Is non-mesh doomed to extinction?

[Klytyna]

44 minutes ago, Teagan Tobias said:

LOL, ugly giant with short arms, someone needs to tell you about sliders. They work wonders the classic avatar, not so will with some of the mesh avatars {unless the demos are brain dead}. But thanks for the laugh.

And the classic avatar will be around to the very end and you can take that to the bank.

Sorry to interrupt the "Mesh-Hating SL Neanderthal Victory Dance" but the sliders you use to fix "giants with short arms" work every bit as well on mesh avatars as they do on philip-linden-a-like 2003 avatars.

Just so you know...  But... Thanks for the laugh...
 

[Teagan Tobias]

30 minutes ago, Klytyna said:

Sorry to interrupt the "Mesh-Hating SL Neanderthal Victory Dance" but the sliders you use to fix "giants with short arms" work every bit as well on mesh avatars as they do on philip-linden-a-like 2003 avatars.

Just so you know...  But... Thanks for the laugh...
 

Number one, I do not hate mesh avatars, the hate is coming from the other direction. I am simply saying the classic avatar is not going away.

And when I said sliders, I was referring to all sliders, the previous poster was about the short arms, sorry I was not clearer.

And I will not put names here, but I have used demos that some, not all not even close to all, sliders did not work.

They are getting better, but they just are not for me.

[Marianne Little]

Not wanting to make this a "us against them" issue, but I was really surprised to find out that it's been so many years since WowMeh, the first mesh avatar that moved with the sliders.

It was late 2013, but it did not gain popularity before 2014? So I wonder if some of you have tried demos from early years and not lately. Many bumps in the road has been smoothed out.

One day I should pull out the WowMeh and compare it to Maitreya?

[2Tessa]

I am waiting to create mesh inworld

[Conifer Dada]

It hasn't happened yet but just suppose Linden Lab decides to update the 'system' avatar with a few tweaks that eliminate the known problems.  

For example:

1) Increasing the polygons to give smoother joint flexing while remaining compatible with existing textures.

2) Allowing textures to be applied separately to each arm.

3) Making the system avatar work with Bento

4) Adding slider that allow you to alter the basic stance of the avatar before any AO's are added - like what angle the relaxed arms hang or swing at, useful for fat avatars. 

[Teagan Tobias]

Conifer, you forgot World Peace.

[Penny Patton]

5 hours ago, Conifer Dada said:

It hasn't happened yet but just suppose Linden Lab decides to update the 'system' avatar with a few tweaks that eliminate the known problems.  

I would love it if LL did this, and did it well. I don't see that happening because I don't think LL really understands SL and what people want in an avatar, but it would be fantastic.

If I were LL I wouldn't stop with cosmetic changes to the ave mesh and adding bento support, I'd introduce an all new set of avatars with a new appearance editor. Really get in there and fix the mistakes that were made with the originals. Like the strange proportion issues, separating face and body shapes, materials support, an improved system skin, fixing the incorrectly displayed height, and generally giving appearance editing a more intuitive and easier to use interface.

[Amanda Crisp]

Non-Mesh will probably continue to have followers, but the supply of new non-mesh skins and clothing will probably thin out dramatically as content creators go where the perceived money is.

[Teagan Tobias]

9 hours ago, AmandaKeen said:

Non-Mesh will probably continue to have followers, but the supply of new non-mesh skins and clothing will probably thin out dramatically as content creators go where the perceived money is.

Hmm, non-mesh skin, never heard of that one.

My classic avatar wears mostly mesh clothing, some system clothing because some of it looks good and works well if you use it wisely.

And yes mesh clothing is getting harder to find for the classic avatar, but anyone looking needs to keep in mind that some of the fit mesh specificity made for a mesh body can be used by the classic avatar. I have found a couple of outfits that work for me (I'm not a big buyer). It all depends on your shape, but don't count out the other sizes if your looking for mesh clothing, try them all on because you may be surprised how well some fit you even though they are made for a specific mesh body, with a little modification to your shape in most cases, but try them all on, it could be worth your time. And DEMO DEMO DEMO.

