Why are so few bodies moddable? A discussion topic!

[Salt Peppermint]

25 minutes ago, xDancingStarx said:

I'm trying to come up with the last item that gave me a headache because it wasn't mod, but I cannot remember it. This is also interesting because I do not often check the "mod" filter on the marketplace. What I occasionally do is unlink certain parts of a mesh, or at least assign a transparent texture to the face so that it's not visible. Not being able to do such only because the creator is afraid of potential additional support questions would just feel terrible, where they could just state something like "no support for modded items" or whatever. In the end, according to my experience, luckily the majority of creators doesn't see it your way.

it might very well depend on the item and also on the amount you are selling. I am not afraid of "potential additional support questions" , I know exactly what I will get. In some rare cases I still add parts that can be modded for optional personal logo customization and such, and just for that, the amount of questions and explanations is orbiting. Of course it will differ from creator to creator, hence some absolutely do offer mod items and that's great! It's just some explanation why some don't want to offer it (anymore). 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Salt Peppermint

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, Salt Peppermint said:

I can only speak from my personal experience and agree to the reason of making anything mod, not only triples the customer service time but raises it into orbit, leaving you completely drained and with no time to create anything else.

If making your items no mod increases the amount of customer service you need to provide, you're either not doing something you should be or you're doing something you should not be doing.

Have a problem with a no mod item and can't fix it? REDELIVER if you don't already have a copy in inventory.

Issue with a modable item, can't fix it? REDELIVER.

Otherwise, you need to fix the issue with your item and then provide your customers with the fixed version. Most everything else is going to be an issue of lack of communication between chair and keyboard, something you can't fix unless you are sitting in that chair.

All of that comes from 18 years of experience in SL alone, not to mention the 45 plus years of experience in RL.

[Coffee Pancake]

I have always sold stuff as copy & mod, where I think people are going to tinker I have taken the time to document how the parts work etc.

Sometimes people have questions and 99 times out of 100, nothing at all to do with trying to mod the item.

I would not consider making something mod a support burden, especially when some thought is made about what people might do with a mod item when designing and scripting the product.

• It must be copyable, so the user can start over in the event of a screw up.
• It must include some documentation or notes detailing any potential gotchas.
• It must be scripted in such a way that the link order is not set in stone.
• It must include a full perm lighting bake if retexturing is something the user might attempt.
• It must not have unnecessary paranoia about content thieves baked in.
• Pirates are gonna pirate and being a jerk about my objects perms or construction only gives them more incentive, first step on the road to piracy is often frustration.
• I must be receptive to the needs of customers, if they try and fail to mod something, maybe I messed up - For every person that says something, there are more who don't.

Yes, making a product intentionally modify out the gate does take a little more effort than just ticking the perms box, but only a little.

[Emma Krokus]

I get beyond frustrated with no mod items. Taking things apart has been a huge part of my learning experience.

My expectations of a seller are to make sure that things work as advertised, and there is support if there's a problem with that.

But... ANYTHING I add, alter, etc. is totally on me. I am VERY happy with "There's no customer support for any modification you make for this item"...

     - UNLESS the ability to modify the item is THE selling point. In which case I totally agree with Coffee's requirements as stated above.

 

 

 

 

[Salt Peppermint]

3 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

Have a problem with a no mod item and can't fix it? REDELIVER if you don't already have a copy in inventory.

Issue with a modable item, can't fix it? REDELIVER.

 

it would be so amazing if it would be that simple. 

luckily we have all kind of content in SL, so people can find whatever they need or even make it themselves. the beauty of SL

[Coffee Pancake]

16 minutes ago, Salt Peppermint said:

it would be so amazing if it would be that simple. 

It actually is that simple, that's literally why that's a thing.

