioned above, many people are more capable of doing sensible modifications that you seem to think.

Of course you are free to sell your stuff how you like; that freedom is something I would defend myself even if I disagree with how you choose to use it and thereby limit the freedom of expression of others.

If it was just the unreasonable license terms of your raw materials causing the issue, I would suggest talking to or changing your suppliers, but it clearly isn't.

 

Personally, it boils down to two things:

1. I enjoy modding stuff, and have seen no harm done to any designer from such activity. I will not support someone (usually) who refuses to allow me to do this.

2. I live by "what is not by necessity banned, is allowed" rather than "what is not by necessity required, is banned". That is deeply embedded in me! (and causes me no end of annoyance at our ridiculously over-controlling nanny-state government, but that's another matter)

I'll carry on voting with my L$ :-)

[xitix]

I agree that outfits should be made 'Modify'. My primary reason for saying this is that clothes come to life with a bump and specular map. Not many creators add this and customers should have the ability to add them theirselves if they want to. Often the specular settings are really bad as well and they need to be fine-tuned. Too many outfits have a good design, but they really lack any depth and look quite boring and flat. I think a lot of designers underestimate their customers, there will be customers who are creative and they will minimally change the looks of an outfit or massively improve them which is a good thing for the creator. I doubt that there are many customers who would make the outfit look a lot worse.

Tinting the color of an outfit is also a huge benefit. Sometimes you like the design of an outfit and wish to wear it, but you come to the conclusion that the color tone of your outfit (skirt, pants, top, ...) doesn't work well with anything and you'll eventually not wear it at all.

The only reason I can think of why a creator wouldn't make their outfits 'Modify' would be because they want to sell single color tones and don't want everyone to buy the white color which they can tint to many other colors. If someone purchases a 'Fat Pack' then it should definitely be modify, they already paid way too much for an outfit which is often overpriced and deserve to have the right to modify it as they please.

Personally I would pay more for an outfit if I know I can modify it like I want it to be. For every outfit which I like and which is not modify I will try to ask the creator for a modify version, very often they won't do it and I'll be reluctant to buy much more from them unless it's extremely good. Every creator which offers a modify version after asking them get my utmost respect. They care about their customers a lot more than someone who would deny giving you a modify version.

A compromise could be made by adding 'Modify' permissions to all 'Fat Packs'. Every creator knows they earned a lot of money if they can sell their 'Fat Pack' version, why deny a customer the right to modify it. As I mentioned before, I would pay more if I can modify it myself and I would buy their 'Fat Packs' if they would allow me to do just that.

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

I prefer and am a repeat customer to creators who make their clothing, or other items, modifiable. It embraces the magical, imaginative nature of this virtual world in which we live. It emulates the real world, where only your imagination and material limitations can prevent what you can do with what you buy, wear, or sit on. Just because "You can't do much" with a modifiable object doesn't mean there is nothing you can do.

 

I have a pair of shoes made by a well known creator. I bought them before the introduction of the advanced lighting feature, and they are constructed using invisiprims, which now do not function as they once did, are superseded by the avatar alpha layers, and in fact create undesired effects under certain conditions.

If I could simply unlink them, take out the invisiprims, and relink them, I would still wear them. But I can't do that. They are no-mod, and thus cemented into historical obsolescence. I have far less motivation to revisit that creator.

 

A creator cannot cater to, or predict the personal preferences of every customer. But they can give their customers more freedom to look as they would like than any real-world creator could ever dream of. Customers who can attend to their own preferences or needs with regard to fit, color, alpha application, alignment, or other aspects, will feel more appreciated, and will be more likely to revisit the vendors who made that possible.

[Penny Patton]

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HarrisonMcKenzie wrote:

That's a very good question. I just started selling, and I chose to make everything no-mod for a few reasons.

 

First, since it's almost all rigged clothes, you can't really do much with modify anyways. They can't be scaled or prepositioned, which means the only relevant thing to do is rename the item (or the next topic). It's like an animation being no-mod; there's just no reason to have it be mod.

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Positioning and resizing are only a couple of things you can do with moddable content.

Here's what you're preventing people from doing when you sell clothes no-mod:

• Retexturing
• Tinting
• Adding custom materials
• Adding custom masking
• Linking to other items
• Unlinking parts to use individually
• Scripting
• Removing scripts
• Renaming for easier organization

And that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more. As you can see, there's plenty of reasons to to buy moddable rigged mesh and avoid no-mod.

As for everything else about "losing sales" to people retexturing/recolouring clothes, that's a baseless fear. Relatively few people have the skills to do that, and those who do have those skills are more than likely going to skip your store entirely rather than purchasing no-mod and hoping you release something closer to what they're looking for later (which you won't, because you're not psychic).

 Selling content no-mod for these reasons has never gained anyone any sales, only lost them. 

 

[Qie Niangao]

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Penny Patton wrote:

 Selling content no-mod for these reasons has never gained anyone any sales, only lost them.  

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I'd forgotten this thread, but now that it's current again: I'm celebrating discovery of a creator who offers modifiable mesh (and other) hair. Before, I'd almost resigned myself to no-mod mesh hair, but wow, what a difference, to be able to add custom Materials properties to hair!

Plus all the other advantages.

Since that discovery, I've completely stopped buying no-mod hair.

(This creator is too smart to have any alpha-blended textures, but that would be a must-fix for any hair or clothing now. Too bad so many creators didn't know to texture appropriately -- and by using no-mod permissions, preserved their ignorance for eternal ridicule. The lesson: If you don't want to look stupid, don't sell no-mod products.)

[Martin Requiem]

I know i am bumping up an old topic. 

But just want to throw in that I as a clothing seller, have doubted about selling stuff MOD. 

But i agree with all the valid points to keep things MOD.  

I mean if people want to adjust things they should be able to do so, they bought the item so it's considered theirs. 
and if they screw it up? they can get a redeliver ,  redeliver not working they can IM me and they get a new version. 

The only reason why i should sell something NO-MOD is if i put my real life picture on something, but then again i'm so ugly , no one wants to resell that   

Edited February 24, 2019 by Martin Requiem

[Frenchbloke Vanmoer]

"accidental" shiny
No mod and no way to fix it. 

And no desire by some creators to fix it. 
Fortunately a lot of creators will either fix it and send a new one or or in the case of Kauna - a full mod version

 

[Kyrah Abattoir]

For me nomod = nobuy, it doesn't matter how good your product is, if i can't tweak it i'm not interested.

• I want to recolor it.
• I want to retexture it.
• I want to re-script it and add non rigged parts to it for my script to be clickable.
• I want to set your alphas to mask mode because you didn't do it.
• I want to combine multiple items that i bought as one to save on attachment points.

As for "security" People who steal content in SL use viewers that disregard permissions. Restrictive permissions only lessen the value of the product for paying customers.

You might not see this as a big deal but I rarely return shopping with a creator that believe their customers are drooling idiots.

[Drake1 Nightfire]

One of the biggest stores in SL, Blueberry, sells all of their clothing no mod. Yet you see people everywhere wearing it. If it's such a demand for a person to be able to tint the mesh clothing to their desire, buy the full perm mesh yourself. 

The average SLer isn't going to do any of the things listed in this thread. I find it very interesting that this keep popping up. The demand for merchants to sell things a certain way. Kind of like the threads about ban lines, or security orbs, demanding sim renters do something someone travelling through wants. Not your land, not your store. 

Also...