NUX Avatar

[Blaise Glendevon]

22 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Take for example the Jake Body. It is no mod from unpack and has not had it set up for alpha layers to work for it.

All of the Belleza bodies have been updated to include a mod version and all are now currently updated for full BOM - not Omega BOM. Since, like, last year.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Blaise Glendevon

[Love Zhaoying]

I do like that NUX ("Nukes"?) will be native BOM.

[Drayke Newall]

8 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

All of the Belleza bodies have been updated to include a mod version and all are now currently updated for full BOM - not Omega BOM. Since, like, last year.

Did I say they were not updated for BoM? No. Did I say that they were Omega BoM? No. Did I say there wasn't a mod version included? No. I even said there was. Here I will quote what I wrote "A mod version of the body is provided".

What I did say however was that the Jake body (V3 - the LATEST) has not had its skin mesh set to Alpha Masking by default and therefore alpha BoM layers dont work. If you dont want to keep scripts in, you have to edit the mod version and set the body segments i.e. Body 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. to Alpha masking (alpha blending causes alpha issues) so that when an alpha layer is put on it alphas.

If you want to use the no mod version you have to use a the HuD and press the tiny little none button next to the BoM button (that does absolutely nothing a left over from the old version) till you get it set to alpha mask for them to work making my other point valid that it uses a script but bugs out sometimes on laggy sims or doesn't work if you are on a sim that bans script entry.

Alpha Masking should be on by default. There is no need for a BoM body to even have the option to change it from alpha masking to 'none' as when not alpha'd it is always visible and when alpha'd not. Having a script in to do that is absurd and needing to edit the mod version to make it the case if you dont want scripts in is equally absurd.

[Da5id Weatherwax]

33 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

Alpha Masking should be on by default

Isn't this the normal - and annoying - behavior of all objects? When a texture is applied that has an alpha channel, it's always immediately reverted to blending mode - you have to explicitly set it by a script or in editing after applying the texture if you want the alpha mode to be any different. The texture itself may be generated and baked server-side but I'd bet you anything that its applied to the body mesh using the same code paths as applying a texture to any other mesh and is therefore subject to the same broken behavior. It's just that the "auto masking" hack built into some viewers masks it for static meshes but not for rigged ones.

[Jenna Huntsman]

5 minutes ago, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Isn't this the normal - and annoying - behavior of all objects? When a texture is applied that has an alpha channel, it's always immediately reverted to blending mode - you have to explicitly set it by a script or in editing after applying the texture if you want the alpha mode to be any different. The texture itself may be generated and baked server-side but I'd bet you anything that its applied to the body mesh using the same code paths as applying a texture to any other mesh and is therefore subject to the same broken behavior. It's just that the "auto masking" hack built into some viewers masks it for static meshes but not for rigged ones.

No, Belleza messed up their default by forcing the alpha mode to "None".

While Blending is the default alpha mode, with BoM the alpha mode is a set-and-forget item as bakes textures are always supplied with an alpha channel, regardless of if it is used or not, thus preserving the alpha mode set on the mesh. So long as the texture is assigned to a bakes channel, then the creator sets the alpha mode to Masking, and sets a mask cutoff value (Usually 128 is a good default), then the alpha mode shouldn't change unless the texture is reassigned away from the bakes channels (Which, is a gotcha when appliers are in the mix, as appliers *will* force the alpha mode to default to blending)

[Da5id Weatherwax]

5 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

No, Belleza messed up their default by forcing the alpha mode to "None".

While Blending is the default alpha mode, with BoM the alpha mode is a set-and-forget item as bakes textures are always supplied with an alpha channel, regardless of if it is used or not, thus preserving the alpha mode set on the mesh. So long as the texture is assigned to a bakes channel, then the creator sets the alpha mode to Masking, and sets a mask cutoff value (Usually 128 is a good default), then the alpha mode shouldn't change unless the texture is reassigned away from the bakes channels (Which, is a gotcha when appliers are in the mix, as appliers *will* force the alpha mode to default to blending)

Interesting... which tells me something about how the bake channels were constructed. The difference with applier behavior says that changing what's baked into the channel isn't a "new texture" as far as the mesh is concerned, so switching around the components of what gets baked into the final texture doesn't reset the alpha mode because "which texture is applied" hasn't changed, only its contents have. Thank you for that, like all geeks I'm a total sponge for little technical details like that even if I may never use them

[OptimoMaximo]

I await the dev kits in a REAL EXCHANGE FILE FORMAT.

gltf, usd or at the very least a well formed fbx. NOT BLENDER.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

I await the dev kits in a REAL EXCHANGE FILE FORMAT.

gltf, usd or at the very least a well formed fbx. NOT BLENDER.

Do detractors refer to it as "blunder"?

[Salt Peppermint]

5 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

 

What I did say however was that the Jake body (V3 - the LATEST) has not had its skin mesh set to Alpha Masking by default and therefore alpha BoM layers dont work. If you dont want to keep scripts in, you have to edit the mod version and set the body segments i.e. Body 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc. to Alpha masking (alpha blending causes alpha issues) so that when an alpha layer is put on it alphas.

