"Where's your head at?" ~Basement Jaxx (credit where it's due) ;)

[Santanna Surya]

But seriously. I have a pretty important question. 

What is THE head to buy? Is there something on the horizon that is going to be the IT head to purchase soon? Any news, or insight to share?  I want a head that is as up to date as possible, and will have plenty of options to purchase, to go along with that particular head. 

I was a happy Genus user, then I was 'talked' into getting the Catwa HD Pro, and pretty much as soon as I purchased it, and all the things I needed to go with it...Lelutka Evo X was like, THE THING! Now, after being patient, it is quite clear, that Catwa HD Pro, is just old, and not many creators are making new makeups, skins etc. for it. 

I just want to know if anyone knows, is it time to upgrade to Lelutka Evo X, or is there something new I should just wait for? I'm sorry I have not used the forums before,  (I'm only 16 years in SL, lol) so forgive any missteps I may be taking, but I truly want to purchase something that is going to last for awhile, and have components such as makeup, skin, etc. readily available.  I have noticed there is something new in the ads I am seeing along with LelEvoX compatibility, which begins with an 'A' I believe, that I have not seen before.

Any help would be so appreciated. I thank you all in advance for your input.If someone could steer me in the right direction, I would be so grateful.  

[Marianne Little]

I am sure some will come and tell if it will be a new head creator. I am not on Discord, and news seem to appear there first.

I have heard that Genus is coming back with updated heads, and a new head. This may be only a rumour.

Lelutka is releasing heads all the time now. The market is turned totally around. Only a few years ago, it was nearly no new skins for Lelutka, it was only Genus and Catwa in new releases. I think I made a thread about it. 

It is Black Friday coming up. You should get as many demos as you can and prepare. Follow Seraphimsl to see if/when a sale starts.

Lelutka has totally spoiled us with free heads as Christmas gifts two years now. It is so generous of them. I am sure it will be a sale, if not a gift. Either a Black Friday, or a Christmas/New Year sale.

[Maitimo]

My thought is that anything using the EVO-X map is "where it's at" now.  Lelutka is one option but not the only one - Akeruka heads are also EVO-X now, as is the free had from Rebirth. 

The main issue is that nearly all BOM skins and addons such as hairbases, makeup etc are now EVO-X only, with no option included for classic-mapped heads. 

[Anna Nova]

The old SL head UVmap is now pretty much dead.  Everything is going EvoX for heads.  If another maker, say Catwa, made another UVmap, I doubt it would succeed, unless they buy the market, and that would be a terrific commercial risk.  EvoX won.

What we need now is the equivalent for bodies, so the symmetry on the arms and feet can be fixed.

[PheebyKatz]

18 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

The main issue is that nearly all BOM skins and addons such as hairbases, makeup etc are now EVO-X only, with no option included for classic-mapped heads. 

Glad I'm part of that minority of people who are driven by such trends to create our own things, rather than settle for being corralled into following trends and accepting their limitations. It just inspires me to create more of my own stuff.

You'd think, though, that with the BoM trend, which is a worthy trend IMO, people would be less likely to try and force a divergence from the SL avatar UV map. Seems that's not the case. Oh well, anything to proprietarize what's already there and make it "exclusive", I guess.

If I were younger, I'd be offended by what I see as a push towards what I consider a herd mentality or "sheeple-izing" the market, but meh. Let people do as they will, and I'll do as I will, and everyone's happy. Well, at least I am.

Edited November 11, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[Jaide Beck]

I was a solid catwa wearer for about 3 years and then the Kaya head from lelutka came out and I really wanted to try it because I was frustrated not being able to find skins, that is the biggest issue. Now I do not have to be concerned with where can I find a new skin.

Huggies, Jaide Beck

Ps this is what my head looks like.  I changed the shape from original to what I wanted it to be.  

