Slider Surgery?

[DeanMackenzie]

Hiya! 
I’m a longtime SL player, playing for a year or two then leaving for a bit. The last time I had myself a Signature Gianni body and head and life was simple. I just put them on and used the included shapes and skins and that was that. 
Now coming back into SL (with a new account—don’t ask 🙄), I bought another Gianni body but wanted a more interesting head. So after about two weeks of trying on tons of demos, and cross trying the head demos with tons of skins, I found a combo that appealed to me. I’ll have my Gianni body with the LeLutka Skyler head and “Joe” skin/shape from Not Found. But as much as I like what I have, there’s a few things I wish I could fix.

When I add the “Joe” shape two things happen. The first is that the nose becomes small and pert which is a change from the LeLutka Skyler shape nose, which is nicely full. Second, the legs become unrealistically long, again, a change from the realistic proportions of the LeLutka head shape. But I like everything else that the Not Found “Joe” shape does for my looks.

So my question is can I open up Change Appearance while wearing the LeLutka shape, note down how all the sliders are set for the nose, then apply those settings to the “Joe” shape? Same thing with the legs? I know I need to save a copy of the shape I would be changing, but is it really just that simple? All these years I’ve played in SL I have always been too freaked out about even touching the sliders because I was afraid of permanently screwing my avatar up. 
Sorry for being long winded here. I really would appreciate any help, opinions, etc.

Thanks!

Edited May 6, 2021 by DeanMackenzie
Clarification

[Rowan Amore]

18 minutes ago, DeanMackenzie said:

Hiya! 
I’m a longtime SL player, playing for a year or two then leaving for a bit. The last time I had myself a Signature Gianni body and head and life was simple. I just put them on and used the included shapes and skins and that was that. 
Now coming back into SL (with a new account—don’t ask 🙄), I bought another Gianni body but wanted a more interesting head. So after about two weeks of trying on tons of demos, and cross trying the head demos with tons of skins, I found a combo that appealed to me. I’ll have my Gianni body with the LeLutka Skyler head and “Joe” skin/shape from Not Found. But as much as I like what I have, there’s a few things I wish I could fix.

When I add the “Joe” shape two things happen. The first is that the nose becomes small and pert which is a change from the LeLutka Skyler shape nose, which is nicely full. Second, the legs become unrealistically long, again, a change from the realistic proportions of the LeLutka head shape. But I like everything else that the Not Found “Joe” shape does for my looks.

So my question is can I open up Change Appearance while wearing the LeLutka shape, note down how all the sliders are set for the nose, then apply those settings to the “Joe” shape? Same thing with the legs? I know I need to save a copy of the shape I would be changing, but is it really just that simple? All these years I’ve played in SL I have always been too freaked out about even touching the sliders because I was afraid of permanently screwing my avatar up. 
Sorry for being long winded here. I really would appreciate any help, opinions, etc.

Thanks!

As long as the shape is modify, modify it all you need.  It is that simple.  And since you have made a copy first, you can always start again with a fresh copy.

[Marianne Little]

The "Joe" skin and shape is from April 2020. Later in 2020, Lelutka decided to change the rigging of their heads, to open up for finer adjustments, especially the nose, eyes and mouth area..

Unfortunally, this broke all the previously made shapes. The shapes that are broken, are easy recognizable by the thin nose.

I am surprised that a major designer like "Not Found" has not taken care of their shapes and updated them.

When I have 2 shapes, one where the face look good, and one where the body look good, I personally recommend to keep the shape with good face, and change the body proportions on it, instead of changing the face and try to make it look the same. This is because the facial sliders can be a little bit more complicated. Especially since the rigging of the face sliders changed from version 2.5 and up. Anyway what you decide, you are on a very good path when you make a copy first. Do not let the sliders scare you, it is so easy to delete a shape and start fresh with a new copy. Even if you messed up and forgot to work on a copy - you can always have a redelivery from the store and open up a fresh shape to work with.

I know some will say you can unpack and use the old head version that is included in the Skyler folder. It is named [ LELUTKA SKYLER ] - 2.5v DATED. This has the older face rigging. I would rather work on the shape than use the "dated" head. Not that it is anything wrong with the "dated" version.

 

[Nalates Urriah]

The thing we call Fitted Mesh is a mesh item rigged to the avatar skeleton. About a year after mesh-prims were introduced to SL the avatar skeleton was modified to allow the shape sliders to work with mesh creating 'fitted' mesh. Later more bones were added skeleton improving fitted mesh which we call the Bento update.

Most heads and bodies are made using fitted mesh and sold with full-permission shapes. So, you can modify to your hearts content.

Designers make heads and bodies with a shape that best shows off their product. Head makers do not make a shape for their head that works with all bodies. The same for body makers not making a shape that works with all heads. We often need to combine the two. Without some tech knowledge and XML editing outside of the viewer that isn't possible. Most people copy all the shape settings for the body or head and then input the settings to the other manually.

But, you can edit a shape's XML file to be just the head or body settings. Then when adding that shape it combines with whatever shape you are wearing at the time.

[PermaRuthed]

Good thing about SL is that surgery is relatively painless.

[DeanMackenzie]

Hiya!

I wanted to say thank you all for the help and encouragement with the slider surgery. I think it was a success. 

This is the before pic: 

<a href="https://imgur.com/RZTHyQQ"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/RZTHyQQ.jpg" title="Dean pre-surgery" /></a>

and this is the after: 

<a href="https://imgur.com/5ulhsJ9"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/5ulhsJ9.jpg" title="Dean post nose job" /></a>

Still some work to be done but that should be just with playing with the LeLutka HUD.

Thanks again, ladies!

[Nalates Urriah]

49 minutes ago, DeanMackenzie said:

Hiya!

I wanted to say thank you all for the help and encouragement with the slider surgery. I think it was a success. 

This is the before pic: 

<a href="https://imgur.com/RZTHyQQ"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/RZTHyQQ.jpg" title="Dean pre-surgery" /></a>

and this is the after: 

<a href="https://imgur.com/5ulhsJ9"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/5ulhsJ9.jpg" title="Dean post nose job" /></a>

Still some work to be done but that should be just with playing with the LeLutka HUD.

Thanks again, ladies!

You can just copy-paste images in. Or paste in the URL without the HTML markup.

[TrophySpouse]

2 hours ago, DeanMackenzie said:

Hiya!

I wanted to say thank you all for the help and encouragement with the slider surgery. I think it was a success. 

This is the before pic: 

<a href="https://imgur.com/RZTHyQQ"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/RZTHyQQ.jpg" title="Dean pre-surgery" /></a>

and this is the after: 

<a href="https://imgur.com/5ulhsJ9"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/5ulhsJ9.jpg" title="Dean post nose job" /></a>

Still some work to be done but that should be just with playing with the LeLutka HUD.

Thanks again, ladies!

Looking good! 👍