Whats the most realistic male Avatar so far?

[KanzulR]

Can anyone plz help me with the most realistic Male avatar in SL?

Im 5 years old,but only active like for 6 months.

 

And im still learning.

 

Fam plz help.

 

Note-i was trying on actanon,is it good?

[MoiraKathleen]

I don't have that answer, and I'm not sure that there is a single answer...  here are some things to consider:

- how much money do you want to spend

- what style of clothes do you like to wear (different male bodies have more or less clothes specifically rigged for them)

- what type of physique are you looking for (slim, athletic, body builder, etc)

- the skin that you choose will also affect the look a bit also

I'm sure that others will chime in with more specifics.  It seems like there was an active thread in the last couple of days that was discussing male body choices, also.  If I find it, I will update my  post with a link to it. 

If you have been using the system body, I would suggest looking for a body that is BOM (Bakes on Mesh) capable - this will make the switch to a mesh body easiest, I think - you will still be able to wear system layers and use alpha layers when necessary for clothing.  

Edited to Add:

I couldn't find the other thread, but I can point you to an excellent tutorial we often refer people to, which - about a quarter of the way down - has a section "Things you need to bear in mind when choosing a mesh body",  followed by a summary with a description of, and the pros and cons of, the major male mesh bodies. 

Noob Dude: A Style 101 for the Second Life Male Avatar – Part 2 – How to Get Dressed (Mesh Head & Mesh Body) – Virtual Bloke      

Edited January 16, 2021 by MoiraKathleen
added blog tutorial link

[Cristiano Midnight]

It is definitely a matter of opinion, but I would say that the newer Lelutka male heads (Skyler forward), paired with the Legacy body and a high quality skin is the most realistic av, though that is completely subjective.

 

 

[Rowan Amore]

I'd agree with @Cristiano Midnight although many dislike Legacy for various reasons, the body itself is superb as far as looks go.  Having said that, demo demo demo.

[Anita61 Anatine]

Also keep in mind what kind of "realistic" look you would like: Muscular, bodybuilder, skinny, or maybe a beer belly? 

[Skell Dagger]

7 hours ago, KanzulR said:

Note-i was trying on actanon,is it good?

Actanon is a great looking, very muscular body, but it has one huge downfall: there is practically zero clothing content being made for it. In all of the event shopping that I've done (which is a lot) I've not seen a single item of clothing being released for that particular body.

I'm not fully familiar with Actanon, nor if it's compatible with clothing for the other very muscular body (Aesthetic) that's out there, but it will be a lot of hassle finding any clothing other than what (if any) might be included with the body itself.

Of the other main bodies that are currently available, try demos of Signature Gianni and Meshbody Legacy. Those both have a lot of clothing created for them, and both can be shaped to be more muscular (although not as much as Actanon). Gianni more so than Legacy.

[Marianne Little]

I suspect the Actanon has been relisted to get rid of negative reviews. I am sure I have seen more one star reviews than there is now.

Actanon is only for those who will be naked 99% of the time, or use only the included clothing. A shame really, since it looks good.

I agree that Signature is better. You find clothes for it everywhere.

I would not recommend Belleza Jake, since the creator can't be bothered to update to a new neck. You will have a line between the body and the head you buy.

Look for very muscular skins. They have muscles dawn on and makes you look more muscular.

 

[AdminGirl]

I probably haven't played around with my male alt enough but some clothes make the arms super skinny when I use the Signature Gianni body, looks like noodle arms and it's so weird.

[Marianne Little]

1 minute ago, AdminGirl said:

I probably haven't played around with my male alt enough but some clothes make the arms super skinny when I use the Signature Gianni body, looks like noodle arms and it's so weird.

It is not the body... the clothes creator make the clothes like that. With this shape. You alpha out the body, so no matter how much muscle you have in the shape, they are hidden under the clothes.

The solution: Demo before you buy. If you aren't happy with the demo, the full priced product isn't better.

[Skell Dagger]

21 minutes ago, AdminGirl said:

I probably haven't played around with my male alt enough but some clothes make the arms super skinny when I use the Signature Gianni body, looks like noodle arms and it's so weird.

