Confusing!

[Blaise Glendevon]

I just don't get how complicated this is for some people. Once you have your preferred body and head dialed in (I rotate between two or three bodies and a cabinet full of heads from different brands, and that's just my human avatars. My furry avatars are a whole other subject) you just swap out your skins and clothes. Learning the system is tricky to start, but once you have it, it's pretty standard.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Blaise Glendevon

[Sid Nagy]

12 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

*gasps in disbelief and horror*

I walk for months in the same beach outfit already too. I only take out the HUD every now and then to change colors.
The SL clothing industry will not get rich from what I buy from them. Too complicated, too much hassle.
I talked myself into a mesh body a few months ago but I still have no mesh head, and as it stands now, I will not have one any time soon either.
I have no clue how I managed it, but I have no gab in the neck at the moment, but with every single demo head I tried, there is one. So no, just no.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, Sid Nagy said:

I walk for months in the same beach outfit already too. I only take out the HUD every now and then to change colors.
The SL clothing industry will not get rich from what I buy from them. Too complicated, too much hassle.
I talked myself into a mesh body a few months ago but I still have no mesh head, and as it stands now, I will not have one any time soon either.
I have no clue how I managed it, but I have no gab in the neck at the moment, but with every single demo head I tried, there is one. So no, just no.

Well, you're a guy. That's entirely to be expected. Half of the guys I know have barely mastered system avis, and would walk around naked if they could get away with it.

But Pam is frankly an embarrassment to her sex. We'll be reviewing her membership in the Coven at our next meeting, I think.

[Coffee Pancake]

14 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

You used to find a bunch of them at a place called Sin Labs, but I think it's gone.

Sin Labs is still going and active, the build stop gets updated , club has events and is one of my favorite wandering spots. 

[Pamela Galli]

16 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

I just don't get how complicated this is for some people. Once you have your preferred body and head dialed in (I rotate between two or three bodies and a cabinet full of heads from different brands, and that's just my human avatars. My furry avatars are a whole other subject) you just swap out your skins and clothes. Learning the system is tricky to start, but once you have it, it's pretty standard.

And some people climb Mt. Everest or jump out of airplanes or ride rollercoasters for fun. 

 

[Blaise Glendevon]

14 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

And some people climb Mt. Everest or jump out of airplanes or ride rollercoasters for fun. 

 

So dramatic. It's really not as complex as this thread is catastrophizing it to be.

[Sid Nagy]

No, that's why there are websites with pages and pages of tutorials just trying to explain the basics about SL's mesh bodies and clothing. 

Mileages do vary in this subject.
And.... it helps if you get enjoyment out of fiddling around with avatar beautification.

[Pamela Galli]

11 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

So dramatic. It's really not as complex as this thread is catastrophizing it to be.

Okay, some people knit for fun.

[Marianne Little]

BoM is really not a new idea, but a step back to old days and using layers. People who joined SL when it was only appliers, and the system body was all hidden in an alpha layer, for them BoM must be a totally new way of thinking.

When the mesh body, head and eyes are worn and set to BoM, they work almost like the old default body, only smoother without jagged edges and paddle feet. Wear system eyes and they show up, wear skin and it show up. But now it is also tattoo layers called "skin" and that angers and frustrates people. Those who has used layers before and was in SL when multiple layers and tattoo layers was introduced, would they not like BoM and handle tattoo layers? I loved to layer up, that I was limited on heads that had only appliers annoyed me.

The hiding of body parts to make mesh clothes fit is more difficult since it can be done in 3-4 ways.

1:Creators can add a script that does the hiding for you. Are the creator really good, the invisible parts goes visible again when the clothes are removed. '

2: The body parts is hidden when you wear the clothes, but does not revert when you take it off, so you must open the alpha page of the HUD and click them back.

3: It is an alpha layer included, wear it with the clothes and take it off when you take off the clothes.

4: It is none of the solutions listed over, but you have to open the alpha page of your HUD and click to hide what need to be hidden.

As long as you understand why some clothes hide your body and look perfect on, and others don't, you know how to fix your clothes. No matter how well mesh clothes is made, I have found out that tight long sleeves need to have the elbows hidden. Or else they poke through when the arms are lifted and bent. This is known.

If you do not want to use the HUD to hide body parts, it is made sets of alpha layers. One I know of is from LBD (Little Black Dress). And since they work on male bodies too, you can use them. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/LBD-BOMSystem-Alpha-Layers-Full-Perm/18683103

It is easier to save outfits with an alpha layer for clothes. I have read about "save sticks" but I have not bothered with them, since I do not wear an outfit again. Well, a few times I do.

