What is the benefit of BoM exactly, besides salvaging old skins?

[Zak Westminster]

The problem I see at the moment (and please correct me if I am wrong) but the mesh bodies and skins that have been updated to be BOM compatible do not actually provide any savings because they still have the onion skins there for those who wish to continue to use appliers.

Only once the onion skin layers are removed form the mesh heads and bodies will the true benefits be realised but that is quite a way off.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Zak Westminster

[Theresa Tennyson]

40 minutes ago, Zak Westminster said:

The problem I see at the moment (and please correct me if I am wrong) but the mesh bodies and skins that have been updated to be BOM compatible do not actually provide any savings because they still have the onion skins there for those who wish to continue to use appliers.

Only once the onion skin layers are removed form the mesh heads and bodies will the true benefits be realised but that is quite a way off.

Slink's new bodies have no onion layers at all, and Tonic's new bodies only have one instead of the previous three.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Zak Westminster said:

The problem I see at the moment (and please correct me if I am wrong) but the mesh bodies and skins that have been updated to be BOM compatible do not actually provide any savings because they still have the onion skins there for those who wish to continue to use appliers.

Only once the onion skin layers are removed form the mesh heads and bodies will the true benefits be realised but that is quite a way off.

That's kind of correct, but it's a little more nuanced.

If an avatar changes from using onion layers (assuming every layer has a unique texture on it) to onion layers (same textures) + BOM for skin, there's no difference. Once you begin adding tattoos and makeup with BOM, the value of that feature goes up even if it still takes "as many textures as before" to render you. The body is now displaying more detail that it wasn't able to before, but without any additional cost to anyone's viewer.

One of the (I think) two main goals of BOM was to reduce texture load. As long as people are using BOM with more than one layer, that's achieved.

The other main goal was to reduce onion layers, but that's going to take longer to achieve because it relies on creators removing backwards-compatibility or maintaining multiple versions of mesh bodies which takes more work.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[hectic1]

On 1/11/2020 at 6:00 PM, Wulfie Reanimator said:

You 👏 can 👏 apply 👏 normals 👏 and 👏 speculars 👏 onto 👏 BOM 👏 enabled 👏 mesh.

Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, many people seem to have this misconception.

Also, BOM works just fine with makeup. The SL body UV has a texture for the entire head and BOM can blend partially transparent textures, just like with tattoos.

...

Sorry, but I am not clear about BOM and materials at the same time. I was under the impression that BOM does NOT support materials, and that's the reason I don't see me jumping on the BOM wagon until they add materials support.

Right now we can have materials on pretty much everything, via the appliers (well depending on the mesh body/head brand): skins, makeup, tattoos, etc. It is my understanding that all those are now baked on just 1 layer, the BOM layer, and BOM does not support materials.

So Wulfie, can you please expand a little more on your above post?

Edited January 21, 2020 by hectic1
typos

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, hectic1 said:

Sorry, but I am not clear about BOM and materials at the same time. I was under the impression that BOM does NOT support materials, and that's the reason I don't see me jumping on the BOM wagon until they add materials support.

Right now we can have materials on pretty much everything, via the appliers (well depending on the mesh body/head brand): skins, makeup, tattoos, etc. It is my understanding that all those are now baked on just 1 layer, the BOM layer, and BOM does not support materials.

So Wulfie, can you please expand a little more on your above post?

Of course, here you go:

 

[hectic1]

13 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Of course, here you go:

 

Thank you Wulfie, I just had a look at that thread. It's been already pointed out in further replies of that thread that what you showed in the picture is not really what we do have right now. Right now we can control materials on individual parts basis, while what you showed applied the same materials to all parts. Also, with onion layers we can have things like sweat over the skin, etc.

I have no idea if materials as we know them now can even get implemented in BOM, cause materials is all about real-time interaction with SL lighting system (ALM), which is kinda the exact opposite of static bakes.

I hope most body/head creators will settle with hybrid solutions (e.g. provide some extra layers on top of the BOM layer, probably less than they have right now) and that's what they are already doing in my experience. We'll have to wait and see I guess, but right now it does look like a downgrade for our hard-worked looks lol

 

 

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by hectic1

[Wulfie Reanimator]

20 minutes ago, hectic1 said:

Thank you Wulfie, I just had a look at that thread. It's been already pointed out in further replies of that thread that what you showed in the picture is not really what we do have right now.

What I've shown in the post that I linked is exactly what we have right now with mesh bodies without BOM.

