Does anyone here in Second Life still uses the classic avatar even after 4 years or more?

[Chic Aeon]

4 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

So it's cheap and easy to own a mesh body these days but that doesn't make them cheap or easy to use.

No they have never been easy to use. I remember Lara years ago.  SL is FULL of "learning curves" :D.    And I really hate appliers so I will (hopefully) be glad when bakes on mesh comes out.  (Fingers crossed). But hopefully the appliers will still work as I have some things that I really like (mostly makeup). 

And yes, the heads on altamura used to be optional on the free full avatars and that did change on each one after the first bit of gifting. Not sure if any new full body gifts will have optional heads at the beginning again and then switch to ONLY full body or not. AAron had the ability to turn off the head and one of the gal ones did too. I prefer eBody over altamura for the gals bodies, but that is a personal preference. Still, it is a good way for folks to try out mesh bodies for free.  And for some, the free bodies are just fine. 

[Coby Foden]

17 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I do not use mesh heads ever but that's mainly because they are butt ugly. I might change my mind if somebody came up with one that actually looked better than the system avatar.

It might be that you haven't looked in the right places? There are mesh heads suffering from ugly "duck lip syndrome". But there are also very nice mesh heads. I really did like my system head a lot. Then finally I went to mesh head. I do like the mesh head much more than my system head. It's smooth, it has cute nice animations which bring life to the face.
Some sample snapshots below. On the left is my latest appearance with system head, the rest are with my present mesh head - not "butt ugly" I hope.
System head can look very beautiful; the main problems are the frozen appearance (no animations) and that prim/mesh eyelashes don't follow the eyelid movement.


 

17 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I try to avoid crowded places. Having my screen filled up with disjointed body parts and jellydoll shapes isn't an enjoyable experience so I rather stay home.

This is one big problem with all the mesh craziness. When you enter busy place, depending on how many avatars are present, it can take up to 10 or even 15 minutes before all the bits and pieces have found their right places. It happens even with good computer and fast internet connection.

What Linden Lab could do? It is totally in their power to implement excellent and beautiful system avatar, if they wanted to. It would greatly simplify things for the users in the long run as there wouldn't be so much need for mesh avatars and mesh heads.

[Magnek Fang]

There are quite a few avis I have that are still system because of the skin or shape (let's face it, you'd go broke getting a mesh body for every body type you want. I almost did when I got both the Geralt and Kuroo), or because I have not found a mesh equivalent of the current outfit. I'm still waiting on BoM for skins and tatts, but forget doing it on clothes. Also I'm trying to replace some of the complexity bomb hairs, but I might have to keep some because it's impossible to find moddable hair in this day and age, or a guy's hair that isn't half (Catwa only) applier, and I got some weird heads.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Coby Foden said:

 On the left is my latest appearance with system head, the rest are with my present mesh head - not "butt ugly" I hope.
System head can look very beautiful; the main problems are the frozen appearance (no animations) and that prim/mesh eyelashes don't follow the eyelid movement.

When I first saw the pics, my thought was "Wow, I love the lips on the one on the far left". Well, you explained why - that is the System head.  The lips on the other pics aren't bad, far better than most of the duck-lips that i see on mesh heads - so I guess that does mean that maybe there is hope for the lips after all.  Which head is that?

[Coby Foden]

15 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

When I first saw the pics, my thought was "Wow, I love the lips on the one on the far left". Well, you explained why - that is the System head.  The lips on the other pics aren't bad, far better than most of the duck-lips that i see on mesh heads - so I guess that does mean that maybe there is hope for the lips after all.  Which head is that?

The mesh head is Vista animations' Lia bento head. Personally I consider it to be the nicest looking one of the three Vista heads.
Lia head's lips look quite normal human lips. On the other hand Vista's Diana and Zoe heads have the "duckish" protruding kind of lips.

By the way, the vendor picture in the store does not do justice to Lia head.
Actually the Lia head is much nicer looking than in the store vendor picture.
I wonder why they used that picture.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Coby Foden

[Coby Foden]

41 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

When I first saw the pics, my thought was "Wow, I love the lips on the one on the far left". Well, you explained why - that is the System head.  The lips on the other pics aren't bad, far better than most of the duck-lips that i see on mesh heads - so I guess that does mean that maybe there is hope for the lips after all.  Which head is that?