[ChinRey]

On 16.4.2017 at 11:07 PM, Conifer Dada said:

It hasn't happened yet but just suppose Linden Lab decides to update the 'system' avatar with a few tweaks that eliminate the known problems. 

As Penny said, that's not going to happen. It's too late now. Of all the poor decisions LL made during the 2005-2013 period this was probably one of the worst. It's hard to quantify the damage done of course but if I say LL's failure to upgrade the system avatar when it was still time to do so has reduced the potential user base by 10-20 percent and SL's future life with 2-3 years, we're probably in the right ballpark.

[Conifer Dada]

37 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

As Penny said, that's not going to happen. It's too late now. Of all the poor decisions LL made during the 2005-2013 period this was probably one of the worst. It's hard to quantify the damage done of course but if I say LL's failure to upgrade the system avatar when it was still time to do so has reduced the potential user base by 10-20 percent and SL's future life with 2-3 years, we're probably in the right ballpark.

I don't see why it couldn't be done.  As long as the reference points of the 'existing' system mesh are retained so that existing textures still fit them and shapes are kept consistent, sub-dividing the mesh in places to allow more detail or smoother flexing should be possible.  I'm not an expert, I wouldn't know how to do it myself!  But given that some clever people have invented 'appliers' which fit 'system' textures to mesh bodies, it should be possible to upgrade the 'system' avatar mesh.    

Edited April 24, 2017 by Conifer Dada

[ChinRey]

41 minutes ago, Conifer Dada said:

I don't see why it couldn't be done.  

I didn't say it can't be done, I said it won't be.

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

If I'm understanding this correctly, SL already has the ability to switch base avatar. They're distinguished as female and male now, but can it not be extended to include improved avatars as well? Then existing content could still be used by choosing an original avatar and LL would be free to make all sorts of improvements to new ones.

[Theresa Tennyson]

2 hours ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

If I'm understanding this correctly, SL already has the ability to switch base avatar. They're distinguished as female and male now, but can it not be extended to include improved avatars as well? Then existing content could still be used by choosing an original avatar and LL would be free to make all sorts of improvements to new ones.

Unfortunately I don't think that's the case. As far as I can tell Second Life is only capable of recognizing one type of avatar as an avatar, and that's hard-coded into the viewers. I don't believe there's any sort of messaging system in place to give more specific information. The only difference between "male" and "female" avatars is a flag and some variable ranges in the shape files. You can change a shape from "female" to "male" by clicking a button, and many "young male" avatars typically used a female shape because the male shape behaves badly when scaled down. That's also why people were "Ruthed" in the past regardless of whether they were male or female. Nothing else, including system clothing, contains gender information.

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 hours ago, ChinRey said:

As Penny said, that's not going to happen. It's too late now. Of all the poor decisions LL made during the 2005-2013 period this was probably one of the worst. It's hard to quantify the damage done of course but if I say LL's failure to upgrade the system avatar when it was still time to do so has reduced the potential user base by 10-20 percent and SL's future life with 2-3 years, we're probably in the right ballpark.

You seem to be missing something - Second Life doesn't need users, it needs users who spend money. Some time ago I saw an infographic that said that female hair was the largest component in the retail economy. Now fashionistas are buying things like Maitreya mesh bodies and Catwa Bento heads, resulting in the equivalent purchase of thirty-one Truth hairstyles at one sitting, and this doesn't take into account the new clothing and accessories they'll have to buy - and they're shelling out this money enthusiastically and willingly. Meanwhile, these products are supported and developed by people who not only aren't on Linden Lab's payroll, they pay fees to be in a position to do this support and development.

[ChinRey]

1 minute ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

You seem to be missing something - Second Life doesn't need users, it needs users who spend money. Some time ago I saw an infographic that said that female hair was the largest component in the retail economy. Now fashionistas are buying things like Maitreya mesh bodies and Catwa Bento heads...

Yes and that is one of the reasons why there is no chance they'll fix the system avatar now, they don't want to risk hurting the mesh avatar business.

