Non-mesh vs. Mesh

[animats]

13 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

I found the free Onupup Male Fitmesh Avatar to be interesting to work with. I don't know if it's based on Roth (I doubt that it is in all aspects, but the comparison images in the ad - below - look reasonably close) but it's fully modifiable and can easily be set up for BoM.

The only caveats I found with it were that it needs a special included animation to be active all the time in order for the mouth to stay shut (which I found to be a bit odd, but a Bento AO with face movements might work equally well) and that the head comes attached to the upper body. If you want to keep your system face shape, you may want to experiment with shaping the head, but since it's free it might be worth a try.

OnUpUp isn't bad. It more or less fits mesh clothing that fits classic avatars, although you have to turn down some of the appearance sliders for ordinary rigged mesh. (The default torso and butt are too big.) Have to try some fitmesh. Much better fit to standard clothing than Roth. The elbow angle may be off, and the hands keep going through the body with the default AO. A different AO might help.

The groups and Facebook page mentioned in the notecard are gone.

[animats]

OnUpUp shape, Boris skin

Now we're getting somewhere. This is an OK basic male avatar.

The out of the box experience isn't too good.

• It has a built-in script that runs a priority 4 stand animation and doesn't turn it off when sitting. So the script fights with vehicles and furniture for control of the body. The script can be removed, but then you have to add something to do eye blink and close the mouth.
• Fitmesh doesn't quite work. Waist is too small for pants. (Since it's fitmesh, changing the waist or butt size changes the pants, too, and the gap remains.)
• You have to set everything to BOM mode yourself, and remove the alpha HUD.

It's too bad the OnUpUp creator is gone. This one could be fixed without too much trouble.

 

Fitmesh jeans, for a classic avatar. Note gap at waist. It's much worse without the jacket. This mesh avatar is too small to fit into classic mesh clothing. Fitmesh is a great idea, but if it doesn't fit, there's nothing you can do about it. I've tried several sets of fitmesh jeans from different vendors; they're all too big, like this.

So, after all this, I still don't have a male mesh avatar that can wear classic male fitmesh clothing. Women can use Ruth, but as far as I can tell, there's no male option that works as well as Ruth.

Edited October 9, 2020 by animats

[Maitimo]

2 hours ago, animats said:

So, after all this, I still don't have a male mesh avatar that can wear classic male fitmesh clothing. Women can use Ruth, but as far as I can tell, there's no male option that works as well as Ruth.

And now you know why so many guys have a female avatar.

Does it have to be free, or are you willing to spend, say, under L$2000 but more than L$1000?

 

[Syo Emerald]

1 hour ago, Maitimo said:

And now you know why so many guys have a female avatar.

I doubt that Ruth is the reason... 😉

[Marianne Little]

Yes, but it is one low cost avatar for men. An one linden body.

Since it has become BoM, we don't have to worry if it stops to work. And for 1 L, it is not much of a risk.

Compared to the more obscure avatars, the amount of clothes that fits it is better. It is almost painful to look at the other free male mesh bodies I have seen, because they are so ugly.

What is the reason @animatshave for not using the 1 L body? Need to have a modify body? If the body works out from the box, why the need for modify? Or is it the company that he will not support, even if it is only 1 L?

I have tried some free female bodies. Some praise them and say they are just as good as the ones you buy. Yes, it is much more free female bodies but I will not agree to that...

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Marianne Little
changed a few words to clarify

[Wulfie Reanimator]

@animats Why not try some of the more expensive options? (The demos, of course.)

If you find something that suits your needs, let us know and I'll cover at least the cost of the body itself.

[animats]

9 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

@animats Why not try some of the more expensive options? (The demos, of course.)

I've tried Signature Geralt, and it's not bad. Maitreya is "oh, there's a little men's section in the back." Slink's default male skin looks awful. I have a few of the off-brand low-end mesh bodies, but not much fits.

It's not the money for the body. It's that the "more expensive options" for men only work with clothing custom designed to fit them. Not only is the clothing more expensive, the selection is worse and the triangle counts are often so high that I'd be invisible.

