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Help me understand how you BOM


Melancholy
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I'm on day 4 of trying to get my LeLutka Simone face to look like "me" and am tearing my hair out over understanding how anyone uses BOM. I understand the concept is that the mesh bakes on the makeup or tattoo below. But if I use the head alpha for BOM, my face sticks out of the mesh head at various points. If I edit my shape to try to get the face inside, it tweaks the head shape, too. This feels hopeless, like I'm chasing my tail. I'm probably missing something obvious here. Help? 

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OK, OK, I finally made some progress. I hadn't turned BOM on the LeLutka HUD. Now I'm trying to figure out why I look like a sixteen year old who slept in way too much makeup. I really miss the days when I didn't feel like a noob at putting an avatar together. 

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If you ever used a Classic avatar then that is how BOM works. You do have to enable BOM in whatever mesh body parts you wear, as you found out. Then they behave just as the Classic avatar does.

With mesh you have additional control. But, you don't have to use it. You can do most everything you want just as you did the Classic avatar. That means skin, tats, makeup, ...etc. can all happen via the original Classic system layers.

However... You can also use the mesh head HUD to do more things. The Classic avatar cannot do materials, gloss, environment, bright, specular maps, normal maps, etc. Those things are done via the mesh body parts HUDs.

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1 hour ago, Melancholy said:

Now I'm trying to figure out why I look like a sixteen year old who slept in way too much makeup. 

Regarding the make-up, I'm not exactly 100% sure but I think the sliders don't work for certain makeups in that you cannot soften or blend the makeup lighter.  

Maybe you need to get some new tattoo BOM lipsticks and makeups that are "softer" or a different color.    

Maybe someone with more experience in BOM can help you understand the makeup and how to soften it.  

However, I think with Catwa head, I can soften the lipstick that comes with the HUD.  Now, I'm confused.  Sorry newbie here to BOM too and not inworld right now.  

Edited by FairreLilette
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On 7/4/2020 at 10:54 AM, Melancholy said:

I'm on day 4 of trying to get my LeLutka Simone face to look like "me" and am tearing my hair out over understanding how anyone uses BOM. I understand the concept is that the mesh bakes on the makeup or tattoo below. But if I use the head alpha for BOM, my face sticks out of the mesh head at various points. If I edit my shape to try to get the face inside, it tweaks the head shape, too. This feels hopeless, like I'm chasing my tail. I'm probably missing something obvious here. Help? 

I feel for you. I don't know how many false starts I had changing to a mesh head. I would mess with demos for a few hours and then get so discouraged that I would give up, over and over.

Two things really helped me. I posted frontal and side views of the classic avatar face I was trying to duplicate here. I received invaluable help from a very knowledgeable and generous member, and useful advice from several.. Even so, I spent a full day tweaking sliders. I got on a posing stand wearing my new mesh head and the shape to go with it, with the body sliders all set to the same settings as before I added the mesh head (but different ones that had been suggested by the person who helped me for the head). I had an alt wearing the same body and my system shape, with a classic head, an identical twin to my classic avatar, get on and identical posing stand. Then I moved the two posing stands to exactly the same coordinates, so that the two avatars were superimposed. Then I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked and tweaked the sliders for the mesh head shape to try to get it as close as I could to my old classic shape. When I finished, my new mesh face wasn't exactly the same as my old classic face, but it was close, and people easily recognized me.

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On 7/4/2020 at 4:54 PM, Melancholy said:

I'm on day 4 of trying to get my LeLutka Simone face to look like "me" and am tearing my hair out over understanding how anyone uses BOM. I understand the concept is that the mesh bakes on the makeup or tattoo below. But if I use the head alpha for BOM, my face sticks out of the mesh head at various points. If I edit my shape to try to get the face inside, it tweaks the head shape, too. This feels hopeless, like I'm chasing my tail. I'm probably missing something obvious here. Help? 

