Why do people hate TMP?

[Chris Corvinus]

TMP is overpriced junk for anti-bento people. 

[Chase01]

13 hours ago, Chrismaky said:

TMP is overpriced junk for anti-bento people. 

Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine. 

 

[Callum Meriman]

On 02/08/2017 at 7:31 AM, Klytyna said:

a Nude Tap-Dancing BDSM beach sim
 

Thanks for the sim idea! W00t.

[Subby Cerise]

I regularly use the free TMP body.  Although it's a chore to find clothing, it can be done. I look for the basic TMP logo (not the Classic TMP) and always try  on a demo first. I don't use a mesh head and instead use a modifiable shape and LAQ skin with good results. As a freebie starter I really can't complain too much about it but can't justify the expense of ever upgrading. (If you get one, be sure to pick up the free dress which is now included). I look upon it as a cheap way to transition to mesh until such time as I decide on a better alternative.

[Penny Patton]

Personally, I dislike all of the popular bodies due to the no-mod plague they've all succumbed to. I like to be able to personalize and optimize all aspects of my avatar, not just what mesh body makers think I should be allowed to.

TMP, however, the in-store currency and HUD system they use has always struck me as particularly offensive. Let's say I want to buy a new shirt for my avatar. The shirt costs 200 store credits, I have 195 so I need 5 more. But then the store credits are only sold 100 at a time for a cost of L$100. (These aren't exact numbers from the TMP store, just an example off the top of my head) that would mean I'd have to pay L$300 for a shirt that would only cost me L$200 if they didn't use their store currency system. Much bigger and more popular companies have been called out for doing the same thing. 

[Qa Boa]

On 8/1/2017 at 10:46 AM, CaraMcLean said:

I don't hate it, just put off because of people saying its overly complicated and unsupported.  I wouldn't be surprised if its also just that its not new.  Its like when I see people asking about male bodies in some groups, everyone is falling over themselves to recommend sig gia, it does look nice in every way to me but one... on every guy I've seen wearing it, weird monkey arms/shoulders but its new so it must be better. *shrugs*  Only male body I've seen look "right" so far is slink. 

 

Then again, I have a thing about body proportions looking "right", not that I don't mind variation, but, you know, within the bounds of some reality. 

3

(And the other comments about Gianni, et al, personally I don't like the Gianni at all - but that's me for me.)

I went looking at TMP when I first started looking at this stuff. Decided to just stay with a system Avie (and hey: THOSE can still look awesome if done right).

When I went shopping for one recently I looked at the Gianni and I found the same thing as quoted above: the weird way the shoulders and arms look. I also looked at the Adam, which even has a matching head - but the face is just way too wrong for what I want and... and... making a long story short, here's the way I shopped - and recommend the OP do the same:

Grab every demo you can find, both body and head. Scrutinize the hell out of it (I decided to go with the new Belleza myself with a Catwa Bento head and I like the overall look better than the rest, I feel the same way about all three Belleza ladies as compared to the others, including Maitreya - but they are all very good - even the TMP).

Once you're leaning toward the body you like - and do scrutinize every aspect - THEN Shop like you've won the lottery for it, clothing, AO, accessories all of it. You don't have to buy it all, but scout the Marketplace to see how easy it is or not to find a decent selection. And do that by searching the body name, such as "Belleza" or "Maitreya", etc. I wore an Aesthetic for a couple years because I was so darned invested into it, but got tired of it (even with a face they prevented doppelganger syndrome). HOWEVER< with a switch like this it will be a massive reinvestment into yourself - so do as much pre-shopping as you can before you finally buy one.

[Avaraia Aljon]

Tmp was my first mesh body, and i've never regretting buying anything more. No updates, I can't use my own skins and tattoos with it, standard sizing fits even worse then on any other mesh body (and imo it barely fits the others), The feet and hands look awkward, and You can purchase ANY other mesh body, spend less, and get more and better features. not to mention the shopping experience, thats been explained already.

[Candice LittleBoots]

One of my alts uses one of those free TMP bodies and I've never regretted spending zero lindens on it.

I use Maitreya Lara body normally and, among other things, I enjoy hunting down nice freebies. Once in a while a nice freebie will cater for TMP. In logs the alt to go pick it up.

[Miyuki2112]

In my opinion, I think people hate it because the TMP Male Body is very hunky in terms of its body appearance. Also, its expensive so thats why other people choose other brands of male bodies that much better looking and price wise than TMP. 

[Chaz Longstaff]

1 hour ago, Miyuki2112 said:

Quote

In my opinion, I think people hate it because the TMP Male Body is very hunky in terms of its body appearance. "

Oh really, wow! At the time, one of the reasons I agreed to TMP is because it was one of the least hunky, back then anyway!

