Flashing Body is Driving me Mad!

[Luci Sideshow]

I have a Maitreya Lara mesh body.  Unfortuantely when I wear it I have problems witrh my graphics.  On MY screeen, and nobody else's, my body flashes white or black, depending on the Graphics Performance set on the slider (Firestorm 5.0.1 - Avatar Preferences) - low gives a black flashing body, higher my body flashes white!  Can anybody suggest a resolution before Lara is chucked into the great mesh place in the sky!  It took me 8 years in SL before I plucked up the courage to try mesh, and this is ruining the experience!

Edited April 16, 2017 by Luci Sideshow

[Marianne Little]

3 hours ago, Luci Sideshow said:

I have a Maitreya Lara mesh body.  Unfortuantely when I wear it I have problems witrh my graphics.  On MY screeen, and nobody else's, my body flashes white or black, depending on the Graphics Performance set on the slider (Firestorm 5.0.1 - Avatar Preferences) - low gives a black flashing body, higher my body flashes white!  Can anybody suggest a resolution before Lara is chucked into the great mesh place in the sky!  It took me 8 years in SL before I plucked up the courage to try mesh, and this is ruining the experience!

First thing that comes in mind, do you have Hardware skinning on? You find it under graphics.

What is your LOD? (Level of detail)

If it wasnt the Hardware skinning, you should post a picture, with the graphics open and your body in the picture, you set the snapshot to show the whole screen. A free program like Ribbet let you cut out the part with land information and cash balance on top, if you will keep it private. You can also take the snapshot in a public sandbox, not at your home. This way only the sandbox address is visible. I think Firestorm let you set so the amount of §L is not visible in the image too.

[Penny Patton]

I'm wondering if it's related to the alpha channel of the skin texture? A lot of skin makers do not save their files correctly, giving them an alpha channel the skins don't even use. Back when everyone used a system avatar with a baked skin this wasn't a problem as the baking process turns all alpha textures to masked, but with mesh avatar bodies you end up with lots of people wandering around with a blended alpha skin. Even when the texture doesn't use the alpha channel, the fact that it's there forces your videocard to use it and it results in a lot of odd graphics issues. When you see people complaining that their clothing or tattoo layers are not being rendered properly over their skin, that's the cause. When you see a mesh avatar that looks like it's oddly lit (nose lamps aside) that is the cause. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

11 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

I'm wondering if it's related to the alpha channel of the skin texture? A lot of skin makers do not save their files correctly, giving them an alpha channel the skins don't even use. Back when everyone used a system avatar with a baked skin this wasn't a problem as the baking process turns all alpha textures to masked, but with mesh avatar bodies you end up with lots of people wandering around with a blended alpha skin. Even when the texture doesn't use the alpha channel, the fact that it's there forces your videocard to use it and it results in a lot of odd graphics issues. When you see people complaining that their clothing or tattoo layers are not being rendered properly over their skin, that's the cause. When you see a mesh avatar that looks like it's oddly lit (nose lamps aside) that is the cause. 

Last night I saw an avatar with a head that was, for lack of a better description, exhibiting "alpha fighting". Patches of his head were flicking back and forth between two textures. I zoomed in and it was clear he had a mesh head. I imagine this is what you're describing. I kinda liked it!

[Klytyna]

7 hours ago, Luci Sideshow said:

I have a Maitreya Lara mesh body.  Unfortuantely when I wear it I have problems witrh my graphics.  On MY screeen, and nobody else's, my body flashes white or black, depending on the Graphics Performance set on the slider (Firestorm 5.0.1 - Avatar Preferences) - low gives a black flashing body, higher my body flashes white!  Can anybody suggest a resolution before Lara is chucked into the great mesh place in the sky!  It took me 8 years in SL before I plucked up the courage to try mesh, and this is ruining the experience!

It sounds, from yopur description as if you are setting 'graphics standards' in your viewer with that damn "one slider to ruin them all". Don't. Use the advanced settings, most of the possible fixes people will suggest will be on the advanced settings anyway. 

My first thought is this is a shader problem, either you have the damn slider set to low and there's no shaders, and your tattoo / underwear / clothing layers are displaying as black, or you slam it to the other end and theres a load of glitching as your graphics card struggles to implement features it cant cope with.