Here's side view of the Vista Lia head.

[Parhelion Palou]

I recently got a mesh head for my female alt that I think is pretty good. It wasn't far from her system head's shape so it didn't take much tweaking to get it good enough. It's at least as good as the system head looked.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

On 29/06/2018 at 1:42 PM, Fionalein said:

still tech illiaterate folks like to wear their full alphaed out mesh bodies below their closed suits...

Here's a challenge: try to grab any kind of proof that the bodies are really fully aphaed out. My bet is that there'll be at least one or two alpha slices, perhaps more, not activated, because you still need a neckline below your suit. 
I'm fairly certain that the m-alts only own one top with could be worn without a full body underneath, and that's a warm looking turtleneck. 

Or look at the ankles ... you'll either have boots bleeding through the pants, unless you are keen on the tucked in look. Or you'll end up with a gap between the shoes and pants cuffs, unless you replace the missing body with some (hopefully fitting) mesh socks.

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

Here's a challenge: try to grab any kind of proof that the bodies are really fully aphaed out. My bet is that there'll be at least one or two alpha slices, perhaps more, not activated, because you still need a neckline below your suit. 
I'm fairly certain that the m-alts only own one top with could be worn without a full body underneath, and that's a warm looking turtleneck. 

Or look at the ankles ... you'll either have boots bleeding through the pants, unless you are keen on the tucked in look. Or you'll end up with a gap between the shoes and pants cuffs, unless you replace the missing body with some (hopefully fitting) mesh socks.

In other words, they're wearing a four-layered mesh divided into hundreds of sections in order to show about a square foot of skin and using scripts and a HUD to turn off all the rest of it. Almost makes more sense to bite the bullet and use the system body to show those little bits of skin, doesn't it?

[Nightflowerlily]

I do after six years and my first avi is going on 12 yrs. I do have a toddleedoo toddler and my other alt has a tweenydoo  so we can build for them in mind. I switch from body to body but no fancy mesh womans body. I also have a dragon avi who is huge I use that to explore never has a problem crossing sims. 

[Lillith Hapmouche]

47 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Almost makes more sense to bite the bullet and use the system body to show those little bits of skin, doesn't it?

If the creator is so kind to provide a system skin...

[Parhelion Palou]

On 12/4/2016 at 6:02 PM, Zenrei said:

I feel like I want to let this out ;w;

Lately I feel left out because I don't have a mesh body, but many others do.

There are good reasons why I probably will never buy a mesh body... ;w; I don't mean to detest mesh bodies. I tried a demo of Maitreya and I actually like it but ...it's expensive ;w;

Besides that, I'm going to SL not just for the fashion, but for the experience

The education/nonprofit part of SL is still around 90% system body/head from what I've seen at social events and meetings. That's for female avatars; it's uncommon to find a male avatar with a mesh head or body. A few people have avatars with head-to-toe system everything.

[Garyll]

On 04/12/2016 at 11:02 PM, Zenrei said:

Does anyone here in Second Life still uses the classic avatar even after 4 years or more?

Up until today, yes.  

Yesterday,  I decided I wanted a complete new look, and I couldn't find any decent system skins to work with it so today I bought a mesh head. Which has now caused its own problems because while I really like it, it's Omega not Catwa, so I still can't find a skin for it. But the default included skin is still better than any of the classic skins I could find.  Seems like the only classic ones left for men are poor quality or stolen.

I did find a Catwa/Signature combination whilst trying demos that was perfect, but I can't justify spending L$10k (£30) on it. 

[Nalates Urriah]

On 6/30/2018 at 8:57 AM, Coby Foden said:

What Linden Lab could do? It is totally in their power to implement excellent and beautiful system avatar, if they wanted to. It would greatly simplify things for the users in the long run as there wouldn't be so much need for mesh avatars and mesh heads.

This Avatar 2.0 thing is a years long discussion. You are right. They could rebuild the avatar. The reason they did not change the system avatar and instead went the Bento/Mesh route is the Linden aversion to breaking legacy content (system avatar). The built in Ruth/Roth is never going to change as the needed changes would break a huge amount of legacy content.

