Any good free stuff out there for Males? New AV here

[ChrisDiamond865]

I've been in SL off and on for ages it seems.  Several years anyways.

 

However, I'm completely doing away with my last AV and want a fresh start since I haven't played in 3+ years.  That means everything I spent $$$ on will be gone seeing as I can't transfer any of it since it's not transferable..

 

So with that said, I don't want to just jump right in and start throwing money into SL.  I want to start slow and work my way up so to speak.

 

Are there any places out there that help out new comers/new AVs?          

 

I've been on the Marketplace for a bit now and not finding any free stuff worth trying.

 

I remember back in the day some places would have a welcome package with a basic AO and a look or two to get you started but I'm not seeing a single free AO on the MP so curious if there's any in world places I could go to?

 

Thanks!

 

 

edit:  Not sure what all has changed either these last few years..  I was around when mesh was out.. never found any good mesh hairs tho for guys..or a mesh AV..         some girl was telling me a few weeks ago that there's new tech in game where you have to update to the latest phoenix viewer to see it that the viewer before the latest one wouldn't even show it..  what was she referring to?  It had something to do with a special mesh or something...   I heard a term thrown around also called Omega? What's that?

 

Sorry for the questions at the end just trying to get caught up on things and get back into the swing of things without being/looking nooby

Edited April 21, 2017 by ChrisDiamond865

[Clover Jinx]

Men Only Hunt is going on right now, free stuff and will give you a taste of what shops are offering out there.

[Skell Dagger]

If you have any cash at all on your old avatar, log in and transfer it. Even a handful of L$ will give your new avatar a basic start.

Look up 'Vista AO' and 'Akeyo AO' on Marketplace. Both of them have a good basic L$1 male AO, and if you're familiar with editing things like that you can pull the animations out of both to create your own AO (or put them into Firestorm's built-in AO, if you're using that viewer).

Currently, there's a free fatpack male hairstyle at Exile, so that's worth getting. As to other stuff, join the Gabriel group, head to their store, and pick up some of their group gifts. Last time I checked they had some decent footwear on the group gift wall. Finally, Free Dove has a few good male clothing items, but the Dulce Secrets male skin pack there is definitely worth checking out to get you started.

[Skell Dagger]

The 'special thing' is called Bento. Linden Lab added a lot of new bones to the avatar skeleton, so it's now possible to have customisable moving mesh heads and hands (as well as other body parts, such as wings, quadruped avatars, tails, etc). The Phoenix viewer is now called Firestorm, by the way. Whether you download that or the Linden Lab viewer, you should be able to see Bento avatars if you get the latest viewer versions.

[Clover Jinx]

11 minutes ago, ChrisDiamond865 said:

new tech in game

That would be the Bento bones added to the skeleton which allows for movement of fingers, tails and ears through animations. Omega is a transfer system that puts textures on the mesh bodies like skins, tattoos and clothing.

[ChrisDiamond865]

5 minutes ago, Clover Jinx said:

Men Only Hunt is going on right now, free stuff and will give you a taste of what shops are offering out there.

Awesome sounds fun!  How does one find out about this Men Only hunt?    Sorry it's been so long I don't remember where/how to stay in the know and find these things lol

2 minutes ago, Skell Dagger said:

If you have any cash at all on your old avatar, log in and transfer it. Even a handful of L$ will give your new avatar a basic start.

Look up 'Vista AO' and 'Akeyo AO' on Marketplace. Both of them have a good basic L$1 male AO, and if you're familiar with editing things like that you can pull the animations out of both to create your own AO (or put them into Firestorm's built-in AO, if you're using that viewer).

Currently, there's a free fatpack male hairstyle at Exile, so that's worth getting. As to other stuff, join the Gabriel group, head to their store, and pick up some of their group gifts. Last time I checked they had some decent footwear on the group gift wall. Finally, Free Dove has a few good male clothing items, but the Dulce Secrets male skin pack there is definitely worth checking out to get you started.

Thanks so much!  Sadly I only have $65L to my name and I can't really afford to be adding any more money on SL for a little while at least so any decent freebie recommendations are very helpful! Will check out the ones you mentioned. Thanks again!

[Skell Dagger]

You're welcome

I just remembered another group worth joining (and this goes for female avatars, too) and that's Gizza VIP. From memory, it's free to join, and they have a load of free outfits at the store's landing point, some older than others, but they release a new one each month and the newest ones are mesh.

[Clover Jinx]

1 minute ago, ChrisDiamond865 said:

Awesome sounds fun!  How does one find out about this Men Only hunt?    Sorry it's been so long I don't remember where/how to stay in the know and find these things lol

It's the first link when you google "men only hunt".

L'Homme group is free to join and they have group gifts from various designers each month.

[Skell Dagger]

@ChrisDiamond865 I've just gone through the gallery for the Men Only Hunt. Be aware that this is themed as a 'Hipsta Hunt' so if that's not your aesthetic some of the items won't appeal to you. However, I'm about as far removed from a hipster as one can get, and I still have a list of 16 items I want to get from the hunt, so it's worth doing. There are some great accessories and a few nice clothing items.

Since you've been away for a few years, there are a few things you need to look out for if you do this hunt (and for shopping in general). 

- Anything that's marked with either a logo or text saying either 'classic', 'standard', or 'standard sizing' will work on a non-mesh avatar.

- Anything that's marked only with logos such as 'TMP', 'Slink', 'Signature' etc is created to work with a certain brand of mesh avatar. While these may work on a classic avatar, be aware that there very likely won't be an alpha layer to remove parts of the system body under the clothing, because mesh bodies use a HUD system to do that. It's possible to re-purpose other alpha layers that you have, so if the item is a freebie or a hunt gift it's still worth getting to try it out. You can get free packs of alpha layers for various body parts on Marketplace.

