New to mesh bodies - recommendations July 2022

[Space Zehetbauer]

Whilst I have been in SL for many, many years, for the last few years I have just popped in and out and not taken part in daily SL life.

It appears that something called a mesh body has snuck into SL life whilst I haven't been paying attention and a culture of mesh snobbery has evolved which might impact my social desirability, apparently.

I was chatting to a gf in SL today and she explained that whilst I still look gorgeous and would, no doubt, still be lovable (flatterer!), I should invest in this idea of having a mesh body. And she suggested that I also need a mesh head, ultimately, but its ok to go with mesh body first and deal with my head later?????

 

Yes, I am sure this topic has been done to death many times over the years in this forum, but from the standpoint of July 2022, would you lovely people care to make your recommendations in regard to the best / easiest to use / value  mesh bodies out there today.

And does it really matter and why?

Do they look that much better? Or is it the interactivity with other objects that makes them worthwhile, or essential?

ME

I am slim, tall, small breasted in SL. I would like a mesh body I can adjust to that. I appear to have a classic body called Nelly, by Noya.

I was told just doing the body first is fine. Do you all agree with that concept?

How hard is it to get a head that looks like mine, or that I can model into my head or similar?

Is this going to cost me a fortune? lol

Is it going to be a technical nightmare?

All feedback and recommendations are welcome and invited, but be gentle with me. 🙂

Thanks in advance...

Space.

[SorachaNicEoghain]

8 minutes ago, Space Zehetbauer said:

Whilst I have been in SL for many, many years, for the last few years I have just popped in and out and not taken part in daily SL life.

It appears that something called a mesh body has snuck into SL life whilst I haven't been paying attention and a culture of mesh snobbery has evolved which might impact my social desirability, apparently.

I was chatting to a gf in SL today and she explained that whilst I still look gorgeous and would, no doubt, still be lovable (flatterer!), I should invest in this idea of having a mesh body. And she suggested that I also need a mesh head, ultimately, but its ok to go with mesh body first and deal with my head later?????

 

Yes, I am sure this topic has been done to death many times over the years in this forum, but from the standpoint of July 2022, would you lovely people care to make your recommendations in regard to the best / easiest to use / value  mesh bodies out there today.

And does it really matter and why?

Do they look that much better? Or is it the interactivity with other objects that makes them worthwhile, or essential?

ME

I am slim, tall, small breasted in SL. I would like a mesh body I can adjust to that. I appear to have a classic body called Nelly, by Noya.

I was told just doing the body first is fine. Do you all agree with that concept?

How hard is it to get a head that looks like mine, or that I can model into my head or similar?

Is this going to cost me a fortune? lol

Is it going to be a technical nightmare?

All feedback and recommendations are welcome and invited, but be gentle with me. 🙂

Thanks in advance...

Space.

I literally just joined sl last week and spent a stupid amount of time trying on bodies. I eventually settled on Maitreya Lara and Lelutka evox Avalon head. If you tp to the Lelutka store you can try on demos of the most supported mesh bodies. There is also a skin store right next to it with incredibly high definition skins. I tried on so many last week you have no idea. I also ended up spending $60 in the end to make my avatar. This is the end result ^^

 

[Space Zehetbauer]

19 minutes ago, SorachaNicEoghain said:

I literally just joined sl last week and spent a stupid amount of time trying on bodies. I eventually settled on Maitreya Lara and Lelutka evox Avalon head. If you tp to the Lelutka store you can try on demos of the most supported mesh bodies. There is also a skin store right next to it with incredibly high definition skins. I tried on so many last week you have no idea. I also ended up spending $60 in the end to make my avatar. This is the end result ^^

 

Thanks for your reply Soracha and welcome to SL.

You have done an excellent job on your avatar, very attractive.

So, your purchases included a body, and a head, and skin?

Once you settled on the right combination was it technically difficult to get her looking as you wanted? I know you said you spent a lot of time trying things on lol

Did you find any useful resources like youtube videos?

thanks for your feedback,

Space.