9 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

What is the reason @animatshave for not using the 1 L body? Need to have a modify body? If the body works out from the box, why the need for modify? Or is it the company that he will not support, even if it is only 1 L?

Which one? OnUpUp? As I wrote above, it's not bad, but the sizing is off. It's supposed to fit classic avatar mesh clothing, but it's sized wrong to do that for fitmesh, probably because it's older than fitmesh. It's so close. If only the creator were still around to update it.

I'm trying to come close to the look I have now, but with better clothing.

(I'm also going through all this partly because I'd like to find a pain-free path to a good mesh male body for new users.)

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, animats said:

 

(I'm also going through all this partly because I'd like to find a pain-free path to a good mesh male body for new users.)

No pain, no gain.  As you're finding out, regardless of whether you pay for something or it's nearly free, there will still be a steep learning curve for new people.  Steering them toward a body that will only frustrate them more when they try to find clothes isn't really a good answer.  Heck, if you're going to go that route, might as well just try dressing one of the mesh avatars already loaded into the library.  As far as the default body we arrive with, we all dressed in mesh with alphas before we got mesh bodies.  The trick would be to find them stores that still make clothing for s, m, l sizes and how to use the alpha that comes with them.  I think that would be the best thing to show the new people.  How to wear mesh with a system body.

 

[Marianne Little]

27 minutes ago, animats said:

I've tried Signature Geralt, and it's not bad. Maitreya is "oh, there's a little men's section in the back." Slink's default male skin looks awful. I have a few of the off-brand low-end mesh bodies, but not much fits.

It's not the money for the body. It's that the "more expensive options" for men only work with clothing custom designed to fit them. Not only is the clothing more expensive, the selection is worse and the triangle counts are often so high that I'd be invisible.

Which one? OnUpUp? As I wrote above, it's not bad, but the sizing is off. It's supposed to fit classic avatar mesh clothing, but it's sized wrong to do that for fitmesh, probably because it's older than fitmesh. It's so close. If only the creator were still around to update it.

I'm trying to come close to the look I have now, but with better clothing.

(I'm also going through all this partly because I'd like to find a pain-free path to a good mesh male body for new users.)

It is not the 5000 L "Legacy Meshbody" but the 1 L "Classic". This dollarbie fits TMP clothes, and it is still many of the clothes around. It is so hard to search for them, since the search words "classic" and "meshbody" is hopeless in search. This "store formerly known as TMP" has some bad, bad reputation, since it had stored all your skins and other textures on other servers. But when BoM is turned on, this problem is gone. It's worth reading this guys blog, he is shopping and blogging often. Be aware that it is NSFW posts in his blog, but not in the direct links.

https://billybeaverhausen.com/2020/04/26/for-a-little-less-episode-4/

https://billybeaverhausen.com/2020/04/28/for-a-little-less-episode-5/

https://billybeaverhausen.com/2020/07/19/whats-eating-tmp-20-classic-meshbody/

I quote from the blogger over: "Their Legacy body has gained a lot of support since its launch and we can’t expect creators to go through the pain of rigging their items for the older body if they suspect that most people have moved on to something new. Also, as the Classic Meshbody is free, it will be popular with newbies who often will be on the lookout for other freebies, so as a creator who tries to earn a living (or at least a supplementary income in these *****ty times), it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense to invest time in rigging for this body. Anyhoo, all this means that you won’t find a lot of new stuff for the Classic Meshbody and you’ll have to test other sizes, hunt down older items that still look very acceptable today and mix something old with something new."

You can buy nail covers for the old skins, both hands and feet. I suppose you have already seen how the ugly old painted on nails are looking on the new bodies with actual nails and toes. Not just a feet paddle. New BoM skins made for the Legacy Meshbody, matches perfect with Classic meshbody. No toes mismatch there.

 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Marianne Little
added a few words to clarify

[Maitimo]

4 hours ago, animats said:

It's not the money for the body. It's that the "more expensive options" for men only work with clothing custom designed to fit them.

That's the case for ALL bodies, cheap and expensive, male and female. There is no such thing as a mesh body that fits any/all clothing because they are all rigged differently from each other, and none I know of that fit Classic standard sizes.