16 minutes ago, Salt Peppermint said:

luckily we have all kind of content in SL, so people can find whatever they need or even make it themselves. the beauty of SL

Or just pirate the frustrating content and upload it themselves

[Silent Mistwalker]

41 minutes ago, Salt Peppermint said:

it would be so amazing if it would be that simple. 

luckily we have all kind of content in SL, so people can find whatever they need or even make it themselves. the beauty of SL

Prepare to be amazed then because it is that simple.

[Salt Peppermint]

6 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Prepare to be amazed then because it is that simple.

it's wonderful if it's like that for you. ❤️ my experience is very different 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

Why wouldn't it be that simple?

[Silent Mistwalker]

Not going to waste any more of my time.

[Blaise Glendevon]

How many people actually need or want to mod their bodies, though? The desire to do granular mods on a off-the-rack consumer item is pretty niche. Most people just want to dress up and aren't worried about the fine details. 

[Mercedes Avon]

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but most bodies are one solid mesh minus the hands or feet, and even a lot of bodies do not separate those things. Thus, someone can not un-link their leg and re-link it to their hand, face or wherever strikes their fancy. Right?

Hell, I can attach my body to my eyeball and it will pop into place because it's rigged. I would love the ability to remove the onion layers if I want to reduce complexity or remove the scripts if I don't want to be booted out of events because my body has dozens of scripts in it. You have the option to remove the scripts via the HUD with Maitreya (I think).  I remember and their new version makes the onion layers separate. Kudos! If other bodies are not willing to offer the same advantages, then I think they should offer the body as modifiable. Reborn offers a modifiable version of their body and so far I haven't heard that they are suffering any CSR nightmares.

I do not know how removing all the scripts would effect BOM. Maybe someone else can explain how removing them would affect that (if at all).

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

How many people actually need or want to mod their bodies, though? The desire to do granular mods on a off-the-rack consumer item is pretty niche. Most people just want to dress up and aren't worried about the fine details. 

It may very well be that most people wouldn't modify their body outside of what some HUD allows them to do, but in that case, having modify-perms on the body is not a detriment. With no-modify, you can't do something as simple as rename the object in your inventory. I'm very tired of looking at 12 sequential copies of "Maitreya Lara" in the product folder.

1 hour ago, Mercedes Avon said:

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but most bodies are one solid mesh minus the hands or feet, and even a lot of bodies do not separate those things. Thus, someone can not un-link their leg and re-link it to their hand, face or wherever strikes their fancy. Right?

Almost all mesh bodies are made up of dozens of mesh sections (and each section is further divided into 8 faces) because alpha cuts cannot exists otherwise. An object cannot have more than 8 faces on it in Second Life due to technical limitations. There are bodies that don't do this (relying on BOM instead), but they are the exception. The rigging information in the mesh itself makes sure that they appear solid and always in the right place.

1 hour ago, Mercedes Avon said:

You have the option to remove the scripts via the HUD with Maitreya (I think).  I remember and their new version makes the onion layers separate. Kudos! If other bodies are not willing to offer the same advantages, then I think they should offer the body as modifiable.

Try bringing this up with Legacy and you'll get laughed out of the group chat. Customer support will tell you it's not possible to remove scripts through the HUD because "people will break it"/"the body needs scripts to work", and you can't even pay for a modifiable version.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Persephone Emerald]

If I buy an item that looks good and works well and it's No Mod, no problem. If I think it could look better or work better and I can modify it, then I can figure out how to make it better and feel proud of myself for doing so. If I don't like how it looks or works and it's No Mod, also no problem, because I just delete it and probably don't shop from that store again.

1 hour ago, Mercedes Avon said:

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but most bodies are one solid mesh minus the hands or feet, and even a lot of bodies do not separate those things. Thus, someone can not un-link their leg and re-link it to their hand, face or wherever strikes their fancy. Right?

