The "No Mod" thing has to go... ( Rant Season 2022 )

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Marigold Devin said:

They've fished you in today. 

Don't take the bait. 

Something tells me, I might see the effects later.

[Marigold Devin]

1 minute ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

Meh, i felt kinda hungry and wanted a nibble  

Good for you. I was like that a few days ago. Novelty has worn off now though and it gives me indigestion.  

[Rowan Amore]

22 minutes ago, Tama Suki said:

Still, I'm starting to understand you.
When you understand that you are wrong you do not admit it and you go away puffing with the promise that you will find me somewhere to catch my mistake.
But look, I don't need to find you wrong to communicate with you.
On the contrary. I believe that you are a pleasant person.

Nope, I've admitted when I was wrong.  This isn't one of those times.  

I also was not meaning that I'll catch your mistake as I'm sure others will do that.  We both know to what I am referring.  

I'm quite a pleasant person.  I cease to be when talked to in a demeaning way or when I see others being treated with the same disrespect.

The OP.was specifically asking the CLOTHING creators make MOD clothing.  No one suggested LL do away with permissions entirely.  Capisci?

 

 

[Dyna Mole]

Not directed to anyone in particular, but as a reminder of the Community Standards: Please avoid hostile or disruptive posts, or messages intended to incite an angry response. Spirited discussion and constructive disagreement are welcome, but please try to do it without using insensitive language.

[Tama Suki]

Anyway.

In my opinion, complaining about the rules imposed by the LL because you made a foolish purchase from a bad author is a total nonsense.

[Finite]

1 hour ago, Tama Suki said:

Anyway.

In my opinion, complaining about the rules imposed by the LL because you made a foolish purchase from a bad author is a total nonsense.

What is complaining about people complaining (who aren't actually complaining) called exactly?

Edited January 15, 2022 by Finite

[Madelaine McMasters]

3 hours ago, Finite said:

The maps aren't required for doing basic tints or even for adding some roughness or specs to the piece. I do this quite regularly. They're helpful for sure but not required. And I would see no reason why someone wouldn't just include the maps in a folder full perm. They would only work for that mesh and have no value to anyone other than customers who has purchased the product and wanted to personalize it. Worst case scenario, someone makes a custom color/texture changer hud for that one piece and tries to sell they hud to a limited clientele of people who purchased the product. I've bought a couple of pieces recently that included full perm maps that weren't for the intended purpose of reselling. The product was still no trans.

Here's an example of a BOM tee-shirt I designed a decade ago, tinted the color of the "We Can Do It" text.

This shows the limitations of "basic" multiplicative tinting. In the extreme, tinting anything black removes all detail from the texture, producing uniform black. Fairly monochromatic textures lightly shaded to mimic wrinkles and folds might surviving some tinting, but anything textured to mimic sheen (think latex or sequins) will suffer terribly, even with slight tinting. Diffuse surfaces reflect their color, reflective surfaces reflect the color of the light source. Tinting ruins the reflective component of a texture.

Specular and normal maps can expand the tintable range of monochromatic textures, but they don't address the problem of tinting full color textures as shown above.

To make textures truly tintable, creators would need to supply all the texture layers, for combination in an external tool like Photoshop. Full perm mesh clothing kits generally supply base textures, with shading to mimic folds, wrinkles and the like, but with proscriptions against distribution of those textures in the final products. Follow on creators, then add additional layers (plaids, stripes, etc), baking them all together to produce an array of saleable variations. If we want all that stuff to be mod, we're pushing very close to mandating full perm of all textures, both in-world and out.

It seems to me that there are two independent ideas running through this thread:

1) Accuracy and full disclosure in advertising.
2) Requirements that object be "mod".

I'm 100% for 1) but think 2) is best left to market forces.

For things in fatpacks or with color HUDs, I don't purchase until I've demoed the colors I want. If a creator takes the risk of offering mod at the expense of selling variations, they should be compensated for it. We're all free to vote with our pocketbooks.

