Mesh Body vs Standard Body

[Christina Ponnier]

I wasn't kidding, and thanks for letting me know that I am alone in my ignorance. And for the explanations. And Qui said it's best to wait for Bento.

But thank you

 

and for Phil - it's the hands and feet mainly, which are very ugly on the standard.

[Phil Deakins]

Yes I agree about the hands and feet - especailly the feet. I almost mentioned them in one post but decided not to. Toes are much better as toes rather than painted lines.

I'm now imagining poor women who, when they want to wear high heeled shoes with pointed toes, they have to switch their feet as well, from the beach feet they had on Special feet for different types of shoe. Life gets ever more complicated lol.

[AnimalChi]

In my opinion, if you don't like mesh for its attention to detail, beauty, and realism, then there isn't anything to benefit from. For me, mesh is aesthetically pleasing, unlike the default avatars. It feels more up to date with other program models and actual game character models. Second Life has been behind in that for years and people chose other programs or games instead because of that, until mesh came.

But default avatars only have a small advantage currently. More clothes options (Even if they're from early to mid 2000s), more facial shape customization (Although riddled with low poly flaws), and faster loading time. But for how long? Eventually mesh bodies,heads, and clothing will out number the default stuff. The front pages are already covered in mostly mesh and mesh body related items from what I see.

 

[Rhonda Huntress]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

I'm now imagining poor women who, when they want to wear high heeled shoes with pointed toes, they have to switch their feet as well, from the beach feet they had on

Special feet for different types of shoe. Life gets ever more complicated lol.

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With Maitreya, I can swich feet hight by clicking a button on the HUD.

There are 3 different heights of feet and finding mid height shoes is rare.  So two is all you really use.  Flat and ankle breaker.  Boots can be whatever height they want since you dont wear feet with boots.

Of course you can always put a copy of the feet you need to wear in the folder with the shoes and wear the folder just like we used to do with alpha layers when they first came out.

[Alwin Alcott]

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AnimalChi wrote:

In my opinion, if you don't like mesh for its attention to detail, beauty, and realism, then there isn't anything to benefit from. For me, mesh is aesthetically pleasing, unlike the default avatars. It feels more up to date with other program models and actual game character models. Second Life has been behind in that for years and people chose other programs or games instead because of that, until mesh came.

But default avatars only have a small advantage currently. More clothes options (Even if they're from early to mid 2000s), more facial shape customization (Although riddled with low poly flaws), and faster loading time. But for how long? Eventually mesh bodies,heads, and clothing will out number the default stuff. The front pages are already covered in mostly mesh and mesh body related items from what I see.

 

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i read several non reasons here ... attention to detail... up to date, actual game character... thats all nothing, and sl isnt a optimised game. Also being lots on the front pages says nothing. The front page is loaded with items thats just OLD and CRAP even when searchign for mesh or even a current mesh avatar.

People didn't leave for the avatars... where on earth did you get that idea. They left because SL is hard to handle in the first weeks you'r here, and they expected a ready to use world...surprise.. it is what you make of it.

Second Life never has behind on others, because there are none... compare it to the real clones as OS ...SL is at least 5 to 7 years ahead. If there was real competition SL would be empty for many years... and it isn't.

The pics you showed are mainly so bad because of the lighting, not because the avie is having less quality

[Ina Fairport]

All my outfits have their own hud and body. The only thing I need to do is change outfit with one mouseclick and I wear different shoes and feet...it is that easy  

[Tamara Artis]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

Right now, I'm looking at a system body with a library skin and, whilst not absolutely perfect, it's much better looking than any of the the pictures you showed. You may not be able to get rid of those corners with system sliders, but they can be overcome by skin design.

I'm still waiting to hear some actual benefits of mesh bodies. I accept that what you've said is good for you, and probably many others, but it's not an actual benefit. It's just saying that clothes aren't as big a problem as I've understood them to be. What are the positive benefits of mesh bodies?

 

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There isn't a single skin designer in SL that can fix bumpy body parts on default SL bodies. If you sit on something, click on your avatar and then click Ctrl+0 several times the camera will zoom in on your avatar. Observe his face from profile, do you notice how his forehead isn't as smooth as your real one? Can you see the nose? Would you like to have a nose like that one in real life? 

Or take a look at shoulders of any female/male system body, muscles, neck, chins... they are not smooth. Now try to observe same body parts on any mesh body you can find in SL - do you consider them to have much smoother shape? 

