need help with mesh hair

[malcolmmerlyn1]

Hi, I am having a really hard time with mesh bodies. I had my avatar to a point that I was happy with everything. Well, I bought a pair of swim trunks, and removed my clothes and tried to wear the shorts. Firstly, they don't show up at all, but more frustratingly when I removed them trying to fix the invisible issue, something went haywire with my alpha mask. my whole alpha system went wonky. So, I went to reset my avatar by going into my outfits, and realized I hadn't saved my last happy spot. so, I have had to start over. something with the hair layering, or head tattoo system is off. I got my avatar back close enough to where I was originally, and saved it there. now, when I go to wear my original hair I had, chunks of it are missing. I know, alphas are likely to blame, or head size or shape. I have literally tried everything I can think of. The hair (fabia peter) is unfortunately not modify, but it was good before. Every time I touch alphas from my inventory, my avatar skin goes wonky. If I try to use the fabia mesh hair alpha, my skin glitches out. If I use the catwa head and body alpha all is good, except the hair is missing chunks that are obviously in my head. If I make the head smaller, the hair is there but I end up with a peanut head. If I adjust the head shape, it comes close but no cigar. this is so frustrating! I have been at this for hours and am getting extremely brainfried here. I will include a cropped down screenshot to help describe. I have been on second life since last fall and have gotten my mesh body a couple months ago but have really not done much with it to learn. I tried moving the hair up and down, side to side, but nothing has helped fix it. Can someone please help?

Edited May 9, 2018 by malcolmmerlyn1

[Lexbot Sinister]

The screeshot would really help, yes.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

Im sorry, I added it but it didnt show up. hope that helps

[Lexbot Sinister]

1. If you have a mesh head, try turning on the alpha sections to make the scalp invisible

2. If you don't have a mesh head, look if there are any alphas in the same folder as you have the hair. Wearing a head alpha might help.

3. The hair is most likely going to be too small for the head still, judging by how it cuts into the cheek.

Since you say it worked before, is it perhaps so that you used another hair in that folder that you had resized?

Otherwise you will have to resize it. Since it's no mod, the resize is most likely by script. Try clicking the hair once. A menu for resize might pop up. if not, look if there is any HUD in the folder the hair came with. That sometimes also contains a resize button.

 

 

[malcolmmerlyn1]

Thank you for replying, the head is catwa bento mesh, the hair is fabia peter mesh. I tried resizing the hair, but it simply wont. It is transfer only, not modify. I will look into the head layers. I dont remember having this issue before, it was a simple wear and go thing. that was the only hair in the folder. This frustrating, but thank you for that bit of help. I will check on the head layer issue now and see if I can find anything in the head hud that may help.

[Buttacwup Float]

A lot of fabia hair has a resize option on the HUD. might check there too.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

hey, I got it finally. I clicked the hair, I went to touch, and it finally came up with a box allowing me to stretch x y and z dimensions. I didnt do that before, but it worked. Thank you for your help. The only thing in the hud was color changes.

Edited May 9, 2018 by malcolmmerlyn1

[Skell Dagger]

Nothing is un-fixable, so with a bit of work you can be back to your old self again. The hair sizing problem seems to be resolved, but I'm still concerned about the alpha issue you're reporting. In order for us to help you, you need to be more specific. I'm focusing especially on the following issues that you're reporting:

• "something went haywire with my alpha mask. my whole alpha system went wonky"
• "Every time I touch alphas from my inventory, my avatar skin goes wonky"
• "If I try to use the fabia mesh hair alpha, my skin glitches out"

When you say your alpha system is 'wonky' and 'glitches out' what EXACTLY happens? My suspicion is that maybe parts of (or all of) your skin turn red or look strange in some other way when you apply alpha layers from your inventory. Is that correct? Are you using the official Linden Lab viewer, and have you updated it in recent weeks?

