Male Mesh Bodies

[Pussycat Catnap]

Going through my male alt recently and tried the lelutka head on him. Lelutka's new 2.5 update uses this supposed 'new standard' for neck connections. The one that Maitreya calls 'Type 1'. Supposed to be some universal thing I guess all the head and body folks met and hashed out or whatever (I don't know why it's a standard for them if it's also completely new).

My male alt had Belleza Jake - which is not party to this standard. He also had Adam which - I don't even know if that exists anymore.

 

This has me thinking - what are the current mesh body brands for male avatars?

I've noticed Belleza, Legacy/TMP, Gianni, and Slink. Is that the field? Missing something?

I demo'd Legacy male and found it has an insanely high number of triangles - even worse than Belleza Female if I remember right. Haven't looked at Gianni closely yet - I glanced and it looked a bit too muscle-freak but maybe that's fixable? I'd prefer him to have a slim 'bishonen' look. Slink has the built in micro-male bits... (and I say bits, it's too small to be a byte...) - which is just off putting to me.

What else should I be looking at? Or can a non-muscle-freak look be had on gianni?

 

[Eddy Vortex]

40 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

What else should I be looking at? Or can a non-muscle-freak look be had on gianni?

Greg is wearing the Gianni with his torso muscles set at 5, body thickness at 5, and body fat at 1. That's the best I could manage with this body.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Eddy Vortex

[Pussycat Catnap]

1 hour ago, Eddy Vortex said:

Greg is wearing the Gianni with his torso muscles set at 5, body thickness at 5, and body fat at 1. That's the best I could manage with this body.

Actually that solves my concerns pretty well. I think I'll re-demo gianni on my alt and do a lot more shape dial tweaking than I had been doing. 🙂

 

[Sorciaa]

Have you tried the maitreya flat chest? seems to be more for a " male " look.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Triangle Counts:

Gianni Body + Hands and Feet (demo): 161,370

Belleza Jake 2.0: 179,961

Adam v2: 84,216

Legacy Male (demo): 401,906 !!!

Adam is the best optimized - not even sure if the brand is still in business because I got him that so long ago.

Legacy Male is WTF land...

The other two are similar and if Gianni is good I will put that on my 'to buy' list.

 

Belleza Female btw is 521,287 triangles - that's your queen of lag right there. Much as I love the body, she's got so many onion layers on her it makes me cry... Hope we get an update that removes ALL of that and makes each 'breast shape' a different body rather than forcing 3 onions for the sake of 2 options only one merchant I know of supports... BUT that's not this topic - I just put her numbers in to show contrast with Legacy Male in the lag department.

Maitreya is 176,297 triangles so for people who want that for a male I guess it would work but I never mix male and female bodies and would find the curves visually jarring on a male. I want bishonen - which is not a gender-bend just not a Schwarzenegger build. 😉 More like a normal RL male body. Where I'd like him to have muscle tone, would be more like Bruce Lee - handsomely slim and wired.

 

EDIT: Checking to see if I had the current signature, discovered they have 2 male bodies, and the other one, geralt - is exactly what I was seeking. So that goes into the budget instead.

Also. Adam is still around and got a BOM update - but my alt's current skin is a poor fit for it and they don't sell to that body. It's not the body form I wanted - but I guess that is another 'brand out there still' for the list. And a low lag one at that.

 

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Maitimo]

6 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

What else should I be looking at? Or can a non-muscle-freak look be had on gianni?

 

You can get Gianni to slim down quite nicely (except for the upper arms which will always be quite muscular), I used it for a couple of years before I went all girly.  There's also Geralt, I had that one too, it's slimmer by default but there isn't much clothing. Some Belleza Jake clothing fits Geralt.

This is me in Gianni:

I demo'd Belleza Jake and didn't like it.  For the main reason that with BOM on, it still doesn't permit use of alpha layers so you're limited to the hud only. Also there's no hand animations, only static poses whereas the Signature bodies have animated hands.

 

[Marianne Little]

8 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

EDIT: Checking to see if I had the current signature, discovered they have 2 male bodies, and the other one, geralt - is exactly what I was seeking. So that goes into the budget instead.

Also. Adam is still around and got a BOM update - but my alt's current skin is a poor fit for it and they don't sell to that body. It's not the body form I wanted - but I guess that is another 'brand out there still' for the list. And a low lag one at that.

 

It is still many, many designers that make Gianni rigging only. I don't know why Geralt don't get any love. 😔

Try to take a look before you buy. But if the malt does not need a very big set of clothing, you should find enough. Feet are the same for Gianni/Geralt. Maybe hands are too, if you need rigged rings or nails. But I am not sure of that.