I was refering to body shapes of average sizes, now try to imagine (or make a test) a female avatar that for some reason wants to have breasts and butt sliders at 100, while waist at 0. Or male avatar with muscles at 100. Do you consider that to be nicely shaped body with lovely curves? And if you recreate this with the mesh body (and I suggest you to get a any demo - it is free) and put same body sliders to 100. Can you honestly say that the system body is better or that the advantage of the mesh body isn't obvious? 

Let me go further please...

If you have a system body and want to put a mesh clothing over it, you have to add an alpha layer to hide the body beneath the clothing part. Often, if for example you wear a shirt open on the chest, alpha will not match perfectly so you will see some invisible parts. Or parts of your body peeking through the mesh clothes. So you have to make your own alpha.

Also, avatars come in several sizes - mesh clothes come in sizes from xxs to xxl. Which will you wear? 

With mesh bodies there is no such thing. 

You chose a certain mesh body - I have several but wear Maitreya. Then you go buy clothing and shoes for this mesh body - all best designers in SL are creating clothing for mesh bodies. Best designers are featured in popular places. You don't have to spend too much time tweaking and trying which combination looks acceptable - designers did that for you and made it so that you just wear items and are ready to go! 

_______________________________________________

I made that divider because I would like to write in general... I don't care how your avaar looks like, and if you still wear system clothing, flexi skirts, bling and facelights. Your thing.

I don't mind if your avatar looks like it did not see or hear any update since 2008. Your world, your imagination!

The world is changing as we speak, designers create new things and, if the change is good, it gets accepted by the majority of users. If you chose not to update yourself, if you prefer the old things, its your thing. You can look hoewver you want to!

But, you can't come and throw an attitude saying something that is on the market for many years now is bad/wrong/whatever, just because you chosed to stay out of date. You can't dismiss every possible suggestion and proof from people who are polite and trying to help you, saying "ohh beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I don't consider this to be pretty" 

[Phil Deakins]

You misunderstood what I was replying to, Tamara. We were talking only about faces - not the rest of the body.

[AnimalChi]

Quite frankly, it sounds like people are listing the benefits of mesh left and right, but some people are set in stone in their belief that mesh isn't better than default avatars. And that's their choice, but the the persistence in asking for more and more proof after people have given tons of good reasons and proof, is a little hard to take seriously.

Yes it takes more effort to make a good mesh avatar, but anything good is harder to obtain, while the easy to obtain things are typically of lesser quality. Unless you just like to be a minimalist, accepting the default avatars and all of their outdated simplicity. Nothing wrong with it. But you better be ready for resistance when you claim the older model to be better than the newer model. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

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AnimalChi wrote:

Also, you must have been joking when you said mesh doesn't produce better faces. I'm so glad to have found a beautiful mesh head with NO wrinkles, no deformities, many skins, makeup , accessories, expressions, etc. The one thing I will never miss, is being unable to edit wrinkles out of the default system avatar's face. It was impossible. 

 Mesh bodies and mesh heads become a lot less stressful when you choose one that has a high level of support from creators. Then it's almost the same as buying clothes for the default avatars. Some of the mesh bodies and heads out there right now have thousands of clothing items available to choose from. Only difference is that mesh is far more beautiful. v:

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Mesh doesn't allow you to have individual faces.

Technology wise there is no reason for this.

1. The "standard" SL body is also mesh. Every last thing you see in SL is a mesh. Mesh is nothing special. It is just LL allowing us to upload more 3D-models than they originally included in 2003. Sculpty is just another way to load a mesh into the scene - that has a preset number of polygons regardless and loads via the texture-loading-system.

2. The ONLY reason the mesh heads don't respond to shape dials is that somebody at LL did not imagine we would use fitmesh for... fashion... because... I have no idea...

But that said... the choice was made, and the sliders for the face don't work on mesh heads...

Which gives them a MAJOR flaw in terms of customizability, leaving their users looking like a multi-shaded clone army.

Basically take all the storm-troopers in Star Wars (a look a like clone reference most people should get) and spray paint them in varyins shades where 99% of those shades fall within a narrow range of peach... Now tell them apart. With only looking at the helmets.

- The human brain, and the wasp brain, are both hardwired to recognize individuality by the face. So both species have evolved to have amazing variety in faces. Even some other animals, like crows, have evolved to be able to see and distinguish our faces as a key survival trait for living alongside us. And Mesh heads remove that - remove the key thing we have evolved to determine if you are an individual or a carrot juicer...