 

[SorachaNicEoghain]

21 minutes ago, Space Zehetbauer said:

Thanks for your reply Soracha and welcome to SL.

You have done an excellent job on your avatar, very attractive.

So, your purchases included a body, and a head, and skin?

Once you settled on the right combination was it technically difficult to get her looking as you wanted? I know you said you spent a lot of time trying things on lol

Did you find any useful resources like youtube videos?

thanks for your feedback,

Space.

 

Thank you so much. Yeah I spent about L3,500 on the head, L3,000 on the body, about L1,200 I think on the skin and body applier (I'm very picky it appears lol). It really wasn't difficult after I watched some tutorials on YouTube. The best AOs are from Vista but I just couldn't spend another L2000 on the one I really wanted, so I just picked a cheap one from the Marketplace. I'm wearing an applier skin because I still don't know how to do BOM. Need to watch a tutorial on that too 😅. Busy busy lol

Edited July 3, 2022 by SorachaNicEoghain

[Josephine Carissa]

Hello Space,

here are some video resources for you.

Strawberry Singh/ now Linden

https://strawberrysingh.com/

https://www.youtube.com/c/StrawberrySinghinSL

Naria Panthar

https://www.youtube.com/c/NariaPanthar

have fun and don't forget to have patience with yourself : ) it takes time.

Best Regards,

Josephine

 

[SorachaNicEoghain]

7 minutes ago, Josephine Carissa said:

Hello Space,

here are some video resources for you.

Strawberry Singh/ now Linden

https://strawberrysingh.com/

https://www.youtube.com/c/StrawberrySinghinSL

Naria Panthar

https://www.youtube.com/c/NariaPanthar

have fun and don't forget to have patience with yourself : ) it takes time.

Best Regards,

Josephine

 

Oooo I'm going to check these out too. Thank you so much!!! 

[Persephone Emerald]

Yes! Mesh bodies look better - especially the hands, feet, and breasts.  No, you don't have to get a mesh head right away.

Yes, you'll spend some money to get a good mesh look, but No, it doesn't have to cost more than $ 40 US.

For a slim look, Maitreya will be your best body. Demo it and hit the Midnight Madness board for the free Atenea body at Lucy Body. Also pick up the free Genus Strong Face mesh head. The LucyBody Atenea fits Maitreya clothing, but it's HUD is not as good as the Maitreya one, the feet don't fit Maitreya shoes, its render cost is higher, and it doesn't work with Maitreya autohide or appliers. It will give you an idea of whether you like the Maitreya shape and clothes that are made for it though. If you like the shape and can afford to buy a Maitreya body, that will be your best option eventually. If you want smaller breasts, the Maitreya Petite add-on gives small perky breasts and has enough clothes that fit it.

Lelutka is the most popular mesh head currently. Their EvoX heads costs around $L 4000. Try the free Genus mesh head to see how it works. Then demo some Lelutka heads & their HUD. If you can wait until December, they usually have a free male & female mesh head for group members about a week before Christmas.

Go to Shop & Hop now, to the Body Language shop to get their gift AO. Pick up some other Bento AOs on MP or where you find them. EAT ME animations has some inexpensive ones that aren't bad. If you have Firestorm, you can put your AO animations into your viewer so that's one less item to wear and it's easier on region script load. 

I like 7 Deadly skins for female skins. If their group is too expensive to join right now, you might wait until the group join fee is dropped or reduced. They have a bunch of group Lucky Letter boards, mini mania boards, non-group Midnight Madness boards, $L 1 specials and other skins on sale. Unlike most skin makers making skins for mesh heads, they sell full-body skins that are easy to wear. Check the vendor pictures to see which heads they're made for, but Evolution, EvoX, Genus and sometimes skins for other heads can work on Lelutka EvoX Heads.