Edited November 11, 2022 by Jaide Beck

[steeljane42]

54 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

You'd think, though, that with the BoM trend, which is a worthy trend IMO, people would be less likely to try and force a divergence from the SL avatar UV map. Seems that's not the case. Oh well, anything to proprietarize what's already there and make it "exclusive", I guess.

Lelutka just did what LL can't without destroying the old content - fixed awful default UV that has a decent amount of unused space. And as shown by its success - it's pretty much what people wanted

Now, like Anna said, if only someone did same for bodies. But as far as the female body market goes only one that would manage to start the trend would be Maitreya, but she is rather inactive creator as far as innovations go, so I wouldn't count on it.

Edited November 11, 2022 by steeljane42
typos

[Gabriele Graves]

I wear an Evo head (Lake) which is Evo X capable but I chose to stay with Evo mode and it's SLUV map compatibility.  Obviously this means I don't buy Evo X BoM layers but I'm not too concerned about that as I have thousands and thousands of options already.   I don't much like how the Evo X UV mapping makes avatars look weirdly cyclopian before their heads rez.  The majority of make-ups, etc. are now HD appliers which I also don't buy as I'm not buying into yet another applier system along with clipping etc.  I don't much like the Evo X skins I've seen but fortunately I already bought many skins and have a good set of choices.  I also don't like that there is yet another BoM layer for just the ears.

So the majority of my L$ tends to go on clothing, buildings and decor these days and virtually none on make-up, skins, etc. but like I said I have many more options than I would ever really need.  I'm not feeling any kind of loss so far.

I'm very happy with how everything looks with the SLUV mapping and don't expect that will change.  I don't need to reach for more and more realism, it's realistic enough looking for me.  I'd not be a fan of moving off SLUV for bodies either for similar reasons.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[PheebyKatz]

1 hour ago, steeljane42 said:

Lelutka just did what LL can't without destroying the old content - fixed awful default UV that has a decent amount of unused space. And as seen by its success - it's pretty much what people wanted

Now, like Anna said, if only someone did same for bodies. But as far as the female body market goes only one that would manage to start the trend would be Maitreya, but she is rather inactive creator as far as innovations go, so I wouldn't count on it.

Thanks for clarifying that for me. If it's an actual, experienced improvement for someone somewhere, then I freely give props for it. And I agree about the body UV. I mean, it's basically an old Poser model, and if you've ever tried to make even a simple pair of stockings using the UV map and struggled to get them to match up at the tops you know the pain of the tortured artist, and can relate.

I sometimes wish they'd just design a nice, new, optimized base as a system default though, and let us all go from there. It will probably never happen, because there's already so many different user-created avatars on the market now, but that's only the case because it was the only way around the limitations of the system in the first place. Kind of a catch-22.

I made my own mesh avatar, using the SL maps my own way, but I'm nowhere near as good at making a person as I am at making things that explode or follow people around or make particle farts. So yeah, I gave up and use a name brand avatar. I just wish there was some sort of longer-term standard people could go by in making things for heads and bodies. I know it helps the economy, but it can cost a LOT to get the right head, body, skin, makeup, and everything else just right. And I don't mean buying the things that are actually used on any current, "finished" look, I'm talking about how much keeps ending up in the crap-heap. I'd estimate over 90% of my purchases are only still in my inventory because I don't like to throw anything away if I spent a lot on it, even if I never use it. And more and more of what I do use, I made myself, just to avoid all of that mess.

Edited November 11, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[Blush Bravin]

6 hours ago, Santanna Surya said:

I just want to know if anyone knows, is it time to upgrade to Lelutka Evo X, or is there something new I should just wait for?

I'm very happy with my EvoX head. Switching to the new head UV has not been an issue at all for me. I just bought a new skin plus a few makeups, so it was an investment to make the switch, but it wasn't a lot of money, and the result to me is far superior to the appearance of my older heads/skins. And I finally really love the appearance of my ears! I don't think we'll be seeing any head makers steer away from using the new Lelo head UV any time soon. 