 

I'm with you all the way on mesh bodies... but not on the faces. I wish I could be, but LLs

set the wrong toggle

on those, and removed what for me is the entire point of evenhacing a face. I see no more reason to wear a mesh head than to just rez a sphere-sprim over my head. Actually since the spehere prim is kind of not a thing to do - it would make me more of an individual than a mesh head would...

I'll take my lowr poly wrinkles on the head, but ability to be unique, over the lack of any individuality that a mesh head imposes. But I will shake my claws at LLs for failing us on fitmesh and faces while I do it...

 

 

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*sigh*

The reason mesh heads don't respond to sliders is there are no appropriate bones in the face that the mesh can be rigged to.

Fitted mesh works because back when the original skeleton was designed there were "collision bones" put in the body to better reflect combat hits but for all intents and purposes they were never used. Fitted mesh is rigged to these collision bones - the only "official" act by Linden Lab was to add a very few additional collision bones for bewbs and butts and to give corporate blessing to the practice of rigging to the collision bones that was already in use. However, since facial features aren't urbane to calculating combat hits there are no small collision bones in the face.

The default face uses not bones but morphs - it can get away with this because the avatar is hardwired into the viewer so the necessary data for morphing the mesh doesn't have to be sent over the already overloaded Second Life connection. There's currently no way to use morphing for worn mesh in Second Life.

The mesh deformer worked by essentially stapling a worn mesh to the default mesh at the vertexes and it would telegraph most of the flaws of the underlying mesh.

A big part of Project Bento is adding bones to the face and it's quite a bit of work, not "setting a toggle."

 

[Tamara Artis]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

You misunderstood what I was replying to, Tamara. We were talking only about faces - not the rest of the body.

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:matte-motes-big-grin:

 here is only the faces section for you Mr. Phil... 

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Tamara Artis wrote:

There isn't a single skin designer in SL that can fix bumpy body parts on default SL bodies. If you sit on something, click on your avatar and then click Ctrl+0 several times the camera will zoom in on your avatar. Observe his face from profile, do you notice how his forehead isn't as smooth as your real one? Can you see the nose? Would you like to have a nose like that one in real life? 

 

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[Tamara Artis]

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AnimalChi wrote:

Quite frankly, it sounds like people are listing the benefits of mesh left and right, but some people are set in stone in their belief that mesh isn't better than default avatars. And that's their choice, but the the persistence in asking for more and more proof after people have given tons of good reasons and proof, is a little hard to take seriously.

Yes it takes more effort to make a good mesh avatar,

but anything good is harder to obtain

,

while the easy to obtain things are typically of lesser quality

. Unless you just like to be a minimalist, accepting the default avatars and all of their outdated simplicity. Nothing wrong with it. But you better be ready for resistance when you claim the older model to be better than the newer model. 

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Here it is, an objective opinion. 

 

[Qie Niangao]

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Tamara Artis wrote:

If you have a system body and want to put a mesh clothing over it, you have to add an alpha layer to hide the body beneath the clothing part. Often, if for example you wear a shirt open on the chest, alpha will not match perfectly so you will see some invisible parts. Or parts of your body peeking through the mesh clothes. So you have to make your own alpha.

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You realize that is is a serious limitation of Mesh bodies, right? that there's no way to create a custom alpha for them, so you're stuck with whatever alpha regions the creator built in to the model faces, and if they don't line up with clothes, you're just S.O.L.

[Tamara Artis]

Yes I realize that. So far I didn't need to make myself a custom alpha because all mesh clothing did fit right on the mesh body. If I see that a certain clothing isn't fitting I will not buy it, after trying the demo  

[AnimalChi]

And since there are hundreds to thousands of clothes that have been made specifically for most of the popular mesh bodies, it's rare that an item doesn't fit. Most of the items that say they're rigged for the specific mesh body fit like a glove. 

 

Also, most of these mainstream bodies like Maitreya have provided such precise alpha editing options that even if an item doesn't fit perfectly, you can most likely edit the alphas on the hud to make it fit. 

 

I also noticed the market is a bit one sided, favoring females at the moment, when it comes to mesh avatars. There is one that I know which is great though, for males, by "TheMeshProject". It's not a buff hulk.