That's down the the creator's rigging. Signature can be (for want of a better phrase) 'double-rigged'. To simplify it: there's the rigging for the bones - which will simply alter the lengths of sleeves and pant legs when you shange your avatar's shape, and then there's secondary rigging for the body's musculature and flesh, which will expand the bulk of the sleeves and pant cuffs when you change the musculature and body fat of your shape. Rigging for both is double the work, so I've seen three types of variant:

• clothing that's 'double-rigged' and will change to reflect both bone and musculature shape changes
• clothing that's rigged only to the bones and which the creator has left quite skinny (what you've been seeing)
• clothing that's rigged only to the bones and which the creator has made to mirror the bulk of Gianni's default musculature (this type of clothing will make your arms and shoulders look 'Gianni-big' even if you've skinnied your shape right down)

[Theresa Tennyson]

21 hours ago, KanzulR said:

Can anyone plz help me with the most realistic Male avatar in SL?

 

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/101469

[Lewis Luminos]

If you want muscular, I would recommend Signature Gianni above any of the others, coupled with a skin that has plenty of muscle definition drawn into it. Gianni has the widest range of clothing available for it, and it can go more muscular than Legacy, which is really the only other viable men's body available at this point in time. The rest are either rapidly losing clothing support, or never had any in the first place.

I used to recommend Belleza Jake but Belleza bodies are basically abandonware now, the creator has not updated them in years; even the Bakes on Mesh feature was created by someone else.

[KanzulR]

Thank you so much Fam for all the opinions.

 

So based on the posts

 

1-i am now skipping my love for actanon.

2-i noted all the names of AVs given here.

3-will try demo before any 

4-for the link for starters-thank you.

5-and the link for the most realistic body-thats real american.😂❤

 

 

Plz help me if there are more AVs.

 

 

 

[Orion Pastorelli]

On 1/17/2021 at 7:54 AM, Lewis Luminos said:

If you want muscular, I would recommend Signature Gianni above any of the others, coupled with a skin that has plenty of muscle definition drawn into it. Gianni has the widest range of clothing available for it, and it can go more muscular than Legacy, which is really the only other viable men's body available at this point in time. The rest are either rapidly losing clothing support, or never had any in the first place.

I used to recommend Belleza Jake but Belleza bodies are basically abandonware now, the creator has not updated them in years; even the Bakes on Mesh feature was created by someone else.

This frustrates me. I have never cared for the geometry of the Signature Gianni; I think its just plain bad. Thus, I have always low-key resented its success.

But... its hard to counter the "no update" argument against the Belleza Jake. In addition, It looks like @Skell Dagger is no longer recommending it as well.

If they don't update soon, to the new "universal neck," I will have to stop recommending it to people as well. Which is a shame, because I have always found the Belleza Jake to have the best "over all" look; plus it scaled really well between slender and muscular shapes.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Orion Pastorelli

[Skell Dagger]

2 hours ago, Orion Pastorelli said:

In addition, It looks like @Skell Dagger is no longer recommending it as well.

There are several reasons why I've never reviewed Jake on my blog. (I'll collapse this into a quote, to avoid taking up too much room in this thread with images. Expand to read it all.)
 

Quote

 

There have always been neck fit issues, right since it was released. It was purportedly created to fit perfectly on the older Lelutka male heads (the line now called 'Origins') which means just two Lelutka heads will technically fit it perfectly: Andrea and Guy. However, look at the fit on the far right image, with a 'perfect' Windlight setting:

It does not fit any of the Lelutka Evolution range, and there are (sometimes minor, sometimes major - including gaps that you can see daylight through) issues around the neck with many other brands.

In addition to the above, the neck on Jake is the only one to have a weird double-striped band around the neck in the below specific lighting condition (which I've seen crop up time and again; setting shadows to 'sun/moon' fixes it) -

(Note: Signature have updated their body since that composite was taken, so I need to re-shoot that Evo/Gianni image in the lower right.)

The splayed hands issue has never been addressed and still persists to this day. Worse still, the wearer often doesn't see this, but others around them do.

BoM capability is only available via a third-party HUD.

It hasn't been updated in something like two and a half (almost three) years, whereas Gianni is still constantly being updated.

The last update completely changed both the hands and feet, to the point where there are now four versions of the body in the folder, with variants of old and new hands and feet (and these updates are labelled in such a way that has some guys thinking that the 'original hands' copy of the body is just the hands etc, so they end up wearing four copies of the entire body) - which leads us on to... would any future updates add yet more copies of the body to the folder?

There is complete radio silence from the creator and no word as to when/if there will ever be another update to address any of the above issues, or a rejig of the body to include the Universal Neck

 

In short, I'm somewhat flummoxed as to why support for Gianni - despite it being more of a pain to rig for - is being dropped by some creators, in favour of Jake.

