Advice for full mesh avatar

[Morgan Rosenstar]

7 hours ago, UllaVonFrapp said:

And what is Bento exactly? A brand of head or another new animation technology?

It's a new animation technology designed for mesh attachments (hands, head, tail, body, ...). This addon adds more bones to flex and move the mesh attachments to the avatar. Content creators can then choose this addon to shape and create their meshes for avatars on (hence they add "bento" to their items such as bento hairs, bento rings, etc...).

It is not self animated, you'll need a HUD or AO to trigger designed animations but that's still the point : now we can use AO and HUD to move our bento fingers, eyes, tongue, hairs, tail, wings, etc...

[Ulla Dismantled]

Hi guys, me again, I just can't find the actual Lelutka Bento heads on MP, the search show everything, shapes, skins but can't find the actual heads. Can anybody paste me a link please?

Also while searching I found this which would really be the kind of look I'd like, shape, skin, open mouth with teeth slightly parted but it's actually only the beauty marks. 

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Aidhona-Beauty-Marks-for-Lelutka-Mesh-Heads/7608305

[Penny Patton]

One thing some people may want to keep in mind is that in the past 4-5 years "no-mod" has become standard operating practice for the creators of many mesh bodies, due to said creators not quite understanding how SL works and mistakenly believing that this somehow protects them from content theft. (It doesn't.)

If you're someone that likes to mod things, this drastically reduces your ability to personalize your avatar. Mesh bodies let you change store bought textures, some allow you to use store bought materials, but otherwise there's not much you can do. A couple let you change clothing layers between blended and masked modes, but do not allow you to adjust the masking cutoff. If the body supports Omega appliers, you can make your own appliers for custom textures but that's about it.

If you were never big on modding, then this probably won't affect you. If you do enjoy modding there are a couple of bodies out there but most of them have limited support from clothing creators.  If you're into anime or furry avatars, those communities both fully embrace modding so you can still find all of the creativity and freedom that used to be available to all SL users, but of course not everyone wants a furry or anime avatar and if that's the case then here are the options I know of offhand:

• Kitties Lair sells the Lena Lush and Lena Perky bodies, but never released a dev kit so the only clothes available are those in the shop. Some of those clothes are mod, some are not, but she's always been willing to sell me mod versions for a little bit more L$.
• Psicorp released a mesh body for men and one for women. I believe it's relatively new and I'm not sure what clothing support is like for it yet. 
• Utilizator sells a couple mesh bodies. Avatar 2.0 and the Kemono. Avatar 2.0 is a regular human body with decent clothing support and a thriving mod community. The Kemono is made for anime style avatars, however I have seen people use it to create regular human avatars. I believe it has even more clothing support than the 2.0 body, and a thriving mod community.
• The Niramyth Aesthetic avatar for men is mod, but it's bento rigging is...odd. I played with it a bit, planning to get it for a machinima alt, but discovered you cannot customize the facial features to any great degree and it has such limited ability to use facial expressions that while technically bento it really has none of the bento functionality.

 

 

[Rhonda Huntress]

1 hour ago, UllaVonFrapp said:

I just can't find the actual Lelutka Bento heads on MP

They are not there.  In world only.

Do a search for LeLutka and the main sore will be near the top.
When you TP to the store,  the new bento heads will be on the wall to your right.

[Anna Nova]

3 hours ago, Penny Patton said:

...

• The Niramyth Aesthetic avatar for men is mod, but it's bento rigging is...odd. I played with it a bit, planning to get it for a machinima alt, but discovered you cannot customize the facial features to any great degree and it has such limited ability to use facial expressions that while technically bento it really has none of the bento functionality.

and it also makes the boy look like a Gorilla.  I don't like RP with Gorillas (hint hint) and some of the little diddums get upset.

[Bobbie Faulds]

I have all the main bodies. My personal preference is the Tonic Fine. It's similar to the Maitreya, in fact the Maitreya sizing fits it for the most part. IMHO the Maitreya breasts look a bit smushed in where the Tonic is rounder. I use the Maitreya and the Slink Physique regularly as well, depending on the look I want. 

It all comes down to personal preference, which is why you demo and find what you like.

[Ulla Dismantled]

17 hours ago, Rhonda Huntress said:

/me dons her flame gear.

I'm going to hate myself for this ...