[Coby Foden]

10 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

This Avatar 2.0 thing is a years long discussion. You are right. They could rebuild the avatar. The reason they did not change the system avatar and instead went the Bento/Mesh route is the Linden aversion to breaking legacy content (system avatar). The built in Ruth/Roth is never going to change as the needed changes would break a huge amount of legacy content.

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 hours ago, Garyll said:

today I bought a mesh head. Which has now caused its own problems because while I really like it, it's Omega not Catwa,

Omega is a generic applier system, not a brand of mesh head, whereas Catwa is a mesh head brand.  Most heads can use Omega appliers as long as you buy the applicable Omega Relay.

[Nalates Urriah]

I assume you meant this comment as the rest are questions, not answers.

My understanding is Grumpity is management not an engineer. So, her idea and meaning of 'improve' and Oz Linden's idea of what parts of the avatar can be 'improved' are different.

Since Ebbe is prominent in reference... While I covered those in my blog and have links to those in my blog I didn't index those two videos. Inara summarized and clipped parts of the audio. See https://modemworld.me/tag/ebbe-altberg/ But, I don't know of a time-mark index. So, it is hard to go directly to any part of the video where he talks about avatars. If you have a time mark where he says they have a plan to upgrade the classic avatar, I would love to have it.

You can seach her posts for Ebbe's comments on the avatar. But, nowhere does he talk about changing Ruth/Roth. The Lab is enhancing the Classic = Ruth/Roth avatars. Bento changed the skeleton. They did that by adding to it. They did not change any of the existing bones, which define Ruth/Roth. Bakes On Mesh will up the texture size usable with the classic avatar. However, the service will still be able to use all the existing skins. So, while this technically is a change to Ruth/Roth unless they change the skin used with them, which is unlikely, there will be no apparent change.

The reason we have mesh bodies is the Lab's resistance to changing the mesh layouts and UVMaps of the Ruth/Roth avatar and breaking legacy content. The part we need to change to reduce the popularity of mesh bodies and heads, layout and UV, isn't going to change.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Nalates Urriah

[Roary McGillivary]

On 6/29/2018 at 4:31 AM, AmberToy said:

I still use classic body, but I own a lot of mesh clothes that work with classic. Skirts, coats, hair, and shoes/boots being the biggest chunk of mesh I own.  I am not a fan of mesh undies and bikinis as they tend to hover over my shape. I guess the biggest reasons I still use the classic shape is because I own so much classic layer stuff and I worked so hard on my shape.  I guess I get ok results with classic shape.  My partner also still uses classic she is in the bottom pic in black. 

Like you for the longest time I was so worried about keeping my shape I had worked to get to after many years in SL, tweeks and adjustments every year. Finally I decided to copy down ALL of my body settings from Edit Shape, just to have a back up on hard copy for just incase. I purchased a Maitreya body and was able to plug in those shape paramiters, I not only still have my shape with Maitreya I look even better now. 

[Zeta Vandyke]

Its mostly a matter of taste I guess. IMO why would I want to have a system avie, based on graphics and technology over a decade old?

I used to love my system avie when it was all there was, now its just not up to today's standards anymore. And the amount of different heads from all the creators, and with customization bento and all the shaped, hair, makeup and whatever, you can still be as unique as you want.

In my eyes most system avies all look alike these days. With the stretched graphics, and the ugly lines at their nose sides. Again, just my opinion, don't have to agree.

I do think its general opinion too. If I look at my adult sim, the mesh ones get massively more clients and tips than system avies, or even mesh body with system head ones.

 

[Coby Foden]

1 hour ago, Nalates Urriah said:

If you have a time mark where he says they have a plan to upgrade the classic avatar, I would love to have it.

The reason we have mesh bodies is the Lab's resistance to changing the mesh layouts and UVMaps of the Ruth/Roth avatar and breaking legacy content. The part we need to change to reduce the popularity of mesh bodies and heads, layout and UV, isn't going to change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=7wwmcD0J8N4

Ebbe trying to answer my question a second time from 1:01:36 to 1:03:50 (he crashed two times earlier).
My question was: "Are there plans to upgrade the system avatar's mesh to present day standards? And if not, why not?"