 

[animats]

8 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

It is not the 5000 L "Legacy Meshbody" but the 1 L "Classic". This dollarbie fits TMP clothes, and it is still many of the clothes around.

OK, let's try that one.

So close! Fitmesh jeans with Classic Meshbody. Note peek-through problem at belt line. Upper body fits nicely.

Those jeans will fit a real "classic" avatar; I checked using "Boris". But the Classic Meshbody chest is just slightly too big. The jeans are fitmesh, so adjusting the body sliders won't help; the jeans adjust too and the peek-through area stays. There's an alpha with these jeans, but it doesn't cover that area, because if it did, from some angles you'd see through the body.

 

[Rowan Amore]

When you say fit mesh jeans, what body were they fit for?  

[Marianne Little]

1 hour ago, animats said:

OK, let's try that one.

So close! Fitmesh jeans with Classic Meshbody. Note peek-through problem at belt line. Upper body fits nicely.

Those jeans will fit a real "classic" avatar; I checked using "Boris". But the Classic Meshbody chest is just slightly too big. The jeans are fitmesh, so adjusting the body sliders won't help; the jeans adjust too and the peek-through area stays. There's an alpha with these jeans, but it doesn't cover that area, because if it did, from some angles you'd see through the body.

 

You are not so lucky that you can use an alpha cut over the belly, that fit the jeans edge? The body HUD has alpha cuts, and you can mix'em with alpha layers.

Plus, an alpha layer for another set of pants with higher waist can be used instead of the one that comes with the jeans you have.

If you have a pack of clothes for different body sizes, try more than fitmesh.

Especially here, where only the waist fit matters. You hide all below the edge of the jeans anyway.

This is the downside of using other than the most supported bodies. You pay for it with time, to find other alpha layers, other sizes, to get a wardrobe that fits. With one of the three most supported bodies, it is more wear and go.

It is making more and more customers buy one of the best supported bodies, because it is too much work to put together a wardrobe for others. This has the effect that creators stop making clothes for other than the best supported bodies, they will not spend time to rig clothes that does not sell. This leads to more customers buying one of the best supported bodies... until we end up where we are today, with 3 male bodies that dominate the market.

[animats]

19 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

It is making more and more customers buy one of the best supported bodies, because it is too much work to put together a wardrobe for others. ... until we end up where we are today, with 3 male bodies that dominate the market.

I'm deliberately trying for all mesh, all bento, all fitmesh, all classic shape, all BOM, no fit HUDs here, free or low cost, to see if that's possible as a starter kit. The male counterpart of the female modern mesh tutorial at New Resident Services, in other words.

Everything necessary is out there, but hard to find.

(Marketplace for Apparel should work like sites for auto accessories. The ones where you start by selecting Toyota - RAV4 - 2017, and only accessories compatible with that vehicle appear.)

[Maitimo]

6 hours ago, animats said:

 

Those jeans will fit a real "classic" avatar; I checked using "Boris". But the Classic Meshbody chest is just slightly too big. The jeans are fitmesh, so adjusting the body sliders won't help; the jeans adjust too and the peek-through area stays. There's an alpha with these jeans, but it doesn't cover that area, because if it did, from some angles you'd see through the body.

There is no such thing as a "Classic Meshbody". There is the Classic non-mesh body, and there are all the other (each one unique) mesh bodies. What is "Boris"? I thought it might be one of the old mesh bodies that they tried as starter avatars years ago but I can't find it. Those old mesh starters weren't classic standard sizes either. Each body fitted only the outfit that it came with, and nothing else.

All fitmesh clothing is designed to fit only that one single mesh body it's made for. So (assuming that "Boris" is mesh), then trying to find an avatar that fits those "Boris" jeans will be counter-productive; if it fits Boris's jeans, it will fit literally no other clothing at all. You'd be better off trying to find a body that's a "close-enough" fit with Gianni or Jake, or with Classic (non-fitmesh) sizes.

[Skell Dagger]

12 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

There is no such thing as a "Classic Meshbody".

Animats is referring to the L$1 'Classic' body from Meshbody (the people behind Legacy) that Marianne suggested earlier in the thread. Therein lies the problem caused by creators using generic terms for their brand and products.