Edited May 9, 2018 by Skell Dagger

[malcolmmerlyn1]

hi skell! I have read many of your blog posts and love the avatar work you've done they look amazing! Ok, with that said, let me start at the beginning. I had my avatar where I was happy. I bought a pair of mesh swim trunks. I removed my clothes and clicked to wear the shorts. They remained invisible. I clicked to remove them and it confirmed they weren't being worn. However when I went to re wear them, something happened. My skin did go wonky. Like I had skin bleed through like an alpha problem. So I went in and tried to reapply the alpha mask and it went downhill from there. I tried to revert back to my last appearance save, and I hadn't saved my happy point. So  I reverted back to an earlier version and wasn't happy, so I started from scratch. I have been at it for hours last night into this morning and finally got it sorted to a point I am happy enough with again. I am using the standard sl viewer with newest update. I do have one quick question, the hair is more like a wig. I can see a lot of bald under it from the front. What can I do to help with that?

Edited May 9, 2018 by malcolmmerlyn1

[Skell Dagger]

Thank you

OK, I just want to clarify: are you wearing a mesh body, or using a system (aka 'classic') body? I'm asking mainly because in your initial post you say you're having a hard time with mesh bodies. And, since you mention "skin bleed through, like an alpha problem" I'm going to guess that (if you are wearing a mesh body) your full-body alpha layer came off and therefore your system avatar was showing through the mesh body.

You should always 'add' items to your avatar, and not 'wear' them. Never just 'wear' a whole folder in order to add it to what your avatar is already wearing - even if it only has one item of mesh clothing and one alpha layer in it. If you're wearing a mesh body and head you only need one full alpha layer to cover up the entirety of your system body. Quite possibly you were already wearing the limit of alpha layers (it's easy to do without thinking: one for head, one for body, one for hair - which is entirely unnecessary with a mesh head; use the head's alpha HUD settings) etc. Then, if you 'wear' one more alpha, one that you're already wearing will be removed. If the removed one is the body alpha, that'll be why your skin went 'wonky' and patchy.

In short, if you're wearing a mesh body and a mesh head, you need only to wear:

• one full-body alpha only, to hide your system avatar
• the mesh body
• the mesh head
• the HUDs for the mesh body and head

You will also need to be wearing the following system items (without which your avatar won't rez properly) -

• a system skin
• system hair
• system eyes
• shape

The icons for those look like this in the Linden Lab ('standard SL') viewer:

Once you have those on, save the whole thing as a 'naked' outfit. You can then add mesh clothing items individually, and use the alpha tab on your mesh body's HUD to hide any bits of your mesh body that might poke through the clothing.

(Incidentally, the reason why I asked if your skin was turning red when you applied alpha layers was because I wondered if you'd accidentally updated to the 'Bakes on Mesh' project viewer, as that is what will happen if you apply alpha layers while using that beta viewer.)

[malcolmmerlyn1]

hey, yes, I have the adam mesh body with the julius tanned skin. I was clicking on the shorts inside the folder in my inventory and clicking to wear them, not add. the rest I got, I did edit my above post and added a picture of the baldness under the hair issue. Not sure if you saw it, but was just asking. once I got it to where I needed, I did make a save of the naked body with hair as I wanted it. Thank you for your help, if you get a chance to see the picture and give me a tip there I would be grateful. Thanks again.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

interestingly enough, I wen to the swim trunks folder, clicked to add them, and they're still invisible even though the worn items shows them as worn......... I probably should ask the maker of them for help.

[Marianne Little]

1 hour ago, malcolmmerlyn1 said:

interestingly enough, I wen to the swim trunks folder, clicked to add them, and they're still invisible even though the worn items shows them as worn......... I probably should ask the maker of them for help.

Do you have a link to a marketplace ad? I wonder if the trunks isn't made for mesh bodies. If they are made for classic avatars, they'll never show up on a mesh body.

Learn from this and demo first.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

oh trust me, I just learned. I think they were for standard, however I just got taken for 600l on a pair of swim trunks. I Demo'd them in store, and went to buy them, it said they were to be delivered. nothing showed up, so I thought there may be a problem. Repaid, still no delivery. paid from marketplace and they finally showed up. 600l for a pair of 200l shorts. Ive had problems like this from some sellers and never got money back. once was from julius skin. I am glad I dont buy much on here.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

I can't help the impression that you seriously do some things fundamentally wrong.