As you can hear he didn't understand my question properly about the system avatar. Thus he couldn't answer the question.
Instead he continued talking about mesh attachments, bodies, heads, etc.

Anyway, as everything is rigged to the bones, nothing is rigged to the system body mesh, why would upgrading system avatar's mesh break any existing content?
If the UV map was kept intact then the legacy system clothes, skins, tattoos, etc. would still work on the upgraded system mesh body, wouldn't they?
They work on mesh bodies, why wouldn't they work on the upgraded system mesh body?

Edited July 2, 2018 by Coby Foden

[Theresa Tennyson]

21 minutes ago, Coby Foden said:

Anyway, as everything is rigged to the bones, nothing is rigged to the system body mesh, why would upgrading system avatar's mesh break any existing content?
If the UV map was kept intact then the legacy system clothes, skins, tattoos, etc. would still work on the upgraded system mesh body, wouldn't they?
They work on mesh bodies, why wouldn't they work on the upgraded system mesh body?

Re-posting something I wrote about a year ago on the same topic:

I remember reading an old high-end stereo magazine from the 1980's. Someone wrote an article saying that we should go to a high-definition analog television system and the government were a bunch of philistines because they hadn't pushed it through.

Of course, the government didn't listen.

Of course, the high-definition analog system would have been obsolete years ago if they'd done what the writer said anyway.

-----------------------------------------------------

Okay, we obviously need to talk about terminology:

All mesh capable of conforming to the movement of the avatar mesh is rigged mesh. It's been official and supported for as long as mesh was on the table for SL. I've seen a video from 2010 where someone was wearing a rigged mesh avatar in a Second Life testing environment. Rigged mesh is rigged to bones. The default Second Life avatar mesh has some aspects of its shape determined by bones, but others that represent "soft tissue" are determined by morphs that are hard-coded into the definition of the avatar itself. If you wear a piece of mesh in Second Life, it simply can't reliably follow the morphs of the default avatar. Morphing, for our purposes, is the equivalent of analog television. The reason for "standard sizes" of mesh clothing was to set the morphed aspects of the default avatar to predictable values so it wouldn't be obvious that mesh clothing couldn't respond to those slider values.

Fitted mesh is also rigged to additional bones in the skeleton called "collision bones",  most of which were already there but lying dormant, which can approximate the effects of the morph-changing sliders. The skin of the default avatar isn't rigged to these collision bones though. Mesh rigged to the collison bones can therefore respond to the sliders which make the default avatar morph, but not exactly the same way the default avatar does. This is why fitmesh clothing usually doesn't work reliably on the default avatar.

Even if you added polygons to the default avatar and improved its weighting this wouldn't mean that mesh clothing would be able to respond the same way as the body does to the "soft tissue" sliders that cause the default avatar to morph. You'd need its skin rigged to some system of bones, and there's no guarantee it would still look and act the same way that the default body does at any given slider setting.

However, if you attach a mesh body to the skeleton you can have mesh clothing and avatars that respond the same way to the sliders because they're both speaking the same "language."

[Garyll]

5 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Omega is a generic applier system, not a brand of mesh head, whereas Catwa is a mesh head brand.  Most heads can use Omega appliers as long as you buy the applicable Omega Relay.

Yes I know, the problem is there aren't many male skins out there with omega head appliers. Plenty for omega bodies but 95% of the head skins are catwa only.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Garyll

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Garyll said:

Yes I know, the problem is there aren't many male skins out there with omega head appliers. Plenty for omega bodies but 95% of the head skins are catwa only.

Ah gotcha - now I understand what you are saying. When you use 'omega' directly in front of body or head, it sounds like a brand. i.e. 'Plenty for omega bodies' vs 'Plenty of Omega appliers for bodies'

[Garyll]

32 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Ah gotcha - now I understand what you are saying. When you use 'omega' directly in front of body or head, it sounds like a brand. i.e. 'Plenty for omega bodies' vs 'Plenty of Omega appliers for bodies'

I guess I meant "Omega-compatible"

[Lillith Hapmouche]

More drama on the mesh front ...

Catwa filing a DMCA claim against Akeruka, saying that the UV map was ripped.