Why BOM? Why?

[AdminGirl]

I've been seeing a shift from appliers to BOM from creators, and honestly I don't get it. Ok I know it lowers your complexity and you can go crazy with thousands of layers (?), but do people really do that anyway?

I prefer appliers because it doesn't blow up my inventory, and because most appliers give you an idea of what you're about to put on. With BOM layers, it's mostly a guessing game for me, depending on how well things are named.

Some creators are even removing appliers and just replacing them with BOM *sad*

What does everyone else think/prefer? And how are you all managing your inventory with all these layers?

[Dafadilia Wayfarer]

When it comes to skin, I do prefer appliers still. It is just easier although on my alts I use BOM for their skins too. I love being able to use both appliers and BOM layers as an option. I think it is kind of silly some creators are removing the applier options and not making them because not everyone has gone BOM.

Both appliers and BOM have very useful purposes!

[Danielle Darkheart]

Bom for clothing instead of appliers to fill in those gaps is amazing, especially if you have long hair.... No more alpha texture issues.  

[Chic Aeon]

Once I figured out BOM I was a fan all the way and seldom use appliers any longer. What I love about it is that you always KNOW what you are wearing. You can see that in the worn tab. AND with appliers once you change something for one outfit it changes it for all the outfits so you had to go back and redo over and over. 

 

Also easier for content creators. AND BOM works for any BOM body, no various versions needed.  

[Solar Legion]

BoM has made it a bit easier to manage the varied Anthropomorphic forms I use - the majority of my most recent ones only have a handful of parts that are form/coloration specific. The rest just requires my Mesh Body and my Feety Peets.

[AdminGirl]

Very good points. I do use BOM, just not exclusively. Having an option to switch to appliers would be good. I'm not a creator but I did suspect that it must be easier to create given the shift from appliers.

[Rowan Amore]

I do use a lot of BOM layers.  It's great not having to choose which you can wear or wearing one applier layer makes the other glitch.  I have a lot of hairbases that used a partial makeup layer so it would pop off part of that when using appliers.

[Rachel1206]

BOM is best thing from Linden Lab (in with collaboration with content creators ) for years, baking up to 63 layers into one layer.

PRO easy to mix up to 63 layers, possible to create unique look with combination of makeup, tattoos etc.

CON as OP writes, it fills the inventory.

I can imagine improved handling of BOM in the future, where you for example use a HUD to select, what you want to add and all the BOM elements are in the HUD without filling your inventory. This is not possible at the moment. It would be easy to implement viewer side - but in world using script based HUD, it would require an update on permissions system and what is allowed to do from a script.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Rachel1206
Spelling

[Jordyn McGregor]

I don't like change...so don't like BOM.

[AdminGirl]

4 minutes ago, Rachel1206 said:

 

I can imagine improved handling of BOM in the future, where you for example use a HUD to select, what you want to add and all the BOM elements are in the HUD without filling your inventory. The is not possible at the moment. It would be easy to implement viewer side - but in world using script based HUD, it would require an update on permission and what are allowed to do from a script.

Exactly what I was thinking before I made this thread. I tried to look up if we could script BOMs somehow because inventory's getting a little bit crazy.

[FairreLilette]

19 minutes ago, AdminGirl said:

Exactly what I was thinking before I made this thread. I tried to look up if we could script BOMs somehow because inventory's getting a little bit crazy.

I think that's a very bad idea to script BOM and will just lag things up again but I was fearing it would happen.  People want instantaneous and everything at the push of a button.  

All you need to do is type in lipstick for example and then detach and add to view each lip color.  Yes, it grays for a bit but it really only grays a nano-second.

But, the less lag IS the best part about BOM; take that away.......hmmmmmmmmm, makes it not worth the effort than as I rarely wore make-up but now I will a little bit as I've learned to make my own.  It's a whole other world for me now without the lag, and SL is still improving day by day in the cloud too as far as performance.

BOM was the best thing to happen to me in that I learned how to make my own skins and this one skin I have on now is just the prettiest thing I ever saw on my avatar because I can make it what I want; and with tattoos, add a mole here, add a mole there; color my own lipstick on photoshop any day or time of the week to whatever color I want, etc...I just couldn't be more pleased because I am the captain of my avatar.  