Please do yourself a favour and write a friendly note to the shorts merchant, citing your transaction IDs and marketplace ID, ask if they might be so kind to refund this unfortunate case of double purchases of the same item. 
Redelivery terminals are your friend, no simply paying stuff again and again.

That does inspire another thought, though: could your connection be seriously troubled and laggy? 

[malcolmmerlyn1]

lol, the first set of swim trunks had no demo to try, I found it by a search under mesh swim wear. After that didnt work, I searched the marketplace online, and got the demo for the second swim trunks. That worked well. However, I clicked to buy them and nothing happened even though a message came up saying paid 199l. I waited and waited, nothing happened. So, I looked around for a redeliver unit. None around, or at least if there was, I could not find one. So I said oh well and tried to buy another. Same thing. Nothing happened. I got mad and went to the online marketplace. There it went through fine. Interestingly enough, I never got a transaction notification, it only said I paid the merchant 199l but my account info definitely shows 400l left my account. Oh well. The julius skin was an expensive fiasco. I went to buy it but received the wrong color skin. I tried contacting the seller. no response. I tried several more times, I even sent that seller multiple notecards with my info asking for a reply. I got none. My connection is occasionally laggy but for the most part no. Those have been the only problems I have ever had purchasing items.

Edited May 10, 2018 by malcolmmerlyn1

[Skell Dagger]

14 hours ago, malcolmmerlyn1 said:

 I do have one quick question, the hair is more like a wig. I can see a lot of bald under it from the front. What can I do to help with that?

Looking at that photo, your hair needs to be moved back and down. You've also sized it up a little too much.

Click-to-resize hair can be a pain because of the way it works. Hair is always fitted around a central root prim that sits inside your head. (Quite often, in Catwa support chat, we hear questions from people who have removed their head for some reason or another - or cammed inside it - and they're confused as to why they have a BOX INSIDE THEIR HEAD. Yep, that's the root prim for their hair.) When scripted hair is resized it will either expand or contract (depending on whether it's being sized up or down) around that root prim. However, the root prim itself will sometimes resize as well, which moves it. And the next resize then expands/contracts around the root prim's new position, while the root prim expands... and moves again, etc.

Usually, in these cases, the hair moves both up and forward. If you're not paying attention to what's happening at the front of your face it's possible to over-size because you're seeing the hair at the nape of your neck still digging in... while your bangs (or fringe) are hanging like a curtain about two inches away from your nose

If you look at your image, you can see the back of the hair is cutting over the back of the ear that we can see. Hair in this style tends to have an obvious 'gap' where the ear should go, and that gap is usually a decent enough guideline to help you with placement of the hair while resizing. It's hard to tell whether that's the case here without a side-view image, but based on the possibility of that my suggestions would be:

• Move the hair back just enough that the ear is fully exposed and in that 'gap.
• Move the hair down just enough that you no longer see that 'support beam' effect in the front (but keep an eye on the top of your scalp to ensure that you're not moving it down too much)
• Begin to size down your hair in small increments. If the sizing script offers percentages, click 5% once and see how it looks. Use no more than another single 5% increment before you switch to 2% or 1% (whichever the script offers)
• Keep adjusting the position of the hair as you size down
• To get rid of that 'bald' look, use one of the applier hairbases from your Catwa head's HUD. From the shape of your jawline I'm going to hazard a guess that you might be wearing either the Victor or Skell bento heads, so you'll have - in your folder - a Hair & Beard HUD. Put that on and find a black hairbase in there. Click to apply it and it will add a feathery hairbase to your head that softens the bald look.

[malcolmmerlyn1]

will do, thank you for your input. Got it. Slight stretch, little tweaking and its all good. A lot more work than last time I did it lol.

Edited May 10, 2018 by malcolmmerlyn1