OK, just like the old classic avatars, you need a good skin and shape match.  Only know we have mesh body parts instead of the system body.  Skins are now basically two parts, one that applies to the body and one that applies to the head.

Do you remember LAQ?  They have been making high quality skins for years.  What we do now is go buy the one skin we like for our body and wear it all the time, then look at all the different heads with that same skin tone and mix and match as you want.

Another skin place is Pink Fuel.  They have several body options like smooth tummy or athletic abs and boobs shades that enhance the curves,, minimize the curves or just a normal look.  You pick out the body you want and then add the faces with matching skin tones.  It's a little more of a chore but if you get your body and head skins from the same place they should match perfectly.  I say should because there are a lot of o-so skins around as well.

So here comes the flame bait ..... If you get the Maitreya body it comes with Glam Affair skins included.  These are high quality skins right out of the box.  Plus Maitreya is 100% hands down the most supported body and in my honest opinion the best looking and most realistic.  LeLutka heads also come with Glam Affair skins already installed.  Both Maitreya and LeLutka include all the normal (human) skin tones and match perfectly together.  LeLutka also has the easiest HUD for customizing, applying makeup, running animations, etc.  LeLutka also comes with several eye colors.  Like Catwa and others, you can always go shopping other places for eyes you can change with a HUD.

Anyway, whether or not you update at a later time, you can't go wrong starting out with Maitreya body and LeLutka head. 

/me slips away from the forums for the weekend to avoid the feedback, counters and flames.

 

After hours of trying demos and bugging everybody in various group chats I've finally made my choices and went with... what you had suggested Rhonda, Maitreya body and LeLutka bento head and I'm loving my new look!

Thank you so much everybody for taking the time to post your helpful advices and opinions, I really appreciate.

Now another question, what about AO huds? Needs specific AOs for this body or normal AOs would also work?

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 minutes ago, UllaVonFrapp said:

Now another question, what about AO huds? Needs specific AOs for this body or normal AOs would also work?

Normal AOs will work and you can also pick up and use any annimation that says  Bento.  Note that the Maitreya HUD already has some Bento finger positions in it.

For the head, you might need to pick up their Bento annimation HUD - I'm not totally sure how regular AOs work with heads

Edited December 2, 2017 by LittleMe Jewell

[Jeny Howlett]

Visa Animations  for Bento AO's, they are somewhat pricey but will last you a long time. My personal is Miriam

[Ulla Dismantled]

6 minutes ago, Jeny Howlett said:

Visa Animations  for Bento AO's, they are somewhat pricey but will last you a long time. My personal is Miriam

Vista I guess? Ok thanks I'll have a look over there. I use to like Oracle (or is it Oracul?) too, some nice natural animations, not sure if they upgraded to Bento.

[Jeny Howlett]

1 minute ago, UllaVonFrapp said:

Vista I guess? Ok thanks I'll have a look over there. I use to like Oracle (or is it Oracul?) too, some nice natural animations, not sure if they upgraded to Bento.

I think they did upgrade to Bento, but those AOs are akward, they make your avatar look like its leaning towards an invisible wall. They are also quite jumpy and lively. But go demo everything. Vista are the most natural and in the settings can choose 3 different AO options = Business ( minimal movement) VCalm= calm movement for places with lots of ppl and the normal Vista AO. 

Edited December 2, 2017 by Jeny Howlett

[Marianne Little]

2 hours ago, UllaVonFrapp said:

Vista I guess? Ok thanks I'll have a look over there. I use to like Oracle (or is it Oracul?) too, some nice natural animations, not sure if they upgraded to Bento.

Voir. They have some things I don't like, was it walks or runs? They are easily replaced.

Tutys.

I do think Body Language Sweet Lovely Cute is best.

 

[MaggiJin]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Voir. They have some things I don't like, was it walks or runs? They are easily replaced.

Tutys.

I do think Body Language Sweet Lovely Cute is best.

 

I've tested all 3. bodylanguage has very stiff and weird looking walking animations, and voir and tutys tended to pack in some... questionable animations.

[OnlyMon]

My AO is bunch of animations from various stores, so you can just buy the ones you like (although it may cost you more). My favorite for standing and hover is BodyLanguage's Lively Summer (not bento), although the walks are awkward af. I find most walks to be that way so I cant help you in that department lol