[MoiraKathleen]

Sometimes when a demo for a fatpack doesn't come with the HUD containing all the colors or a provided tinting tool, I have found that each different body version in the demo contains a different color or pattern.  After trying out the version for the body I wear, in the absence of a demo HUD, I try out the other body versions just to see if they are different colors or patterns. 

If I was really set on a particular color (or shade of a color) which was not included in the demo, I would pass on buying the item.  Even if the item was mod, unless one of the included items was white, without a provided HUD or provided tinting tool, there's only so much you can do using the just edit window color picker, because whatever color you choose will be on top of the original item's color.  

[Persephone Emerald]

51 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Here's an example of a BOM tee-shirt I designed a decade ago, tinted the color of the "We Can Do It" text.

This shows the limitations of "basic" multiplicative tinting. In the extreme, tinting anything black removes all detail from the texture, producing uniform black. Fairly monochromatic textures lightly shaded to mimic wrinkles and folds might surviving some tinting, but anything textured to mimic sheen (think latex or sequins) will suffer terribly, even with slight tinting. Diffuse surfaces reflect their color, reflective surfaces reflect the color of the light source. Tinting ruins the reflective component of a texture.

Specular and normal maps can expand the tintable range of monochromatic textures, but they don't address the problem of tinting full color textures as shown above.

To make textures truly tintable, creators would need to supply all the texture layers, for combination in an external tool like Photoshop. Full perm mesh clothing kits generally supply base textures, with shading to mimic folds, wrinkles and the like, but with proscriptions against distribution of those textures in the final products. Follow on creators, then add additional layers (plaids, stripes, etc), baking them all together to produce an array of saleable variations. If we want all that stuff to be mod, we're pushing very close to mandating full perm of all textures, both in-world and out.

It seems to me that there are two independent ideas running through this thread:

1) Accuracy and full disclosure in advertising.
2) Requirements that object be "mod".

I'm 100% for 1) but think 2) is best left to market forces.

For things in fatpacks or with color HUDs, I don't purchase until I've demoed the colors I want. If a creator takes the risk of offering mod at the expense of selling variations, they should be compensated for it. We're all free to vote with our pocketbooks.

In RL, someone *could* buy an expensive designer outfit and then ruin it by dying it a different color. In SL one simply needs to tint a modifiable item to see for themselves if that would ruin it or not, and if it does ruin said item, they can untint it. If they change the texture and thus ruin it, well then they should have had enough sense to make a copy first, or maybe they'll be lucky and have a redelivery option. I believe customers should be allowed to make mistakes so they can learn from them and so they can appreciate the work the creator has put into making that item.

I'm all for allowing *most* items to be modifiable, but not scripts, because once a person can view a script, they can copy and resell it ad infinitum.

When one is about to buy something relatively expensive in SL, look for the permissions and try a demo. If that doesn't work for you, then you have one less shop to shop in, but there are plenty more to choose from in SL.

[Pamela Galli]

I don’t sell no mod products, but I empathize a little bit with those who do. When someone tints my soft peachy villa purple and black, and decorates it like Mar a Lago, I wince at the thought that my name is on it as creator.

But it’s the buyer’s villa and she can do with it as she pleases. 

 

 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

9 hours ago, HarutoYoko said:

Man, when you purchase some clothes that are suppose to be black but are actually gray.. When the demo only offers one set color that you cannot chose from. You purchase the item because it looks dark enough and "NOPE" sorry it's actually not the color you wanted. Then when you talk to the creators they give you some lame excuse as if you're born yesterday. Me, I make some items and I scripted some items it isn't hard to make an object mod and your scripts no mod. At least try to invest into a tint hud but that seems way to difficult for some or they just want to have complete control. You try to ask a clothing creator for a mod version/darker of their item and you get these two answers, "I have my reasons" or "Color as is". Best case they make a new color but it's not to your specifications. Worst case they tell you it cannot be modded due to something to do with the scripts. I hope that someday in the future SL allows the ability to mess with the ability to tint clothing to ones liking. I know content creators have their rights but darn if I want to throw paint on my pants or my shirt I should have that ability too. I wonder why SL won't come to some sort of middle ground with this? Come on SL do something, let us have the ability to mod our clothing even if in a limited capacity such as tinting! 

