Which type of new body part

[LadyJulietDream]

Hi

i have a ‘recent or new’ Gretchen avatar which is one of the standard off the peg ones. I think it is a mesh type ; please correct me if wrong. Which ***** should I buy please : a mesh or a rigged mesh.

i want it to fit well but I am not interested in fiddling with controls. Just want it simple to use.

this question also relates to clothes in general

also am I right about what sort of avatar I am

thank you for all your help so far

Juliet XXX

[Skell Dagger]

1 hour ago, LadyJulietDream said:

Hi

i have a ‘recent or new’ Gretchen avatar which is one of the standard off the peg ones. I think it is a mesh type ; please correct me if wrong. Which ***** should I buy please : a mesh or a rigged mesh.

i want it to fit well but I am not interested in fiddling with controls. Just want it simple to use.

this question also relates to clothes in general

also am I right about what sort of avatar I am

thank you for all your help so far

Juliet XXX

Gretchen is what we call a 'system' or 'classic' avatar. It's not what we call a mesh avatar (those are usually items that you need to purchase, although sometimes you can find free mesh avatars that offer very limited - or no - customisation options).

You will need to look for clothing that is marketed for 'classic avatars'. Look for this symbol on clothing ads:

You can also wearing clothing that is marketed as 'standard sizes', with this logo:

Both of the above types of clothing should come with an alpha layer, which you will need to wear so that parts of your avatar's underlying skin are made invisible and won't poke through the mesh clothing.

Here's an example of both of those icons (arrowed) on a freebie piece of clothing at Ajuda Brasil:

And here are the contents. I'll explain my annotations after the image:

The item marked 1 uses the word 'applier'. That means it's the skintight bodysuit texture that will only apply to a mesh body. For your system/classic body you would need to wear the clothing layers (look for the t-shirt and pants icons there). The bracketed items marked 2 use the word 'Slink'. That's a specific brand of mesh body, and - since those are the shoes - you could only wear those ones on Slink brand feet. There is another pair of shoes at the bracketed items marked 3, but those are still only for mesh feet, because there is no alpha layer to hide the system/classic avatar feet, nor is there a foot/shoe shaper icon to change the shape of your feet and put them on tiptoe. So you would not be able to wear the shoes in that look.

In addition, any much older clothing layer items can be worn on a classic avatar. You won't see any symbols for that on ad boards, but the inventory icons for those items will look as you would expect for clothing: t-shirt, pants, etc.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Skell Dagger

[Skell Dagger]

In addition, the difference between a system/classic avatar and a mesh avatar can easily be spotted when looking at its component parts in your inventory. I'm using the stock Linden Lab viewer for the screenshots below, so if you're using a third party viewer the icons may look a little bit different.

Here is the Gretchen avatar:

As you're still learning about Second Life avatars those icons might not mean anything specific to you, but the crucial ones are the skin (the little 'double person' icon) and the fact that there are three alpha layers in there (the white gridded t-shirt icon) - one for the dress, one for the shoes, and one for the eyelashes (since it comes with add-on lashes). Note that there is nothing in the folder that states 'body' or 'hands' or 'feet'. All of those things combined will tell you that this is very likely a system/classic avatar.

By contrast, here is a mesh avatar:

Note the box icons near the bottom: BODY, FEET, HANDS, combined with a HUD (because mesh bodies use a HUD to hide parts of the body when wearing clothing). While this folder also contains alpha layers, these are to hide your entire body (or your entire body but not the head). That's because - in order to wear a mesh body - you need to completely hide your underlying system/classic body so it doesn't poke through the add-on mesh body parts. (The alpha layer that doesn't cover the head just allows your system/classic head to still show, in case you only want to wear the mesh body and not an additional mesh head.)

One additional little (confusing, I know!) thing to remember is the following: no matter which type of avatar you're wearing, you must always wear four specific old system/classic items (shape, skin, hair - commonly used these days as a brow shaper - and eyes). Without those your avatar simply won't rez inworld, and neither you nor anyone else will see you properly. This is why - when people make the switch to an all-mesh avatar - they get confused as to why they're wearing two pairs of eyes and anxious when they can't remove one of them. The non-removable eyes are the system eyes that they must be wearing in order to rez!

