Bom vs non bom for facial tattoos

[Aluviel Nakamura]

Hello All I have a genus head baby face 001. I have a nice pumec skin. I got some face tatoos that dont show when I use the genus bom applier hud. 

1. I remove alpha 

2 I hit the hud button for genus Bom applier and it turns my face a bright white

3. I put on the tattoo layer. 

4. I re apply my skin

I am still white in some parts and my face didnt get the lph layer back an its all distorted.

I am using the new firefox Bom viewer.

It is possible that I am using a skin that isnt a baked on mesh. When I got this I was pretty sure it was a special baked on mesh.

Is there any way I can make these face tattoos work with a non baked on mesh? or possible get the developer kit from genus and make my own?

I see there are a lot of kitsune tattoos for catawa heads.. what would happen if I tried to place them on a genus head?

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by Aluviel Nakamura

[Eddy Vortex]

Does your face look white like this?

It sounds like you have turned BoM off.  Go back to the head HUD and turn it back on again.

Skins and tattoos that are labeled BoM don't use appliers.  They are system layers that you wear; no HUDs are involved.  Systems skins are represented by a person with the split duo color skin icon. Just wear it to put it on. But system skins cannot be removed; if you want to switch to another skin, simply pick another skin to wear to replace.  Tattoo layers are represented by the red squiggly line icon. They can be used for tattoos, makeup, and skins.  You can put them on and take them off.

[Aluviel Nakamura]

thank you eddy. I wasnt aware that there was a bom thing onthe hud. I was given a separate thing from genus and told to click the button which made my face look like your photo.

[Aluviel Nakamura]

ok well I looked at my hud and I do not have that little baked on mesh square box to click on..... I just got an updated hud...

[Marianne Little]

12 minutes ago, Aluviel Nakamura said:

ok well I looked at my hud and I do not have that little baked on mesh square box to click on..... I just got an updated hud...

Then it is moved to another part of the HUD. Look for Bakes on Mesh.

[Aluviel Nakamura]

I looked on genetics tab, cosmetics and the last tab.. If it just the red squiggly icon thats a tattoo wouldnt that go on my system head and not on my mesh head? apparently this tattoo is for  bom SKINS ONLY : ( 

I dont want to waste another 800L just to find out if thats the truth or not..Maybe I can find a demo skin just for testing puposes

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Aluviel Nakamura

[Marianne Little]

19 minutes ago, Aluviel Nakamura said:

I looked on genetics tab, cosmetics and the last tab.. If it just the red squiggly icon thats a tattoo wouldnt that go on my system head and not on my mesh head? apparently this tattoo is for  bom SKINS ONLY : ( 

I dont want to waste another 800L just to find out if thats the truth or not..Maybe I can find a demo skin just for testing puposes

 

Pumec has maybe updated for BoM. Try to get a redelivery in the store?

In addition to the "skin" symbol Eddie showed you, many creators use the "skin" only for the body and a white head. Then they sell the head as a tattoo, the red sqiggly symbol. You can layer many of these tattoos. I think the limit is 62. So if Pumec has the face on a tattoo layer, you wear base skin, ADD face on tattoo layer, ADD other cosmetics like makeup, hairbase and facial tattoos on top. Never use "wear" if you need more than 1 tattoo layer.

The folder from Pumec should show the box symbols for appliers, and if it is updated for Bom it has the skin symbol and maybe a tattoo for the face only.

All skin stores has demos. The demos work on all known heads like Genus, Catwa, Lelutka and more. There are some obscure heads and skins that don't have demos, stay clear of those.

[Marianne Little]

Do you read notecards? Does not the updated Genus head come with a notecard that tells you what the updates is? The Genus friends group is very active and helpful. It is hard to help when I don't have a new HUD in front of me.

[Aluviel Nakamura]

baked on mesh skin and non baked on mesh skin.. just isnt working and using the special Genus BOM hud too.

Im over 10 years old in Sl.... ofc I read notecards.  In fact I had an argument the with tattoo creator over her lack of "how to note cards" and she smarted off to me that it wasnt her fault I didnt know what I was doing. I asked nicely if she could help me get it sorted out with a notecard.. 

ok well I got a demo skin thats Bom  and after a few clicks and god I forget what else with genus.. I got the tattoo to work so I dropped a note care to the creator of My skin asking her to create a bom version.. 

Why cant we just "Add" the tattoo layer if its meant for a mesh head? why does it have to be on a special skin?

 

[Marianne Little]

"Wear" replaces the same product. You can use wear if you want 1 tattoo layer only. If you use, let us say, a lipstick and will also use a hairbase, Wear" kicks off the lipstick and replaces it with the hairbase.

 

The white head should mean that you use a body skin that has the head part painted a solid white. The skin creators found out that they save a lot of work by making the body separate from the head, since they only have to make the body once, but makes lots of faces/heads.

So either the head is in the folder as a separate tattoo, or it is made before BoM and the creator has not updated it with the correct layers.