- Anything marked as an 'applier' will only work on a mesh avatar. This includes both head and body appliers for skins. (Example: there's a fantastic skin in this hunt from 7 Deadly s{K}ins, but it's applier-only.) While some designers will include a classic skin with mesh body appliers, these are increasingly being sold in various separate packs as people need to mix and match according to what body parts they have. Appliers can be body/head-specific (eg: Catwa head, Slink body, etc) or they may have the purple Omega logo (which means that - with the correct Omega relay HUD - they can be used on almost any mesh body part with the exception of TMP, which has its own proprietary 'installer' system).

- Many tattoos that have applier logos on them will also contain a 'classic' or 'standard' version for the basic system body. Sometimes it's not obvious from the ad image, so try editing the sale board and looking in the contents. With luck (assuming it's not all packed in a box inside there, or a vendor with just a script) you'll be able to see if there are standard tattoo layers inside.

One last note on customising a newb avatar on a limited budget: don't forget the inventory library. The avatar selection has been vastly improved of late, which you'll probably have noticed when you were creating your new account. If you check out the classic avatars in the library you'll find a surprising amount of usable stuff, from mesh eyes to some fairly decent skins and hair. Try each avatar on once to put it into your main library, then dig through those folders for stuff you can use. There's even a serviceable AO in each folder that will get rid of the duck-waddle until you can pull something better together.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Skell Dagger

[ChrisDiamond865]

1 hour ago, Skell Dagger said:

@ChrisDiamond865 I've just gone through the gallery for the Men Only Hunt. Be aware that this is themed as a 'Hipsta Hunt' so if that's not your aesthetic some of the items won't appeal to you. However, I'm about as far removed from a hipster as one can get, and I still have a list of 16 items I want to get from the hunt, so it's worth doing. There are some great accessories and a few nice clothing items.

Since you've been away for a few years, there are a few things you need to look out for if you do this hunt (and for shopping in general). 

- Anything that's marked with either a logo or text saying either 'classic', 'standard', or 'standard sizing' will work on a non-mesh avatar.

- Anything that's marked only with logos such as 'TMP', 'Slink', 'Signature' etc is created to work with a certain brand of mesh avatar. While these may work on a classic avatar, be aware that there very likely won't be an alpha layer to remove parts of the system body under the clothing, because mesh bodies use a HUD system to do that. It's possible to re-purpose other alpha layers that you have, so if the item is a freebie or a hunt gift it's still worth getting to try it out. You can get free packs of alpha layers for various body parts on Marketplace.

- Anything marked as an 'applier' will only work on a mesh avatar. This includes both head and body appliers for skins. (Example: there's a fantastic skin in this hunt from 7 Deadly s{K}ins, but it's applier-only.) While some designers will include a classic skin with mesh body appliers, these are increasingly being sold in various separate packs as people need to mix and match according to what body parts they have. Appliers can be body/head-specific (eg: Catwa head, Slink body, etc) or they may have the purple Omega logo (which means that - with the correct Omega relay HUD - they can be used on almost any mesh body part with the exception of TMP, which has its own proprietary 'installer' system).

- Many tattoos that have applier logos on them will also contain a 'classic' or 'standard' version for the basic system body. Sometimes it's not obvious from the ad image, so try editing the sale board and looking in the contents. With luck (assuming it's not all packed in a box inside there, or a vendor with just a script) you'll be able to see if there are standard tattoo layers inside.

One last note on customising a newb avatar on a limited budget: don't forget the inventory library. The avatar selection has been vastly improved of late, which you'll probably have noticed when you were creating your new account. If you check out the classic avatars in the library you'll find a surprising amount of usable stuff, from mesh eyes to some fairly decent skins and hair. Try each avatar on once to put it into your main library, then dig through those folders for stuff you can use. There's even a serviceable AO in each folder that will get rid of the duck-waddle until you can pull something better together.

Wow, thanks for that long lengthy write up. I appreciate it.    That sounds really really reallllly confusing and overwhelming though 

[Theresa Tennyson]

13 minutes ago, ChrisDiamond865 said:

Wow, thanks for that long lengthy write up. I appreciate it.    That sounds really really reallllly confusing and overwhelming though 

Don't worry too much about it, especially as you can't spend money right now.

Think of new SL bodies as being like professional system cameras -  you need to be aware of what "system" you bought into when you start shopping for them, but you don't actually need one at all to take snapshots. Eventually, yes; you might want to get one but there's no hurry.

As has been said, the "classic" starter avatars have a lot of fairly useful things for now. Another place to look is The Free Dove. Avoid anyplace with "Freebie" in the name. Seriously, most of what you'll find in those places will be ten years old by now.

[ChrisDiamond865]

5 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Don't worry too much about it, especially as you can't spend money right now.

Think of new SL bodies as being like professional system cameras -  you need to be aware of what "system" you bought into when you start shopping for them, but you don't actually need one at all to take snapshots. Eventually, yes; you might want to get one but there's no hurry.

As has been said, the "classic" starter avatars have a lot of fairly useful things for now. Another place to look is The Free Dove. Avoid anyplace with "Freebie" in the name. Seriously, most of what you'll find in those places will be ten years old by now.

Thanks but IDK I guess it would be nice to figure out how all of that works so when I do have money on here I can know what to look for and can get started shopping right away instead of spending most of my time running around stores like a chicken with its head cut off lol