The icons for those look like this:

Hopefully that helps If you need a bit more in-depth info about system/classic avatars then I have a post on my blog explaining a bit more, here. It's aimed at male avatars, but don't let that put you off. The underlying principles are still the same.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Skell Dagger

[LadyJulietDream]

Thank you for such a full and detailed reply. I have learnt much and will check your blog

[Skell Dagger]

I've just added a little bit of detail to my first post that may offer a bit more insight into why shopping for a system/classic avatar is getting a bit more difficult these days. Shoes, in particular, for women tend to be made to fit mesh feet now, and it's getting harder to find ones for classic avatars.

[Nalates Urriah]

9 hours ago, LadyJulietDream said:

i want it to fit well but I am not interested in fiddling with controls. Just want it simple to use.

You are going to need to go with fitted mesh to get close to wear-and-go.

For the classic avatar wearing mesh clothes is a problem. While there are standard sizes, there are five of them. So, you have to figure out which standard size the clothes were made for and put that size shape on. Of course you had to buy or build those standard sizes shapes.

I have dozens of shapes from the days when I was still using a classic body. Basically one shape for each brand of clothes.

When I changed to a mesh body I built one shape and was pretty much done. I buy clothes for that body, Slink Original in my case, and they fit... mostly. Some are not well made and don't or only poorly fit. So, I demo most all of what I buy. But, I am not tweaking sliders and making custom shapes any more. Mesh bodies are easier to deal with than trying to find mesh clothes that fit a classic shape.

 

[LadyJulietDream]

Thanks seems a bit complex

[LadyJulietDream]

How about body parts like *****s etc

 

[Nalates Urriah]

41 minutes ago, LadyJulietDream said:

How about body parts like *****s etc

These days genitals are made for mesh bodies. Older genitals work with the classic body and some of the newer ones can work with both. 

Some other parts like hands, feet, and head will work with classic or mesh. Genitals are more of a problem.

The new Slink Redux Bundle bodies include hands and feet with the body as a single unit. This frees up attachment points.

53 minutes ago, LadyJulietDream said:

Thanks seems a bit complex

It is complex. IMO the most complexity comes from mixing classic and mesh. Life is simpler going all mesh. But, the initial setup for mesh can be complex.

Remember. Mesh bodies are changing because of the Bakes on Mesh change. Until Firestorm releases BoM support and merchants move their new BoM products out, we won't know how things are going to shake down.

[Skell Dagger]

53 minutes ago, LadyJulietDream said:

How about body parts like *****s etc

If that censored word refers to genitalia then that's a question you need to ask in the adult section of the forum, here. The section you're currently in is supposed to remain PG, so a moderator might end up moving this post if the discussion takes too detailed a turn in that direction.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Skell Dagger

[LadyJulietDream]

I can but I must say these are normal words for normal parts of the body so I think it wrong that we     

Make them out to be more than they are , self defeating morally as it mystifies them, not your fault I know but why can’t we use such words what actually is wrong.

[Skell Dagger]

12 minutes ago, LadyJulietDream said:

why can’t we use such words what actually is wrong

That's not for me to answer, since I don't work for Linden Lab. They are the ones who set the rules around here; the rest of us are just residents like you. It's a setting that has been enabled by LL for these forums, so any issues or complaints about how they set their rules should be addressed to them. There is even a user here whose name is a variant of 'kittycat', but if you try to quote her the forum will censor the first part of her name in your quote, because that word is now a slang term for female genitalia.

There is an adult section on this forum, and that's where anything to do with adult activities - regardless of the words used - should be posted. I suggested posting there not because you used the word that you did, but because you asked a question about genitalia that might have evolved into a more detailed discussion, so you might as well post there instead, because - if posted outside that area - such a thread would end up being moved by a moderator anyway.

[Lindal Kidd]

Hi @LadyJulietDream

Skell has given you some very excellent advice here!  Pay attention, he has one of the most finely-tuned fashion senses of anyone in SL.

I will add that, while add-on genitals are available for both sexes (and also for some pretty far-out variants, like barbed members for demons!), we girls don't really need them.  Most female skins have painted-on naughty bits.  Unless you want something that's compatible with one of the popular interactive systems like Xcite, you don't need genitals simply for appearances' sake.

Pay more attention to the things people see every day, like your head, hands, and feet!