That factor did not exist back in the days when users kept begging for improved avatars though and I find it very hard to believe the people at LL anticipated it.

The economic aspect is a lot more complex than that though and since I indicated in another thread here that I preferred simplicity over complexity, I think I'll leave it.

 

[Teagan Tobias]

12 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Yes and that is one of the reasons why there is no chance they'll fix the system avatar now, they don't want to risk hurting the mesh avatar business.

That factor did not exist back in the days when users kept begging for improved avatars though and I find it very hard to believe the people at LL anticipated it.

The economic aspect is a lot more complex than that though and since I indicated in another thread here that I preferred simplicity over complexity, I think I'll leave it.

 

Something like they did to the housing market by introducing Linden Homes?

That would not slow them down at all if they thought it was a good idea.

[Skell Dagger]

22 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Yes and that is one of the reasons why there is no chance they'll fix the system avatar now, they don't want to risk hurting the mesh avatar business.

That factor did not exist back in the days when users kept begging for improved avatars though [ ... ]

The mesh avatar factor didn't exist back then, but other factors did. I recall users asking for an improved avatar many times, but the reason LL always gave was "not wanting to break existing user content" - even back when that meant you wouldn't be able to use your clothing layer pants because putting more vertices in the avatar's crotch area would "break" existing pants which had been created with the low number of vertices in mind. I'm thinking of one male underwear creator specifically who managed a fantastic workaround for the streaking that happened down the inner thighs; his were the only ones I found that never suffered from that failing. Had LL added more vertices to that part of the avatar, all of his content would have been wrecked. The shoulders of the default male avatar were also an issue. Textures would always stretch over them, so some designers deliberately compressed their texturing in that area to compensate. Again, add more pixels there and the design would be ruined.

In short: this is an old issue that LL have always countered with the reason of not wanting to break existing content. However, when they introduced Bento a lot of designers adapted their existing mesh content (case in point: Maitreya updated their body to include Bento hands) and these upgrades were free to people who had already purchased the original item. While it would create a lot more work for these designers if there was a system avatar upgrade, I think they would work with it as they worked with Bento.

However, since mesh avatars are the way that things in SL are trending (as in: they are the big commodity on the up at the moment, regardless of how many thousands of users are happily sticking with the system av) I don't see LL doing anything to improve the visual look of the system avatar (adding more vertices, etc) because that's simply not where the money lies at the moment.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Skell Dagger

[HarrisonMcKenzie]

On 4/23/2017 at 8:45 AM, Teagan Tobias said:

Hmm, non-mesh skin, never heard of that one.

My classic avatar wears mostly mesh clothing, some system clothing because some of it looks good and works well if you use it wisely.

And yes mesh clothing is getting harder to find for the classic avatar, but anyone looking needs to keep in mind that some of the fit mesh specificity made for a mesh body can be used by the classic avatar. I have found a couple of outfits that work for me (I'm not a big buyer). It all depends on your shape, but don't count out the other sizes if your looking for mesh clothing, try them all on because you may be surprised how well some fit you even though they are made for a specific mesh body, with a little modification to your shape in most cases, but try them all on, it could be worth your time. And DEMO DEMO DEMO.

That's a great point. Just because something isn't made for your shape doesn't mean it won't fit. I play a kid avatar and even XXS sized clothing just doesn't fit right, yet I've had some larger men's clothing fit pretty well because of how it was rigged. If there's something you like, try the demo. Regardless of what size or avatar it's specifically made for, it might fit you just fine. In real life, very little clothing is specifically made for your specific shape and body type, so why should SL be any different?

[Gabriele Graves]

41 minutes ago, HarrisonMcKenzie said:

That's a great point. Just because something isn't made for your shape doesn't mean it won't fit. I play a kid avatar and even XXS sized clothing just doesn't fit right, yet I've had some larger men's clothing fit pretty well because of how it was rigged. If there's something you like, try the demo. Regardless of what size or avatar it's specifically made for, it might fit you just fine. In real life, very little clothing is specifically made for your specific shape and body type, so why should SL be any different?