Bakes on Mesh (BOM) is easy if you're used to a system body. It's just like system skins except it goes onto the mesh body instead of going onto your system body. There's a button on the major mesh bodies that lets you turn BOM on or off, so you can switch between using that or appliers for your body. Lelutka EvoX heads don't have a button to turn BOM off, but they do have one to switch between the regular UV map (Evolution) and the new EvoX UV map. The EvoX UV map gives better definition to the face, but also looks messed up if you don't wear an EvoX skin with it. 

There are so many free clothes right now at Shop and Hop. There are 400 stores, and it feels like half of them have clothes for Maitreya. Addams, Blueberry, Bumblebee, Tachinni, Vision, and Vengeance have free store credit. Other stores do too. Some have limited use periods for this store credit. There are a bunch of hair and jewelry stores with gifs too.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Space Zehetbauer]

30 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Yes! Mesh bodies look better - especially the hands, feet, and breasts.  No, you don't have to get a mesh head right away.

Yes, you'll spend some money to get a good mesh look, but No, it doesn't have to cost more than $ 40 US.

For a slim look, Maitreya will be your best body. Demo it and hit the Midnight Madness board for the free Atenea body at Lucy Body. Also pick up the free Genus Strong Face mesh head. The LucyBody Atenea fits Maitreya clothing, but it's HUD is not as good as the Maitreya one, the feet don't fit Maitreya shoes, its render cost is higher, and it doesn't work with Maitreya autohide or appliers. It will give you an idea of whether you like the Maitreya shape and clothes that are made for it though. If you like the shape and can afford to buy a Maitreya body, that will be your best option eventually. If you want smaller breasts, the Maitreya Petite add-on gives small perky breasts and has enough clothes that fit it.

Lelutka is the most popular mesh head currently. Their EvoX heads costs around $L 4000. Try the free Genus mesh head to see how it works. Then demo some Lelutka heads & their HUD. If you can wait until December, they usually have a free male & female mesh head for group members about a week before Christmas.

Go to Shop & Hop now, to the Body Language shop to get their gift AO. Pick up some other Bento AOs on MP or where you find them. EAT ME animations has some inexpensive ones that aren't bad. If you have Firestorm, you can put your AO animations into your viewer so that's one less item to wear and it's easier on region script load. 

I like 7 Deadly skins for female skins. If their group is too expensive to join right now, you might wait until the group join fee is dropped or reduced. They have a bunch of group Lucky Letter boards, mini mania boards, non-group Midnight Madness boards, $L 1 specials and other skins on sale. Unlike most skin makers making skins for mesh heads, they sell full-body skins that are easy to wear. Check the vendor pictures to see which heads they're made for, but Evolution, EvoX, Genus and sometimes skins for other heads can work on Lelutka EvoX Heads.

Bakes on Mesh (BOM) is easy if you're used to a system body. It's just like system skins except it goes onto the mesh body instead of going onto your system body. There's a button on the major mesh bodies that lets you turn BOM on or off, so you can switch between using that or appliers for your body. Lelutka EvoX heads don't have a button to turn BOM off, but they do have one to switch between the regular UV map (Evolution) and the new EvoX UV map. The EvoX UV map gives better definition to the face, but also looks messed up if you don't wear an EvoX skin with it. 

There are so many free clothes right now at Shop and Hop. There are 400 stores, and it feels like half of them have clothes for Maitreya. Addams, Blueberry, Bumblebee, Tachinni, Vision, and Vengeance have free store credit. Other stores do too. Some have limited use periods for this store credit. There are a bunch of hair and jewelry stores with gifs too.

Oh wow, what an epic response!

I can see you have done this a few times before 🙂

I started watching a few videos so I understand a little of what you said, and it will sink in over a few days with some trial and error.

Just one question...no maybe two questions...

1 - I have vista ao's with my classic body. Will they work ok with the mesh body, or not?

2 - If you were doing this now, from scratch and money didn't matter, what would your selections be for skin, body, head etc..

p.s. I use the firestorm viewer. I didnt know I could put my ao's into the viewer, so thats wonderful.

thanks for that, so much information.

You are amazing!

