Are body and shape the same think?

[pandorabellatrix]

Well I am here again ^^
Some time ago I opened a thread about mesh bodies vs classic avatars and all that.
I ask it now because couldn't find an answer anywhere else.
Oh I am checking out for a mesh body, I got a classic one.

Taking a short 3 hours look at the marketplace (lol I am a girl so what ), I found a shape with this description:
"Avatar Shape to wear with the Maitreya Mesh Body"
So,
isn't BODY and SHAPE the same think?
I mean I can tell apart shape and skin, because they're different objects in our inventory. These are avatar components, or I thought.
can anyone tell me what's the difference between shape and body please?

 

[Marianne Little]

No, when you hear "body", it is a mesh body, who is made by different creators in SL, not the classic one.

If you use a body, you can use your classic head with it, or a mesh head.

Shapes can be made for both. Shapes made for a mesh body + a mesh head, can not be used without the mesh head that is advertised. Technically you CAN, but it will probably give you a deformed face.

A mesh body and a mesh head has the object symbol in the inventory, a box.

If you wear a mesh body / bodyparts, you must use skins that comes with appliers for that body / bodypart. For a Maitreya body, you need the description "Includes Maitreya appliers". For Slink feet, it must say " slink feet appliers".

The Maitreya body is not sold anywhere on the Marketplace. Only in Maitreya mainstore, who has a free demo also.

Do not buy anything without trying a demo first.

Were you recommended to watch tutorials here?  http://meshbodyaddicts.com/

Also instructive reviews from: https://strawberrysingh.com/

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Marianne Little

[Ceka Cianci]

When you first got here your avatar was made of a system body which you could go into appearance and edit the shape of..Each time you change the shape it will ask to save it..

That's where you can create avatar shapes for the system avatars and body and head  shapes for the mesh heads and mesh bodies..

The clothes and skins you would wear, would sit right on top the system body in a certain system layer, like a paint job..You had skin layer, tattoo layer,underwear layer and clothes layer.

The mesh body sits over the top of the system body and all it's layers..It's like a shell over the system body somewhat..Only it will have places where they system body pokes through the mesh body..

So we wear alpha layers that will hide the system body and system head..

Since there are different mesh bodies created by different designers..Each mesh body will work differently with the system body sliders.. This is why you will have certain mesh clothes made for certain mesh bodies..Also why certain system bodies/shapes are made for certain mesh bodies..

So basically, a shape is what sits under a mesh body..certain shapes are made to work with certain mesh bodies and mesh heads..

 

I hope this helps =)

 

[Rhonda Huntress]

This might help ...

[edit]

For what it's worth, do you see those 4 items at the bottom of the list?  Those are only things you can never remove; they can only be replaced.  No avatar can be rendered without those 4.  Shape, skin, hair and eyes. 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Rhonda Huntress

[Ariel Vuissent]

Not in SL, no.

A shape is a required part of any avatar. You can't take it off, but you can edit it inworld using sliders, which you access by right clicking your avatar and choosing "appearance > edit shape" or by finding the shape you're wearing in your inventory, right clicking, abs choosing "edit." We all have free access to the same shape sliders. Every shape you see was made using them. 

A body, or mesh body, is an item you wear on top of your shape. They're generally made to work with the same shape sliders, and be influenced more or less the same way. The default system avatar has some issues. There are weirdly pointy area, or blocky areas, and some that deform depending on the underlying shape. (Breasts, for instance, get blocky-looking at higher numbers. So do muscles.) Mesh bodies smooth that out some. Each mesh body has its own basic frame, though: like dolls. The bodies are, by default, somewhat different from each other even if you wear the same shape underneath. You can see this particularly well if you demo Belleza bodies. They make three: Venus, Isis, and Freya. Each of them is a mesh body, with a standard shape underneath of your choosing. But each of them looks different: thicker legs, larger hips and bust. Freya has a bit of a belly. By editing your SHAPE, you can change certain features on the BODY, but its basic frame remains. This is why there's more than one mesh body in existence. 