And in demos with alpha layers, you can use only the alpha layer for other outfits and delete the rest.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Marianne Little

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

BoM is really not a new idea, but a step back to old days and using layers. People who joined SL when it was only appliers, and the system body was all hidden in an alpha layer, for them BoM must be a totally new way of thinking.

When the mesh body, head and eyes are worn and set to BoM, they work almost like the old default body, only smoother without jagged edges and paddle feet. Wear system eyes and they show up, wear skin and it show up. But now it is also tattoo layers called "skin" and that angers and frustrates people. Those who has used layers before and was in SL when multiple layers and tattoo layers was introduced, would they not like BoM and handle tattoo layers? I loved to layer up, that I was limited on heads that had only appliers annoyed me.

The hiding of body parts to make mesh clothes fit is more difficult since it can be done in 3-4 ways.

1:Creators can add a script that does the hiding for you. Are the creator really good, the invisible parts goes visible again when the clothes are removed. '

2: The body parts is hidden when you wear the clothes, but does not revert when you take it off, so you must open the alpha page of the HUD and click them back.

3: It is an alpha layer included, wear it with the clothes and take it off when you take off the clothes.

4: It is none of the solutions listed over, but you have to open the alpha page of your HUD and click to hide what need to be hidden.

As long as you understand why some clothes hide your body and look perfect on, and others don't, you know how to fix your clothes. No matter how well mesh clothes is made, I have found out that tight long sleeves need to have the elbows hidden. Or else they poke through when the arms are lifted and bent. This is known.

If you do not want to use the HUD to hide body parts, it is made sets of alpha layers. One I know of is from LBD (Little Black Dress). And since they work on male bodies too, you can use them. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/LBD-BOMSystem-Alpha-Layers-Full-Perm/18683103

It is easier to save outfits with an alpha layer for clothes. I have read about "save sticks" but I have not bothered with them, since I do not wear an outfit again. Well, a few times I do.

And in demos with alpha layers, you can use only the alpha layer for other outfits and delete the rest.

Sid's head just exploded all over the GD.

[MoiraKathleen]

I started in SL with the system body, just when mesh clothes and then mesh bodies were first coming out.  When I finally switched to a mesh body, I found appliers to be very confusing.  

I think BOM has made everything much easier and it's very familiar to what I had been doing prior to mesh bodies. 

Today, in my opinion, for a new person wanting a female body, a Lara Maitreya with the BOM option turned off would be the easiest to start out with, since clothing for Lara is just about everywhere, plus the HUD still has the layers available for turning on/off even when in BOM mode.   

I think it is easier and less confusing today than it was during the pre-BOM applier-only stage of mesh bodies.

[esmellinda]

I just joined SL and I cannot figure any of it out, not even how to get help in getting started. It seems to be very badly designed and overwhelming, at least for someone new. I probably won't use it because it seems to require too much time and effort to even understand it, much less navigate it.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, esmellinda said:

I just joined SL and I cannot figure any of it out, not even how to get help in getting started. It seems to be very badly designed and overwhelming, at least for someone new. I probably won't use it because it seems to require too much time and effort to even understand it, much less navigate it.

I think this is, as many have said above, a serious problem with SL: the learning curve is very high, relative to other kinds of somewhat similar platforms. LL is working (we think and hope) to alleviate that problem a bit, but a central stumbling block is that almost all of the content is produced by users.

For what it's worth, if you can persevere a bit, I think you'll find the rewards outweigh the initial pain. The things that make SL more difficult to grasp are also what make it more powerful than other platforms. Nearly infinite possibilities for avatar customization, for instance. And an incredibly diversity of experience and things to do, ranging from taking in digital art, hanging out in coffee shops, dancing and listening to live music, or role playing any number of different kinds of stories.

There IS help out there for new residents. You might try Caledon-Oxbridge, for instance, which usually has real people on hand to help out, and lots of automated tutorials as well. Here's the SLURL: click on this here while you've got the SL viewer open, and it will open the Landmark that lets you teleport there.

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Caledon Oxbridge/92/198/28

Edited August 2, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, esmellinda said:

I just joined SL and I cannot figure any of it out, not even how to get help in getting started. It seems to be very badly designed and overwhelming, at least for someone new. I probably won't use it because it seems to require too much time and effort to even understand it, much less navigate it.

There are quite a few avatars in your library folder in inventory.  You can choose one of those to start.  Simply right click on a folder and replace current outfit.