What do you guys think? Will be stuck in the no mod season forever? Or can SL actually come to some sort of middle ground? What is your ideas on how SL could implement or why they shouldn't implement?

The permissions systems that the Lindens created is really an act of genius and rightly flies in the face of Creative Commonism and other systems that want to encourage the ignoring or actual defeat of copyright and IP protection and that provide no option for "buy this item and let me keep the rights to it" as a means of combating capitalism and commerce.

And it's based on free choice -- a creator gets to put what they want on their product. If you don't like it, you don't buy it. If you are burned once by clothing that doesn't work right, you'll only buy from those that supply demos in the future. 

It's rare that I will buy a building that is on "no mod" or "no copy" because both these restrictions make for buildings you cannot fix when broken and cannot replace if they get lost on accidental return. So I don't buy such buildings or furniture unless it seems really really special or beautiful, say, a gatcha rare -- and even there I tended to favour those creators who had a machine at their store that converted single copy gatches on transfer to copy/no transfer. And that's the marketplace. It's a blessing. It's free. It's rich and diverse. And thank God for it.

If I do buy a no-mod creation, it's because it is very beautiful or very "necessary" to complete some project or scene. And then I do take off a star for not having mod. Some creators don't provide mod in the mistaken belief that they are more susceptible to copybotting that way, but that's not true. The rogue viewers and bad actors don't need mod on an object to copy it. Others are ignorant of the Singer Sewing Machine case at the turn of the last century and don't think buyers should "ruin" their creation or vision by changing, say, a colour or dimension. The "right to repair" movement you see on YouTube and other social media is related -- if you buy an expensive iphone, there are geeks who say you should have the right to "jailbreak it" or gain full access to it to repair it.  I'm not aware that jailbreaking has been upheld as a consumer right in a court of law, maybe it has.

I don't buy very many clothes and of course if I buy some Happy 60L thing I was lured into getting as a "shiny," and I can't alter it to fit my non-mesh system body, I'm annoyed, but then it's my fault for not trying to demo or spending more money at a place that always has the demos. 

I just think we can't ask the Lindens to jump over the free and diverse system they created which makes a more or less realistic free marketplace. There is only one way to discourage those with no mod: don't buy from them. But I've never found a creator that changes their ways because they lost a few customers who insist on mod. They're oblivious or indifferent and they know their own worth much of the time.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Tama Suki]

5 hours ago, Finite said:

(who aren't actually complaining)

<"The "No Mod" thing has to go... ( Rant Season 2022 )>

 

[Tama Suki]

11 hours ago, Finite said:

MP makes up maybe 5%-10% of my shopping. I think most people shop at events and just use MP when looking for something specific. MP is generally a last resort for me personally. I buy most things at events or in store. I think in the MP you are required to mark the permissions when you list something. But in world it's not a requirement or anything. At least not that I am aware of.

I also prefer shopping inworld.
Also because there are often shops created in skyboxes that are very attractive and pleasing to the eye, so shopping becomes a great experience. Generally I also open the profile and the MP of the author, then if I find an author I like and become his regular client I prefer to use the MP because it is more practical. However, I have hardly ever met an author who sells products without specifying permissions, both in world and in MP.

Ah here. I wanted to add that the scripts are a different type of product and therefore it is reasonable to sell them no mods unless you get paid very well and they are well customized according to the client's requests.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Tama Suki

[Tama Suki]

10 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

you are not accepted on the forum

This comment of mine will probably be deleted but I still hope you can read it before it happens.
Your comment as well as finding it bizarrely immature and very comical I could also consider it as a hateful attitude to report.
But I will never report anyone because it is not part of my style.
Always keep in mind that I am a kombat-samurai-cyborg-ninja who follows the honorable path of Bushido and I prefer to concentrate on a tea ceremony or in observing the joyful petals of the cherry tree that elegantly rest on the surface of a lake.
I don't feel the need to be accepted by any club and this place is not a private club to submit a meticulously tailored resume for someone to accept. It is a space open to all.
(Anyway I'm falling in love with you)

[Gwin LeShelle]

I learned one thing from this thread ... From whom I will never buy a thing XD 

I sell things from like 20L upwards and I don't care if my customer needs assistance with an item they purchased for 50L or 500L if they need help or are unhappy with it I try to make it right so they enjoy it as much as I did when making it.