If you start putting that all BOM items in HUDS are you sure you aren't just creating another Hermitsville by bringing back the horrible lag, meaning here we go again with jellydolls and sucky events.  The events load so fast now and we can shop inworld and it's really great what is happening since BOM and the cloud.  I hope people don't throw it all away because of a few nano-second's of lost time with a teensy bit of graying. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by FairreLilette

[AdminGirl]

2 minutes ago, FairreLilette said:

I think that's a very bad idea to script BOM and will just lag things up again but I was fearing it would happen.  People want instantaneous and everything at the push of a button.  

All you need to do is type in lipstick for example and then detach and add to view each lip color.  Yes, it grays for a bit but it really only grays a nano-second.

But, the less lag IS the best part about BOM; take that away.......hmmmmmmmmm, makes it not worth the effort than as I rarely wore make-up but now I will a little bit as I've learned to make my own.  It's a whole other world for me now without the lag, and SL is still improving day by day in the cloud too as far as performance.

BOM was the best thing to happen to me in that I learned how to make my own skins and this one skin I have on now is just the prettiest thing I ever saw on my avatar because I can make it what I want; and with tattoos, add a mole here, add a mole there; color my own lipstick on photoshop any day or time of the week to whatever color I want, etc...I just couldn't be more pleased because I am the captain of my avatar.  

If you start putting that all BOM items in HUDS are you sure you aren't just creating another Hermitsville by bringing back the horrible lag, meaning here we go again with jellydolls and sucky events.  The events load so fast now and we can shop inworld and it's really great what is happening since BOM and the cloud.  I hope people don't throw it all away. 

That's true, scripted objects do create lag, but doesn't a large inventory create problems or lag for the individual? Not for everyone else, but for all your stuff to load, it takes more resources no?

[FairreLilette]

12 minutes ago, AdminGirl said:

That's true, scripted objects do create lag, but doesn't a large inventory create problems or lag for the individual? Not for everyone else, but for all your stuff to load, it takes more resources no?

I have a very large inventory - about 150k because I build too and have oh least five hundred dollars worth of textures which, funnily enough, is actually what HUDS were originally created for - builders and their textures because we have tons usually and it's not easy to dig through five hundred dollars and growing worth of textures.  

I have been sorting though and now I am putting some of my stuff into folders, as well as deleting all the sizes I don't use, got rid of all the demos.  It's better to put your stuff in folders if you can but you need to ask a geek that question because I am not a geek.  But, I still have the same inventory since BOM and the cloud but it's way better even with my 150k inventory.  You can make a folder, name the folder lipstick for example, and put all your BOM lipsticks in that folder.  Do you know how to make a folder and copy and paste your items in there?  Once you do that, you can then just delete all the other stuff and then empty trash.  

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by FairreLilette

[Ginger Cloud]

I do love HD makeup but otherwise? BOM all the way. Case in point. I updated my body today. All I had to do was activate BOM in the hud, replace links and done. If an outfit has a particular tattoo, freckles, a blemish, it's all still there. No hunting for appliers, wondering what skin I wore or what tattoo. So simple.

[Blush Bravin]

BoM all the way with minor exceptions. I never liked appliers, so it was a very easy and welcomed change. The only time I use appliers is for HD makeup, which is still rare. I find BoM makeup to be my preferred choice, because I don't have to deal with alpha glitching with my hair. I also take advantage of the tattoo layer included with my Maitreya Lara body. I like wearing asymmetrical tattoos on my arms and hands, and while technically it's possible to do that with BoM layers, it's just so much easier to use an applier to achieve the look I want. Though lately I'm becoming less tolerant of the alpha glitching with those tats, so I may bite the bullet and tackle getting the required items to use BoM layers for my asymmetrical tats.

As for bloating inventory, it's not much of an issue for me. I've always been one to folder my clothing into a hierarchical system. I do use the CTS wardrobe, but lately I've gone back to just foldering as it's faster to get things sorted so I can find things. Eventually, I'll get all those entered into my CTS ... eventually!

So to sum up, I love BoM!! I think it's the best thing LL has done for avatars in a very long time. I wouldn't miss appliers at all if suddenly every last one of them disappeared from the grid. Now don't set me on fire. I know many will continue to hold on tight to their appliers and not let go. But you asked for my opinion, and you got it.  

[AdminGirl]

11 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

Now don't set me on fire. I know many will continue to hold on tight to their appliers and not let go. But you asked for my opinion, and you got it.  