But, from the start, their customer service was beyond arrogant, superior, smug, condescending, .. need more words here.... (and I am always unfailingly polite at least at first). So to this day, I actively recommend to everyone to not buy TMP. I bend over backwards for my customers. TMP was like, oh thank you for the 14k, who the hell are you?


 

 

[LittleMe Jewell]

I grabbed the freebie TMP body for my female alts.  They don't need many outfits anyway, so limited clothing selection isn't really an issue there - though I hate their shopping setup.

[Bobbie Faulds]

TMP has the problems listed above. My understanding is that the creators had a falling out and there won't be any updates. The appliers problem is because of the Style Hud. Creators have to upload their UUIDs into the database owned by TMP. This would allow the owners to use those in world since the applier scripts use the UUID.  That violates the EULA of several of the creators of the templates and textures I use.

Technically, since the TMP uses the SLUV map..is the standard map for skins and clothes SL created, there is no reason why TMP couldn't be Omega compatible except that the creators chose not allow it.

For mesh, Omega compatibility is a must for skin if nothing else. Bento rigging is for two things. It allows for your hands to move more realistically with the right AO. For the head, 2 things.. The Bento rigging has a mesh head rigged to the sliders that allow you to customize the face like the default head does, for the most part. If you do photography, it allows for facial expressions.

Demo, demo, demo

[Drake1 Nightfire]

5 hours ago, Bobbie Faulds said:

TMP has the problems listed above. My understanding is that the creators had a falling out and there won't be any updates. The appliers problem is because of the Style Hud. Creators have to upload their UUIDs into the database owned by TMP. This would allow the owners to use those in world since the applier scripts use the UUID.  That violates the EULA of several of the creators of the templates and textures I use.

Technically, since the TMP uses the SLUV map..is the standard map for skins and clothes SL created, there is no reason why TMP couldn't be Omega compatible except that the creators chose not allow it.

For mesh, Omega compatibility is a must for skin if nothing else. Bento rigging is for two things. It allows for your hands to move more realistically with the right AO. For the head, 2 things.. The Bento rigging has a mesh head rigged to the sliders that allow you to customize the face like the default head does, for the most part. If you do photography, it allows for facial expressions.

Demo, demo, demo

All of this and one major thing no one has said.. If the creators of TMP shut down their server and leave SL, no one that owns a TMP av will be able to change a damn thing about it. No skin, applier clothing, nothing. The avatar itself is actually rigged slightly forward of the system body. Which is why nothing fits right. And yes, i paid 5K for the male av. Why? because at the time it was the only real option males had. Now i have Slink, Psicorp, Niramyth, Signature, and i think one more. I just wish Niramyth was omega compatible for skins.. 

[ChinRey]

10 hours ago, Bobbie Faulds said:

If you do photography, it allows for facial expressions.

You mean facial expressions like this?

Sorry, couldn't resist it.

This may well be a system head, not mesh anyway but there is a point: a friend of mine on the OS Grid was very, very proud when he had managed to hack a Bento expression HUD from SL and make it work in Open Sim. Ignoring the legal aspect (I'm not going to rat on my friends, sorry), when I looked at it, it turned out that all it could do was replicate those horrendous grimaces the system avatar always has had but, for obvious reasons, nobody ever uses. I'm sure a Bento head can do much more than that and lips-completely-out-of-sync speech animations.

Edited November 18, 2017 by ChinRey

[Bobbie Faulds]

LAQ uses motion capture for theirs and others are going the same way. They're already using it for body animations so adding the head/face is easy enough

 

[Ruby Praga]

Wasn't TMP originally The Body Co that was part of theWarehouse at one time?

[Ruby Praga]

On ‎11‎/‎20‎/‎2017 at 8:35 PM, Bobbie Faulds said:

LAQ uses motion capture for theirs and others are going the same way. They're already using it for body animations so adding the head/face is easy enough

 

LAQ has come a long way from their original name RaC (Raspberry & Cow) :)

[Chaz Longstaff]

I gave up on TMP last year and moved onto another supplier. Their ability to look after customers proved to be --- TMP.

[Gobilly]

Why do people hate TMP? Because the alpha hud was painful, the StyleMode hud to apply skins etc. wasn't all that great either (slow!), their customer service wasn't what you'd call award-winning and their prices are sky high. There's a new male and female body named Legacy for L$ 5000 but there's also an update of the Classic body. Sadly they are charging previous customers L$ 2500 for that upgrade. I can't think of any other mesh body creator that doesn't offer free updates. Apart from that I still actually like the body and the hud has improved a lot though there are some issues still. I have just finished a rather long blog post about it.