Space

 

[Space Zehetbauer]

53 minutes ago, Josephine Carissa said:

Hello Space,

here are some video resources for you.

Strawberry Singh/ now Linden

https://strawberrysingh.com/

https://www.youtube.com/c/StrawberrySinghinSL

Naria Panthar

https://www.youtube.com/c/NariaPanthar

have fun and don't forget to have patience with yourself : ) it takes time.

Best Regards,

Josephine

 

Thanks Josephine, wonderful resources!

 

[Persephone Emerald]

1. Your current AOs will work fine with mesh bodies and heads for the most part. Sometimes non-Bento animations will make the hands splay out, what we call Jazz hands. Bento animations just give more detailed animations, especially the hands and face. I think Bento animations are more important when other people might be looking closely at you, so standing, sitting, and dancing mostly. People won't be looking at your hands when you're running, flying, or falling to the ground.

2. Money always matters to me, but so does performance. I'd recommend Maitreya Lara and Lelutka EvoX for you. For someone who wants a curvier body, Legacy, Reborne, Freya or Kurpa might be better. For someone who wants a trans-female body, Erika would be good. For someone who wants a gender non-binary body, Maitreya with one of the flat chest add-ons might be good. There are a couple designers who make female dresses for Signature Gianni, so that can work for drag queens. LeLutka and Akaruka both have a couple heads that can fit on either male or female bodies. (It's the neck fit that matters most when fitting heads to male or female bodies.)

3. It's worth it to figure out how to put your AO into the Firestorm viewer, but it can seem like a daunting task at first. I didn't do it for the longest time, then finally read the How To pages and worked my way though it. There are easy ways and harder ways to do it. I chose a harder way that gave me more control over which animations each of my avatars would use most of the time. I don't recommend my hard way for most people.

[Persephone Emerald]

I'll add one more bit of advice. Adjusting a mesh head so it looks perfect for you takes many small adjustments. When you go to demo a mesh head, particularly from Lelutka, demo ones that have a nose and lip shape you like. Those parts don't seem to be as adjustable as other facial features. When you buy a mesh head, make a copy of the shape that comes with it and use this as your basic shape. Adjust the body to the size and shape you like with your mesh body. You can copy slider data for a shape you like by writing it down on a piece of paper or on a notecard in SL. Then adjust the face a tiny bit at a time until you like how it looks. It takes more work to get the face perfect than it does to get the body shape perfect. 

Some skins show more definition than others. I think the skins from 7DS have most of their differences in the eyebrows and spots like freckles and moles. This means if you use one of their No Brow skins, then use the brow from your head HUD for your brow, many of the 7DS skins may look great for you. I used to choose which of their skins I'd wear based on the color and shape of the eyebrows, but now I can use most of them quite happily with my Lelutka EvoX head. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

I also left for a few years and when I came back (in 2017), I had the mesh body/head dilemma.   I do now have a mesh body, but I still have not changed over to a mesh head.  My biggest reason is that it is going to take a lot of time messing with the sliders to get something that looks a lot like my current system head look -- and frankly, I just don't feel like spending that much time fiddling with it. I don't socialize that much in SL as I am very much a loner, and I don't take tons of pics of my avatar, so the mesh head is not quite as important to me.

[Conifer Dada]

I still use a system avatar and I'm happy that way . . .

But what I'm about to say applies equally to mesh and system avatars. A lot of skins in SL have high contrast shading, with the front and back highlighted and sides darker, a bit like an unevenly fried sausage.  This might be perfect for SL photography but it doesn't work well when in motion, as in clubs, as in "why are the fronts of her/his legs so much lighter than the sides?" I can see why creators did this with system avatars but with it being possible to give a real, dynamic sheen or even a full oiled gloss to the skin of a mesh avatar it seems pointless on those.  

Also bear in mind the Linden Lab have announced that new full-perms BOM mesh starter avatars are in the pipeline (NUX project).  We don't know the timescale or exactly how good they'll be but it's worth remembering this if you're about to spend a lot of L$0000's and many hours on your update. 