 

the latest Jake body works perfectly fine with BoM alpha layers, you do not need to mod anything.  put the alpha layer one with the alpha cuts you want. just like with all other current mesh bodies, too.

[Salt Peppermint]

definitely curious for the dev kit and would love to add a few items fitting NUX

[Drayke Newall]

2 hours ago, Salt Peppermint said:

the latest Jake body works perfectly fine with BoM alpha layers, you do not need to mod anything.  put the alpha layer one with the alpha cuts you want. just like with all other current mesh bodies, too.

You still need to assign it to Alpha masking though as the default alpha channel is set none. How many times do I have to say it. Even @Jenna Huntsman mentioned the same issue. It should be alpha mask by default as BoM is what most people use.

I have had to tell many people this who try to use alpha layers with the Jake body and some of those members who used the mod version or a no script optimised version got annoyed as they had to either mod the body manually or put a new one on with scripts just to use the button to make it work.

All of this is off topic anyway and was not the intention of the post I made at the start anyway.

[Kalegthepsionicist]

excellent . this is good .

I see too many new ppl confuse with mesh, and they leave SL since have no idea how to get good avi.

this will make new user love sl and their tiny brain automatically forcebthem to add payment , 🤣

Edited June 27, 2022 by Kalegthepsionicist

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 6/26/2022 at 5:40 AM, Da5id Weatherwax said:

Now you're touching on one of the few things about SL likely to provoke me into a moderate amount of fury. This sneering "show us your clothing store before we give you a devkit so we can make sure you're good enough to deserve it" with the (not always) unspoken subtext of "If you're not a serious creator the only reason you'd want a devkit is to rip us off"

This is why the new bodies have the potential to be game-changers.

Right now the developers of mesh bodies rely on income from the sale of bodies themselves. This means that when they provide developers with information they'll take steps to prevent the developers from being able to make a new body that will be able to use the clothing, etc. made for their body and undercutting them on price.

If the body shape and weights aren't financially valuable that makes things completely different. Not only can developers make clothes for the bodies, they can create "upgraded" bodies with interactive hoohahs and laser-guided nipples and sell those too. Meanwhile, the clothing made for the default body can still work on the "deluxe" bodies because they have the same basic shape and weights. 

A lot of the popular bodies on sale now are supposedly "adjustable", but it's clear that they were meant for a certain range of looks. For instance, Belleza female bodies have molded in ridges for hipbones. That's a nice detail for the the low-body-fat shapes most people use, but if you're trying to make an avatar with a reasonably thick natural body fat layer instead of the ridges vanishing they'll stick out farther like the body plates on a herbivorous dinosaur. Again, if the basic shape and weighting is kept, people can build in these sorts of details for some bodies but not for others.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Theresa Tennyson
grammar

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

interactive hoohahs and laser-guided nipples

I'd buy that for a dollar!

[Love Zhaoying]

14 hours ago, Salt Peppermint said:

  put the alpha layer one with the alpha cuts you want. just like with all other current mesh bodies, too.

I need to upgrade.  What does this part mean?

My goal is to use BOM with the newest Jake.

[Blush Bravin]

20 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

It depends on the body. Some mesh bodies haven't had them edited to allow for them and they set the body no mod. Even if they provide an additional modify body for it then a user would need to know how to set it up so that it allows for alpha layers to work.

I only know of one mesh body that has this issue, and I see it as an error on the part of the creator. I admit I've not tried every mesh body on the grid but of the major brands I think Bellezza is the only one with this issue. And even now I'm not sure that it's still an issue. I've not even had my old Bellezza bodies redelivered to check them out.

20 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

You also didn't understand what I meant about the new NUX body. BoM as we know it now applies to a mesh body that is attached to the default avatar and when this is done, the default avatar is hidden underneath. When I said old BoM i meant system layers and am hoping that the new NUX body wont be like current bodies where it goes over the default body and hides it but an entire replacement of the default mesh aka not BoM as we know it now but solely system layers as it was pre mesh bodies.

I don't see how it matters if this goes over the old system body. When I attach my Maitreya it completely makes my system avatar invisible and inconsequential. My Maitreya body in BoM mode does everything as a system body would using system layers and system alphas. Yes, it does add to complexity, but again I don't have a problem with that as long as the mesh is optimized. Considering that the Lab put BoM in place to help with optimization, I'm pretty sure they would also keep that in mind while working on this NUX body.

[Qie Niangao]

12 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I need to upgrade.  What does this part mean?

My goal is to use BOM with the newest Jake.

It's not the scary big deal it's made to sound in this thread. I suspect the quote intended to say "put the alpha layer on with the alpha cuts you want. just like with all other current mesh bodies, too", to point out that the current Jake supports both true BOM alpha mask and alpha cuts.

In the past, some old version of Jake came without the ability to set the alpha channel to masked mode, so alpha layers wouldn't work. IIRC, this wasn't termed a "BOM" body but there was an applier that painted on the system BOM textures, so it could accept BOM skins and baked layers of stuff, just not alpha masks.