In short: shape is the edit-able thing you ALWAYS wear. BODY is an optional outer "shell."

[Skell Dagger]

15 hours ago, pandorabellatrix said:

I found a shape with this description: "Avatar Shape to wear with the Maitreya Mesh Body". So, isn't BODY and SHAPE the same think?

A shape is just a set of numbers that dictate the dimensions of your body. These numbers are accessible by right-clicking on your avatar, selecting Appearance > Edit Shape, and moving the sliders around until you have a set of numbers that you like. You can edit everything from the length of your nose to the wideness of your eyes, how tall you are, how big your butt is, how fat/thin/muscular you are, etc. Think of a shape as like your skeleton that sits underneath everything else.

A system avatar (sometimes called a classic avatar - what you have right now) is a combination of a shape, with a painted-on system skin covering it, just like your real skin covers your skeleton. It also needs - at its bare minimum - a system hairbase (now most commonly used as an eyebrow-shaper) and system eyes. As Rhonda mentioned, those are the four items you must always be wearing (even if they're completely hidden by a mesh body and head) because without them your avatar simply won't rez properly.

A mesh body is an object (or set of objects) that you wear over the top of your system avatar. To do this you need to wear an alpha mask, which renders parts of your system avatar invisible so they don't poke through the mesh body. A mesh body is rigged to various points of your avatar's skeleton, so that it moves realistically when you move. (Think of rigging as like it being 'pinned' to you in those places.)

A mesh head is exactly the same: an object worn over your system avatar's head, for which you will need an alpha layer to hide the system head so that it doesn't poke through. There are several types of mesh heads, but the two main ones are static heads that you can only change by stretching them in each direction, and Bento heads.

Bento heads are rigged to lots of points on your face (the same way that a mesh body is rigged - or 'pinned' to parts of your underlying avatar skeleton). This means that - with a Bento head - you can use the face sliders to customise the shape of that head, within the limits of what its starting shape looks like. For example: if you want a very pointy jaw you won't be able to do that with a mesh head that starts out with a very square jaw, so pick a Bento head that has a starting shape close to the one you want to end up with.

When you see shapes that are "made for XYX head" those shapes are designed to ONLY be worn with specific Bento mesh heads. For example: a shape created to be worn with the Catwa 'Catya' head will look really odd worn under a system avatar, or even under a Bento mesh head from another brand, such as Lelutka. You would probably be able to wear that shape with another female Catwa brand head, but you might need to tweak it a bit.

Shapes that are made ONLY for specific bodies are less common. Usually you'll find them made for a specific mesh head AND mesh body combination. For example: a male shape might be for Lelutka's 'Andrea' head and Signature's 'Gianni' body. If in doubt, always look for any mesh head brand names. You can always tweak the body sliders of a shape to work with any mesh body, but shapes designed for specific mesh heads would need a hell of a lot more work to tweak to another brand of mesh head.

[Nalates Urriah]

One of the interesting things about shapes... if you have the perms, you can export the shape settings as an XML file. There is human/machine readable text file. So, there is a line in the file about 'Body Fat', an appearance setting, and a value that is what you set the Appearance slider to for that attribute. All the sliers are listed in the XML file.

You can use a text editor and modify the file. For me it was an experiment to get the head and body slider values separated into a head and body files. I found that an incomplete file, some settings left out, can be uploaded and used. No problem.

Now I can use the head-maker's shape file and overlay it with my body shape.

[pandorabellatrix]

Thank you very much for your answers.

To be honest I find really complicated this stuff about new bodies.

Above all seems that I won't be able to wear my clothes of my classic avi... and I got tons of nice clothing!!! D:

Bunch of info to investigate then. But I got the idea I guess, DEMO FIRST lol.

