Can you tell me about mesh body history?

[Marianne Little]

On 7/26/2022 at 7:39 PM, Blush Bravin said:

Thank you! I was trying to find something in my inventory to show that Maitreya came out after Belleza. But silly me, I delete prior versions once I receive an update. But I knew I had Wowmeh, TMP, Slink, and Belleza before Maitreya was released but I couldn't prove it. Belleza added two additional bodies though when they did their first major update which was after Maitreya had released. All those who had purchased the original body were also given the additional bodies without charge with that update. That's why I have all three Belleza bodies.

Slink released Hourglass after Belleza came out with their update and the release of Isis and Freya.

Are you sure Belleza gave out the other bodies so soon, in the first major update? I know all who bought Venus get the other bodies, but I thought it came later. 

Maytreya has been really quick and good with their updates too. Maybe they spent some time on one update? I seem to remember it for... Bento hands?

I dont understand why Maitreya haven't made a male body and a curvy body. I am sure they would sell well. 

[Blush Bravin]

30 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Are you sure Belleza gave out the other bodies so soon, in the first major update? I know all who bought Venus get the other bodies, but I thought it came later. 

Maytreya has been really quick and good with their updates too. Maybe they spent some time on one update? I seem to remember it for... Bento hands?

I dont understand why Maitreya haven't made a male body and a curvy body. I am sure they would sell well. 

Yeah, they took forever with that first update. I honestly think it's the main reason Maitreya ended up being so much more popular than Belleza. But the other two bodies came out with that first update. I think perhaps that's why it took so long to get any update at all.

[kali Wylder]

As I remember it, Slink's feet were such a big improvement over the system feet and you could wear them alone to go barefooted.  There were a few shoemakers who came up with their own version of  feet but you were then limited to their shoes.  When the big name mesh bodies started coming out I found myself buying each one as it came out, First Slink, then Beleeza, then Maitreya. Slink's was harder to use for me and the documentation was confusing.  I didn't like Beleeza's body shape that much.  By the time Maitreya came out I was glad to finally have a body I liked with a hud that was easy to use, and I was fed up with paying for bodies so I stopped looking at new ones after that.  When the mesh heads became the next big thing, I was determined to wait until the frenzy was over before choosing a head because I didn't want to spend all that money again and again like I did with the bodies. 

[skepwith]

1 hour ago, kali Wylder said:

As I remember it, Slink's feet were such a big improvement over the system feet and you could wear them alone to go barefooted.

Slink feet were a huge deal and almost everyone had them, with Slink hands also being pretty popular even before Bento (they came in a bunch of separate hand poses). A big selling point of the Slink body was that the feet and hands were sold separately, which would seem strange now but it made the body significantly cheaper than Maitreya Lara for a lot of people since they already had the feet and hands anyway. In fact, an early selling point for Maitreya Lara was that you could use Slink feet with it, which quite a few people did since they'd already amassed an Imelda Marcos closet of Slink shoes.

[Persephone Emerald]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Are you sure Belleza gave out the other bodies so soon, in the first major update? I know all who bought Venus get the other bodies, but I thought it came later. 

Maytreya has been really quick and good with their updates too. Maybe they spent some time on one update? I seem to remember it for... Bento hands?

I dont understand why Maitreya haven't made a male body and a curvy body. I am sure they would sell well. 

Belleza Venus came out before Maitreya Lara did. When Belleza Isis and Freya came out, Isis was suppose to be the replacement for Venus, but too many of their customers didn't want to give up their Venus body and all the clothing they already had for it. Isis might have been offered free or at a reduced price for those who already had Venus, but I can't swear to this. Buying a pack of all 3 bodies was and is essentially the same price as buying 2 separately.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Persephone Emerald

[Blush Bravin]

8 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Isis might have been offered free or at a reduced price for those who already had Venus, but I can't swear to this.

For a very limited period of time, those who had purchased the Venus got both of the new bodies along with the updated Venus for free. It was a very limited time though. I know this because I was one of those who got all three and I've only ever paid for the very first release of the Venus. I was already a firm Maitreya only user by the time Belleza updated their body, but I was making content for Belleza, Slink, and Maitreya so naturally I grabbed the update as soon as it came out. I was surprised to get the new bodies as well.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Blush Bravin

[NevaehHeartstrings]

The "Chip Midnight Body" it was the most advanced body at the time (still looks great today),  but never got any fashion traction. it predated Wowmeh, Maitreya, Slink. He was way ahead of the curve like RedPoly was but got lost in history .