I picked a demo from the Marketplace. It says:

✿ What is included with your purchase ? :

❤ 1 basic skins to the system body (Body Only)
Special appliers HUD for GENUS Head
Special appliers HUD for mesh Body/Body Parts

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So... this pack does not include BoM for the face. Maybe the pack is updated in the Mainstore. Some creators do not update their MP store often.

Some creators decide the work for updating older skins is not something for them, they focus on their new skins.

 

[Skell Dagger]

Hi Aluviel. I'm a CSR for Catwa, not Genus, but I deal with this kind of thing every day, so I'll see if I can help you here even though this is not a brand that I represent

I can tell from your 'after' photo, above, that Bakes on Mesh is not activated on your head. We're still seeing your system head poking through your mesh head (even though you now have the skin tattoo correctly worn). So the first thing we're going to do is get that sorted out.

So, to begin with: when did you get your Genus Baby Face head? If it was a long time ago when the heads were still in beta, then the HUD won't have that Bakes on Mesh button. I've just sent an alt to pick up the demo of Baby Face 001 and it does have that button. The head's name in inventory (at least on the demo) is GENUS Project - Genus Head - Baby Face W001 - v1.7 so if yours doesn't say W001 or the version number isn't as high as that, the first thing I will suggest you do is visit the Genus Project mainstore and get a redelivery by using the terminal on the desk in there.

The HUD numbering is a little bit confusing, since the actual texture on the HUD still states that it's v1.1, but its name in your inventory should be v1.3, as per the below:

The Bakes on Mesh button will be visible in both the Genetics and Cosmetics tabs, so once you see it click it to activate BoM on your mesh head. What should then happen is that the 'double face' will go away and you will see your skin tattoo baked correctly onto just your mesh head.

Next up, let's address the confusion between 'BoM' and 'tattoo layer' and 'applier skin' etc. What I'm seeing in your images is this:

And I note that - in your first post - you state the following:

14 hours ago, Aluviel Nakamura said:

3. I put on the tattoo layer. 

4. I re apply my skin

Step 4 is where this is all going wrong. If that is the skin you're trying to apply then it's an applier and not a BoM skin. If it's in a HUD that you click to apply, then it will de-activate BoM on your head, and you will see that 'double face' look that you're seeing in your final photo. Skin appliers effectively hide any BoM items that are beneath them, and here is why:

The way that most mesh head and body creators have dealt with BoM activation is by means of a special 'skin applier'. Whether that's in the form of a Bakes on Mesh button on their item's HUD, or by means of a separate 'BoM Relay HUD' or 'BoM Activation HUD', it's still the same. The special 'bake' textures (image below) are put onto your head and body by means of compiling them into a skin applier.

So the 'head' section of that skin applier will have the red BAKED_HEAD texture on it, etc. When you click to activate BoM that's the skin that applies, and because of how BoM-compatible viewers are coded, what that specially-textured 'skin applier' does is twofold: it renders your system avatar invisible and it also sends the composited textures of whatever system layers you're wearing on your underlying (and now invisible) system avatar onto any mesh parts you're wearing. (You could even, if you wanted to, texture a prim cube with the BAKED_HEAD UUID, add it to your avatar, and you'd see all of the system layers on your avatar's head stretched across it.)

So - once you've done this:

14 hours ago, Aluviel Nakamura said:

2 I hit the hud button for genus Bom applier and it turns my face a bright white

... then you've activated BoM on your head.  That 'Genus BoM applier' is a 'skin applier' that has those bake textures on it. You then added your 'tattoo layer' (inventory icon: 'pink squiggly dragon tattoo') in Step 3. But then... you did Step 4:

14 hours ago, Aluviel Nakamura said:

4. I re apply my skin

You re-applied your original applier skin. And - just like any other applier skin - it will replace the previous applier skin that you were wearing. Since that 'previous applier skin' was the special 'BoM activation' applier skin, that got replaced and the BoM ability of your head stopped. That's why you're seeing the 'double face'. Your system head is no longer being hidden by those 'bake' textures, so it's poking through your mesh head. The way that I summarised it in one of my blog tutorial posts is:

Quote

Think of your mesh head and body as a big window. BOM lets you see through the ‘glass’ to the underlying system textures. A skin applier acts like a thick coat of paint on that glass, blocking your view. Other appliers (makeup, tattoos, hairbases, etc) just add nice details on top of the system textures, but skin appliers are like blackout curtains and hide the system layers completely.