@animats The L$1 'Classic' body is based on TMP rigging (it's a BoM-capable reworking of the old TMP bodies), so any clothing that contains a TMP rig should fit it perfectly. Because of the way that TMP was rigged, you will probably struggle to find any other rigged clothing that will fit it perfectly. The lower back was offset in a specific way on TMP that meant clothing rigged for any other bodies will sit weirdly in that area. Fitmesh may work, but I wouldn't count on it.

[Marianne Little]

18 minutes ago, Skell Dagger said:

Animats is referring to the L$1 'Classic' body from Meshbody (the people behind Legacy) that Marianne suggested earlier in the thread. Therein lies the problem caused by creators using generic terms for their brand and products.

@animats The L$1 'Classic' body is based on TMP rigging (it's a BoM-capable reworking of the old TMP bodies), so any clothing that contains a TMP rig should fit it perfectly. Because of the way that TMP was rigged, you will probably struggle to find any other rigged clothing that will fit it perfectly. The lower back was offset in a specific way on TMP that meant clothing rigged for any other bodies will sit weirdly in that area. Fitmesh may work, but I wouldn't count on it.

Jackets and shirts is easy to alpha out. Dressing like @animatsdoes in his images, all he need is a good waist fit. The backside of the arms is so different that they clip through, so you can't really make short sleeves work. But long ones yes. Stores like Aitui still have TMP sizes. And the 3-5 year clothing from stores that's been in SL for years and were good in texturing when TMP and Slink were the only mesh bodies. Lapointe Bastchild has dropped TMP sizes, but I would still try some demos from them.

It's that hunting that can be fun, or annoying. Depends on your view and the time you can spend on it.

I have the female "Classic" body on an alt, and it is the back and crotch area that's impossible to work with. So bikinis is really not possible to wear because the straps is not matching, no matter what you try it with. I got her a TMP bathing suit, it is probably the only one in SL that I could find and like. Boots over ankle height too. Can't just use alpha, since the boot goes on the outside of the leg on one side, and the inside of the other.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Marianne Little

[Marianne Little]

A funny thing about this 1 L "Classic" body. It changes foot size. The old TMP shoes change size too. I have not tested new "Legacy" for males, if they 1 L body can use them. But for the female version of the body, her feet can use all Legacy shoes and boots up to a little over ankle length.. And the feet is rigged, so they change size, and with rigged shoes, they change size too. Try it with a demo.

[animats]

 

Fits at last. A mesh body wearing fitmesh sized for classic non-mesh avatars. Jacket and jeans are fitmesh. This is Bento and BOM, too, so it's all the latest SL clothing technologies.

Turns out the reason the skin peeked through at the belt line in the posting above was that someone was overcompensating and set the default  "package" shape appearance slider slider to 100. Set to 50, the body is inside the jeans. (So fitmesh doesn't respond to that slider, unlike "butt size", which does affect fitmesh.)

If you see this, it should fit. (Pending further testing.)

I need to try more clothing, but I expect that most fitmesh clothing that works with classic male avatars will work with this one. I've tried some other fitmesh items and they fit. Fitmesh either works or it doesn't; the end user can't adjust anything. For fitmesh, it's the clothing creator's job to get sizing and alphas right.

This body has no HUDs. It doesn't need them. With BOM, clothing that needs an alpha layer is supposed to come with one. That simplifies things for new users. On the male side, there's not much demand for nail coloring, lip gloss, and such, so HUDs for that are unnecessary.

This looks promising for a new user tutorial and starter kit. New Resident Island has a good one for women only; they come out wearing Ruth with one good outfit. This can be the equivalent on the male side.

I'd talked to some of the Caledon Oxbridge people about adding a section to the newcomer tutorial to include mesh clothing. They've been interested, but as a nonprofit, they can't promote the expensive name brands. Same for Firestorm Help Island.

I'll put together a starter kit and see where this goes.

 

7 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

Animats is referring to the L$1 'Classic' body from Meshbody (the people behind Legacy) that Marianne suggested earlier in the thread. Therein lies the problem caused by creators using generic terms for their brand and products.

