clothes will not attach

[March Brennon]

a friend of mine was away for 2 months and now they cannot get any clothes to appear on their body.  what would cause that and is there a way to reset inventory, if this is the issue.  have tried resetting avatar and other things.  please help!

 

[Manwa Pastorelli]

Without knowing exactly what you have tried its hard to say.

 

However performing a clean install of the viewer is almost always a fix for 99% of things,

 

The exact way will again depend on their operating system and the viewer they use. But if all else fails, uninstall the viewer, delete the setttings folders manually. Reinstall the viewer.

 

 

[Nalates Urriah]

As the question is your first post I'll assume you're pretty new. So, the long explanation is in order.

There are two different types of avatars in SL. There are the sort of new starter avatars, which have what we call mesh bodies or we just call them mesh avatars. There are also the older avatars which we call classic avatars. The classic avatar skeleton and skin are the base avatar for both mesh and classic and have been around since the start of Second Life. When using a new mesh body the skin of the classic avatar is hidden behind it. As the classic body will poke-through the mesh body when animated the classic body is hidden using alpha layers.

Clothes and skin made for the classic avatar are a texture/image applied to the classic mesh surface as a tat or shirt or other system clothing item. We call these clothes and skins classic, system clothes or skin. You can think of the images as being like decals stuck on the mesh surface that makes up the classic body's skin.  

If you use GIMP or Photoshop you are familiar with layers. The classic body and clothes system uses layers. In the classic avatar the skin is the bottom layer. On top of that we composite the tattoo, undershirt, shirt, and jacket layers. We can also wear ‘attachments’ on top of all those layers.

Over the classic avatar body and those ‘system’ layers the mesh avatar places a new mesh surface, which is literally just another attachment. The attachment can be a head, hands, feet, body, all of them, or any combination.

When wearing a mesh body and/or parts there are two similar surfaces which are so close to the same position we have to hide the classic surface as it pokes through the new style mesh avatar’s surface when the avatar moves. It’s a basic limitation of modeling and animating in all 3D worlds. It is just the state of the technology we have. Note, this hiding also hides the system clothes applied to the classic skin.

The viewer always applies system skin, tats, shirt, etc. to the system or classic avatar’s surface. This is why when you wear a mesh avatar body and make changes to system clothes you see no change. The change happened on the classic avatar skin/surface, which is HIDDEN UNDER the attached mesh body/skin/surface.

Special skins and clothes are needed for use with the newer style mesh avatars. With mesh clothes another mesh surface is placed over both the classic and new style mesh skins. A rigged mesh top should fit over both skins. A rigged mesh jacket will be another surface that fits over all the surfaces below/inside it.

We use 'Appliers' (a HUD that usually comes with a skin or other item like a blouse) to place textures/images on the new surface that makes up the avatar's new mesh body skin. The HUD does for the mesh body what the viewer does for the classic body, put textures on it.

Unfortunately, skins and clothes made for the classic avatar generally won't work with the new mesh avatar skin. The skin makers are modifying classic skins they made to work with Appliers they build, which put the skins on the new mesh avatars. We are seeing most new skins including both a classic skin and a mesh Applier HUD that works with various bodies.

Mesh clothes can be used with the new mesh avatars and classic avatars. How well they do or don't fit each varies.

System clothes can only be used with the system/classic avatar, unless they come with an Applier.

If all this seems unnecessarily complicated... you're sort of right and the thinking is understandable. But, the necessity for it comes from the Lab's habit of making all new things as backward compatible as possible. Classic avatars came first. We are now in a transition to newer things. We expect these complications to be removed in the coming SL2/Project Sansar.