20 minutes ago, hectic1 said:

Right now we can control materials on individual parts, while what you showed applied the same materials to all parts.

I've already went through this in the other thread and I made arguments for both sides of the conversation. Onion layers should not be used for clothing, besides for one extra layer that is not form-fitting and covers gaps like butt and clevage, like an "undersuit." You can't currently have more than one set of materials for your skin, just as is the case with BOM. There's no downgrade.

20 minutes ago, hectic1 said:

I have no idea if materials as we know now them now can even get implemented in BOM, cause materials is all about real-time interaction with SL lighting system (ALM), which is kinda the exact opposite of static bakes.

Materials are just as static as the baked avatar textures. There's absolutely no difference between them, besides how they are interpreted for lighting, and it's the lighting and shading that's "real-time." You can see that BOM textures themselves are affected by lighting, as you can see shadows and different colors from different sources of light on them, even without materials...

Edited January 22, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[hectic1]

28 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

What I've shown in the post that I linked is exactly what we have right now with mesh bodies without BOM.

I've already went through this in the other thread and I made arguments for both sides of the conversation. Onion layers should not be used for clothing, besides for one extra layer that is not form-fitting and covers gaps like butt and clevage, like an "undersuit." You can't currently have more than one set of materials for your skin, just as is the case with BOM. There's no downgrade.

Materials are just as static as the baked avatar textures. There's absolutely no difference between them, besides how they are interpreted for lighting, and it's the lighting and shading that's "real-time." You can see that BOM textures themselves are affected by lighting, as you can see shadows and different colors from different sources of light on them, even without materials...

I am not talking about clothing, I am talking about things like tatts, eyelids, lips, etc... and no, what you showed is not what we can do right now. Right now we can make a materials enabled tattoo without affecting anything else on the skin, same for the lips, etc and we can turn them on and off on demand too JUST for those parts only.... with what you showed we would need as many diffuse, normal and spec maps as all the possible permutations for the different states of each individual part. So no, it's not the same at all!

About real-time interaction, I don't really see what your argument is about. I didn't say anything different. Materials are all about real-time interaction with SL's lighting system, and they are static maps yes, but especially made for dictating/faking the run-time "3d" looks when interacting with the lights (skin pores, lips wrinkling, etc).

Edited January 22, 2020 by hectic1

[Wulfie Reanimator]

8 minutes ago, hectic1 said:

I am not talking about clothing, I am talking about things like tatts, eyelids, lips, etc... and no, what you showed is not what we can do right now. Right now we can make a materials enabled tattoo without affecting anything else on the skin, same for the lips, etc and we can turn them on and off on demand too JUST for those parts only.... with what you showed we would need as many diffuse, normal and spec maps as all the possible permutations for the different states of each individual part. So no, it's not the same at all!

Okay, I think we're mixing the context a little bit.

Yes, if you only have literally one surface for body and head, you can't add a material specifically for the lips if you already have some other head material (without replacing it).

No, there isn't anything particularly wrong with materials and BOM. In that post, I was debunking a statement that "you can't use materials with BOM."

[hectic1]

15 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Okay, I think we're mixing the context a little bit.

Yes, if you only have literally one surface for body and head, you can't add a material specifically for the lips if you already have some other head material (without replacing it).

No, there isn't anything particularly wrong with materials and BOM. In that post, I was debunking a statement that "you can't use materials with BOM."

No worries, sometimes typed communication can be confusing indeed.

I think the "you can't use materials with BOM" thing is mostly spread due to the fact the the Lab stated BOM does not support materials.. And frankly what you showed is quite helpful, I for one didn't know it was working, tho I still have no idea why it does, since BOM isn't supposed to support materials. Nevertheless, it does seem quite crippled compared t what we are used to right now.

Edited January 22, 2020 by hectic1

[Alyona Su]

5 hours ago, hectic1 said:

Also, with onion layers we can have things like sweat over the skin, etc.

I've had system-layer versions of that for years. Try this with onion-skin appliers: Add a tattoo - any tattoo. Now add that wet-skin layer on top. Tun on your AO and watch what happens. This is called "Texture Thrashing" - because one alpha layer on top of another alpha layer where both are set to blend is never a good thing. And these type of alpha add-ons do not look very good *at all* in "mask" mode.

However, with BOM: All three layers are baked into a single texture. Looks *perfect*.

