Non-mirrored mesh bodies?

[Orwar]

   I tried my hand at making a tattoo the other day, for my alt, since I felt really against buying a tattoo which - well, wasn't 'mine'. Being as used to Signature as I am, I just presumed that making a simple tattoo with one thing on one shoulder and another thing on the back would be possible, but since Maitreya use the standard avatar maps, there's just one arm - which is both arms.

   So I'm just curious - even if I don't expect to go get a new body right away - are there any female bodies that are mapped with separate arms so that you can have different tattoos on each? I've always disliked the whole thing of getting the exact same tattoo in reverse on both arms... 

[LittleMe Jewell]

I'm sure someone will come along soon with the specifics, but from previous conversations, there are at least two and maybe more female mesh bodies that map the arms separate.

[Candice LittleBoots]

Not an answer to the question exactly, but a thought for a work around for different arm tattoos ..

Wear two Maitreya bodies. Alpha only the left arm of one, then everything except the left arm of the other. Each body with different arm tats applied.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Candice LittleBoots
got in a twist with my lefts and rights

[Fionalein]

this thread says Slink does:

...

and BoM is supposed to come with that possibility as well... now if Maitreya is as fast with adopting full BoM as they apparently are with adapting to Omega Evolved... 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Fionalein

[Marianne Little]

Slink bodies have the option to turn off layers on separate arms. They use the SL template, but this is a work around the one-arm. If the arm tattoo reach the hand and fingers, take off the hand that's going to be bare when you apply the tattoo. Attach the hand again and turn off the layer for the arm you want to be bare.

You can also wear different tattoos on the arms.

Letis tattoo took this a step further and has a modular tattoos HUD, but they are not finished with the female version, only the male. https://strawberrysingh.com/2017/06/24/letis-tattoo-modular-tattoos-hud/

Edited September 11, 2018 by Marianne Little

[Marianne Little]

42 minutes ago, Candice LittleBoots said:

Not an answer to the question exactly, but a thought for a work around for different arm tattoos ..

Wear two Maitreya bodies. Alpha only the left arm of one, then everything except the left arm of the other. Each body with different arm tats applied.

Eep. I can imagine what some say about avatar rendering cost.... /me hides

[Fionalein]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Eep. I can imagine what some say about avatar rendering cost.... /me hides

... those are the same that say mesh body producers will update soon, LOL  

... as we can clearly see with Omega Evolved's asymetric tats... they don't.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Fionalein

[Orwar]

   Huh, guess I really lucked out when I picked Signature as my first mesh body. Not that I ever wear tattoos anyway - I get a little bit freaked out by not having any body hair, and my skin didn't come in a hairy version! 

   Another thing that struck me when I was making my tattoo was how the arm is UV-mapped on the standard template. Might be more complicated than I'm thinking - but do we really need to have -two- seams along the arm? I.. Probably shouldn't bring up something as morbid as to compare what a human skin would look like if we took it off like we do an animal when tanning leather... But... I guess I did. lol

   How anyone can be as patient as to align both seams is amazing. Then again, every tattoo I ever tried that crosses the seams didn't. 

[AyelaNewLife]

Confirming that the both female Slinks (and I assume the male Physique too?) have segmented layer toggles:

I've just made the Physique to Lara swap, and with a little work I managed to get my shape to be almost identical to my old Slink shape - boobs+butt will be perkier with Maitreya, but everything else ended up pretty damn close, so if you're attached to your alt's shape then you should be able to recreate it.

[Raindrop Drinkwater]

53 minutes ago, Orwar said:

 Might be more complicated than I'm thinking - but do we really need to have -two- seams along the arm? I.. Probably shouldn't bring up something as morbid as to compare what a human skin would look like if we took it off like we do an animal when tanning leather... But... I guess I did. lol

 

 

No, we really don't need so many seams.The SL UV map seems approachable (as in, you see where stuff goes where when you first learn to texture clothes, skins, etc), but it's actually terrible. Too many seams, too much distortion, some overlapping areas that shouldn't overlap (the fingers in particular are quite messy), not enough space in fiddly areas... Basically, gaaaaah.

And your analogy with tanning leather is pretty good, actually. That'd be a nice UV map.

Edited September 11, 2018 by Raindrop Drinkwater

[Orwar]

7 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Confirming that the both female Slinks (and I assume the male Physique too?) have segmented layer toggles

   I'm going to have to have a closer look - hopefully, if I like it enough, at least some of my clothes will still work! ... And my skin. And all that.

   The body shape is something I can play around with, and the head's shape would still be the same for my head. Demo time!

[AyelaNewLife]

Just now, Orwar said:

   hopefully, if I like it enough, at least some of my clothes will still work!

That's actually the reason I made the swap, even though I slightly prefer the Slink shape. I just got so tired of going to shopping events or searching for something specific on the MP and running into the wall of Maitreya exclusives. Everyday clothes (and more smarter/sexy ones) are easy enough to find, but trying to find anything remotely niche is a lottery. 

It's almost a creator-enforced monopoly, and it honestly sucks. But I have no idea how to fix that problem (or even if it deserves to be fixed).

[imacrabpinch]

8 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

That's actually the reason I made the swap, even though I slightly prefer the Slink shape. I just got so tired of going to shopping events or searching for something specific on the MP and running into the wall of Maitreya exclusives. Everyday clothes (and more smarter/sexy ones) are easy enough to find, but trying to find anything remotely niche is a lottery. 

It's almost a creator-enforced monopoly, and it honestly sucks. But I have no idea how to fix that problem (or even if it deserves to be fixed).

Just out of curiosity - what kind of niche clothing do you feel is needed the most?

