Back in SL after a long hiatus with questions

[Becca Rebane]

Hi all, I'm back after a hiatus of several months. I owned a lovely little parcel of snowland and had decorated it to my heart's content, but then stopped coming back as often and finally decided I shouldn't be spending the $ and decided to clear off my land and abandon it. I selected everything in one fell swoop and took it all, thinking that I would rez it all back somewhere else at some point. But I can't find it in my inventory! It's ALL gone. Or else it's in there named something else? Since it was all taken at once, it wouldn't have a name of it's own, so...? All my wonderful decor items that I loved, some as long as 10 years. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to find it in my completely unmanageable inventory? I've looked through all the objects and lost and found. 

Secondly, I have gone for very very long stretches of time being out of SL and so much as changed. I worry that my av is hopelessly outdated - it was all flexiprims back in my day, and just shapes and skins. Will I be a laughingstock if I just keep using my same shape and skins and clothes from the old days (not the flexiprim clothes, though, they are ridiculous)? Here's a pic of me today having a smoke in my rented room in Victorian London. 

Third, I understand windlight as I knew it is gone, and it's driving me crazy trying to figure out how to make a sky and keep it. I'm not one to fiddle with different skies, but I do just like to keep it nice and bright and warm-feelings all the time, and can't figure out how to do that now. 

[Zeta Vandyke]

If you pick up a group of items in one go, it will be as one item in your inventory, but with a "group icon", where one item is a single box, a group is a couple of boxes as icon. It will have the name of one of the items in the group (I believe it takes the name of the last item selected), and is generally found in your "objects" folder once picked up like that.

You can rez the group object somewhere with enough free prims and space to allow for the amout of items and it will rezz them in the same setup as how they were when you picked them up.

 

Windlights is now Environment. Using "shared environment" will let you use windlights other set up on their plavces if I understand correct myself. And you can edit your own at "My environments"

Edited January 23, 2021 by Zeta Vandyke

[BelindaN]

Any advice you need on updating your avi, just ask in the avi section. There's all the help you need on the forums if you decide to mesh up and use BoM.

[Prokofy Neva]

As others have said, it could be in a big bunch named with only one of the things in the bunch.

It's worth doing "clear cache" on the advanced menu (which you find how to get to in "preferences"). That does work to bring back inventory sometimes.

It's worth looking in lost and found.

Also sort your inventory from latest to oldest and scroll through it. Perhaps it is in some folder, which can happen if one of the things was in a folder. 

Try searching on the names of some of the things.

Well, lost inventory -- a fact of SL. Now's the time to organize your folders which can help prevent loss.

[Love Zhaoying]

I came to this post looking for a long hiatus and was disappointed.

[Akane Nacht]

4 hours ago, Becca Rebane said:

Will I be a laughingstock if I just keep using my same shape and skins and clothes from the old days

Get yourself a titler that says "I'm not outdated, I'm vintage" and then take your time shopping and trying out new stuff 😉

[SarahThe Wanderer]

5 hours ago, Becca Rebane said:

Secondly, I have gone for very very long stretches of time being out of SL and so much as changed. I worry that my av is hopelessly outdated - it was all flexiprims back in my day, and just shapes and skins. Will I be a laughingstock if I just keep using my same shape and skins and clothes from the old days (not the flexiprim clothes, though, they are ridiculous)? Here's a pic of me today having a smoke in my rented room in Victorian London.

First I like your Avi she sounds familiar to me , I fell like I know her in real life lol 

if you like your avi the way she is now just keep it, don't care what others think.

I really respect old residents who still have their classic avatars, I feel they understand what SL is all about, and they enjoy it in a much deeper level.

[Skell Dagger]

6 hours ago, Becca Rebane said:

I worry that my av is hopelessly outdated - it was all flexiprims back in my day, and just shapes and skins. Will I be a laughingstock if I just keep using my same shape and skins and clothes from the old days (not the flexiprim clothes, though, they are ridiculous)?

No, you will not be a laughing stock if you keep your avatar as she is. However, you may run into one of two types of people inworld, the first rarer than the second:

• The first is the 'mesh snob'. These are the people who will refuse to speak to you or interact with you if you're not wearing all the latest mesh head and body and clothing. They tend to self-announce only in their profiles, a la "Don't even bother speaking to me if you've not updated your avatar to mesh". If you encounter one of those, just walk away. They aren't worth your energy. Luckily, they are few and far between, and easily avoided.
• The second is the helpful person who wants so much to help you update your avatar. They may push gently and insistently, they may suggest that you go with them every time there's a sale on mesh heads and bodies. They may even say things like "You could look so much better if..." It's up to you whether you're prepared to tolerate that constant helpfulness, and it's up to them whether they'll accept you telling them that you're quite happy as you are, thankyouverymuch.

