What mesh can a classic avatar wear?

[Lysa Galicia]

The question is in the title, and it is not very clear in the marketplace.

[Rhonda Huntress]

Anything you want, basically.

Always demo before you buy to verify the fit but as a rule of thumb, system avatars are not limited in what they can wear like a mesh body is.

[Lindal Kidd]

Rhonda is right!  "Mesh" is just a term for a certain kind of object...it means that it was created in an external 3D modeling application, rather than made of the geometric prims we can make with the in-world building tools.  Being an object, it can be attached to your avatar.

So, you can wear mesh bodies, heads, hands, feet, clothes, hair, shoes...anything!  You can even attach a mesh house to your avatar, although it will get you talked about.

There ARE a couple of things you need to check, though, to be sure the mesh item you're wearing looks good on you.

• Most mesh, even if it's "Fitted" mesh or designed to fit your body shape, will let bits of your body poke through it, especially when you move.  So, it comes with an "alpha mask" clothing layer that will hide the parts of your avatar that are covered by the mesh item.  Use the ADD command to add the mesh's alpha mask to your ensemble, and take it off when you remove the mesh item.
• Since the mesh item is an object, it's not affected by traditional clothing layers.  So, if you want to texture it...with a different skin, say, to match the skin of your head...or, if you wear a mesh head, to put on a different makeup...you need an "applier".  An applier is a little HUD that will "apply" a texture to the mesh item.  These only work with a specific mesh item.  So, if you are looking at some makeup and it says, "for Catwa", then it can only be used to apply the makeup to a Catwa mesh head.  If it says, "for Classic avatars" then it includes a tattoo layer version that you can wear on your regular avatar head.
• If you have a mesh body, you can wear mesh clothing over it.  Some clothes say they come with a version specifically sized to fit a particular mesh body.  When doing this, instead of wearing an alpha mask layer for the clothes, you will use the HUD that comes with the mesh body to determine which parts of your body will be invisible so as not to poke through the mesh clothing.  (Your classic body is already completely invisible, because you are wearing a full body alpha mask that comes with the mesh body.)

If you decide to wear a house...you're on your own!

[Theresa Tennyson]

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Lysa Galicia wrote:

The question is in the title, and it is not very clear in the marketplace.

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A "classic" avatar can wear any mesh but how it fits will be an issue. There are technical reasons that mean that no mesh clothing can react exactly the same way to the sliders that the default body does. When mesh clothing became popular a "standard sizing" system was introduced and used by many mesh clothing makers. This set up a group of sizes that would theoretically work well with default avatars if some, but not all, of the body shape settings were set to certain values. If you can use one of these standard sizes you'll have an easier time finding mesh clothing that will fit the default avatar well. Standard size compatibility is usually mentioned in ads.

"Fitted mesh" reacts to more of the sliders but it still doesn't behave exactly the same way as the default avatar does - it can work with a classic avatar if you're a fairly average size but it starts acting oddly at extreme sizes.

The reason mesh bodies are currently popular is that clothing can be made to react the same way that avatar does so fitting is generally easier.

[Lindal Kidd]

I respectfully disagree with that last statement. I have found MANY mesh items that supposedly work with my Maitreya Lara mesh body, that still do not work very well, because the alpha mask adjustments of the body can't be tweaked finely enough to match the edges of the alpha with the edges of the garment.

[Lysa Galicia]

I am copying that last post so I don't lose it! Thank you!