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Conifer Dada

[Istelathis]

I personally enjoy Ruth, which is free on the marketplace.  I am cheap though, so there is that 🙃  I would suggest it, just to give you a free glimpse into the mesh world, I notice that it smooths out your body, but is nowhere near the quality of the higher priced mesh bodies - you will also have a chance to play around with your shape to get a feel for it all.  There is also a free Ruth mesh head, which you can likewise play around with. 

There are a lot of them on the marketplace, I think RC3 is the newer version - some have BOM, others come with a variety of huds to change your skin, as well as offer something similar to Omega applier which outfits.  The ones I use are sweets BOM Ruth, for both the body and head,  those did cost $1L each though 😜

Good luck

Edited July 3, 2022 by Istelathis

[Claireschen Hesten]

If you aren't interested in the shiny new fads of squishy arms, thighs, títs (the ones i've seen look weird) and it would now appear waists. Maitreya Lara is your best bet. It takes being tall and slim well however i'm not a fan of the body sliders min'd out look too skinny for my liking. it's very well supported if you find the tít's too big there are petite and flat add-ons the petite size has good support.
As for a mesh head it's not essential to have one. When i took the plunge on getting one i went to different head stores picked up demo's tried them on at home with my regular shape and went with the one that looked the most "me" i'm lazy and didn't want to spend ages using the included base shape and edit mode trying to recreate my look.

[Marianne Little]

I agree with Maitreya Lara, because of its popularity you will find a size for it in 99,999% of every clothes and shoes packs. This includes sales, group gifts and freebies. Here are Linden Labs video about how to purchase and wear it:

You probably does not have a wardrobe for a mesh body, so if money matters to you, this is a body you can save on. Read Seraphimsl for all weekend sales and other sales, and Fabfree for freebies and group gifts. Some groups are pay to join. That information is included.

It is also gifts at events like Shop'n Hop. This event ends Monday or Tuesday, help me, I do not remember. But here is a list of all stores with direct TP:

https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/entry/11033-your-guide-to-the-sl19b-shop-hop-including-early-access/

Since you mention AO's it is one free AO in Body Language Sweet Lovely Cute. This utilizes the finger movements in Bento hands. In Addams you get a 300 L gift card so you can shop with it. In Salt & Pepper it is a gift card too.

I do not remember more, but google gifts SL19B gifts.

Maitreya also includes really nice skins, they are based on Glam Affair skins. Izzie's sell neck blenders so you can fit one of the Maitreya skins to your head. Or else it will be a very visible neck seam. It should be freebie neck blenders to find as well. You were in SL when they introduced the tattoo layer, and that we can wear multiple layers at once? Then you know how they work.

If you want to keep your current skin for the body, you will have a problem with your feet and your finger tips. Since your skin is made for a body without real nails, the drawn on nails will not line up and you will see them outside the real nails on a meshbody.

The feet is even worse, since the default feet are paddles. The skin creators was drawing on toes and nails. They will look really bad on mesh feet, like dark stripes and smudges. Worse than the finger tips.

It is lots of tintable fixers for this. They are also on tattoo layers, some also on socks and glove layers. They cover the mess and you pick the tone closest to your skin and you can tint them too.

But for the start, it is easiest to use a skin from the Maitreya body and a neck blender.

 

 

[Blaise Glendevon]

5 hours ago, Istelathis said:

I personally enjoy Ruth, which is free on the marketplace.

Ruth is not a substitute for a quality mesh body. It is, frankly, ugly. You get what you pay for.

[Conifer Dada]

9 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

Ruth is not a substitute for a quality mesh body. It is, frankly, ugly. You get what you pay for.

I have tried the Ruth body, although as I say above, I've stayed with a system avatar. I actually think the Ruth body is quite good, the only problem being you can't get a slim butt whatever you do with the sliders. The Ruth head, on the other hand, is poor and I found it impossible to adjust it to a shape anything close to my system head shape.