 

https://billybeaverhausen.com/2019/05/05/whats-eating-tmp-14/

[Chaz Longstaff]

19 hours ago, Gobilly said:

Why do people hate TMP? Because the alpha hud was painful, the StyleMode hud to apply skins etc. wasn't all that great either (slow!), their customer service wasn't what you'd call award-winning and their prices are sky high. There's a new male and female body named Legacy for L$ 5000 but there's also an update of the Classic body. Sadly they are charging previous customers L$ 2500 for that upgrade. I can't think of any other mesh body creator that doesn't offer free updates. Apart from that I still actually like the body and the hud has improved a lot though there are some issues still. I have just finished a rather long blog post about it.

 

https://billybeaverhausen.com/2019/05/05/whats-eating-tmp-14/

Thanks for taking the time to do this write-up Billy -- amazing quality of writing as usual on your blog -- I'd expect no less! 

So TMP is trying to rise from the dead, eh?. After years of arrogant, supercilious, downright abusive customer service from TMP,  my inclination is to try to beat this one back into the grave with a wooden stake.  Anyone gives them more of their Lindens is like someone going back to an ex who beats and steals from them.

[Dean Haystack]

On 8/1/2017 at 4:46 PM, Chaz Longstaff said:

Why do people hate TMP?

I'll tell you my story, if you care to read it.

Back when TMP came out they were about the only male mesh body on the market apart from Aesthetic, but even that one wasn't competing directly in my opinion, much less others such as Jomo. If memory serves me right, the Slink Male body came months after.
I was already using mesh hands and feet, but there was no denying a full mesh body was a "game changer" when it came to visual presentation, and as much as I didn't like the overall shape of TMP, I ended up getting it and made it work for me with my edits.
I got the Deluxe version, that was L$5000 in a time where Maitreya had already disrupted the market coming in at L$2650 about half of what TMP, Belleza and Slink were asking for theirs. Still, as far as male bodies went there was no other game in town so it's not like I had a choice, and yet people today day dream of an SL where there is only one "unified body" anyway, moving on...
This one is just a side note, but, out of the box the body came preset to be used with their own mesh heads, I remember seeing so many people that didn't know how to "fix" this and did the most bizarre things to try and hide it, plus even the ones that figure out how to set the neck for the default heads not always knew how to use the blend tattoo layers to smooth the neck joint. I helped about a couple of dozen of people fix themselves only because TMP had their targets set on making even more money at the expense of everything else, a problem exacerbated by their horrible tutorials.

As time passed Signature Gianni and Belleza Jake came on the market, both of these were far cheaper than TMP, they also have normal and specular maps, as well as their hands rigged to the Bento skeleton.
Meanwhile, TMP that promised life time updates had... nothing. They never even fixed the alpha HUD, there was no area toggles on it meaning you had to work around that to avoid having to click a million areas. As time went on it became more and more clear there weren't any updates coming so I did what most people did and just jumped ship to another brand.
Eventually TMP just did their massive discount, 1/10 of the original price, and while by then I hadn't seen a TMP body in the wild for a long time, apparently there were a load of upset people because not long before that they had just paid full price, even if I don't know who would do such a thing if not out of ignorance.
There is also the fact the whole applier things work off their servers and that not only means there will likely never be an Omega option, the appliers will also stop working if they ever shut down their servers which I frankly thought it was going to happen when they put their bodies for discount.

Also on this topic there is the way they handled their business, so disclaimer the following paragraph is not a first hand account, it's rumors and should not be considered as anything but.
Apparently TMP were horrible to work with, they would often deny dev kits, and when they didn't they wanted clothes to be made exclusive for their body as they were allegedly trying to go for a monopoly, such is the dream of some people on these very forums.
The customer service was allegedly useless too.

So then, after all this time, what have they brought to the table?

Well, they have an all new body they call Legacy to compete with todays offerings on the market. Horrible name by the way.
Their Classic body, also horrible name, is the good old TMP body, with minor changes so some of the TMP clothes no longer fit it but hey, that coupled with Bento hands and specular/normals means they are charging L$5000 or, if you have the old one, they will sell you this one at a discount, L$2500... for what essentially is a Bento update that everyone else shipped for free...

And that is why you see so many people displeased with TMP, myself included, I know I will not spend another L$ in their store. My Deluxe body, with all things considered, wasn't worth the L$5000 the only thing that "made it worth that" was the fact there was nothing else on the market at the time, and that is just the worse reason there is to get something.