However, there are some basic things that it is helpful to know with regard to the current state of avatar customisation in SL, if you intend to keep your system avatar. So, if you plan on going shopping for a few new bits and bobs in the future, please bear the following in mind:

The vast majority of new mesh clothing and footwear that is now being released is fitted to specific mesh bodies. If you look on the ad boards in stores you'll see a lot of different logos that indicate which bodies they fit. For example:

What you will need to look for is the Classic Avatars logo, which looks like this:

If you see this logo, then pick up the free demo that should be available in the store for that item, and look inside it. (You may find that unpacking boxes is a different experience now, too; I'll get to that at the end of this post.) The clothing created for 'Classic Avatars' now comes in a couple of different forms:

• fitmesh (this will stretch to conform to your underlying avatar, no matter what shape it is)
• standard sizing (S, M, L, etc. - pick the one that fits you best)

With both of those types you will also need an alpha layer (the inventory icon is a white t-shirt with a grid pattern on it). Add that (right click > add from your inventory) and it will hide any bits of your system avatar that poke through the mesh clothing. With clothing intended for system avatars, an alpha layer should be included, but it may not always be.

An added bonus of retaining a system avatar is that - while it'll be harder to come across newly-created clothing - any older clothing you might want to pick up is likely to be in the discount sections of stores now (e.g. the L$1 corner at Gabriel, or the ultra-cheap clothing by The Sea Hole on SL Marketplace) so you'll be able to pick up some new-to-you pieces at knockdown prices, if you want to.

Footwear in particular is something you need to watch out for, as it will be fitted for specific bodies and specific heel heights that those bodies can achieve. You won't be able to achieve that with system feet and shoebases. (This is one reason why shoes with built-in heeled feet were the first things of their kind to be released in SL, followed a couple of years later by standalone mesh feet.) You might be fine with closed boots that are rigged for specific mesh bodies, but even those tend to follow a specific leg line. There should always be a free demo available, so please get that demo and try it out before you commit to a purchase.

Invisiprims no longer work in SL, as the glitch they made use of was nerfed by LL some years back. Invisiprims were frequently used in older footwear to hide parts of the system feet. You might find that some of your older shoes no longer hide your feet like they used to. As mentioned above, we now use alpha layers to hide sections of the system avatar, and you can find big free packs of those on the SL Marketplace if you need them.

System layers are making a big comeback because of the relatively new BoM (Bakes on Mesh) ability to customise mesh avatars using system layers rather than applier HUDs. However, I'm going to sound a note of caution if you decide to take a look at getting a new skin or some new makeup in future while keeping your system avatar:

• Mesh bodies (and some mesh heads) use a different UV mapping for textures in certain areas, most notably around the fingers and toes, and on the face. While you may think those lovely BoM (system tattoo) eyebrows created for the Lelutka Evolution mesh heads look gorgeous, they are UV mapped to an HD (high definition) brow layer on that head, and will look stretched and odd on a system head. Likewise a BoM (system) skin created for the Maitreya Lara body looks gorgeous on the mesh body, but the fingernails are UV mapped to the Maitreya fingers, and the toenails are UV mapped to the separated mesh toes of the Maitreya body, and not to the 'paddles' that were the system avatar feet.

As above, with my advice regarding clothing and footwear: there will be free demos available, so always pick those up and try them out before you commit to a purchase!

Some other little things of note that you may encounter, depending on how frequently you've been popping inworld:

• Unpacking - Items now frequently come in the form of unpacker HUDs, so always add an unpacker rather than rez it. It may make your avatar wear a bag, or - more likely - it could put an image (an unpacker HUD) on your screen. If the item doesn't auto-unpack, either click the bag or click the image and it should unpack into your inventory. Unpacker HUDs are very common now, so adding the unpacker first will usually get you what you want; rezzable boxes are no longer the norm.
• Layering - Depending on how long ago you were last active and changing your avatar in SL, it's now possible to layer system layers like crazy. If you want, you can put 50 layers of makeup on, or wear 5 different tattoos with three tops and... yeah. A lot Just right-click > Add from inventory. The old 'stacking heirarchy' of system layers does still apply, though: tattoo on the bottom, then underwear, then clothing, then jacket.

One final point regarding what your avatar is called, relating to what I mentioned above about looking for the 'classic avatars' logo on adverts. One mesh body supplier has - very confusingly - called their L$1 gift mesh body, the 'Classic' body. While you shouldn't be seeing any logos for that mesh body on clothing adverts (the clothing that fits that particular mesh body is stuff that has TMP [The Mesh Project] as its logo; there is no 'Classic' logo for that mesh body brand) it may cause you some confusion if you hear people talking about "the gift Classic body", especially since those super-helpful people I mentioned at the start of my post might urge you to try it out, since it's "only L$1". Yours is a classic avatar and that is a mesh body named 'Classic'.

Edited January 23, 2021 by Skell Dagger

[Becca Rebane]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Also sort your inventory from latest to oldest and scroll through it. Perhaps it is in some folder, which can happen if one of the things was in a folder. 

Thanks to everyone for the great advice! I wanted to sort my inventory from oldest to newest but can't figure out how to do it. I'm using the Linden viewer. Is it easier in a different viewer? 

[Horus Salubrius]

31 minutes ago, Becca Rebane said:

Thanks to everyone for the great advice! I wanted to sort my inventory from oldest to newest but can't figure out how to do it. I'm using the Linden viewer. Is it easier in a different viewer? 

The LL viewer has the option to sort by "most recent", so newest to oldest.  You can also use a filter so that you are only looking at "Objects" for example, & there is a further filter option there a date range (of sorts).  It looks to me that both FS & LL viewers have the same options in the inventory window, so you can only sort from most recent. 

(this is the filer window)