[Qie Niangao]

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AnimalChi wrote:

And since there are hundreds to thousands of clothes that have been made specifically for most of the popular mesh bodies, it's rare that an item doesn't fit. Most of the items that say they're rigged for the specific mesh body fit like a glove. 

 

Also, most of these mainstream bodies like Maitreya have provided such precice alpha editing options that even if an item doesn't fit perfectly, you can most likely edit the alphas on the hud to make it fit. 

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Not my experience at all with TMP and Slink male mesh bodies. Especially not TMP, which seems to be especially dependent on "extra medium" shape slider settings.

[Phil Deakins]

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Tamara Artis wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

You misunderstood what I was replying to, Tamara. We were talking only about faces - not the rest of the body.

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:matte-motes-big-grin:

 here is only the faces section for you Mr. Phil... 

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Tamara Artis wrote:

There isn't a single skin designer in SL that can fix bumpy body parts on default SL bodies. If you sit on something, click on your avatar and then click Ctrl+0 several times the camera will zoom in on your avatar. Observe his face from profile, do you notice how his forehead isn't as smooth as your real one? Can you see the nose? Would you like to have a nose like that one in real life? 

 

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Sigh. You got it wrong, Tamara. Here is what you quoted me as saying:-

Right now, I'm looking at a system body with a library skin and, whilst not absolutely perfect, it's much better looking than any of the the pictures you showed. You may not be able to get rid of those corners with system sliders, but they can be overcome by skin design.

I'm still waiting to hear some actual benefits of mesh bodies. I accept that what you've said is good for you, and probably many others, but it's not an actual benefit. It's just saying that clothes aren't as big a problem as I've understood them to be. What are the positive benefits of mesh bodies?

And here is the start of your reply to it:-

There isn't a single skin designer in SL that can fix bumpy body parts on default SL bodies. If you sit on something, click on your avatar and then click Ctrl+0 several times the camera will zoom in on your avatar. Observe his face from profile, do you notice how his forehead isn't as smooth as your real one? Can you see the nose? Would you like to have a nose like that one in real life?

You quoted my reply to AnimalChi, who had posted links to faces, because that's what we were discussing. My reply was to her, about the faces. You didn't read it all, so you assumed that I was talking about the body in general, as the first paragraph of your reply to me showed. That's the brown part of this post. That's where you went wrong. You didn't follow the conversation and add to it. Instead you jumped in at the end, replying to an incorrect assumption on your part.

Not only that, but your post that you quoted from, to point out the only faces part, was posted after you'd made that mistake and after I'd said you were mistaken. So what was the point in quoting it? It would have been better if you gone back to see the conversation actually develope. Then you would have seen where you went wrong.

[Tamara Artis]

I have TMP body for my guy alt but didn't play with him for a while now... not sure how it is now.... There is one guy I have on my Fb (he also creates smoking products, kill me I can't remember his name or brands atm) that makes mesh bodies and he has both male and female ones, I plan to try the male body because it looks pretty good! 

TMP is annoying with their giant HUDs and I was always getting lost in their store, I did buy everything possible for both male and female but gave up soon after other bodies flooded the market. 

[Tamara Artis]

I am sorry Phil, that I did not manage to quote the correct part of your post and therefore didn't manage to get you to read and maybe even reply to what I wrote, besides stating that I quoted your wrong part. I guess I tried for nothing. 

IMHO only part that IS wrong at your side is the one you refuse to change, no matter how many people said that the change is inevitable. But oh well, I guess for standing all alone at the platform it doesn't really matter how your part looks like  

I will not try anymore, have a nice day  

[Phil Deakins]

Streuth! You've gone from bad to worse lol. I don't suppose you'd like to actually read the thread would you. Particularly the parts where I posted that there are advantages with mesh bodies over system ones. Oh, and also try the part where I said that I might actually experiment with it myself. You might also want to read a little earlier, where I very clearly stated that I am not against mesh bodies.

When you replied to me, you misunderstood what it was I was saying. That's because you only saw my reply, and you didn't look at what I was replying to. If you had, you wouldn't have got it so wrong. Now, from your last post it's clear that you haven't read much at all, because you imagine that I'm against mesh bodies, to the extent that you even imagine that I "refuse to change". You should have just accepted it when I pointed out your first error

Y'know, Tamara, it's always a good idea to actually read what's been said before piling in with wrong assumptions My best guess is that you've been involved in arguments on this topic before, and so you arrived at it with preconceived, and incorrect, ideas. All I did was ask a question out of sheer curiosity and, for a while, nobody was answering it. People were putting points of view but they weren't answering the actual question.