[Blush Bravin]

5 hours ago, Candice LittleBoots said:

Not an answer to the question exactly, but a thought for a work around for different arm tattoos ..

Wear two Maitreya bodies. Alpha only the left arm of one, then everything except the left arm of the other. Each body with different arm tats applied.

I have suggested this work around myself; however,

5 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Eep. I can imagine what some say about avatar rendering cost.... /me hides

I suggest it only be used for photography purposes. And tell them to wait for BoM to do it properly.

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

6 hours ago, Candice LittleBoots said:

Wear two Maitreya bodies. Alpha only the left arm of one, then everything except the left arm of the other. Each body with different arm tats applied.

 Eep. I can imagine what some say about avatar rendering cost.... /me hides

Well, considering I typically have my CI anywhere from 30-50k and many folks think anything up to 100k is fine, I could probably do this and still stay within acceptable limits.  The Maitreya body is a bit under 20k, if memory serves.

[Alyona Su]

12 hours ago, Orwar said:

   I tried my hand at making a tattoo the other day, for my alt, since I felt really against buying a tattoo which - well, wasn't 'mine'. Being as used to Signature as I am, I just presumed that making a simple tattoo with one thing on one shoulder and another thing on the back would be possible, but since Maitreya use the standard avatar maps, there's just one arm - which is both arms.

   So I'm just curious - even if I don't expect to go get a new body right away - are there any female bodies that are mapped with separate arms so that you can have different tattoos on each? I've always disliked the whole thing of getting the exact same tattoo in reverse on both arms... 

Belleza body does this. It's a new feature introduced in 2018 - they call it Targeted Layers that allow you to put different appliers on each side of the body. So with this in mind, you'd simply create one applier with the left arm design you want and a second applier with the design for the right arm.

I don't know about the Jake avatar, though I would presume it has the same feature, the  Isis, Freya, and Venus all have this.

It's called Targeted Layers - here is the video that explains it, starting at the layers feature:

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by Alyona Su

[Skell Dagger]

4 hours ago, AyelaNewLife said:

Confirming that the both female Slinks (and I assume the male Physique too?) have segmented layer toggles

Yes, male Slink Physique has separate arm toggles for layers.

1 hour ago, Alyona Su said:

I don't know about the Jake avatar, though I would presume it has the same feature, the  Isis, Freya, and Venus all have this.

Jake was released in May 2017 and has not been updated since then (it's still in beta). If the Targeted Layers feature was introduced in 2018 then Jake won't have it. (I own the Jake body but almost never wear it. Once the neck issues are addressed I might wear it a bit more.)

[Klytyna]

22 hours ago, Raindrop Drinkwater said:

No, we really don't need so many seams.The SL UV map seems approachable (as in, you see where stuff goes where when you first learn to texture clothes, skins, etc), but it's actually terrible. Too many seams, too much distortion, some overlapping areas that shouldn't overlap (the fingers in particular are quite messy), not enough space in fiddly areas... Basically, gaaaaah.

And your analogy with tanning leather is pretty good, actually. That'd be a nice UV map.

The old Daz 3D Millenium 4 Figures used that sort of body mapping, and it worked fine, problem is, that was several years after SL was created, and more importantly, was based on the use of a single texture map with a resolution of 2k x 2k or higher (most of the better mil-4 skins were 4k x 4k), and even then you waste about HALF the image map on unused texture.

Basically, freshly skinned people leather isn't square...

The old Sims 2 UV map still has 2 seams on each piece, but matching up edges is easier and it has 2 arms, and doesn't waste as much of the texture map.

Efficient texture usage / optimal UV mapping means... Seams...

 

[Raindrop Drinkwater]

Good point. Looking at how I tend to unwrap human-shaped stuff, I avoid seams when I can but also use them to minimise distortions and prevent (unwanted) overlaps. Current piece I'm working on, I have a main front and back pieces with arms stitched on -- this, because I'm dealing with short sleeves, and that made it easier to avoid the arms/body seam without wasting space --, and the legs separate. But this means I have a seam on top and under each arm.

With long sleeves, I'd separate them from the body... otherwise, that'd be a waste of space. However, I wouldn't have a top seam.

So. hmm. I can see how tanned human-leather would be wasteful as well in terms of space.

I remember remapping the SL avatar onto one map, back when I was doing system clothes, to match up the bottom and top layers, avoid "chest compression" etc... then rebaking the final texture onto the standard SL maps. I had the arms separate from the body, but I'm pretty sure I only had one seam lengthwise (at least for some of the length). The legs were separate as well, but the seam was at the crotch rather than at the waist. It worked well. I can't remember how I dealt with the fingers though.

 

[Nalates Urriah]

On 9/11/2018 at 1:12 AM, Candice LittleBoots said:

Not an answer to the question exactly, but a thought for a work around for different arm tattoos ..

Wear two Maitreya bodies. Alpha only the left arm of one, then everything except the left arm of the other. Each body with different arm tats applied.

Oh... no polygon overload there...

[LittleMe Jewell]

I was curious about the 2-body thing.   With my current outfit, I'm at 30,104 CI - though we all know by now that the CI thing is totally borked.  Anyway, I added a second copy of the Maitreya body -- just body, not hands and feet -- and my CI went up to 34,882. Given that CI, which is what everyone goes off of, I could use this method for keeping a tattoo from mirroring to the second arm.

Now, since we know CI is borked, I am still somewhat curious as to what the true load of the second body is.

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

   Once, quite a while back, I think I tried to apply a texture with alpha as the skin on a body. It might have been the Venus, but I don't remember. I do remember that the body was set to use no alpha channel by default, with no way to change it. I'm sure there have been changes since then, and perhaps not all bodies did/do that. I think it would be fun to just have a white, highly translucent texture, appearing as a ghostly form.