Hell, I can attach my body to my eyeball and it will pop into place because it's rigged. I would love the ability to remove the onion layers if I want to reduce complexity or remove the scripts if I don't want to be booted out of events because my body has dozens of scripts in it. You have the option to remove the scripts via the HUD with Maitreya (I think).  I remember and their new version makes the onion layers separate. Kudos! If other bodies are not willing to offer the same advantages, then I think they should offer the body as modifiable. Reborn offers a modifiable version of their body and so far I haven't heard that they are suffering any CSR nightmares.

I do not know how removing all the scripts would effect BOM. Maybe someone else can explain how removing them would affect that (if at all).

Most mesh bodies are made of several versions of their parts all linked together. When there are different foot shapes, each of those shapes is a separate piece, with only one at a time visible. Same with different breast or nipple shapes. Then there are the applier layers (also called onion layers), which lay over the body like multiple skins.

I recently got the free Belleza optimizer script on Marketplace to delete the applier layers from the modifiable version of Belleza bodies. If you drop it into the body, it deletes these layers very nicely and leaves you with a body with a little more than half it's normal ARC. I decided I wanted to remove the mesh nipples too, and in doing so found this messed up the scripts for the feet. For each version of the nipples I deleted, a different foot shape was now invisible. It was even stranger when I only deleted one version of the nipples, then I had missing feet in one version, double feet in 2 versions, and a piece of my left arm invisible. I wouldn't even to dare try to mess with the scripts on something as complicated as a mesh body.

Removing scripts should not affect Bakes on Mesh, because that is accomplished with a texture on the body surface.

Edited March 27, 2022 by Persephone Emerald
to add info

[Finite]

On 3/26/2022 at 9:29 AM, Cinos Field said:

I can kind of get that, but wouldn't just having two versions be an easy solution? One mod that you don't support, and one no mod that you do... surely customers would understand that!

Or do what one vendor I know does and include a notecard stating "modify at your own risk" with a tip to make a copy for a backup or save the original container. I've always felt that "i dont want to deal with customer issues" as a pretty poor excuse.

That being said, I can only see bad things happening from modifying a body. I can only imagine the cleanup I'd have to do after unlinking one.

[Coffee Pancake]

3 hours ago, Mercedes Avon said:

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but most bodies are one solid mesh minus the hands or feet,

A mesh can only have 8 faces.

If you want to be able to show and hide sections of your body, each section has to be it's own face.

How many sections does your body have in total, divide by 8, then multiply by each of the layers (tattoo, underwear, etc etc), and that's the minimum number of meshes that body can be.

It can easily push 100 meshes .. that the viewer has to animate individually each and every frame. This is why we can't have crowds.

 

If you want a body that doesn't do this, so far, it's Kupra or bust

 

(sorry😂)

 

[Mercedes Avon]

I learned something new today. Thanks for explaining it.

[Silent Mistwalker]

33 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A mesh can only have 8 faces.

If you want to be able to show and hide sections of your body, each section has to be it's own face.

How many sections does your body have in total, divide by 8, then multiply by each of the layers (tattoo, underwear, etc etc), and that's the minimum number of meshes that body can be.

It can easily push 100 meshes .. that the viewer has to animate individually each and every frame. This is why we can't have crowds.

 

If you want a body that doesn't do this, so far, it's Kupra or bust

 

(sorry😂)

 

 

Or they could just go back to using system bodies... *runs like hellhounds are after her*

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

Or they could just go back to using system bodies... *runs like hellhounds are after her*

If LL had ever been engaged we would be on the 10th revision of the system body by now and none of this mess would have happened.

It also wouldn't have been a surprise that people would make rigged mesh clothing the standard, nor would it have taken 12 years for them to think about addressing the performance issues.

[Paul Hexem]

7 hours ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

How many people actually need or want to mod their bodies, though?

That's an incredibly... limited view, at best.

Even if you don't include fixing bugs or "features" you disagree with, simple conveniences like being able to tint colors or change materials settings is a huge thing. I've thrown away more than one head because the hud that's supposed to turn off materials only turns it down to 0.1 or something, which is still extremely obvious because they didn't bother to include a way to apply a materials layer that matches your skin, even if the skin maker included it.

8 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Or just pirate the frustrating content and upload it themselves

That's my favorite part of these conversations. Generally the people that complain the loudest about pirated content make their stuff in a fashion that encourages pirating their content.

[Kadah Coba]

One of the old and non-imaginary reasons I have heard for the no-mod body practice was to make walled-gardens and/or control who is allowed to make content for their body. Though much of that now comes down to devkit access (or lack of), if the no-mod body supports BOM that is, and how much time and effort an "unauthorized" creator wishes to put in to making stuff blind or doing reverse-engineering.

I guess that is a valid reason, but its kinda mean. I am coming from the furry side though where mod tends to be default on everything, and a) dev kits are available to anybody and usually b) either they are included in the box or are a public download on the creators' website/wiki/kb/blog/discord. Still seems like a weird practice to me every time non-furry friends rant about how the devkit for some mesh body is very expensive and also only available to select people (ie. not them). I might be missing something, but it seems like it'd be better for them if there was more creators making stuff for their mesh bods, not less...

 

On 3/26/2022 at 6:10 AM, Ajay McDowwll said:

why the body doesn't work when you've unlinked and relinked

Because bad/lazy scripting? A basic functionality I would expect for a thing that has to interact with linked objects is that that the order of those links does not have to be immutable. I should be able to remove or add to the linkset without breaking functionality as long as the object names are what it expects.

[Cinos Field]

13 hours ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

How many people actually need or want to mod their bodies, though? The desire to do granular mods on a off-the-rack consumer item is pretty niche. Most people just want to dress up and aren't worried about the fine details. 

For me, examples I've done are mainly optimization:

Removed layers that I don't use. Unliked various foot positions to be worn separately. Removed scripts. Basically everything I can so I put as little unnecessary load on the sim and other players as possible. Yes, it's very niche, but on the other hand, you'll appreciate it subconsciously!

[Lucia Nightfire]

The "What if they unlink and relink it out of order?" argument is a joke in this day and age and I've heard many a CSR and head/body scripter cite it.

For almost 5 years, we've been in the era of OBJECT_CREATION_TIME which is effectively a unique identifier for mesh.

I've written alpha cut show/hide and applier scripts that work on bodies no matter what links are added, removed, renamed and in any link order.

Anyone citing antiquated concepts needs to update their scripting education. 😤

[Qie Niangao]

13 hours ago, Finite said:

Or do what one vendor I know does and include a notecard stating "modify at your own risk" with a tip to make a copy for a backup or save the original container. I've always felt that "i dont want to deal with customer issues" as a pretty poor excuse.

That being said, I can only see bad things happening from modifying a body. I can only imagine the cleanup I'd have to do after unlinking one.

That backup copy isn't even necessary as long as redelivery is supported.

Also I really question how much customer support is required of modifiable content when the claim is made concerning a bunch of different colored party dresses and lingerie.

Clearly a customer can benefit by being able to tweak materials or subtly tint colors of any apparel. A mesh body, though, might be a more advanced bit of tweaking. That said, though, one might be surprised how easy it is to reassemble an unlinked body in a sandbox. One good thing about the V3 "Jake" body is that it comes with a modifiable version, so it can be stripped of extra "onionskin" layers and have scripts removed for efficiency as long as the user will eschew the old "alpha cuts" / auto-alpha kludge in favor of proper BOM alpha masks.

Losing the legacy layers, however, doesn't make as huge a difference as one might expect because, I gather, those masked full-alpha layers aren't rendered at all iff they're part of an attachment. Still it feels like good "computing hygiene" not to be dragging around all that invisible geometry.

[Lucia Nightfire]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

That backup copy isn't even necessary as long as redelivery is supported.

And a redelivery isn't necessary if a box is given instead of a folder.

Just rez the box and get a new copy out of it.