Right. That's what I'm using here.

Edited October 10, 2020 by animats

[Marianne Little]

16 hours ago, animats said:

This body has no HUDs. It doesn't need them. With BOM, clothing that needs an alpha layer is supposed to come with one. That simplifies things for new users. On the male side, there's not much demand for nail coloring, lip gloss, and such, so HUDs for that are unnecessary. --------------------------------------------

Right. That's what I'm using here.

I will not quote in full, since it is long. But does the last sentence mean that you use the 1 L meshbody from the company formerly called TMP?

Since you quote Skell Dagger before the last sentence?

If that is so, it has a HUD with an alpha section and change of nail colors (neutral skin tones).

[Rowan Amore]

18 hours ago, animats said:

 

Fits at last. A mesh body wearing fitmesh sized for classic non-mesh avatars. Jacket and jeans are fitmesh. This is Bento and BOM, too, so it's all the latest SL clothing technologies.

Turns out the reason the skin peeked through at the belt line in the posting above was that someone was overcompensating and set the default  "package" shape appearance slider slider to 100. Set to 50, the body is inside the jeans. (So fitmesh doesn't respond to that slider, unlike "butt size", which does affect fitmesh.)

If you see this, it should fit. (Pending further testing.)

I need to try more clothing, but I expect that most fitmesh clothing that works with classic male avatars will work with this one. I've tried some other fitmesh items and they fit. Fitmesh either works or it doesn't; the end user can't adjust anything. For fitmesh, it's the clothing creator's job to get sizing and alphas right.

This body has no HUDs. It doesn't need them. With BOM, clothing that needs an alpha layer is supposed to come with one. That simplifies things for new users. On the male side, there's not much demand for nail coloring, lip gloss, and such, so HUDs for that are unnecessary.

This looks promising for a new user tutorial and starter kit. New Resident Island has a good one for women only; they come out wearing Ruth with one good outfit. This can be the equivalent on the male side.

I'd talked to some of the Caledon Oxbridge people about adding a section to the newcomer tutorial to include mesh clothing. They've been interested, but as a nonprofit, they can't promote the expensive name brands. Same for Firestorm Help Island.

I'll put together a starter kit and see where this goes.

 

Right. That's what I'm using here.

The HUD is also helpful since not everything that says fit mesh will hide everything you need it to which is where that alpha section comes in handy..  It doesn't seem as though you quite understand how it all works.to be honest.  

Eta:  what body is that?  The hands look like regular SL hands.

Edited October 11, 2020 by RowanMinx

[Marianne Little]

It is very many freebies and weekly offers that can be used even if the body isn't made for it. Buying only BoM limits people.

They can look for alphas from one of the kits with alpha layers. LBD (Little Black Dress) has a freebie set with alpha layers.

It can often be faster to use the HUD. My alt is wearing a Legacy fit Cardigan that is correct on her front, but since the back is different, it clips through. The pants is a Maitreya fit that sit good around the waist, but the legs are clipping through.

Finding an alpha layer that fits the shoulders here would be hard, since the cardigan is hanging down a bit. Most free alpha layers have a t-shirt cut and would remove her shoulders. I would also need to find a pants alpha that ends between the knee and the ankle.

So I used the HUD. The light blue arrow show the sections that cut out large parts. The arrow points to upper legs icon, one click on it and they are invisible. If you click inside the body instead, you can add or remove smaller parts. You can see that I took off the alpha cuts on the shoulders so the fit is right. I also fitted the alpha cuts for the legs.

This may sound tedious, but it is faster than finding an alpha layer, not to mention making one.

Edit: When I use the alpha HUD, I remove bigger parts instead of sitting and make tiny cuts just where the body goes through.. So I click on the large sections and them adjust where needed. That is why I have removed so much. It can be good to have hidden large sections if the avatar is dancing, because movements often cause more body to poke through.