So you have a nice day too - and don't forget to read in future

[HarrisonMcKenzie]

I want to chime in for the no mesh body side. I get that a properly build 3d model always looks better than a system generated shape. Buy for me, the answer is why.

 

The very first reply summed up my feelings on mesh avatars perfectly. They look great when you are at the beach or when you are naked, but that's about it. I love the mesh feet that I have because my feet no longer look like door stops. But it does mean that I can't wear socks, since system socks don't work and since I can't find any mesh that fits.

 

I play a child avatar, and mesh does two things for kids. Attempt shapes just don't scale down well, so it allows people to play young kids. For the older kid crowd, it helps you not look like a bag of potatoes. But for the older kid crowd, unless you are at the beach or running around naked, that much better looking chest and human looking proportions are going to be covered up as soon as you get dressed. Putting on a shirt covered up the realistic chest and shoulders of a mesh avatar just as well as the broad shouldered potato sack that is a system shape. When you're dressed, it simply doesn't matter.

 

Now add in that I have to wear an alpha hud that may or may not work well, how clumsy it is to change outfits and thus change those alphas (with system, I can just save the corresponding alpha layer), and the cost of buy something that no one is going to see, and I really struggle to find myself in the mesh body camp. I want to buy a mesh avatar and look like a human boy, but it's such a pain to use and ends up just being alphaed out anyways.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I use a mesh body but not a head.  I don't like the heads because you can't customize them and look like everyone else with one, and frankly I haven't seen one I thought was pretty.

The mesh body I have allowed me to adjust it to the same shape my system avatar has.  I am therefore able to wear just about all the mesh clothes I had already, and am able to buy most mesh clothing, rather than having to buy clothing made for my mesh body or just fitmesh clothing.  The few pieces of mesh clothing I can't wear with the mesh body is due to the alpha layer. I just wear them with my system avatar when I want to wear them.

I personally don't find dressing any more difficult with my mesh body than the system body.

The main reason for wearing a mesh body is that it is eliminates the problem areas on the system body.  The creator of my mesh body updates it and updates are free. When the new bones project goes mainstream, I'm sure I'll get an update.

 

[mikka Luik]

Well, probably a little late to this but... I did get intrigued about replacing the standard body but being low on funds have been trying to do my own. So many resources out there and have made a pretty nice direct replace for my normal from an MH base run through the lovely basic rigging Blender template from the avastar people and a quick doubling of verts means - I have my body again. All extra smooth and expect it would be great. Only I don't get out much and not a lot of beaches in my haunts (not the sunny lounge about ones anyway)

I actually like it in that I can make a totally custom one. Probably not relevant to the larger issues though but as always nice to have the ability.

[Rhonda Huntress]

I wouldn't say it only looks goof at the beach.  Sure, that is where most of the body is seen but it also helps when wearing tight clothes that use appliers.  They pick up their form from the body's shape.

Or if you have bare shoulders like most spring and summer dresses.
Or a bare midriff.
Or a bare chest (my pet peeve but you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some guys exposed nipples).
Or when wearing a tea length or shorter dress.
Shorts and swimsuits won't leave a streak down your thigh with mesh, either.

So yes, system bodies look just as good as mesh bodies when they are fully covered with mesh clothes.

 

[ETA]

I'm sorry, I don't want it to sound like I am a priestess of mesh.  When people ask for advice I am always sure to tell them the down sides; like all that bulging inventory of system clothes are unusable.  And the cost.  And that yes, they more clothes you wear the less you get from a mesh body.  Everyone has to make their own choice. I just don't care for sweeping generalizations that ignore any advantage or disadvantage.  These polarizing statmentsare not doing the people looking for advice any good.  On both sides.

It's expensive.  Clothes are easy to find.  The old days of TMP have gone and the newer bodies, feet and hands are much easier to work with and for designers to build for.  And no they are not manditory for a good looking avatar at all.  Even if they are only 2% better, for some people it is worth the cost.  For many others it is not.

 

oh, why bother ....

good ight.  Have fun and tell your friends you love their sytle no matter whether it is mesh, system or homemade from templates.  We all out a piece of ourselves in creating our looks.  There is enough pain in this world already to cause more over a choice of pixels

[Ina Fairport]

The actual benefits of my mesh  body are that I like it more than the system body...:womanvery-happy: