Help: Signature Gianni & Catwa - Neck area problem

[Pattrick Windlow]

Hi all,

I'm seriously struggling with the nasty neck area and neck line showing up on my human male avatar after finally joining the Mesh Body/Mesh Head world recently.

I would have to throw myself into the category of being new to the Bento Mesh body/head world.

I'm using: Signature Gianni Bento Mesh Body -and- Catwa Daniel(?) Bento Mesh Head combination.

I tried demos of Adam, Belleza-Jake, & Slink.  I tried the Signature Gianni Bento Head demo (totally hated the look of the face).   Via some shape editing/tweaking, I was able to get a relatively decent look that I can live with (in spite of the overly muscular steroid-looking default shape of Gianni).

I've read through the forum here.  I've read through the Catwa website.  I've read through the meshaddicts website.  I've read through the Strawberry Singh blog website.  Including watching videos.  I've read through all of the notecards that came with the products.

I've tried everything I can think of to "fix" the neck line & neck area mess based on all of my "homework" and limited knowledge and experience with working with a Mesh body/head combo... but, so far, still no luck with the specific body/head combo specified (Gianni/Catwa) as far as the various skin appliers that I've tried (most look much better than the Labyrinth mentioned below, but unfortunately always a nasty looking obvious neck area issue).  I've retried (redelivered) the purchased parts btw - no change.

I got lucky with Labyrinth "Tylar" matching up - *BUT* the skin (especially the body) doesn't really look very good at all (patchy body, chalky overall look on face) - but this is the closest, so far, to matching up without an obvious neck line & neck area mis-match mess showing.  But I can't help thinking "there must be something out there available for this combo that looks much better and doesn't have the neck issue".  Not to mention that the skin tone options are very limited - with the sunkissed & tan skin tones basically the same - a very dark chocolate tone color (at least based on the demos).  

Surely others have the exact same head/body combo and have had much better success with finding good high quality looking skin that matches up well (if not perfectly even) *without* any of the neck area issues.  (Or maybe I'm just doing wishful/hopeful thinking.)  This is why I'm posting here for help... thinking surely someone must have this exact same combo (Gianni/Catwa) with very nice results due to using X brand(s) skin applier(s) and getting really nice, quality looking results with the overall look of the skin on both the body and the face - and without the nasty looking neck area issue.

I don't want to go back (backwards even) to my "old look" (no Mesh body/head combo)... but I'm at a total loss at this point and in spite of not being a quitter, I feel like "throwing in the towel" (/whine over).

Recommendations for good high quality skins (appliers) to track down and demo?

Recommendations for a "fix" for the neck that perhaps somehow got missed along the way?  (If above just doesn't exist)

Recommenations for a much better overall Bento Mesh Male Body/Head combo that has good skin appliers without any neck issues?  (This would have to be a last resort, after already investing the $ into the Gianni/Catwa path.)

Any/all help would be most welcomed and most appreciated!

Many thanks in advance for your help.

- Pat -

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alwin Alcott]

9 minutes ago, Pattrick Windlow said:

 

I'm seriously struggling with the nasty neck area and neck line showing up on my human male avatar

in your long story i miss the adjusting of windlight settings to optimal prim /skin

 

only thing you need is the right head and body skin match, don't mix different brands or standard skins from the hud with a special created applier for the head. Finetuning that is a hell of a job.

[Skell Dagger]

You haven't stated which skins you've already tried - except for Labyrinth, which is a law unto itself more often than not - so this is pretty generic advice, but for Catwa Daniel and Signature Gianni try the following, in this order:

1. Check that you're wearing the SL neck version of the Catwa head.
2. Check that you're wearing the same skintone for both head and body, from the same designer.
3. Check that your neck measurements match on body and head.
4. Check that you're wearing just one full-body alpha, not both the Catwa and Signature alphas. (The Signature alpha is a bit short, and can sometimes cause lines at the neck when worn with the Catwa alpha, as the system body shows through at that point.)
5. Turn off the neck fix on both the Signature HUD and the Catwa HUD. If that doesn't fix the issue, turn on ONLY the Catwa head one for Gianni (not the Signature body one). If you do this, then re-apply your Catwa head skin applier. (Some designers include a neck fix applier in with the head applier, so you'll need to re-apply it once you have the Catwa Gianni neck fix on, otherwise the neck fix will remain at the Catwa default tone. If it doesn't re-apply, then your choice of designer doesn't include neck fixes.)

If none of the above work for you, then search for and join the Catwa Head Friends group inworld. It's free to join, and they're an incredibly helpful bunch of people. Much of the advice I've given above comes from being in that group and seeing them fix that exact same issue for different people.

I personally recommend Stray Dog skins for both Catwa and Signature. Gak Akina's skins include neck fixes and they're incredible and come in a very wide ethnic range. I personally buy caucasian, but here are four examples of Stray Dog skins that I own:

[Pattrick Windlow]

@Alwin Alcott

Thanks for the reply, Alwin.

18 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

in your long story i miss the adjusting of windlight settings to optimal prim /skin

 

only thing you need is the right head and body skin match, don't mix different brands or standard skins from the hud with a special created applier for the head. Finetuning that is a hell of a job.

 

My apologies for my long story post.  My thought was, if/when asking for help, it normally helps to try to provide as much info (detailed even) to try to help make it much easier for anyone reading and trying to offer any advice, help, etc. 

As far as Windlight settings... no, I didn't mess with that.  Why?  Unless I'm very mistaken, what I set *my* own Windlight setting to that might make things look fantastic on my screen to me - will *not* do a thing at all for what others are seeing on their screens.  Thus it seems like me setting my own Windlight settings up to look great on my end for my avatar wouldn't/doesn't change how everyone else would see my avatar on their own screens.  Or, maybe I'm wrong.

As far as the skins (skin appliers) go... I've *only* been trying different skin appliers that are from the same creator on *both* the head & body (being very careful to only use ones that specify compatibility with the Catwa Head, for example, versus random skins)... no mixing up of different skin appliers from X brand for head and Y brand for body etc. or using different skin tones used on head/body, etc.

 

Edited August 31, 2017 by Pattrick Windlow

[Alwin Alcott]

8 minutes ago, Pattrick Windlow said:

 Unless I'm very mistaken, what I set *my* own Windlight setting to that might make things look fantastic on my screen to me - will *not* do a thing at all for what others are seeing on their screens. 

you, me and all others, will always only make the view on your own screen the best.

All graphic results will be different for everybody. Even with the same cards your neighbour will see you different than you. Also their screen settings, color warmth, and lot more, will make the view different than yours.

Lot of other mesh wearers will have the windlight at optimal, so see you on the best way possible.

[Pattrick Windlow]

13 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

You haven't stated which skins you've already tried - except for Labyrinth, which is a law unto itself more often than not - so this is pretty generic advice, but for Catwa Daniel and Signature Gianni try the following, in this order:

1. Check that you're wearing the SL neck version of the Catwa head.
2. Check that you're wearing the same skintone for both head and body, from the same designer.
3. Check that your neck measurements match on body and head.
4. Check that you're wearing just one full-body alpha, not both the Catwa and Signature alphas. (The Signature alpha is a bit short, and can sometimes cause lines at the neck when worn with the Catwa alpha, as the system body shows through at that point.)
5. Turn off the neck fix on both the Signature HUD and the Catwa HUD. If that doesn't fix the issue, turn on ONLY the Catwa head one for Gianni (not the Signature body one). If you do this, then re-apply your Catwa head skin applier. (Some designers include a neck fix applier in with the head applier, so you'll need to re-apply it once you have the Catwa Gianni neck fix on, otherwise the neck fix will remain at the Catwa default tone. If it doesn't re-apply, then your choice of designer doesn't include neck fixes.)

If none of the above work for you, then search for and join the Catwa Head Friends group inworld. It's free to join, and they're an incredibly helpful bunch of people. Much of the advice I've given above comes from being in that group and seeing them fix that exact same issue for different people.

I personally recommend Stray Dog skins for both Catwa and Signature. Gak Akina's skins include neck fixes and they're incredible and come in a very wide ethnic range. I personally buy caucasian....

@Skell Dagger

Thanks for the reply, Skell.

As far as skins go (skin appliers) - so far I've tried Labyrinth, Avenge, L'Etre, Clef de Peau.  If I tried any other, I can't remember at the moment (and apparently didn't like it if so).  

(1)  Yes.  I'm wearing the Catwa Daniel Head Neck version.

(2)  Yes.  I make 100% sure that I'm wearing the "matching" (so to speak) skin applier from the exact same creator/brand as well as making 100% sure that I'm wearing the *exact* same skin tone as well for both the Head and Body.