[KKMallory]

On 7/27/2022 at 5:48 PM, skepwith said:

Tonic also offered (and still offers) the dev kit for their bodies to anyone willing to spend L$100 at their mainstore, no application necessary. Open dev kit availability, I have been repeatedly told, is the key to success for anyone trying to unseat Maitreya. You can see how well it worked.

I think the barrier to entry is too high once a body has market dominance to just be "similar, maybe a bit nicer in some ways." Tonic Fine is a very nice body, but its shape isn't that much different than Lara, especially with Petite out, at least not different enough to have a whole different market identity like Kupra does.

[Psyche Starling]

Once in a while, I buy a clothing item that is old and has only one Belleza size in the box, and it's just labeled "Belleza," and it'll turn out to not fit my Freya--it's a Venus size, from long enough ago that Venus was the only Belleza body! Whereas if the item's newer and only has one Belleza size, it will almost certainly be Freya.

[Marianne Little]

I think Maitreya made a good decision with the update to BoM, they removed the onion layers when you were wearing the body, but let you have them if you needed to add them.

They also left the alpha cuts there, instead of removing them.

Slink went all in with their Redux body with no alpha cuts, or you had to use the other one with the onion layers. It was and is difficult for me, when I log in the alts who are using Slink. In particular, male clothing is difficult enough, and then I have to hunt down an alpha layer to fit the clothes. I spent some money on a sale that still supported Slink male until a few years ago, and it was no alpha layers with them. Great clothes, great texturing, one of the best in SL. And only Belleza, Signature and Legacy is supported now by them.

It makes me use the ordinary Slink male body... If it was my one and only avatar, I would have more time to find alpha layers, or even make ones. To add insult to injury, the older version of Slink is only appliers and locked for BoM. Now that all new skins are BoM, this is another annoyance with Slink that has really soured the brand for me. And I was such a Slink girl, I loved their hands and feet. Now I just sneer at them.

I am tempted to get Belleza Jake for that avatar, just to make it easier for me. That body can be set to BoM with just a click now, and I can use the alpha cuts.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Marianne Little

[Psyche Starling]

4 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

I think Maitreya made a good decision with the update to BoM, they removed the onion layers when you were wearing the body, but let you have them if you needed to add them.

They also left the alpha cuts there, instead of removing them.

 

Yeah, I like this about Maitreya, as well as the moddable version of Freya once I optimized it. I joined SL just after BOM really caught on, so pretty much have never used appliers or had any desire to, except the occasional HD makeup. So the onion layers were useless to me and it's nice to not have them adding to my complexity. I prefer BOM alphas for most things, but it's handy to be able to use the alpha cuts when I just don't have any BOM one that works for the outfit.

[skepwith]

On 7/29/2022 at 12:46 AM, KKMallory said:

I think the barrier to entry is too high once a body has market dominance to just be "similar, maybe a bit nicer in some ways." Tonic Fine is a very nice body, but its shape isn't that much different than Lara, especially with Petite out, at least not different enough to have a whole different market identity like Kupra does.

I think it's a factor but I'm still very convinced that hype is the biggest driver. Reborn is similar to Kupra but nicer in some ways. Legacy is similar to Maitreya but nicer in some ways (and worse in others). I think support from popular clothing creators is absolutely critical, if for no other reason than it gets the body out there. I wonder how many people found out a particular body or add-on existed because a clothing creator announced support for it.

Like recently, Blueberry announced support for Reborn's "Juicy Boobs" and I was like, what are Juicy Boobs and do I want them? It turns out I do not, but I'm sure plenty of people asked the same question and said yes after reading the announcement from Blueberry.