[Lewis Luminos]

1 hour ago, Skell Dagger said:

There are several reasons why I've never reviewed Jake on my blog. (I'll collapse this into a quote, to avoid taking up too much room in this thread with images. Expand to read it all.)
 

In short, I'm somewhat flummoxed as to why support for Gianni - despite it being more of a pain to rig for - is being dropped by some creators, in favour of Jake.

It really disappoints me that some creators are dropping Gianni support. I know some people dislike the anatomy but I've always been very happy with it (I get compliments on my shape when I'm out on the gym circuit and most of those guys are surprised when I tell them it's Gianni - even more so when I tell them my skin is 9 years old! 😁). 

That said, one of my alts has Belleza Jake and anatomically speaking I like it better, especially for slimmer shapes, but the neck fit is terrible on most heads. Somewhat ironically the best fitting head I had for Jake was a budget one from Lightstar. The splayed hands thing really annoys me, I ended up buying a third party bento hand AO for it and I STILL have to stop and re-start it every time I teleport. But the real deal-breaker with Jake for me now is the lack of support for system alpha layers. They are just too useful to miss out on.

If it turns out that the last body standing is Legacy, I don't know what I'll do. I flat refuse to buy anything made by that creator, so I guess I'd just be stuck with whatever Gianni stuff is left, and never get anything new.  Which makes me very sad.

It makes me wonder, actually, if Tricky Boucher never made the Belleza bodies at all, but hired someone else to make them, and that someone is either no longer around or has refused to work for Belleza again. My guess is that the reason they've not been updated is because Tricky just doesn't know how. 

[Skell Dagger]

13 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

If it turns out that the last body standing is Legacy, I don't know what I'll do. I flat refuse to buy anything made by that creator, so I guess I'd just be stuck with whatever Gianni stuff is left, and never get anything new.  Which makes me very sad.

I honestly don't think it'll ever get to that point. Gianni still has a huge amount of support, and right now the creators dropping support for it are - from what I've noticed - the ones I might expect to keep rigging for Jake and have moved to Legacy for its slimmer look and versatility with shaping.

[Orwar]

1 hour ago, Lewis Luminos said:

If it turns out that the last body standing is Legacy, I don't know what I'll do. I flat refuse to buy anything made by that creator, so I guess I'd just be stuck with whatever Gianni stuff is left, and never get anything new.  Which makes me very sad.

   I don't think it's time to say that 'Gianni is dead' just yet. Personally I won't go to Jake (why would I pick a body that's so severely behind as far as updates to new major features in SL go?) and I wouldn't touch Legacy if I were paid for it ... Actually that's not entirely true, I got a demo of it in my inventory for work.

   Besides, there's always the chance that someone will get around to make a whole new body - I'm no tech wiz, but I figure with BOM there'd be less work as far as scripting HUDs with alpha cuts and whatnot goes. Until then, the clothes I already have and what will be released by creators who don't drop Gianni (or Geralt - how I wish Geralt would get some more loving!), I figure I could last until whatever body takes off as the 'next gen' thing. Worst case I'll just have to get there topless! 

[Lewis Luminos]

6 minutes ago, Orwar said:

    Besides, there's always the chance that someone will get around to make a whole new body - I'm no tech wiz, but I figure with BOM there'd be less work as far as scripting HUDs with alpha cuts and whatnot goes. Until then, the clothes I already have and what will be released by creators who don't drop Gianni (or Geralt - how I wish Geralt would get some more loving!), I figure I could last until whatever body takes off as the 'next gen' thing. Worst case I'll just have to get there topless! 

The biggest disappointment for me was that Ex Machina Davide never took off. My alt got that one before Jake, and it's the nicest looking slim male body I've ever seen. But no-one ever made clothes for it. 

What would be really nice is if someone (other than Legacy) made a quality new body for men that fits already existing clothing, like Lucybody did with their Maitreya fit.

[Waialae]

I suppose a lot depends on what you consider realistic. What sort of body shape is your avatar looking for?

As others have said the system avatars with a new head can work nicely.

I like a fit avatar that's built more like a marshal artist or swimmer. For that I use a Slink Physique body, and see that they have a "Male Body Bundle" in their store: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Slink/64/109/26

Gotta be honest, IMHO there are way to many 'roid rage avatars out there. And when the typical male animation is added and it looks like a sequel to 8 Mile is being filmed. 🙂