In this picture, skin, tattoo (well, it's on my back) and water-droplets, and the swimsuit are all baked system-layers. Only the body, head and hair are mesh. As for materials, seriously? If that's your priority over the flexibility and variety possibilities I give, then so be it. LOL

 

[hectic1]

Oh you are right about that Alysa, my bad (actually with BOM you can bake up to 64 layers into 1). Sweat was a bad example, but how about eye shadows? makeup? lipsticks?

PS. My looks, yes they are quite important to me, I hope I don't have to justify why LOL

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

6 hours ago, hectic1 said:

Also, with onion layers we can have things like sweat over the skin, etc.

I don't know how/why I glossed over this line, but it's false, depending on what you mean.

If the "sweat" is an actual texture, you can have that with BOM too. If it's supposed to be a "material," onion layers don't do anything BOM can't do. If you have a skin material on and you try putting just a sweat material on a layer above it on a transparent surface, the material won't show up and it does nothing.

21 minutes ago, hectic1 said:

Sweat was a bad example, but how about eye shadows? makeup? lipsticks?

Same thing, assuming we're talking about diffuse textures.

[hectic1]

Yes sweat was a bad example Wulfie, see above. But I am not sure its the same with makeup, lipstick, eye shadows and such, cause those need to be aligned more precisely on their proper places. If BOM forces everyone to use the same UV maps then all good I guess, if not then they will probably show misplaced on different heads.

Edited January 22, 2020 by hectic1

[MillyWH]

I don't know if you can use BOM w/materials  BUT you can use appliers AND BOM if you do the layers right.

https://gyazo.com/adebdb984fcc0ff6c849c04be659f1d0

In this picture I'm wearing - BOM: Skin, a tattoo (the teal streaks on my face and the teal on my neck) and 7 different make ups and eyebrows. Plus body shine applier. Originally I had applier eyebrows on but I switched because I wanted it to just have the one applier layer.

 

I haven't played around with materials much so I do't know if you can layer materials but you can combine BOM and a layer and do more than you can with just one or the other

 

 

[Alyona Su]

4 hours ago, hectic1 said:

Oh you are right about that Alysa, my bad (actually with BOM you can bake up to 64 layers into 1). Sweat was a bad example, but how about eye shadows? makeup? lipsticks?

PS. My looks, yes they are quite important to me, I hope I don't have to justify why LOL

 

 

3 hours ago, hectic1 said:

Yes sweat was a bad example Wulfie, see above. But I am not sure its the same with makeup, lipstick, eye shadows and such, cause those need to be aligned more precisely on their proper places. If BOM forces everyone to use the same UV maps then all good I guess, if not then they will probably show misplaced on different heads.

Yes, it is the same with makeup. If a mesh head or body is "BOM" compatible then they already are mapped to the standard avatar UV. It is important also to say: not all creators of said makeup are great creators, either. If it looks sloppy then it's sloppy work of that creator. I've created a skin and include loads of lipsticks, eyeliners, eyeshadows, and even varieties of eyebrows with it.

I tell you wot: IM my alt in world (Alyona Chernov) and I'll send you a few lipsticks and eyeshadows just so you can see it.

And also - just because BOM doesn't mean you have to always be BOM. The wonderful thing is you can always mix and match. For example: BOM Lipstick and eyeliner and Applier Eyeshadow and so on.  BOM is not "all or nothing". 

Edited January 22, 2020 by Alyona Su

[hectic1]

Hello everybody,

I was waiting to see how Maiterya will implement BOM, before I seriously test it. They did, and in my opinion they offer the most versatile and effective way to optionally mix BOM with layers.

They got rid off the traditional tatt, underwear and clothing layers, but they do offer them as separate wearables, which is brilliant. All is handled from within the same HUD. Want to use an applier? sure, put on manually the destination layer and apply what you want on it. You don't want layers? Sure, take them off and be plain BOM... brilliant! Thankfully, they also have a full-body materials layer, so you can apply them on the body (they do include 2 materials by default in the HUD, plus no materials). You want system clothing (tatts, underwear) with materials specific made for them ? Sure, put on the clothing (tatt, underwear) layer and apply them there (those come as appliers -old school system layers (BOM) can't have materials).

I tested pretty much all mainstream mesh female bodies (and a few male ones too), and from what I've gathered Maitreya is the only one with that brilliant implementation. Most of the other bodies I tested, they always carry all layers on them (even when putting them in BOM mode), while very few offer 2 separate bodies: BOM only, and layered only.