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by Marianne Little

[Skell Dagger]

@animats Is there a particular reason why you're focusing so intently on using fitmesh clothing? For your own personal use with clothing that you currently possess, I can understand. But then you talk about creating a new user tutorial/guide for male avatars:

On 10/9/2020 at 7:49 PM, animats said:

I'm also going through all this partly because I'd like to find a pain-free path to a good mesh male body for new users

I've been doing that myself, and believe me, using fitmesh isn't going to cut it, because many menswear stores aren't creating it anymore and new users won't have any of it in their inventory, so finding it will be a bit of a pain. Josephine linked earlier in this thread to a blog series that I've been doing, called 'Bloke on a Budget', wherein I used free mesh bodies (Altamura gift from Ajuda Brasil, plus Onupup) and free or L$1 or L$2 skins, clothing, and accessories from a handful of locations, as well as certain clothing items from the default avatar inventory to create entire mesh avatar looks for between L$1 and L$2. These are from just the last post I did, and I have another one planned soon:

Those are all full mesh avatars, from head to toe. To put them together, you need to visit five locations, grab a couple of gifts from Marketplace, and add a couple of default inventory avatars in order to get a skin and some hair and shoes into your main inventory.

In SL - especially when it comes to avatar customisation, and especially when it comes to male avatar customisation - you really do get what you pay for. If you want to go the completely free (or dirt cheap) route then you're in for a lot of frustration and annoyance, as you've discovered. There is no quick route to putting together a great looking full mesh male avatar right out of the box if you don't plan to spend some money on it. There will be some pain involved in figuring it all out, which is why I've been writing those blog posts, in order to explain exactly how to put these looks together, how to enable BoM on heads and bodies, and everything else. I've been doing this for seven years now, and I've tried just about every free male mesh head and body out there. I know the annoyance involved with them. They're a lot more work than just buying Signature/Catwa or Legacy/Lelutka, chucking it on, and having a wealth of perfectly-fitting skins and clothing available to you.

I wish you luck in trying to put together this guide, because it's something that I also do. And I know how much work goes into them, but I do think you might want to reconsider that whole fitmesh thing.

Rowan noted that in your most recent post - where you told me you were using the L$1 'Classic' body from Meshbody (the people behind the TMP mesh body) - your hands are the default system avatar's hands. I did notice that right away, as well as your assertion that the Classic L$1 body doesn't have a HUD (which it does; it's called the Edit HUD, and you will have had to use it to enable BoM on the body). The L$1 'Classic' body will fit perfectly to clothing that contains a 'TMP' rig, as 'Classic' is a reworking of the old TMP body, but if you plan to dress similarly as I have in the examples above (ie: mostly covered up) you can get a lot of different clothing rigs to work on it, including Signature, Belleza Jake, and Slink. There's also a load of great older TMP-rigged clothing available quite cheaply now, both on Marketplace and in discount sections of stores, since hardly any stores (except for a few diehard holdouts such as Aitui) rig for TMP anymore, having moved on to rigging for Meshbody's newer 'Legacy' body.

That said, I will still recommend that L$1 Meshbody 'Classic' as the best dirt cheap male mesh body currently out there. The only thing that detracts from it is that there is no head, but you have ways of blending it with your system avatar head if needs be. If a dirt cheap head and body combination is what's required then my recommendation would switch to Onupup.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Skell Dagger
You can proofread it a hundred times, but you only spot the typo AFTER you've hit 'post'...

[Rowan Amore]

Just some info on the Classic body from TMP and also their new Legacy version, you must have media turned on for it to work.  I don't recall at the moment if it's for everything or just the section with skins, nails, clothes.

Edited October 11, 2020 by RowanMinx

[Marianne Little]

1 hour ago, RowanMinx said:

Just some info on the Classic body from TMP and also their new Legacy version, you must have media turned on for it to work.  I don't recall at the moment if it's for everything or just the section with skins, nails, clothes.

Only when you select skin from the built in ones that comes with the body., and if you will change the natural nail tone. It's once, to set it up. After I turned on BoM; I turned off media, and the alpha cuts work. Adjusting feet for the female body do not need media either.

I had paid for things to put in the Style HUD when I had a paid for TMP body many years ago. Nothing of it came over to the 1 L HUD. They say it does turn up with the 5000 L Legacy body.

I have no problem with it. I use nothing but BoM for skins, tattoos and lingerie. I forget it is a style part, it just sits there.