[Eddy Vortex]

On 7/30/2022 at 5:28 AM, Marianne Little said:

Slink went all in with their Redux body with no alpha cuts, or you had to use the other one with the onion layers. It was and is difficult for me, when I log in the alts who are using Slink. In particular, male clothing is difficult enough, and then I have to hunt down an alpha layer to fit the clothes. I spent some money on a sale that still supported Slink male until a few years ago, and it was no alpha layers with them. Great clothes, great texturing, one of the best in SL. And only Belleza, Signature and Legacy is supported now by them.

It makes me use the ordinary Slink male body... If it was my one and only avatar, I would have more time to find alpha layers, or even make ones. To add insult to injury, the older version of Slink is only appliers and locked for BoM. Now that all new skins are BoM, this is another annoyance with Slink that has really soured the brand for me. And I was such a Slink girl, I loved their hands and feet. Now I just sneer at them.

 

This is what I think sounded the death knell for the male Slink. Too many guys don't want to go through the trouble of hunting for alpha layers, much less look up tutorials for Photoshop in order to make their own layers. Forcing everyone to go cold turkey to native BoM instead of weaning off the onion layers is a bridge too far.

Signature did right in keeping the alpha cuts in the HUD when updating their bodies to BoM, giving users the choice between the two methods. I think this has helped Gianni stay relevant.

[Persephone Emerald]

4 hours ago, Eddy Vortex said:

This is what I think sounded the death knell for the male Slink. Too many guys don't want to go through the trouble of hunting for alpha layers, much less look up tutorials for Photoshop in order to make their own layers. Forcing everyone to go cold turkey to native BoM instead of weaning off the onion layers is a bridge too far.

Signature did right in keeping the alpha cuts in the HUD when updating their bodies to BoM, giving users the choice between the two methods. I think this has helped Gianni stay relevant.

Belleza did the same thing. People can chose to use the onion-layer version of their bodies or the Modifiable version with the layers stripped off, but either way the HUD still works for Alpha cuts and the bodies work with BOM alpha layers too.

[Eddy Vortex]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Belleza did the same thing. People can chose to use the onion-layer version of their bodies or the Modifiable version with the layers stripped off, but either way the HUD still works for Alpha cuts and the bodies work with BOM alpha layers too.

Yes, and them offering a modifiable version, in my humble opinion, was their saving grace considering it took them like 3 years to catch up with updates since BoM went live. Because mod perms made things so versatile, I found myself wearing Jake more often over other bodies.

[Marianne Little]

New bodies need support from the start. It is so many to choose from now, a body that is not supported is DOA.

Slink did not have support ready for the Cinnamon and Chai ones. Maybe they thought the name "Slink" was big enough to carry weight, and that creators would jump on it without preparing them before release. But the reality is that new residents that has joined after mesh bodies, has never owned Slink hands and feet, the brand Slink means nothing to them.

Uff, this turns out to be a Slink pile-on. But is is sad to see a brand that was so huge getting irrelevant. They has served as a warning "Do not do this" for other mesh body creators.

Yes, I think that even a powerful store like Maitreya will need preparation and clothes ready to buy from day one, if they should release a curvy female body or a male body. A name is not enough. It is such a hard competition now.

[Janet Voxel]

Eh, she sent out the kit for Cinnamon and Chai early. Very few creators jumped on it. She did everything right as far as getting the kit out there and is an early adopter of a lot of things like BoM and udims for textures. Things that have and may see wider use in the future. It just was too early. Creators just didn’t jump on it.

I think someone said the final nail was making the body BoM only. People just weren’t ready for it and a lot of creators didn’t know how to make alphas. A year or two later Kupra comes out and is BoM only and people kind of just…accepted it. She did a good thing, but it was too early.

Theres a lesson in there: she said cinnamon&chai was the body she wanted to make. That wasn’t the body people wanted though. There’s got to be a balance. I think people were expecting Hourglass II and it wasn’t that.

[Jennifer Boyle]

3 hours ago, Janet Voxel said:

I think someone said the final nail was making the body BoM only. People just weren’t ready for it and a lot of creators didn’t know how to make alphas.

I do think going to BOM only was a big mistake, and I couldn't understand why anyone would do it. I don't think anyone has mentioned what I consider to be the major issue with going to BOM only, especially early: people had  a lot of applier tattoos, skin effects, underwear, etc., many of which were unavailable as BOM, and, even if they were, people don't like having the buy the same thing twice.