I also tried the Maitreya Lara (demo) body and that had exactly the same problem as the Ruth body.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Conifer Dada

[Blaise Glendevon]

1 minute ago, Conifer Dada said:

I have tried the Ruth body, although as I say above, I've stayed with a system avatar. I actually think the Ruth body is quite good, the only problem being you can't get a slim butt whatever you do with the sliders. The Ruth head, on the other hand, is poor and I found it impossible to adjust it to a shape anything close to my system head shape.

There is no comparison between the Ruth body and the various pay options. It is two triangles on a stick. Even the Lucybody is a better alternative - even if it took 5 days for the Midnight Madness to hit the total the week I tried it out for a comparison and it takes a good deal of alpha-ing to work with Maitreya sized clothing. 

[Istelathis]

27 minutes ago, Blaise Glendevon said:

Ruth is not a substitute for a quality mesh body. It is, frankly, ugly. You get what you pay for.

I wouldn't say it is ugly. although definitely not up to standards with the more expensive options.  Here is me in Ruth, with head using BOM - a pretty lousy picture, but that is due to my own lack of experience and laziness.  I should have put a pillow under my head, but again, I'm lazy.  I am pretty sure this is a system skin, as I don't like spending too much money in SL.

 

 

Here is another where I used the body and head on a system avatar, a bit flawed as you can see my skin poking out.  I should have found an alpha to fix it, but I did not even notice it until I took the picture.

 

 

It is free, and I think pretty good to experiment around with before investing in Mesh, just to get a feel for it.  With that said, I'm far from a perfectionist, things like hair poking through my neck doesn't really bother me, I know with the other mesh bodies, you get a much better fit with outfits designed specifically for them, and there is a lot more options available for people using them

 

I think in the hands of someone who is talented, it is capable of doing quite a lot - I unfortunately, don't have the skill to really pull it off and show just how capable this avatar can be.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Istelathis

[Space Zehetbauer]

7 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I also left for a few years and when I came back (in 2017), I had the mesh body/head dilemma.   I do now have a mesh body, but I still have not changed over to a mesh head.  My biggest reason is that it is going to take a lot of time messing with the sliders to get something that looks a lot like my current system head look -- and frankly, I just don't feel like spending that much time fiddling with it. I don't socialize that much in SL as I am very much a loner, and I don't take tons of pics of my avatar, so the mesh head is not quite as important to me.

Thanks, that is useful to know. Yes, one becomes quite attached to ones head so developing a close copy could take time.

[Space Zehetbauer]

7 hours ago, Conifer Dada said:

I still use a system avatar and I'm happy that way . . .

But what I'm about to say applies equally to mesh and system avatars. A lot of skins in SL have high contrast shading, with the front and back highlighted and sides darker, a bit like an unevenly fried sausage.  This might be perfect for SL photography but it doesn't work well when in motion, as in clubs, as in "why are the fronts of her/his legs so much lighter than the sides?" I can see why creators did this with system avatars but with it being possible to give a real, dynamic sheen or even a full oiled gloss to the skin of a mesh avatar it seems pointless on those.  

Also bear in mind the Linden Lab have announced that new full-perms BOM mesh starter avatars are in the pipeline (NUX project).  We don't know the timescale or exactly how good they'll be but it's worth remembering this if you're about to spend a lot of L$0000's and many hours on your update. 

 

Thanks for that. As for the last part of your post, I am reminded in many of these forums that LL and "soon" can be a moving feast. 🙂

[Space Zehetbauer]

Thanks everyone for your great responses so far.

Very useful information and I can see the consensus is clearly for a Maitreya Lara body.

Step 1 - try the demo

🙂

This will be an interesting journey for me lol

Space

[Eddy Vortex]

The Ruth body could be an okay option for the impoverished as it can fit 80% of Maitreya fitted clothes. I agree the Ruth head is awful and doesn't add much improvement to the system head.  If you're looking to outfit a male alt, the Roth body is absolute garbage.

[Blaise Glendevon]

Please stop recommending the Ruth body.