 

1 hour ago, Anna Nova said:

What we need now is the equivalent for bodies, so the symmetry on the arms and feet can be fixed.

I agree! I'm totally not happy with how the SLUV works for the body. I really do not like having only one arm/hand/foot. The addition of the new universal layer included with BOM was supposed to make asymmetrical tattoos for arms, hands, and feet a possibility. So far it has not worked. I love tattoos. But as long as I have to have matchy matchy tats for my arms, it's a problem. Even with having the ability to use add-on tattoo layers to get around the problem, it's still an issue because then we have the oh so prevalent alpha glitching errors not to mention the added complexity of wearing an additional layer of mesh.  

 

29 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I'd not be a fan of moving off SLUV for bodies either for similar reasons.

I'd jump on the chance to have a more functional body using standard BOM layers for asymmetrical tattoos. Plus just imagine having inner thighs and ankles without unavoidable texture distortions. Of course wanting something doesn't negate the fact that it's not likely to happen. Just my two cents.

[Gabriele Graves]

6 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I'd jump on the chance to have a more functional body using standard BOM layers for asymmetrical tattoos. Plus just imagine having inner thighs and ankles without unavoidable texture distortions. Of course wanting something doesn't negate the fact that it's not likely to happen. Just my two cents.

BoM already supports asymmetrical tattoos, it's the bodies/skins that don't and probably never will.  The rest doesn't bother me at all.  Avatars in SL aren't perfect, they're never going to ever be perfect and I realized a while back that I don't even expect them to be.  It's really reached that point of being good enough for me.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[PheebyKatz]

7 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I'd jump on the chance to have a more functional body using standard BOM layers for asymmetrical tattoos. Plus just imagine having inner thighs and ankles without unavoidable texture distortions. Of course wanting something doesn't negate the fact that it's not likely to happen. Just my two cents.

I agree strongly on this, about tattoos. I really do not like the fact that I can't do text tattoos for arms without it turning into mirror writing. As for a BoM fix for this, I have no idea how to do that.

Edited November 11, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[Maitimo]

1 hour ago, PheebyKatz said:

Glad I'm part of that minority of people who are driven by such trends to create our own things, rather than settle for being corralled into following trends and accepting their limitations. It just inspires me to create more of my own stuff.

 

I do this too. I have my own home-made skin, which I've already converted ready for EVO-X (the template kit is free in the Lelutka store) and I'm looking forward to making my own cosmetics and stuff too.

It's much easier for a creator to work on the EVO X template because the face on it is considerably bigger, and less distorted, than the standard SLUV map.

[Blush Bravin]

5 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

BoM already supports asymmetrical tattoos, it's the bodies/skins that don't and probably never will.  The rest doesn't bother me at all.  Avatars in SL aren't perfect, they're never going to ever be perfect and I realizes a while back that I don't even expect them to be.  It's really reached that point of being good enough for me.

Yes, in theory BoM supports it but in reality it doesn't. It's a convoluted mess trying to make them work. I've tried and gave up, and I've made lots of BoM stockings so I know how the process works. Sometimes things are just too complicated and take too much coordination between creators to get a thing to be worth the work around. In the years since BoM was released we've not seen any adoption for using the universal layers for asymmetrical tats ... the proof is in the pudding. It DoesN'T work!

Edited November 11, 2022 by Blush Bravin
added a word for clarification.

[Gabriele Graves]

1 minute ago, Blush Bravin said:

Yes, in theory BoM supports it but in reality it doesn't. It's a convoluted mess trying to make them work. I've tried and gave up, and I've made lots of BoM stockings so I know how the process works. Sometimes things are just too complicated and take too much coordination between creators to get a thing to be worth the work around. In the years since BoM was released we've not seen any adoption for using the universal layers for tats ... the proof is in the pudding. It DoesN'T work!

Yep no disagreement on any of that from me.