Even now I sometimes buy mesh clothing that wasn't designed specifically for my mesh body.
This usually means using the 5-sizes versions.

As I am sure you already know, most stuff designed for particular mesh bodies are based on fitmesh and even though it is designed specifically for that body, it can not fit very well and/or rely too heavily on alphas to hide the parts of the body that poke through.  In these circumstances changing your shape to fit the clothing (i.e. shrinking the bum, etc.) will not work as the clothing will changing with the slider too (though at a slight different ratio so sometimes small glitches can be solved this way).
In the cases where this will not work, you really want non-fitmesh so that the clothing will stay put while you shrink a bit to fit.

Changing your shape to fit clothing may sound really bad but in reality, especially the bum example, the skirt will still look the same shape even if the the bum is reduced and so you will appear to have to same sized bum as the skirt but your bum will be hidden underneath without alpha.

I have to say, I hate alpha'ing out my body more than slightly changing shape to fit and will always seek to minimise the alpha I apply.
Obviously I will not make a wholesale shape change but there are many tweaks that can be made here and there that you generally don't notice.
Needless to say that to go to these lengths, the outfit must be special and otherwise unavailable in a more easy to use form.

I have even been known to wear boots made for other mesh bodies because there are a bigger fit and go over the bottoms of trousers/pants better.

 

[Chase01]

I am the opposite Gabby. I hate having to mod my shape to fit something. I'd prefer to alpha it out lol. I have definitely mixed/matched clothing for other bodies from time to time. It became a daily routine when I used the MeshProject body. lol

[Penny Patton]

I don't mind changing my body shape a little, in fact for clothing such as many tops, where you expect the clothing to change the shape and physics of a woman's chest. I have a clothed version of my shape to adjust for the chest, plus physics made for the type of top.

But this makes it more difficult to change shapes for clothing such as pants where you'd need a whole set of different versions to go with top/topless combinations. I'd really only have to worry about my chest and not everything else. Pants in real life do not make my hips or butt any smaller (if only!).

Different people are going to have different priorities, of course. There's nothing wrong with having different shapes for different outfits, but it's not feasible or desireable for everybody, that's going to contribute to the longevity of the demographic who do not use mesh bodies.

On 4/22/2017 at 10:08 AM, AmandaKeen said:

Non-Mesh will probably continue to have followers, but the supply of new non-mesh skins and clothing will probably thin out dramatically as content creators go where the perceived money is.

I'm really not sure about this. Skins are skins. It's super easy for a skin creator to include a classic skin layer in the same package as an applier, and I suspect most will continue to do so because there is absolutely no reason for them not to. It's money on the table, it would be rather silly not to pick it up when there's no extra work involved on their part.

[Rhonda Huntress]

3 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I have to say, I hate alpha'ing out my body more than slightly changing shape to fit and will always seek to minimise the alpha I apply.

/me moves Gabriele to the top of her "to be perv-cammed" list.

[Rhonda Huntress]

1 hour ago, Chase01 said:

I am the opposite Gabby. I hate having to mod my shape to fit something. I'd prefer to alpha it out lol. I have definitely mixed/matched clothing for other bodies from time to time. It became a daily routine when I used the MeshProject body. lol

I have been making more autohide attachments to my outfits recently.  It keeps me from having to turn the cuts on and off with different clothes I wear often.  This past weekend I was working on a leather jacket with a tank top applier but kept noticing the tank poking through while I moved.  I went though all these different poses trying to make it stop on a place with the mesh body clipping through so I could pinpoint what needed an alpha.  However every pose looked perfect even when flashing a small bit as I moved in and out of the pose.  I finally realized the problem was with the physics bouncing through a non-rigged jacket.  The problem was unruly boobies.  Remove physics layer, save outfit, done.

[Chase01]

Yuuusss! I have ran into that before Rhonda.  

I love the alpha save slots! I then label the outfit with the corresponding save slot #. Nice and ez!