(3) & (4)  I can't say I've done these.  The person that helped me go through the "makeover" process is female but has been using Mesh body and head for over a year (doesn't make a person an expert, of course, but they do have some experience with the whole Mesh body and Mesh Head stuff - although they hadn't made a male avatar with the Bento Mesh body & head combo).  We walked through everything very carefully step-by-step (she was using the same male demo stuff as I was, thus we were both seeing the same things at the same time going through each step along the way).  What she told me was to use/wear the Catwa face/head alpha layer and use/wear the Gianni body alpha layer... versus using 1 full body alpha layer, so that's what I did.  Maybe that was "wrong info" (sounds like it, from what you said).  She also said to use the default Catwa Daniel head shape - not the default Gianni body shape - so that's what I did.  Again, maybe this was "wrong info".  And when I mentioned that I then tweaked the shape (which I did) - I was going from the slider #s from the default Catwa Daniel shape (if not mistaken, I also used the slider #s from the default Gianni shape for everything lower than the neck, as in torso & legs).  I actually created a new shape from scratch and used the combination of these above-mentioned default numbers and then tweaked from there.  The neck #s - I can certainly go back and make sure to get the neck #s and use those without any tweaking there to make sure that's not causing the problem.  To be more clear - there isn't a difference showing at the neck area of the neck not "connecting/attaching" to the body correctly as far as *size* goes in that area. (Like, for example, thinking of Mesh clothing, putting a medium size neck on a small size body or vice-versa that would surely cause a problem, if you follow my analogy.)  Everything matches up just fine in that respect, no excess neck skin sticking out or the other way around.  So back to the alpha layers, I can/will certainly try what you said - and use the one full body alpha layer (the Catwa instead of the Gianni).

(5)  I've tried it every possible way.  GIanni HUD neck fix on.  GIanni HUD neck fix off.  Catwa HUD set to GIanni.  Catwa HUD set to default (which I saw as a recommendation from the Catwa website as a fix for the Catwa & Gianni combo).  I'll give your recommendation a try as well as being sure to re-apply the skin applier for the head.

Thanks for the Stray Dogs skin info.  Caucasian is what I'm looking for, btw (looking for something that doesn't look like it's age 0-29, nor 40+, nor any type of "fantasy" look).  I'll get Stray Dog demos and give them a try... as well as run through the entire male applier list shown on the Catwa website (didn't do this, my bad, because I thought initially I was satisfied with the Labyrinth setup and then someone else recommended trying Avenge & L'Etre... L'Etre looked waaaay better (no contest at all on the body area, but that's when the dreaded neck mess arose (and this was also another person experienced with Bento Mesh Head &'Body combos - but they were also baffled about solving the neck area mess once changing out of Labyrinth).

[Skell Dagger]

I wear Avenge skins quite a lot, too, and I don't have any issues with them. But then, I wear the Slink body and not Signature. As to your makeover assistant, I will say that - from months of being in the Catwa Head Friends support group - I see far more male avatars asking for neck fix help (especially with Signature) than I do female avatars, so it's possibly something she's not experienced herself until now when she tried creating a male Bento avatar. I'm not exaggerating, either: a neck fix request from a male avi comes into the group at least once every day I'm logged in, and it's almost always for the Signature body, whereas neck fix requests from the ladies are pretty rare. This could be down to the fact that the male and female avatar necks are a different shape (female = round, male = oval), as you'll have realised if you've ever tried to size up a ladies necklace to fit a male neck.

Yes, start with the Catwa shape and work from there. It's created specifically to work with the head. You can always copy the body numbers from the Gianni shape if you like them, and edit the body sections of the Catwa shape to match them.

Be aware that - for some reason - it's harder for guys to get an exact skin match at both front and back of the neck than it is for the ladies. I'm not saying it's impossible (especially if you use specific Windlight settings) but there seems to be a very limited subset of skins that work perfectly in this regard with certain head/body combinations, and if you don't happen to like the look or style of those skins then your option is to just find something that works well enough and stick with that.

Two further suggestions: If you can get a screenshot to post either here or in the Catwa Head Friends group (most people in the group use the Gyazo app, which posts the snapshots to a webpage that you can link others to) then I (or they) can see your issue more clearly. And lastly, did you have the same neck fix issues when using the Slink body demo with those same skin applier demos?

[JaclynFashion]

try stray dog 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Heavens Touch/100/194/23

 

Edited June 5, 2018 by JaclynFashion

[Skell Dagger]

5 hours ago, JaclynFashion said:

try stray dog 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Heavens Touch/100/194/23

When responding to a post asking for immediate help like this one did, it's good practice to do two things before you type your response, so that you're not wasting your own valuable time:

1. Check the date of the post to make sure you're not giving advice to a question that's now several months (or even years) old.

This thread is ten months old. If Patrick's problem hasn't been fixed by now then he's probably given up in frustration.

2. Read the entire thread to ensure that someone else hasn't already suggested what you're going to suggest. That may be a bit of a grind if the thread runs to multiple pages, but this one only has seven posts.

In the third post (and it's my first reply to Patrick's question) I recommended Stray Dog skins, and even gave an image example of four that I frequently wear. He then acknowledged my suggestion and said he would try out Stray Dog's skins.

He hasn't been back for further advice since, so I can only assume that his neck issue has been fixed.

[Rhonda Huntress]