To explain why the whole skin and tattoo and BoM thing can be so confusing would take a little while (I've dedicated three whole blog posts to it in an attempt to simplify it for people) but I'll try to summarise it for you below:

When system avatars were all that we had, skins were simple. They were a single object (inventory 'skin' icon) and that was that. If we wanted makeup then we would have to buy special skin sets: a full skin with smoky eyeshadow and red lipstick, or a completely different skin with purple eyeshadow and pink lipstick, etc. (Your account is roughly the same age as mine, so I'm pretty sure you remember all that, and what a pain in the backside it was.) Then Linden Lab introduced tattoo layers, so we could mix and match. We'd buy a plain skin then just buy those makeup combinations to wear over the top, but we would still have to buy them as full tattoo makeups: "smoky eyeshadow with red lipstick" or "purple eyeshadow with pink lipstick". Then - quite a bit later - LL introduced the ability to wear more than one tattoo layer by means of using ADD instead of WEAR, so we could then add the smoky eyeshadow followed by the pink lipstick, and we could even layer separate eyeliner and freckles and blush on top of that.

This is important to know when it comes to mesh head and bodies. Each mesh head and mesh body uses a slightly (sometimes vastly) different UV map. The map itself is less important; what is important is how the head or body's creator 'wraps' the map around their product. Genus maps differently from* Lelutka, who map differently from Catwa, who map differently from LAQ, and so on.

To get around this, skin creators split their appliers up so you had to buy separate head and body skins, each one mapped correctly to a specific brand. That's why - if you had a Genus head and a Maitreya body - you would need to buy a Genus-compatible skin applier for your head and a Maitreya-compatible body applier for your body, in the same skintone and from the same designer. The body appliers would mostly be unchanging, and any new releases from skin creators would comprise just the head appliers.

When BoM was introduced, that UV mapping issue didn't go away, so skin creators now use the same 'splitting skins up' option that they did with appliers. This time, though, it can be a bit more complicated, as there are several ways of doing it. For my above example (Genus head and Maitreya body) you might have creators who do any of the following:

• system skin for the body (body will be fully textured and head will be white or plain and untextured) and tattoo layer for the head
• separate tattoo layers for both head and body (you can wear any old system skin under them, as it won't show)
• system skin for the head (head will be fully textured and body will be white or plain and untextured) and tattoo layer for the body

So it's become important to note how each skin creator has implemented BoM. I'm less familiar with women's skins, but I know that - among male skin creators - for example, that Birth uses all tattoo layers, and Vendetta uses a system skin for the head and tattoo layers for the body, and so on.

To sum up (because I've already written a bloody novel here!) -

1. Find out how your preferred skin creator has made use of BoM, and ensure that you have both a BoM head and a BoM body skin in whatever options they offer. Both of these should be the correct 'maps' for your head and body (Genus for your head, and whichever body you're using) and should also be in the same skintone
2. Update your Genus head by using the redelivery terminal on the desk at the mainstore
3. Ensure that you're not wearing any alpha layers for your head or body
4. Activate BoM on both your head and your body (I have a tutorial here that explains how to activate BoM on most major brands of head and body)
5. ADD the included GENUS Project - Eyes Alpha (because Genus have not yet updated to allow BoM to work on the eyes, so you will still need to use applier eyes; BoM eye activation will come in the next update)
6. If your BoM skin includes a system skin for either head or body, WEAR that and then ADD the tattoo layer that will be for the other part. If it's two separate tattoo layers, ADD both of them one after the other
7. On your Genus HUD, click the eye applier that you want to use (or use a third party eye applier for Genus if you have one that you prefer)
8. If you then want to use any makeup on top of that, you can either ADD more BoM tattoo layers (inventory icon: 'pink squiggly dragon tattoo') or you can also use the makeup in the Genus HUD (most heads will still allow you to use applier makeup; it's only applier skins that will mess up BoM for you)

And you should then be done

(*Sorry if that word usage annoys any Americans. I'm English, therefore I use 'from' instead of 'than' here!)

Edited October 26, 2020 by Skell Dagger

[FairreLilette]

14 hours ago, Aluviel Nakamura said:

I see there are a lot of kitsune tattoos for catawa heads.. what would happen if I tried to place them on a genus head?

Your problem here in this thread was confusing but it seems you need to update all your items to BOM if you are going BOM.  

As far as this question, once you are a BOM skin base you can try any BOM product on Genus even a Catwa one.  No guarantee it will work though but it might so be sure to try a demo first of any BOM tattoo add-on "make-ups" prior to purchase.   

In my recently making my own skins, Catwa and Genus are very close, so it may work, especially with these two.  There is just a tiny bit of a difference but my Catwa is wearing a Genus product right now and I like how it makes Catwa look a bit "different"...so yes it is possible.  

Edited October 26, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Aluviel Nakamura]

 I am so sorry about losing this thread.. ty for the link in on the other post. I really appreciate your time and efforts. Even when I follow things step by step I still get that double face image or my face turns an unholy bright white like Geisha makeup. Something is wrong.. Its the stupid tattoo's fault.. you simply cannot use a bom tattoo on a skin that isnt bom.  I had an old skin that I got a redelivery of now that it is Bom.. because she is so tan it didnt look that great. Which means forking out another 800 or so for a new skin. I have gone through 4 heads trying to make the tattoo work.  Unfortunate that these tattoos dont have a demo version. 

Thank you all again. I so appreciate the time you spent. I will find a solution^^