[PheebyKatz]

7 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

I do this too. I have my own home-made skin, which I've already converted ready for EVO-X (the template kit is free in the Lelutka store) and I'm looking forward to making my own cosmetics and stuff too.

It's much easier for a creator to work on the EVO X template because the face on it is considerably bigger, and less distorted, than the standard SLUV map.

You guys are trying to seduce me, aren't you? I'll have to look into all of this more deeply, if it's really an improvement. If it's really an improvement. I've switched heads three times now, and I'm getting really tired of having to make my face all over again to look like me. If I think it's really worth it, I might join in the party and *gasp!* change, but yeah. It took a lot of work to be beautiful enough to make angels weep blood at the altars of my magnificence, and all.

XD

Edited November 11, 2022 by PheebyKatz

[Blush Bravin]

7 minutes ago, PheebyKatz said:

You guys are trying to seduce me, aren't you? I'll have to look into all of this more deeply, if it's really an improvement. If it's really an improvement. I've switched heads three times now, and I'm getting really tired of having to make my face all over again to look like me.

Making makeups for the EVOx heads is super easy and FUN. Give it a go. No one knows what you want to look like more than you do. So if you're handy with PS or Gimp, grab that dev kit and start creating. But be warned it can be addicting!  

Using local textures while you're developing the textures is nearly like drawing directly on your head as well. Think of the money you'll save making your own as well. Develop a look using local textures and then upload the final look for 10 lindens .. when was the last time you bought a new lipstick in SL for 10 lindens?

Edited November 11, 2022 by Blush Bravin
added local texture use suggestion

[Ayashe Ninetails]

7 hours ago, Santanna Surya said:

But seriously. I have a pretty important question. 

What is THE head to buy? Is there something on the horizon that is going to be the IT head to purchase soon? Any news, or insight to share?  I want a head that is as up to date as possible, and will have plenty of options to purchase, to go along with that particular head.

I'm probably the very last person who should be answering this question as I often run in the complete opposite direction of current trends, but I'll do my best.

If all you're concerned with is easy shopping and having a ton of makeup/add-on options and new products to choose from, you'll want a Lel Evo X or Akeruka ADVX  (uses the Evo X map) head.

So now that that's out of the way, while I absolutely LOVE the male Evo line and use it exclusively on my male avatars, I'm not much of a fan of the female one, so I've actually chosen to stick with Catwa HDPro for my daily looks. I have other reasons for that, as well - mostly to do with how the HD Pro shapes. I'm able to create more unique head/face types with it for my non-human avatars (like creating severe underbites to fit bento tusks, and whatnot). It also has a secondary shaping system within the HUD for fine tuning. Oh, and another reason I refuse to give up my Catwa is I'd lose my super cute hairbase tattoos. My existing head tats never upgraded to Evo X, and for some reason, I have never found colorful Evo X head tats in my style, so there's no chance I'm giving those up anytime soon!

Shopping for Catwa is nowhere near as easy as Lelutka, but that never bothers me much. My skin and makeup inventory is pretty huge with group gifts and discount sale items, some stores still make for HDPro, and I mix and match makeup and face tattoos from all over the place to create "new" makeup styles without having to rely on new releases - sometimes wearing as many as three to five layers to make "new" eyeshadows, for example.

Heads are a very personal decision, though, so I'd suggest trying everything and finding what you like. Demo everything, but don't worry too much about finding the best of the best of the best. There are ways to make anything work.

[Lysistrata Szapira]

I haven't heard any rumors about new heads coming. LAQ was promising new ones several years ago but never came through. Their old heads were cute, so I wish they would release new ones with newer tech.

I wouldn't touch any Genus product with a ten foot pole. They failed at fixing the problems with their existing heads several years ago. They kept promising they would, but then they went radio silent.  I don't waste my lindens on businesses that have sketchy business practices.  Even if they come back with new heads, they're likely to follow the same patterns as last time. If they can't even fix a wonky eye-blink, then it's a big fat NOPE from me.