If you want to upgrade from those, you'll have to purchase specific parts from various stores in SL.  There are also free or nearly free options, also for mesh bodies and heads.  Some require you to join a group.  There are also thousands of YouTube videos on customizing your avatar.

 

[NevaehHeartstrings]

On 1/6/2022 at 12:45 AM, Lauren Delvalle said:

I hope you guys will pardon me for a bit of a rant, although it comes from a place of love and genuine concern about the future of SL. But OMG has second life ever become confusing! I guess I should start out here by stating, I am not a noob. I've been in SL more than 13 years. So you would think I could navigate all of the new developments . I'm usually a quick study, I know how to search for answers....but I swear, I am hitting one wall after another when it comes to even something as simple as getting dressed anymore. My bom body skin doesn't show up on my legacy body. I remove alpha's...and select Bakes On Mesh, and then my eyes don't show up. Suddenly, my whole head doesn't show up, when the "outfit" worked perfectly only yesterday. I downloaded the black dragon viewer because I love to take pictures...but whoops, ever since, my neck and collarbone are black. I tried to correct it with the legacy neck-fix...unsuccessfully, and have since not been able to find any way to remove the "neck fix" color, even after re-applying my skinnery body BOM. I've clicked the eraser on the lower right of the screen again and again, but it is not removed. I started fresh with a re-delivery of my classic body. I copied display settings from someone who seemed very knowledgeable on youtube...in case it was a viewer issue, to no avail.  I cleared the cache.  It just seems like a constant struggle, every step of the way. While I do appreciate the advancements that are surely better than the olden days...I shudder to think about what a new person, just logging into SL would have to contend with today. If I am struggling, with a fair amount of knowledge and years of experience...how on earth would a new person navigate all of this?

 

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.

[Ceka Cianci]

I've helped quite a few people lately and each time it reminds me just how huge the learning curve still is at the beginning and how much lack of information there is to guide new users..

Honestly, if it wasn't for the community picking up the slack where they left off, retention would be way worse than it is already.

I just think every time I'm teaching someone to use a hud or even the basics of a viewer, how long it would take someone  on their own to get the hang of it..

It's no wonder why people just give up and leave.

Any time I help someone that has never been here before and is a couple of days old, it's really eye opening and brings me back down to earth, going from scratch to getting them where they can navigate enough on their own..

I mean they are gonna have to do better than an entrance way that is pretty much learning how to hop skip and jump and then off you go into the wide world of second life. good luck.

 

 

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

22 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I just think every time I'm teaching someone to use a hud or even the basics of a viewer, how long it would take someone  on their own to get the hang of it..

This is one of the reasons the NUX avatars might be really useful, if they include simply HUDs and other features that function as a sort of built-in tutorial on how to use these features.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This is one of the reasons the NUX avatars might be really useful, if they include simply HUDs and other features that function as a sort of built-in tutorial on how to use these features.

That's really just the tip of the iceberg. They have to approach it as if there was no community here and each new user is the first person stepping into their world..

I made two alts over the last few years to see what it was like entering from when I first got here..

I went through the little game of jump over this, do this to run, this to walk and so on.. Like the barest minimum there is..

That might have been just over a year ago that I did that.. then after that ended up in this huge room with teleports that would take me out into the world landing who knows where..

It's seriously lacking at the start.. Mesh body is something that should come way after the viewer education.

They should start at the start not the middle.

 

 

 

[Persephone Emerald]

I wonder if LL has figured out yet that most new users are either not smart enough, not patient enough, or not invested enough to figure out how to use SL on their own. It's like creating this really good game, but not having any instructions included, so you have to have a friend who understands it explain how to play it. 

[Rolig Loon]

7 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

I wonder if LL has figured out yet that most new users are either not smart enough, not patient enough, or not invested enough to figure out how to use SL on their own.

There are encouraging signs.  As Rowan pointed out earlier, there's a growing number of tutorial videos in the Second Life University collection.  The one on customizing your avatar is pretty well done and should give new users a much better start than they had in the past.

To your point directly, getting started in SL will always require either a reasonably good intelligence, a fair amount of patience, or a potential investment of energy. That's not a cheap shot at newbies; it's recognition that newcomers often have expectations that are not in tune with SL's reality. This is not a "drop in for an afternoon and try it out" world.  If you come here expecting to be able to hit the ground running, you'll probably need to recalibrate those expectations. That's actually one area where Linden Lab ought to focus a bit more of its marketing, shaping public perceptions of SL so that potential newcomers are less likely to be surprised by the learning curve.