Incidentally, not all current bodies support alpha cuts, preferring the simpler, easier-to-render no-cut mesh. At least Slink depends on true baked alpha only, and I'd like to think there are others I've forgotten now.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

20 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

ou also didn't understand what I meant about the new NUX body. BoM as we know it now applies to a mesh body that is attached to the default avatar and when this is done, the default avatar is hidden underneath. When I said old BoM i meant system layers and am hoping that the new NUX body wont be like current bodies where it goes over the default body and hides it but an entire replacement of the default mesh aka not BoM as we know it now but solely system layers as it was pre mesh bodies.

I don't see how it matters if this goes over the old system body.

Better performance, I'd hope - no need for "full body alpha" on the underlying system body, no need for actual BOM behavior - actually  "use" the old skin / tattoo etc. layers on the new body. 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Qie Niangao said:

It's not the scary big deal it's made to sound in this thread. I suspect the quote intended to say "put the alpha layer on with the alpha cuts you want. just like with all other current mesh bodies, too", to point out that the current Jake supports both true BOM alpha mask and alpha cuts.

In the past, some old version of Jake came without the ability to set the alpha channel to masked mode, so alpha layers wouldn't work. IIRC, this wasn't termed a "BOM" body but there was an applier that painted on the system BOM textures, so it could accept BOM skins and baked layers of stuff, just not alpha masks.

Incidentally, not all current bodies support alpha cuts, preferring the simpler, easier-to-render no-cut mesh. At least Slink depends on true baked alpha only, and I'd like to think there are others I've forgotten now.

Does this mean that I would need to manually enable the alpha mask (via the mesh body's HUD) for the body sections where I want the BOM to appear?  Since I never had to understand this before,  I am having to translate what this means in terms of steps. 

I assume the HUD will have little "alpha" symbols (the Greek letter) like I noticed on my old body's HUD.  

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Better performance, I'd hope - no need for "full body alpha" on the underlying system body, no need for actual BOM behavior - actually  "use" the old skin / tattoo etc. layers on the new body. 

Thing is, there's just no way to make the old system body go away any more than BOM does already. There's no "full body alpha" with BOM, but rather when the BOM system textures are baked and rendered, the system body mesh is not rendered, and whatever skins, etc., that were baked on that system body will instead be baked on the BOM body mesh. Then, if you take off that BOM body mesh, those skins, etc., will bake on the system body—which can be pretty disturbing if the BOM body mesh uses "creative" UV maps, as with LeLutka "EvoX". (This also leads to a pretty trippy experience as an avatar rezzes-in with the system mesh wearing EvoX textures, until the head mesh rezzes.)

[Caroline Takeda]

I am curious how this will impact the sl economy.

Is it bad news for mesh body builders? They compete now with free ones provided by the lab!

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Caroline Takeda said:

I am curious how this will impact the sl economy.

Is it bad news for mesh body builders? They compete now with free ones provided by the lab!

I would assume it is not just bad news for mesh body builders, but potentially bad news for LL and even the entire SL economy.  So many L$ transactions (purchasing L$, cashing out L$, etc.) that benefit LL happen because of those mesh body purchases.

[Jenna Huntsman]

20 minutes ago, Caroline Takeda said:

I am curious how this will impact the sl economy.

Is it bad news for mesh body builders? They compete now with free ones provided by the lab!

I don't think so.

The Lab themselves said that the body isn't designed to be marketed towards "best-in-class" body users, but instead to give newer users a perfectly fine body.

If anything, it's going to benefit creators, as the development kit for these new bodies (I believe) will be freely-accessible, which marks a massive step away from the current walled-garden of mesh body development; something which I feel has been holding back the market for some time.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Jenna Huntsman

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Jenna Huntsman said:

The Lab themselves said that the body isn't designed to be marketed towards "best-in-class" body users, but instead to give newer users a a perfectly fine body.

I never used 95% of the features in my Belleza. I wonder what proportion of people use more than say, 20%.

[Qie Niangao]

28 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Does this mean that I would need to manually enable the alpha mask (via the mesh body's HUD) for the body sections where I want the BOM to appear?  Since I never had to understand this before,  I am having to translate what this means in terms of steps. 

I assume the HUD will have little "alpha" symbols (the Greek letter) like I noticed on my old body's HUD.  

So there are alpha symbols on the Layers tab (see below), although I almost never use these separate mesh layers on top of the BOM skin layer, so I'm not 100% sure what "alpha" does here; I'd expect that it actually makes the layer blended or masked, to control how it interacts with other such layers, but that's kind of a guess.

It's the Skin tab, though, where you'd control BOM and the alpha channel drawing mode:

That "Mask" button can be "Blend" or "None", where "None" breaks alpha masking and you'd need to rely on alpha cuts only again. I'm guessing it may be necessary to press the "BoM' button to get rid of whatever dorky applier-like textures that might get painted on the mesh instead of the BoM system textures. (I avoid pressing "BoM' now because it somehow removes any custom materials (normalmap and/or specularmap) I apply.)