I don't make a class difference between my customers, SL is a relaxing and fun place for me and I surely want to make sure it's for my customers too. 

I think it says more about a person who says you should not complain or whimper when you haven't paid a certain amount, then about the customer that moped a little frustrated about a thing that we all already ran into XD 

[Tama Suki]

13 minutes ago, Gwin LeShelle said:

I learned one thing from this thread ... From whom I will never buy a thing XD 

I sell things from like 20L upwards and I don't care if my customer needs assistance with an item they purchased for 50L or 500L if they need help or are unhappy with it I try to make it right so they enjoy it as much as I did when making it.

I don't make a class difference between my customers, SL is a relaxing and fun place for me and I surely want to make sure it's for my customers too. 

I think it says more about a person who says you should not complain or whimper when you haven't paid a certain amount, then about the customer that moped a little frustrated about a thing that we all already ran into XD 

I did a lot of shopping and sometimes I happened to find a product that did not meet my standards or that looked good but was poor once purchased.
I never went to complain to anyone I simply avoided that manufacturer in subsequent purchases.
Probably someone I met him some time later and that realizing that he had improved his standard of him I gave another chance.
Of the products that I have sold in the past I have only had a bad review and so I have withdrawn it because it was a reasonable review.
The reviews that customers can leave on the market are also useful for this, perhaps above all for this.

[HarutoYoko]

14 hours ago, Tama Suki said:

I did a lot of shopping and sometimes I happened to find a product that did not meet my standards or that looked good but was poor once purchased.
I never went to complain to anyone I simply avoided that manufacturer in subsequent purchases.
Probably someone I met him some time later and that realizing that he had improved his standard of him I gave another chance.
Of the products that I have sold in the past I have only had a bad review and so I have withdrawn it because it was a reasonable review.
The reviews that customers can leave on the market are also useful for this, perhaps above all for this.

I am just going to say this and I am done.. Respectfully, You don't know what you're talking about. 
You earlier said something about immaturity but here you are arguing a topic you admitted you
know nothing about. So if SL said alright, we own your stuff since you admitted you didn't read the TOS
you basically just got screwed.

DOWN BELOW HERE IS TOS:

1.2 The Service exists only as long as and in the form that we may provide the Service, and all aspects of the Service, including your User Content, are subject to change or elimination.

"Linden Lab has the right to change, limit access to, and/or eliminate any aspect(s), feature(s) or functionality of the Service (including your User Content) as it sees fit at any time without notice, and Linden Lab makes no commitment, express or implied, to maintain or continue, or to permit open access to, any aspect of the Service. You acknowledge that your use of the Service is subject to this risk and that you knowingly assume it and make your decisions to participate in the Service, contribute Content and spend your money accordingly."

TLDR: Read your TOS it pertains to YOU a lot more than you think.
 

Your a customer arguing with a mechanic on how to fix a transmission and you never even looked at the car's manual or opened the hood.

[Sukubia Scarmon]

I'm still no fan of no-mod, never will be, and I do not know one good argument for it. 
However, that excludes things like scripts and notecards, which do have a good argument for being no-mod: Them being mod is the same as them being full perm. 