By the way, I got some demos of maitreya bodies and I am still getting those "polygonal" shapes from classic avatars, instead of those soft, curvy, harmonic... lines from new bodies. Is this normal? Do maitreya/catwa/etc demos look like classic avis?

Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

[Marianne Little]

36 minutes ago, pandorabellatrix said:

Thank you very much for your answers.

To be honest I find really complicated this stuff about new bodies.

Above all seems that I won't be able to wear my clothes of my classic avi... and I got tons of nice clothing!!! D:

Bunch of info to investigate then. But I got the idea I guess, DEMO FIRST lol.

By the way, I got some demos of maitreya bodies and I am still getting those "polygonal" shapes from classic avatars, instead of those soft, curvy, harmonic... lines from new bodies. Is this normal? Do maitreya/catwa/etc demos look like classic avis?

Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

Can it be your graphics? Have you worn mesh feet and hands before? You should see a drastic difference in toes, fingers, ankles and wrists. Then shoulders and breasts.

Maybe you can upload pictures? It is true, a picture is worth 1000 words. The demo does not look like the classic avatars.

[Ceka Cianci]

48 minutes ago, pandorabellatrix said:

Thank you very much for your answers.

To be honest I find really complicated this stuff about new bodies.

Above all seems that I won't be able to wear my clothes of my classic avi... and I got tons of nice clothing!!! D:

Bunch of info to investigate then. But I got the idea I guess, DEMO FIRST lol.

By the way, I got some demos of maitreya bodies and I am still getting those "polygonal" shapes from classic avatars, instead of those soft, curvy, harmonic... lines from new bodies. Is this normal? Do maitreya/catwa/etc demos look like classic avis?

Thanks for your help.

 

 

 

In the near future we will be getting something called Bakes on mesh,which will allow you to wear your system clothes with the mesh bodies..

As far as blocky polygons with Maitreya body...Are you sure you are putting on the body and not just the shape?

You want to use Add instead of Wear when you go to put these on..

You want to Add,

Maitreya Mesh Body - Alpha

Maitreya Mesh Body - Bento Hand L V4.1 Demo

Maitreya Mesh Body - Bento Hand R V4.1 Demo

Maitreya Mesh Body - Feet V4.1 Demo

Maitreya Mesh Body - HUD V4.1

Maitreya Mesh Body - Lara V4.1  Demo  <--------this one is the actual mesh body..

Edited August 14, 2018 by Ceka Cianci

[pandorabellatrix]

21 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Can it be your graphics? Have you worn mesh feet and hands before? You should see a drastic difference in toes, fingers, ankles and wrists. Then shoulders and breasts.

Maybe you can upload pictures? It is true, a picture is worth 1000 words. The demo does not look like the classic avatars.

Well I've got a 950ti which kinda deals with SL graphics with acceptable quality I guess.

Okay here it is a cap.
This is from a demo I got a few days ago, from a shape called Esode Olivia, . It had the shape icon. You can notice those classic edges from old avis.

Then I took Ceka Cianci suggestion, I just tipped "mesh body" at mp browser, and bought the first free demo from the list. After unbxing it was not a shape properly, but an addon (that yellow box icon).
Finally this is exactly what I was waiting to get

So it was my mistake, those new bodies don't have the same shape icon like old avis, they are addons.

So I was mixing them up and browsing in wrong way.

Thank you very much guys. And sorry for taking so long to get it, I was so confused lol.

Edit: The web http://meshbodyaddicts.com/ suggested   by Marianne Little is gonna help a lot with that applier evil stuff :S I've been checking it out. Thank you very much.

Edited August 15, 2018 by pandorabellatrix
update

[Rhonda Huntress]

On 8/13/2018 at 10:26 PM, pandorabellatrix said:

To be honest I find really complicated this stuff about new bodies.

Well, it is complicated so don't feel bad. 

 

If you need help with a shape I would be happy to help.  Just let me know what you want