[Orwar]

5 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

It is still many, many designers that make Gianni rigging only. I don't know why Geralt don't get any love. 😔

   I have noticed that some creators have dropped Gianni as of late, opting for Jake and Legacy only. Not that I was interested in their garbage anyway, but still, rude. 

   Men in SL unfortunately have nothing like what women do. Probably because women outnumber men by a fair bit. I'd love for there to be an equivalent of Maitreya for men, that would work with a wide range of shapes and received a lot of support from the majority of the creators (and there being more creators). 

   Being that I'm a bit of a stickler for both style and quality, there are only a handful of releases per year that interest me. Whilst the still demands apply when I browse for Neph, her wardrobe has something like 25 times more items in it (for Maitreya only), than I do for Gianni + Geralt (and pretty much everything I have for Geralt came for both, whereas a lot of stuff is only Gianni - so even though I prefer Geralt, I usually have to wear Gianni unless I want to wear clothes that I specifically have for Geralt ... Or if I'm nekkid). 

[RitaCallisto]

4 hours ago, Orwar said:

   I have noticed that some creators have dropped Gianni as of late, opting for Jake and Legacy only. Not that I was interested in their garbage anyway, but still, rude. 

   Men in SL unfortunately have nothing like what women do. Probably because women outnumber men by a fair bit. I'd love for there to be an equivalent of Maitreya for men, that would work with a wide range of shapes and received a lot of support from the majority of the creators (and there being more creators). 

   Being that I'm a bit of a stickler for both style and quality, there are only a handful of releases per year that interest me. Whilst the still demands apply when I browse for Neph, her wardrobe has something like 25 times more items in it (for Maitreya only), than I do for Gianni + Geralt (and pretty much everything I have for Geralt came for both, whereas a lot of stuff is only Gianni - so even though I prefer Geralt, I usually have to wear Gianni unless I want to wear clothes that I specifically have for Geralt ... Or if I'm nekkid). 

I'd love for Onyx to make a male body, or perhaps even update the mesh on Maitreya.. or another body entirely.

SL seems to suffer from a lot of what MMOs do these days. There may not necessarily be more female players, but I have run in to plenty of males with female avatars. Creators in turn only make what's profitable, thus those with males give up and make females, in turn making the problem even worse.

I personally love having a male alt, but the lack of options is maddening, and if I see one more freaking short gelled and swept male hair i'ma scream.

[Lewis Luminos]

5 hours ago, Orwar said:

   I have noticed that some creators have dropped Gianni as of late, opting for Jake and Legacy only. Not that I was interested in their garbage anyway, but still, rude. 

 

Jeez, if Gianni ends up with no new support, I'll probably end up just switching full time to one (or both) of my girl alts.  I'm not a fan of Belleza and I wouldn't touch anything made by Legacy/TMP if it was the last body on the grid.

And people wonder why there are so many female avatars, and why so few people are buying men's clothes.

[Orwar]

   @Lewis Luminos Yeah, same. I already use Neph for most of my photography / shopping and RP (finding an outfit that both fits the theme AND Orwar's style? Not happening). Last time I went out to a club, three other guys at that same venue had the same shirt I did (Deadwool - of course). It felt kind of meh. When I take Neph shopping, I occasionally spot another person wearing something that I do have in her wardrobe, but I don't think she ever bumped into someone wearing the same outfit at the same time.

[Lewis Luminos]

30 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   @Lewis Luminos Yeah, same. I already use Neph for most of my photography / shopping and RP (finding an outfit that both fits the theme AND Orwar's style? Not happening). Last time I went out to a club, three other guys at that same venue had the same shirt I did (Deadwool - of course). It felt kind of meh. When I take Neph shopping, I occasionally spot another person wearing something that I do have in her wardrobe, but I don't think she ever bumped into someone wearing the same outfit at the same time.

And you can bet that at my club, half the guys that visit wear the same tux as me (L&B) and the other half wear Deadwool.

[Orwar]

Just now, Lewis Luminos said:

And you can bet that at my club, half the guys that visit wear the same tux as me (L&B) and the other half wear Deadwool.

   I think that's part of the problem, too - people who want to get into creating menswear either go for the already over-saturated market of 'beach boy' apparel of tank tops and board shorts, or they want to do something a bit more formal ... And everyone already has all the suits they need from L&B, Deadwool, and/or ContraptioN, so buying a new suit that isn't on par with the quality of those just appears pointless. 

[Pussycat Catnap]

On 11/12/2020 at 3:22 AM, Orwar said:

   I have noticed that some creators have dropped Gianni as of late, opting for Jake and Legacy only. Not that I was interested in their garbage anyway, but still, rude.