I'm also not a Catwa fan. I picked up the free head they gave away, but I just couldn't make it look like I wanted. I don't like the HUD and there's just not much created for it now. 

I am firmly in the Evo-X camp.  While I have picked up the gift heads the past few years, I always return to Avalon.  it has a endless supply of skins and make-up, many of which are offered on the weekend sales. I created my own shape for Avalon because just about every shape sold with skins looks really weird (in the face). Avalon can go from a very juvenile look to a more mature one, from Caucasian to Asian to other ethnicities, depending on the skins one purchases.  It's a very versatile head. 

Speaking of bodies, I wish Maitreya would surprise us with a new body for Christmas, but I'm not holding my breath. I still use that body exclusively, while I use my alts to experiment with the newer bodies. I'm not throwing out my inventory on my main to go with a newer body.  I'd rather keep my massive inventory of Ison clothing than use a new body. 

 

[Blaise Glendevon]

Ga.Eg also releases heads now on the EvoX map, and I highly recommend Akeruka if you want to keep up with the new releases of makeup and skins but don't want to wear the same Lelutka heads as everyone else. (The only drawback is the lack of on-board face animations. The AK selection is pretty meager. But Vista and other AO makers make third party face AOs.) Akeruka just did a big update of their heads with fantasy ears - elf, mermaid, vampire and a pretty extreme split tongue body mod, as well. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Blaise Glendevon

[Cali Souther]

5 hours ago, Anna Nova said:

The old SL head UVmap is now pretty much dead.  Everything is going EvoX for heads.  If another maker, say Catwa, made another UVmap, I doubt it would succeed, unless they buy the market, and that would be a terrific commercial risk.  EvoX won.

What we need now is the equivalent for bodies, so the symmetry on the arms and feet can be fixed.

Why did they change it?  Was it broken?

[Blaise Glendevon]

14 minutes ago, Cali Souther said:

Why did they change it?  Was it broken?

Yes. 

[Maitimo]

6 hours ago, PheebyKatz said:

You guys are trying to seduce me, aren't you? I'll have to look into all of this more deeply, if it's really an improvement. If it's really an improvement. I've switched heads three times now, and I'm getting really tired of having to make my face all over again to look like me. If I think it's really worth it, I might join in the party and *gasp!* change, but yeah. It took a lot of work to be beautiful enough to make angels weep blood at the altars of my magnificence, and all.

XD

Getting my head to look "like me" was always the hardest part. I had an early (pre-bento) Catwa head that I loved, and any head I've had since, the criteria is that I must be able to make it look somewhat like that one. Especially in the mouth - it had a distinct "cupid's bow" shape and deep lip cleft that most Lelutka heads so far have lacked. But they brought a new one out this year (or maybe late last year) that works really well for me, and that's the only one I'm interested in getting.

[Marianne Little]

15 hours ago, Cali Souther said:

Why did they change it?  Was it broken?

It was wasteful. The ears took up too much space, that could be put to better use. This is why the new UV does not have ears anymore, they got their own map.

At first, I scoffed at the thought of more details. Was it necessary? Why change what works?

And then I saw what could be done with hairbases. The new ones are superior. It is now an unbroken line from the face to the back of the neck. No need to patch together parts, as on the old UV.

So it was the seamless, perfect hairbases that won me over. Not many stores sold hairbases in the beginning, but Lelutka includes a ton of hairbases in several styles and colors. I was worried about all the makeup layers I had bought over the years, and could not use anymore. But the weekend sales helped me build up a makeup layer library bigger than before. It is even cheaper makeup every Tuesday, the 25L Tuesday sale.

And well... The new mesh heads has made me want different types of makeup. Not the hard shaded ones from before. New makeup look fresher and lighter.

[Santanna Surya]

I want to thank everyone for their input!  You've all been so helpful, and were amazing to share all your thoughts on various heads, pros and cons, and what you use. Thank you~!❤️