You can't use the head alpha if you're using BOM; that just negates the BOM altogether and sends you back to applier skins. If you are BOM on the head you MUST leave the alpha off (and activate BOM on the hud to avoid having the other face sticking through). 

Each head has a different look/shape and while most of them can be adjusted slightly by the sliders, they will only adjust within a limited range, so for the most part, what you see is what you get. If you don't see a shape you like when trying the demo, you are not going to get it with the paid head. For example when I was hunting for mine, only two of Catwa's heads suited what I was looking for, out of the 20-or-so female heads they have available. And of all other brands, only Genus Strong came anywhere near, and even there I couldn't get it to look exactly right. As for Lelutka, while they are lovely heads, I hated the way I looked in all of them. 

So, the most likely situation here is that Lelutka Simone is just the wrong head for the look you're trying to achieve, and a head from another creator might be the one you're looking for.

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On 7/4/2020 at 4:54 PM, Melancholy said:

I'm on day 4 of trying to get my LeLutka Simone face to look like "me" and am tearing my hair out over understanding how anyone uses BOM. I understand the concept is that the mesh bakes on the makeup or tattoo below. But if I use the head alpha for BOM, my face sticks out of the mesh head at various points. If I edit my shape to try to get the face inside, it tweaks the head shape, too. This feels hopeless, like I'm chasing my tail. I'm probably missing something obvious here. Help? 

Your Lelutka head needs to be at least v3.4, as the Bakes on Mesh textures were updated to the new ones in this version. You can deliver an update by clicking the button on the Settings tab of your head’s HUD.

Important: Bakes on Mesh will not apply to the eyes, which is why you need to wear a specific alpha from your folder (this is actually an eye only alpha, which means you can continue wearing applier eyes.)

  1. Wear your Lelutka head and its HUD
  2. Remove all of your alpha layers
  3. Add the alpha called LeLutka.Alpha.Head&Body.BOM  that’s in the folder
  4. Go into the Essentials tab of the HUD
  5. Click the BakeOnMesh button

Shown below is the male HUD, but the female one should be very similar:

bom_lelutka.jpg

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On 7/4/2020 at 6:57 PM, FairreLilette said:

Regarding the make-up, I'm not exactly 100% sure but I think the sliders don't work for certain makeups in that you cannot soften or blend the makeup lighter.  

Maybe you need to get some new tattoo BOM lipsticks and makeups that are "softer" or a different color.    

Maybe someone with more experience in BOM can help you understand the makeup and how to soften it.  

However, I think with Catwa head, I can soften the lipstick that comes with the HUD.  Now, I'm confused.  Sorry newbie here to BOM too and not inworld right now.  

There is (currently) no way to change the opacity on a system layer. That's why some makeup creators are issuing their BoM lipsticks in different opacity options. I have a set from Izzie's, for example, where the lipsticks contain fully opaque versions and 60% opacity versions.

Applier lipsticks are a different matter. Almost all mesh heads will allow you to change the opacity of lipsticks that are applied. So - if the store offers an option and you might want to change the opacity - go for the applier version. In an ideal world stores would sell 'bundles' containing both BoM and applier options, so you could choose which one to use instead of having to buy both. Some stores do that, while others want you to pay for each type separately. And, of course, some now only offer BoM and have stopped selling appliers altogether.

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There are some things you can do to effect the way your BOM make up looks. The first being that if the tattoo layer is mod, you can try tinting it. This will have no effect of making something lighter of course, but gives other options. Another thing I do sometimes if say I want my brows to look fuller and tinting is just not cutting it, I will straight up wear two of the same tattoo brow. I suppose a good rule of thumb when buying BOM make up would be, if you foresee yourself wanting something more subtle, go as light as you can because usually you can make it darker by tinting or wearing multiple.

I love all the new HD products, and they look AMAZING in photography. However they unfortunately suffer from the alpha glitch issues that have plagued hair, lashes , lips, and eye makeup for as long as I can remember so I don't wear them really unless I am taking pictures.

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