BoM and Alpha Layers Question

[Cristiano Midnight]

The main reason I wanted to try BoM is that I was hoping it would help solve the problem of a lot of male mesh clothing designers (*cough* Deadwool) not having mesh items that are even fit for a particular body, or if they are, they don't autohide correctly and I have to spend a stupid amount of time in the body hud hiding parts.

I am a bit confused about BoM in general, but specifically regarding alpha layers. I have the Signature Gianni body in the latest version. I activated BoM and had no issues there other than the whole body turning red (which turned out to be that I had the full alpha on that hid my original avatar). I thought I would try with a shirt from Deadwool that has an alpha with it and meshes in various sizes. When I added the alpha, my body rebaked but nothing changed. If I attach the shirt, my body is still poking out in some places. Am I doing something wrong, or does the mesh item itself have to support BoM to work?

[Gregorian Chant]

I just got the updated body myself and figuring things out as I go along.  This is how I did it....

1) Take off all alpha layers; every single one.
2) Put on new mesh body and its HUD.
3) Click the BoM activate button.
4) Detach body HUD.

They said you can now use the Omega appliers with the updated body. I dug out my old tattoo and nail polish appliers and saw that it's true. But what if you want to change tattoos? It depends on the type.

• If you used the HUD applier, take out another HUD applier and apply to replace.
• If you want to use system/BoM layer tattoos, first whip out the body HUD. Go to the Textures Dropbox section. Click on the clear button,  choose "tattoo' in Destinations section, pick the tattoo location in Body Parts, and hit the "Apply to Body".  Now you can wear the system tattoo.

They also said you can use clothing alphas the same way you would with the Slink body.  When you put on a system alpha on a BoM enabled mesh body, it should render certain parts invisible in the same way for a classic avatar. I've pulled out an old shirt with its alpha to test this. And now for the moment of truth: does it work? Indeed it does!

The Signature rigged clothes with scripted auto-alpha still work, so there's no need for system alphas.  What I appreciate about Signature is that they didn't do away with the alpha HUD so you can get at those little bits where the system alpha missed.  I hear you about the time spent on the body HUD being a pain in the backside. That's why I've started a collection of alpha layers for clothes that didn't originally come with them.

As for the clothing mesh item itself (your shirt for example), it doesn't need to be BoM supported. I could imagine it looking mighty weird if it does. 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Gregorian Chant

[Cristiano Midnight]

Hmm, I did what you said - I have no alphas on at all to start, and I'm using the 4.9 version of the Signature body with BoM activated. When I attach a standard clothing alpha, the body turns grey for a moment and then it's just back to looking normal - nothing is hidden. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

[Gregorian Chant]

1 hour ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

Hmm, I did what you said - I have no alphas on at all to start, and I'm using the 4.9 version of the Signature body with BoM activated. When I attach a standard clothing alpha, the body turns grey for a moment and then it's just back to looking normal - nothing is hidden. Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

The only thing I could take a guess at is to check for a missing texture in the edit menu.  The image below shows a texture in the lower alpha box for a pair of pants as an example. Blank white squares have no textures added to them.  So if you're not seeing anything alphaed out, it could be all the squares are empty.

 

Try putting on another alpha to see if it makes any difference.  I've made a short list of places where you can grab some free alphas in another post here:

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Gregorian Chant

[Cristiano Midnight]

I thought I made some progress but I'm even more confused. I tried a different product that had an alpha for a hoodie, and this time when I wore the alpha, my avatar's arms correctly were blocked out:

However, when I put on the hoodie, this happens:



The alpha-ed parts of the body stick through as alphas instead of being hidden. The only way to fix it is to do what I usually do, which is hide those parts in the body hud, which defeats the whole purpose of using alphas. Am I missing something?

[Gregorian Chant]

10 hours ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

However, when I put on the hoodie, this happens:



The alpha-ed parts of the body stick through as alphas instead of being hidden. The only way to fix it is to do what I usually do, which is hide those parts in the body hud, which defeats the whole purpose of using alphas. Am I missing something?

Whoa, I never saw a jacket do that before.  I'm completely baffled. Is it just happening with that hoodie, or is it happening with all your other mesh clothing?  (Anyone who knows better, please feel free to chime in.)

May I ask where that hoodie is from? I'm thinking of grabbing a demo to see if I'm seeing the same thing.

[Cristiano Midnight]

1 hour ago, Gregorian Chant said:

Whoa, I never saw a jacket do that before.  I'm completely baffled. Is it just happening with that hoodie, or is it happening with all your other mesh clothing?  (Anyone who knows better, please feel free to chime in.)

May I ask where that hoodie is from? I'm thinking of grabbing a demo to see if I'm seeing the same thing.

 

So it turns out it is an issue specifically with that item itself - That is the BlankLine Zip Up Hoodie. All of the other clothes I tried, including my entire collection of Deadwool stuff worked perfectly. I discovered what one of my other issues was. When you first activate BoM on the body, for some reason you have to restart the viewer before applying any clothing alphas. That is why I thought nothing was working. Thank you for your assistance.

[Gregorian Chant]

18 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

So it turns out it is an issue specifically with that item itself - That is the BlankLine Zip Up Hoodie. All of the other clothes I tried, including my entire collection of Deadwool stuff worked perfectly. I discovered what one of my other issues was. When you first activate BoM on the body, for some reason you have to restart the viewer before applying any clothing alphas. That is why I thought nothing was working. Thank you for your assistance.

Anytime!  I'm glad it all worked out.