Lol I will try to resist!

[Maitimo]

I love BOM and won't ever go back. I still occasionally use applier makeup (mainly because of the ability to adjust the intensity) but everything else is BOM all the way.

[Anna Nova]

I love BOM.  All the old things are reusable again.  The things that you couldn't use because alpha-cuts weren't in the right places can now have proper alphas made for them (which is easy, but time consuming). 

I wrote a simple RLVa script to put on one of a set of folders.  Now I can put each system item in it's own sub-folder and get a dialog when I add the folder.  This is great for all sorts of system tattoos, tops, under-boot pants etc..

 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Anna Nova
changed the image to show stuff better

[Syo Emerald]

BOM is the one step that makes everything so much more complicated. Another fking system to balance on top of it all. I did well with appliers and mesh in general, but this thing... I hate it. But its now shoved down our throats, if you want anything new these days. And I feel like creators use it to squeeze more money out of people.

Edited November 23, 2020 by Syo Emerald

[Drakonadrgora Darkfold]

I tried it.. don't really care for it.. so won't be using it. So any creators that only deal in bom will never see me as a customer.

[Qie Niangao]

I don't so much love BoM as I hate appliers, mostly because (as others have noted) appliers are not contained in the Outfits they were used to create, so there are looks in my inventory now lost to time: probably I still have all the component appliers, but there's no chance I'd ever remember what they were and where they were applied.

As others have also noted, baking simply solves the alpha-sorting problem for body layers. Multilayered blended alpha also makes bodies hideous in another way, visible only with Advanced Lighting enabled in scenes with multiple light sources, which very quickly exhaust the viewer's capacity and then the tiniest cam movement can completely change avatar color, the appearance of surface seams, etc., so baking all those layers into one is a huge win, not only for rendering speed but also accuracy.

Only real downside for me is lack of Materials support on all those baked texture layers. I realize that it's theoretically impossible in the general case to automate baking of normalmaps,  for example, but with creators so paranoid about protecting their precious proprietary pixels, there's no way to manually combine products' material maps either, short of circumventing SL permissions.

My Inventory was huge and disorganized long before BoM but from what I've read, that apparently has no effect on performance or, really, anything else. One thing I'd note is that Outfits use a different kind of inventory, with internal links instead of full-blown distinct asset handles. So it's a much simpler structure represented by an Outfit's BoM tattoo texture, say, than to have a whole separate copy of the body to which those tattoos were applied. Hence, I'm guessing that the actual inventory storage of a BoM outfit is substantially less than an applier-generated outfit that replicates the body.

[Marianne Little]

I love that I can click on Appearance and see what I am wearing. Instead of guessing: What did I apply? I used a demo once that took off my eyebrows, and I had been wearing them so long and forgot what they were. It took a long time to find them. They came with another skin, they were not bought as eyebrows.

I thought those HUD's with "save slots" was ridiculous and took too much time.

Plus no alpha clashing. It is almost no skins sold with full body freckles, I can wear that now, over head and body in one click. They do not flicker if I want tattoos or clothes with lace.

I can always wear underwear, nothing is poking through. Or pasties in the skin color, to stop me from flashing others.

Appliers took much longer to rez on screen for me, than BoM. I had to look for an applier, add it, and sit and wait until I saw where to click. If it wasn't the applier I was looking for, start over with the waiting. Applying things took time to show up, it is not just BoM. I feel I save time with the short period of grey before I am baked.

[Theresa Tennyson]

1 hour ago, Drakonadrgora Darkfold said:

I tried it.. don't really care for it.. so won't be using it. So any creators that only deal in bom will never see me as a customer.

And you'll find that they care as little about losing you as they care about losing me when they eliminate support for what I use.

[Rachel1206]

9 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

I think that's a very bad idea to script BOM and will just lag things up again but I was fearing it would happen.  People want instantaneous and everything at the push of a button.  

 

You misunderstood how a scripted BOM system would work, but assumed,  it would be, as you see how things are done today...

My proposal is to allow an owner permissions system to use a HUD based system allowing a call to the inventory to add/detach the BOM item. No script(s) goes into any BOM item.

Viewer side this would be easy to implement, like the Appearance folder, where you can replace/add clothing etc.

[Ceka Cianci]

I've been lazy about learning anything much about it really.. I'll get around to it, but even with appliers my inventory is a mess.. hehehehe