I'm now all BOM as far as my body is concerned, though I can't quickly turn on and off tatts/makeup from HUD when photoshooting (now I need to hunt them into Worn tab to take them off and hunt them into Inventory to put them back on). Understandable, we can't have it all (darn it lol)

Regarding mesh heads, I kept my non-BOM Catwa mainly for 2 reasons: a) my currently favorite skin doesn't come with a system layer for the head and it won't be updated (I asked) and b) Catwa's BOM Relay HUD doesn't reduce the number of worn layers, so not much gain in avatar complexity (in their update they just converted their BOM relay HUD into a button in their Master HUD). I didn't have the chance to test other heads, and frankly I won't for a while, till I find time again.

For now I am happy with BOM body and non-BOM head.

Edited February 6, 2020 by hectic1

[Alyona Su]

3 hours ago, hectic1 said:

I was waiting to see how Maiterya will implement BOM, before I seriously test it. They did, and in my opinion they offer the most versatile and effective way to optionally mix BOM with layers

As much as I loath the quality of the mesh body itself, I concur with you 100%; on the "technical/implementation" side of things, they are definitely in the lead right now (based on my owning all the leading mesh bodies) - up to now, it was actually Tonic that was leading in "technical/implementation" (Example: the foot-shape auto-change script? Three or four years ago on Tonic - just an example, not a plonk or anything.) Maitreya is now the new leader of the pack in that aspect and so Belleza, Eve, and any other hold-outs have a new bar they really need to reach.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Alyona Su

[jerseyjody]

Not to change the subject, but this is the only recent discussion I can find that is close. I finally got the BoM add-on for Belleza and I am not using a mesh head.  But every BoM skin I try looks fine, except my AV's face is nearly white.  I look like a Japanese Kabuki dancer.  What am I missing?

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, jerseyjody said:

Not to change the subject, but this is the only recent discussion I can find that is close. I finally got the BoM add-on for Belleza and I am not using a mesh head.  But every BoM skin I try looks fine, except my AV's face is nearly white.  I look like a Japanese Kabuki dancer.  What am I missing?

Many newer skins made for BOM are set up for either the body or the head, and leave the other blank on the assumption that you'll wear a tattoo to texture the part that was left blank. This is so that the skin maker doesn't need to make a complete skin for every possible combination (Belleza/Catwa, etc.) It sounds like you're using skins that only contain body textures.

[Psyche Starling]

7 hours ago, jerseyjody said:

Not to change the subject, but this is the only recent discussion I can find that is close. I finally got the BoM add-on for Belleza and I am not using a mesh head.  But every BoM skin I try looks fine, except my AV's face is nearly white.  I look like a Japanese Kabuki dancer.  What am I missing?

I think there are also some skins that are designed to look like light is shining on your face. If this is what's going on with your skin, when you take off your hair, your face is lighter than the rest of your head. I thought I was messing something up, but I've concluded it's just designed like that. The body skin has really light areas too; I find it most noticeable on the thighs. 

[Janet Voxel]

On 1/11/2020 at 11:00 AM, Wulfie Reanimator said:

You 👏 can 👏 apply 👏 normals 👏 and 👏 speculars 👏 onto 👏 BOM 👏 enabled 👏 mesh.

I just wanted to say I love that you thug clapped this.

[BlackHuntsman]

In short, as far as I know using BOM gives NO ADVANTAGES to avatar.  No graphic improvement - nothing. The whole reason using BOM is to make laggy places less laggy and save server resources. If you care. I DO NOT.

Edited February 26, 2022 by BlackHuntsman

[Ayeleeon]

On 10/12/2019 at 4:26 PM, MelodyClone1 said:

I mean it's great you can now paint system layer clothing onto your mesh body, but who even does that

Maybe very few use system layer clothing, but there is also tattoos, makeup, freckles, tan lines, blemishes, and any number of other things that people might want on thier body, al of these are so much easier to put on and take off.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

14 hours ago, BlackHuntsman said:

In short, as far as I know using BOM gives NO ADVANTAGES to avatar.  No graphic improvement - nothing. The whole reason using BOM is to make laggy places less laggy and save server resources. If you care. I DO NOT.

You can't have 64 unique textures (skin, imperfections/detail, shading, tattoos, makeup, dirt, etc.) layered on top of each other with any currently existing mesh / applier technology, let alone make it possible to instantly switch between bodies without even looking at your layers. Nobody's put that many onion layers together, and won't.

Edited February 27, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator