Universal Layer question

[Consaidin]

Hey! I've been trying to create a BOM tattoo for one arm only and am using the legacy body.

 

I've tried a few things, but can't get a tattoo to show up on one arm - I've tried putting the skin on a universal layer too, and reordering so that the layer with the tattoo is above the skin layer, but I can't get it to show up (even if I just select 'blank' and take everything off, the arm does not show up white!) I feel like I'm missing something integral.

 

Any ideas?

[Paul Hexem]

System layers mirror the arms. 

[Quistess Alpha]

The single arm BOM slots only work if the body is textured in a way that supports them. it's possible that legacy may not be.

[Nalates Urriah]

Most body makers provide a Developer's Kit. The information you need to know how to make asymmetric tats for any body will be in the Dev Kit.

It is the body designer that makes it possible or not. If not, there is no way to make a texture for a tat that will work.

[Coffee Pancake]

3 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Most body makers provide a Developer's Kit.

Most body makers provide an application process to get access to a dev kit. It's a catch 22.

[Marianne Little]

This has been discussed before, but I never understood it 100%. Maybe the creator forum is better.

What I think must be for this to work, is to have the skin itself with the two arms textured.

Or else all efforts to try making one arm tattoos is going to fail. It stopped me there, because that's me going to need UUIDs of the skin. I am not its creator.

Maybe I got it wrong so ----> creator forum it is.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Marianne Little

[victoravatar]

11 hours ago, Consaidin said:

Hey! I've been trying to create a BOM tattoo for one arm only and am using the legacy body.

 

I've tried a few things, but can't get a tattoo to show up on one arm - I've tried putting the skin on a universal layer too, and reordering so that the layer with the tattoo is above the skin layer, but I can't get it to show up (even if I just select 'blank' and take everything off, the arm does not show up white!) I feel like I'm missing something integral.

 

Any ideas?

Go to your groups then select ''Legacy body group'' Ask in there they know BETTER than anyone else. After all they made the body  They are the experts we are just the ones that buy their products we don't know their products as much as they know them. They know their products better than anyone after all they created them. 

The other day i had a problem with my Slink feet and what i did was investigate a little bit and when i went in the Slink group, at first i thought of posting there and asking but i found out that in the description of slink there is a link to a profile on SL that you click and you can ask that person about any slink issues that you have. So I Immed him and he replied and i did explain my issues and he said he will send me copy of the feet.  

[Gabriele Graves]

If you want separate tats for arms/legs using BoM, first the body's left arm/leg need to be mapped to the BoM channels for the universal layer (BAKED_LEFTARM/BAKED_LEFTLEG).  If the body is setup this way you would then need a skin that uses a universal layer for the body with textures for left arm/leg.

[Nalates Urriah]

4 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

This has been discussed before, but I never understood it 100%. Maybe the creator forum is better.

What I think must be for this to work, is to have the skin itself with the two arms textured.

Or else all efforts to try making one arm tattoos is going to fail. It stopped me there, because that's me going to need UUIDs of the skin. I am not its creator.

Maybe I got it wrong so ----> creator forum it is.

You will likely get better technical answers over in the Creator's forum and in the Answers section. Several answers already exist.

Most bodies use a slightly improved version of the SL Classic avatar's UVMap. If you examine it you see there is only one arm in the UVMap. So it is impossible to be legacy compatible and have asymmetric skins or tattoos. As a compromise Slink and others made an add-on arm or arms and used universal layers to allow unique UVMaps. Only Slinks Cinnamon & Chai bodies have departed from the legacy UVMap and began using a decent Map like people have been asking for for years. There are way more possibilities for the new Slink bodies. But the down side is they require new skins, clothes, etc.

[Jennifer Boyle]

I don't know how useful this will be to the OP, but it's easy to make asymmetrical arm tattoos for Maitreya because, despite supporting BOM, tattoo layers can still be used, and parts of a layer can be selectively hidden. The selection of what part is hidden is even sticky, so it only has to be done once. To make asymmetrical arm tattoos, you just wear two tattoo layers, one with the tattoo on the left arm and the right arm hidden and another with the tattoo on the right arm and the left arm hidden.

I have never understood why some (Maybe all other?) mash body makers stopped supporting layers when they started supporting BOM. Even though we have BOM, we can do cool things with layers, like this. another one is make a translucent avatar. there may be others I don't know about.

[Nalates Urriah]

10 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

...

I have never understood why some (Maybe all other?) mash body makers stopped supporting layers when they started supporting BOM. Even though we have BOM, we can do cool things with layers, like this. another one is make a translucent avatar. there may be others I don't know about.

As best I can tell the primary reason for abandoning onion-skinned-applier style bodies is the render cost and script load. Plus there is a steep learning curve for applier tech. Also applier-bodies step outside the original design concept for easy of use. (I know those that came into SL during the Applier Age don't get that.)

I like all we can do with mesh-prim bodies and their numerous layers. I gave up my applier body but kept my applier-with-BOM head. The the mixed-tech-head gives me more options than an applier head or pure BOM head. But, the cost is in high ARC and heavy scripting.

And with BOM you can still have a transparent body and/or glowing tats or skin.

[Persephone Emerald]

4 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

As best I can tell the primary reason for abandoning onion-skinned-applier style bodies is the render cost and script load. Plus there is a steep learning curve for applier tech. Also applier-bodies step outside the original design concept for easy of use. (I know those that came into SL during the Applier Age don't get that.)

I like all we can do with mesh-prim bodies and their numerous layers. I gave up my applier body but kept my applier-with-BOM head. The the mixed-tech-head gives me more options than an applier head or pure BOM head. But, the cost is in high ARC and heavy scripting.

And with BOM you can still have a transparent body and/or glowing tats or skin.

What if tattoo makers could sell Applier Layers for mesh bodies the same way clothing makers sell mesh clothes? If you already have your own applier layer, cool. If you don't have one, buy one from the store. Then buy their HUDs that apply tattoos and come with BOM layers too. We could keep this Tattoo Layer in a folder with a bunch of HUDs for different tattoos, the same way that we might keep one folder with several different texture HUDs for some of our clothing items. One wouldn't wear this layer all the time, but only when they want to wear one of those tattoos.

[Jennifer Boyle]

6 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

And with BOM you can still have a transparent body and/or glowing tats or skin.

I'm all ears. Please tell me how.

[Ceka Cianci]

I'd love to know if I can convert my non evo x tattoo textures to evo x  textures..

I have a couple tattoo's I made that I can't seem to figure out if they can or cannot be converted.

[Nuuna Nitely]

11 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I'd love to know if I can convert my non evo x tattoo textures to evo x  textures..

I have a couple tattoo's I made that I can't seem to figure out if they can or cannot be converted.

No they can't be converted the UVs are way to different. 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

On 6/20/2022 at 7:57 PM, Nalates Urriah said:

Most bodies use a slightly improved version of the SL Classic avatar's UVMap. If you examine it you see there is only one arm in the UVMap. So it is impossible to be legacy compatible and have asymmetric skins or tattoos.

This is not true. Mesh bodies using the LL UV can have asymmetrical skins/tattoos as long as the mesh faces are using the new bake channels. The one-arm problem is specifically why those channels exist.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Jenna Huntsman]

20 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

This is not true. Mesh bodies using the LL UV can have asymmetrical skins/tattoos as long as the mesh faces are using the new bake channels. That is specifically why those channels exist.

Unfortunately, those new bake channels don't actually have access to alpha wearables, so their usage is somewhat limited.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

29 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Unfortunately, those new bake channels don't actually have access to alpha wearables, so their usage is somewhat limited.

True, but you could create wearables using the universal layer and applying the same texture to those new channels as well. 🙂

[HunniHope]

16 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

I'm all ears. Please tell me how.

some bodies provide a mod version so you can make these edits yourself, and some bodies have options in the hud to glow, to change alpha modes, variable transparency and more.  Not all, but some are now including one or more of these options. It all comes down to the maker of the body and what they decide to do.