[CaithLynnSayes]

So aside from some of the clutter in this thread, i think it's safe to make the assumption that most of us don't like 'no mod' clothing but can get behind no mod scripts. I've seen the best argument for this topic when someone said to even allow the textures to be provided full perm so the end user can do his/her own thing with it. I'm also all for that but again, the reality of SL just isn't that. Creators seem to want to make money in SL, that means sell items per colour and discounted (mostly) as fatpacks. I know most of us would like to see it differently but that creator needs to make money. Because for example they have become somewhat popular and have an inworld store, that costs them money. Maybe they became well known and this is now their RL job, so a decent income has to be generated out of this. Compromises have to be made here. Do you pump out a lot of items at the possible cost of quality? Do you make only a few (at a time), but high quality items and need to generate your income off of those? If the latter, you may want to sell as much as possible, so selling per colour and not allowing to modify the item seems to be the go-to solution. It's just how the perm system got interpitated by creators and is now the benchmark for clothing.

 

What i'm saying is that all this is just basic economics. You could argue that LL may be slightly at fault here for charging (too much) for the inworld store this creator has to have. The cost of those are going to be factored into the sales and as said before, a solution for that is to maximize sales, aka sell per colour and don't allow to modify. Basic economics people...

Edited January 16, 2022 by CaithLynnSayes

[Maitimo]

I completely agree that mesh items (clothes, houses, furniture especially) should be mod and scripts or notecards should not. Also some scripted objects will break their functionality if modded, for example games which can be cheated on by adding additional scripts etc.   

For clothing, my main gripe with no-mod clothing is how many creators will un-necessarily leave their texture in Blended mode, which means long hair will make part of the clothing invisible and show your nipples to all-and-sundry. Blended textures are only needed for lacy or sheer clothing, and 99% of it is not. So, clothing makers please - if you don't want to make it mod, at least switch the texture mode to Masked or None.

There are other benefits to modifyable clothing besides just tinting it.

• You buy a bikini that's in one piece but you want to wear the bra only? Rez and unlink. Or if they're already separate, you can link them together to reduce attachment points used.
• Or you have a dress that you love but you hate the bow on the back? Detach the bow, or Select Face and turn it transparent.
• Materials too shiny and it looks like plastic? Turn down the glossiness.

Even something simple like re-naming it so that it falls in a certain order in your inventory, or to clarify what type of item it is without needing to wear it and look. 

I do get why they are doing it though, and where clothing is concerned, I don't think it has anything to do with preventing copybotting. I think it's solely to get people to spend more money on their range of 40-odd colours for L$299 each, or on their L$3,000 fatpack. It's a money-grab, nothing more and nothing less.  I simply cannot afford such a price, so rather than gaining extra sales, it loses a customer altogether and I spend my money in stores like Hilly Haalan, who prices her fatpacks at around L$200-300. Yes they are no mod but at that price I don't mind, and she has the good sense to not leave them in Alpha Blended mode.

On 1/14/2022 at 6:21 PM, Madelaine McMasters said:

If you want that level of modification, search for clothing kits, not finished clothing. To get good results, you might need to work with an external image editor.

 

Absolutely, and I do this a lot. There's no sense to me in spending L$3,000 on a 40 colour fatpack when I can buy a full-perm kit for L$500 plus a few texture uploads. To tint a texture properly takes more than just slapping a colour on over the AO-map. You need to work with layers, and the results are much better than simply using a greyscale base and tinting it inworld.

I know two clothing sellers (Krankhaus and Phae Bodyworks) who not only make their clothing mod but also supply the texture maps full-perm too (with the usual license agreements). I love that concept and I wish more creators would adopt it.

I mod furniture too; one of my favourite furniture makers is DO Designs; I love the animations but the texturing is all rather plain, so I regularly make my own textiles for it, to suit my decor.

On 1/14/2022 at 6:41 PM, HarutoYoko said:

Yea, I think there should be an ability to see if a store has mod objects but a no mod script. A lot of stores that sell mod content are hard to find unless they put that they are mod in the screenshot. I wish there was a way to tell the difference between the two.

I do think that more sellers are starting to get the message. We've already seen two mesh bodies released with modify permissions (Kalhene and Belleza) and I think this is a big step forward. KC Shoes, IMO already the best shoe store in SL, recently got 100 times better because all her new releases (and any new updates of older products) are now Mod (in addition to having a texture hud AND a tinting hud). 

I think what we need is some sort of directory, or at last a thread in the Fashion section of the forum, where people can list sellers they find whose clothing is sold with Mod permisssions. (in fact, gimme ten minutes and I'll go and do that myself)

 

On 1/14/2022 at 7:08 PM, Arielle Popstar said:

Pretty sure I have read that one can have a no mod script in a modifiable product.

This is correct. See KC Shoes, above.  The item will appear to be no-mod whilst in your inventory but once you rez it on the ground and go into Edit mode, it's fully mod. You can even remove the scripts if you want to, and if you do that, and take it back to inventory, that one instance will lose the "no mod" tag.

Vehicles are usually the same - Bandit Boats for example, have modifiable structure with no-mod scripts. Bandit too also supplies the texture maps so owners can make their own, and there's a big secondary market for re-texture packs.

 

 

[Dafadilia Wayfarer]

I agree that only certain items should be modifiable like clothing, furniture, houses, etc. I try to spend my money wisely even in Second Life. I try demos when available and look at all details before making a purchase. Even doing all this has some items purchased where something is wrong and needs to be fixed. An example is when I try a demo and everything about the item looks acceptable. I will purchase said item and go to use it only to find that it is set to full bright and the item is no mod. This has happened many times over the years and I've reached out to the creators explaining the issue. Most are very kind and will send over a fixed copy of the item, but I've had a few become very rude. If a creator is going to make an item no mod, they should make sure they are open to feedback when an item is messed up and needs work or everything is perfect before they box it up to sell. I expect the item I purchased to be everything the demo is and hopefully better than the demo if it is a no mod item.

There is also the issue of items being advertised very clearly as modifiable when they are not. Or when it isn't advertised as either at all. I've also reached out to creators when this happens and most again are very friendly, open and polite. Again, a few begin to rage just because a customer actually dared try to explain something was wrong with their product that needed attention.

I don't care what an item costs. Some of us are on tight budgets and we watch very carefully where our money goes in both worlds. The cost of an item doesn't determine if it is worthy of being fixed if something is wrong with it. It also should never determine when the creator is contacted or not. If something is faulty on a purchase that needs to be addressed, I will be contacting the creator. Throwing an item away before trying to get the issue addressed is wasteful. At least to me. From my own experience, most creators are very polite and appreciate being notified of problems that can easily be overlooked with products that are no mod.

It isn't complaining when people are expressing opinions intelligently of why they feel things should be changed. That is how change happens.

[Qie Niangao]

12 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

I completely agree that mesh items (clothes, houses, furniture especially) should be mod and scripts or notecards should not.

A total tangent, sorry, but I see creators make a notecard-related mistake often: Whereas there may be reasons not to want others to modify a notecard with oneself as creator, it's impossible to hide the contents of a notecard that a script reads. This does not apply to all notecards because scripts can only read text notecards without embedded assets (landmarks, textures, etc.) and you'll never see such stuff in a configuration notecard read by script. But I see a worrisome number of such configuration notecards (AVpos, retexturing settings, etc.) set no-mod where the creators may be thinking they're protecting the IP of the notecard contents, so it's important to realize that a notecard used by one script another trivial script can dump to chat or a browser.

(This is why configuration notecards often encrypt information such as texture UUIDs so the reading script must use a secret to decrypt those details)

[Maitimo]

And here we go:

 

[Sukubia Scarmon]

I'd like to add that while I mod a lot, and am able to make my own textures, I still buy fatpacks regulary. Because a red textured dress will always looks different, and much better, than a white dress tinted red, because with tinting, you also tint the highlights, which makes things look odd and dull. Most people I talked with understand and agree with that, and again, I never saw someone actually do that. So.. yeah, I don't think that's a good argument for stuff being nomod. 

[Pamela Galli]

3 hours ago, Sukubia Scarmon said:

Because a red textured dress will always looks different, and much better, than a white dress tinted red, because with tinting, you also tint the highlights, which makes things look odd and dull.

Yep. I get why some creators don’t want their names on something on which the shading and highlights have been tinted over.