Considering how Jake is starting to not be supported by mesh heads (Lelutka as of now, might happen to more soon) - this seems foolish. NOT because Lelutka chose to stop Belleza Support - but because Belleza hasn't had an update in so long supporting it would just introduce problems into the current head and they wanted to focus their rigging on the new standard all other bodies have moved to...

And Legacy male... I was shocked when I looked into it lag-wise. That body should be banned from the grid... AR'able as an abuse of region resources. Sadly, a fate Belleza Female might also need to share... (and it's still my favorite look, but wow on the lag).

I need to do that for Legacy female also, look into how much lag it generates that is.

 

ps: On the note about Belleza and Lelutka heads not fitting it - this is what caused me to start this thread. I bought my male alt a Lelutka head, and then noticed the neck didn't fit, and started reading people asking about it in the Lelutka group. And as painful as it was I agreed with their response: we support a current standard so we can keep things resource light with all this new rigging we just added, we can't help that Belleza is so slow to update. So I figured I'd ask in here about what to get to replace Jake. 🙂

Edited November 13, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Orwar]

2 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

Considering how Jake is started to not be supported by mesh heads (Lelutka as of now, might happen to more soon) - this seems foolish.

   Yeah, the support for men's bodies appears rather conflicted at the moment.

   A friend of mine who makes menswear doesn't like creating for Signature, as he feels the rigging for them is more complicated, and that he personally prefers the looks of Jake, but with how popular Gianni is he doesn't want to drop it entirely just yet. Legacy meanwhile has been very popular lately, probably in large part due to TMP's rigorous campaigning to get exclusivity deals with creators, both for their male and female bodies. But I feel like those creators got themselves a bad deal, especially now with the Petite vs Perky thing going on, I've noticed some creators immediately dropped both Legacy bodies and went Maitreya exclusive again.

   And Gianni, whilst the best on the market at the moment in terms of not being laggy, hasn't yet caught up fully with things. They still use onion layers and separate hands and feet - and whilst separate feet doesn't bother me much as I seldom have to wear them anyway, I really don't see why hands and body are separate things. I haven't really kept up with them lately, but I did ask the creator whether they'd make their own body hair appliers BOM compatible, and they said they would do so 'soon' - a few months ago. Still nothing.

7 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

And Legacy male... I was shocked when I looked into it lag-wise. That body should be banned from the grid... AR'able as an abuse of region resources.

   Yes .. I don't know whether there's such a thing as a script to detect avatar complexity, but a fair amount of venues already boot people who hog scripts. If similar practices for complexity would be enforced at clubs and shopping events, then perhaps people would finally reconsider some of their choices. 

   That said, with Gianni and just some clothes on, I seldom manage to go below 50K complexity - Neph with Maitreya can easily stick under 30K even in full attire with a generous amount of piercings and accessories. Although it feels as if a lot of this has to do with the clothes too, and not just the bodies themselves.

   One thing I noticed is that most of my shoes for Gianni come as two separate attachments, and that they tend to have a high complexity - almost all shoes for Maitreya come as a single attachment, and seldom have much of an impact on complexity, even though they're usually a lot more intricate in design than what I wear on my male avi.

11 minutes ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

I need to do that for Legacy female also, look into how much lag it generates that is.

   According to the charts, Legacy female was by far the worst offender when it came to triangle count and VRAM usage. That was a while ago though, I don't know whether anything has happened since. Interestingly, Signature Alice was the lightest body when last I checked, but it receives extremely little support compared to the big ones - and I also had a rough time making a shape with it that appealed to me.

[Pussycat Catnap]

10 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   Yes .. I don't know whether there's such a thing as a script to detect avatar complexity, but a fair amount of venues already boot people who hog scripts. If similar practices for complexity would be enforced at clubs and shopping events, then perhaps people would finally reconsider some of their choices.

You can detect based on 'Arc' - a number of lag meters do it, including the one I sell. Almost none of them let you sort or ban by it though - because Arc is a metric that is almost completely divorced from reality. I only put it on my meter because people who buy those meters expect to see it, but I then added comments about how pointless it was...

Oddly, they never updated this function to test complexity instead. But... given that complexity is completely hackable... that's not a major loss. It's fascinating to view SL with Niran's Dragon Viewer and the show complexity option on. He rewrote the complexity formula to be, by his claim, more 'honest' about GPU stress... It's why the lindens put a warning on his viewer - because it speaks truth. And once you see what's really lagging up your grid... it's frustrating.

All human mesh bodies are bad... so if you care about lag it becomes a sad choice between bad, worse, and deadly...

Edited November 13, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap