even after 16 years in SL I need avatar help

[Riley Brinner]

okay so, probably a very noob question again, but.......if  your head and body are different mesh makers, how do you get the skin to cover both?

[Maitimo]

18 minutes ago, Riley Brinner said:

okay so, probably a very noob question again, but.......if  your head and body are different mesh makers, how do you get the skin to cover both?

Use a BOM skin.  As long as the skin for your head and the skin for your body are from the same store and in the same tone, it will match. If yo have an "all in one" skin, like 7 Deadly Skins do, then it will match automatically.  Just make sure you use the correct neck size fitting on your Maitreya HUD;  I think its Type 2 for Lelutka and Catwa HDPro, and type 1 for everything else. If you use the wrong one, the neck fit will be a slightly different size.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Maitimo

[Ayashe Ninetails]

24 minutes ago, Ajay McDowwll said:

I literally LOL'd at this -- and good to know! 

I think my issue with the female Lelutka heads -- and this dates back to their Origins line -- is I can just never shape them in a way that works for me.  The style of Lelutka is very "supermodel/smoulder" as far as the general expression on the face, whereas I tend to go more cheerful or something?  Probably the annoying American in me, where I feel I must smile every danged second   But again, those are my caveats; others' mileage varies significantly.  I'm just glad we have so many different heads on the Grid, because that way it's possible for everyone to find the look uniquely suited to them

Also, agreed on the men's EvoX heads.  I have way less difficulty shaping them for some reason.

Haha. I completely agree. I adore expressive faces and for some reason, Catwa's over the top smiles and animations just work for me. They look absolutely out of place and ridiculous at times (random RBF and eyerolls and tongue sticking out at people for no good reason), and I'm so here for that silliness. I find Lel's animations are a bit too calm for me, and while most sane people prefer that kind of thing, I really miss making dumb faces all the time when I have them on. 😂

I can't shape them to my liking either, but for some reason, the male heads feel more flexible. I bought Lel Ford a while back and oh my goodness, he's gorgeous. I will spend hours playing with that face! Alain, as well. And don't get me started on Quinn. Omg. I think that's the most flexible male head I've tried yet. And now we've got glitter for them too? OMG!

[Nalates Urriah]

7 hours ago, Riley Brinner said:

The head in my avatar picture is actually a  classic head. 

I actually own the GA.EG Mia head as I used it for an alt. I don't like the drawn on eyebrow look it has and also the eye make--up options. 

Thank you everyone again

I'll point out that the built-in eyebrows and makeup can all be turned off allowing you to use most BOM brows and makeup. Plus, there are numerous makeup packs made by GA.EG.

[Riley Brinner]

3 hours ago, Maitimo said:

Use a BOM skin.  As long as the skin for your head and the skin for your body are from the same store and in the same tone, it will match. If yo have an "all in one" skin, like 7 Deadly Skins do, then it will match automatically.  Just make sure you use the correct neck size fitting on your Maitreya HUD;  I think its Type 2 for Lelutka and Catwa HDPro, and type 1 for everything else. If you use the wrong one, the neck fit will be a slightly different size.

I cannot find seven deadly skins in world or on the MP. Is it gone?

[Ze Helix]

The most common way to wear BoM skins these days is to buy a face from one store, and buy the matching body either from that store or from another shop. The shop that has the face will make it clear where you need to go to get the matching body tone. Free neck blenders are widespread so you can even use a different body if you find one you like more than the suggested brand. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday there are usually at least 15-20 high quality female faces from all sorts of different creators participating in the weekend sales. So for 50-99L you should likely find an evox face you love, and the body skin will usually be from 250-350L unless its built in or free. Amara Beauty has free body skins for example and Pumec includes the skin tone with their faces, though they recently branched out into also creating skins for Velour body which are popular body skins from another store. If you browse the sales posted on a site like Seraphim SL you can get a good idea of whats out there for cheap. There are also many stores with gifts out though they often need a group with a fee. Like Moccino still has their Christmas gift out (as of Feb), a skin fatpack but the group costs 100L to join.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

22 minutes ago, Riley Brinner said:

I cannot find seven deadly skins in world or on the MP. Is it gone?

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Shadow Crest/129/44/41  Try there. Snatched it from their Flickr, so let me know if it doesn't work.

You can also buy head skins that match different body skins. The head skins will usually specify which body skins they're designed to match. Most use Velour's body line, but some are all under the same roof (Nuve, Amara Beauty, etc.).

[Ceka Cianci]

41 minutes ago, Riley Brinner said:

I cannot find seven deadly skins in world or on the MP. Is it gone?

Any time you search for them, you  need to type it out like this  7 Deadly s{K}ins or you'll a lot of times get nothing.. there are others that have the same name..

You could just use the s{K}ins part too and they will show..

[Dorientje Woller]

On 2/22/2023 at 7:44 PM, Ayashe Ninetails said:

There are other brands (Rebirth, LOGO, etc.), but I'm not overly familiar with those. I do believe Rebirth has a free head. Lel and AK occasionally gift heads around major holidays if you feel like waiting a bit. AK also does sales where heads drop to about 1800L every so often.

LOGO has 2 new heads in promo at the moment, both 999 Lindens. Both are EVO X enabled. One side remark with those: due to attachment of some parts of the heads to different points of the skeleton for an advanced animations of these head, they aren't that shapeable. If you wanna go shape modifying, it's better to use the standard head version, which is included in the package.

[Persephone Emerald]

8 hours ago, Riley Brinner said:

okay so, probably a very noob question again, but.......if  your head and body are different mesh makers, how do you get the skin to cover both?

4 hours ago, Riley Brinner said:

I cannot find seven deadly skins in world or on the MP. Is it gone?

If you search on Deadly, you may find the store easily enough. Their new group is Seven. It's probably expensive to join right now, but sometimes it's free join. The SL Frees and Offers and Fabulously Free groups might alert you to when it's free join.  Their Midnight Madness boards don't require their group, so hit those. They're usually for a Genus skin and an EvoX skin. Their bodies are fitted for Maitreya Lara by default, so it's convenient to have the head and body skin all on the skin layer if you wear a Maitreya body. They also often have $L 1 skins that anyone can buy.

(They don't have much for male skins, but they do have a group gift box of older male skins upstairs.)

If you're wearing a skin - head and body - from the same store, it will usually not show a neck seam. However, if your materials settings are different on your head and body, they might not look like a perfect match. Check your materials settings on the HUDs for your head and body if you have a problem with the skins not matching perfectly. Maybe it's just me, but some of the early 7DS EvoX skins seemed to me to not line-up perfectly on the neck. Always demo mesh items and skins before buying. 

My other favorite skin store is Nuve. It's $L 350 to join now, but sometimes it's free join too. They have a bunch of great group gift skins (female only). Their Hailey GG skin includes all the basic natural body skins and their Molly GG skin includes both the natural and the fantasy tones. Best of all, you can get $L 75 in store credit every week by hitting the sign in their store. I save this to buy their v.4 body skins for my Freya body. They also have free to anyone fantasy tone shaders and some other gifts. Their head skins seem to have neck shaders build in too, so they're easier to blend with body skins from another creator.

When wearing a separate body and head skin, wear the skin layer first, then add the face skin, then add your hair base, makeup and tattoos. If you have the choice of using a Universal Tattoo layer rather than a basic tattoo layer, use that because it won't conflict with your basic tattoo layers. EvoX ear skins are usually on Universal Tattoo layers. If you wear tattoo layers, the ones you add last go on top of the ones you already have on, so you might have to change their priority in Edit or take one off and put it on again.

Note that the EvoX skin map applies to BOM / system layers for skins, hair bases, makeup and head tattoos, so you'll have to use the right kind of BOM layers for the head or head setting you're using. If you have a Lelutka EvoX head however, applier makeup for their Evolution or EvoX heads will both work fine on your head, no matter which setting it's on. The older Origins line only works with Origins appliers, and Origins appliers only work with Origins heads.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Riley Brinner]

21 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

I'll point out that the built-in eyebrows and makeup can all be turned off allowing you to use most BOM brows and makeup. Plus, there are numerous makeup packs made by GA.EG.

thank you so much for your reply.  i am currently working on my GA.EG Mia head.   I got everything off of the face, but cannot figure out how to get BOM anything on it.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Riley Brinner

[Ceka Cianci]

3 hours ago, Riley Brinner said:

thank you so much for your reply.  i am currently working on my GA.EG Mia head.   I got everything off of the face, but cannot figure out how to get BOM anything on it.

I went and got the demo.. In the smart hud  it looks like the BOM  button is in the upper left corner of the skin section..

Once your head is BOM,  go into the tabs that you want to turn things off and in the upper left, you will see Show Hide Clear..

Then just hide the brows or the lipstick.. Then you can add your bom things..  Bom skins are going to be using system layers, because bakes on mesh is just using the system layers on our mesh.. So they will work in the same order as they did on our system bodies..

Skin being the bottom of all the layers, then tattoo's, then underwear, then pants and shirts, then jackets.. Most things like makeups are going to be using the tattoo layer like, solo mesh head skins and makeups.. If you get a skin from 7 deadly s{K}ins, then the whole thing should cover your head and body because it is a complete skin..

Nowadays a lot of skin makers that make Mesh head skins, just make the head skins and will either sell the body skins separated or send you to another store that they say matches their skins..

Seven Deadly is nice, because it's one of the one stop shops more or less..

Also, there is a tab for show and hide at the bottom of the hud, but haven't went that far into it yet.. I'm guessing it's  for maybe just clearing all the appliers on your  head at once or more than one thing at a time.. Those will only work on appliers though and you'd have to take the bom items off yourself since they are system layers..

Edited February 24, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Riley Brinner]

6 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

I went and got the demo.. In the smart hud  it looks like the BOM  button is in the upper left corner of the skin section..

Once your head is BOM  go into the tabs that you want to turn things off and in the upper left you will see Show Hide Clear..

Then just hide the brows or the lipstick.. Then you can add your bom things..  Bom skins are going to be using system layers, because bakes on mesh is just using the system layers on our mesh.. So they will work in the same order as they did on our system bodies..

Skin being the bottom of all the layers, then tattoo's, then underwear, then pants and shirts, then jackets.. Most things like makups are going to be using the tattoo layer like solo head skins and makeups.. If you get a skin from 7 deadly s{K}ins then the whole thing should cover your head and body because it is a complete skin..

Nowadays a lot of skin makers that make head skins just make the head skins and will either sell the body skins separated or send you to another store that they say matches their skins..

Seven deadly is nice because it's one of the one stop shops more or less..

Also there is a tab for show and hide at the bottom of the hud, but haven't went that far into it yet.. I'm guessing it's  for maybe just clearing all the appliers on your  head at once or more than one thing at a time.. Those will only work on appliers though and you'd have to take the bom items off yourself since they are system layers..

you are too kind, thank you so much !

[Ceka Cianci]

38 minutes ago, Riley Brinner said:

you are too kind, thank you so much !

You're welcome

Also, I'm in world for most of the day today if you have any questions that I can help with. I'm just gonna be looking at the Friday sales and things and looking for something to do anyways.. hehehe

 

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Ceka Cianci
Fixing my non stop typos

[Riley Brinner]

Riley with GA.EG Mia head. Not exactly the same, but I'm good with it and can still tweak. Again, thank you all !

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Riley Brinner

[Ceka Cianci]

33 minutes ago, Riley Brinner said:

Riley with GA.EG Mia head. Not exactly the same, but I'm good with it and can still tweak. Again, thank you all !

 

You look great!

Plus, there are a lot of things out there  that you can use to tweak things.. with makeups you can still use the appliers but also bom..

The only thing you want to avoid if your head is bom is, if you use an applier skin it will kick you out of bom. But you can just click the Bom button again to fix that really quick..  that or if you wanted to use that applier skin, then just put your head alpha back on.. you just wouldn't be able to use your bom makeup on the applier skin though..

It's a mind juggle at first but becomes second nature soon enough.. hehehehe

  Going  mesh head  gives a huge world of options and temptations to get more things.. hehehehe

Edited February 24, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Maitimo]

7 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

The only thing you want to avoid if your head is bom is, if you use an applier skin it will kick you out of bom. But you can just click the Bom button again to fix that really quick.. 

As another reminder to the OP - even if your skin is BOM, you can still use applier cosmetics on top. I like to use applier lipstick because the hud allows to blend/fade it, which makes it look a bit more subtle. BOM add-ons can't be faded in this way.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Maitimo said:

As another reminder to the OP - even if your skin is BOM, you can still use applier cosmetics on top. I like to use applier lipstick because the hud allows to blend/fade it, which makes it look a bit more subtle. BOM add-ons can't be faded in this way.

I think I mentioned something about using both in another post, it may have just been the applier brows on a bom head because they can be adjusted.. but definitely doesn't hurt  to say it again..  because it's a lot of information to take in and a lot can get lost in long posts like the ones I've been making lately.. hehehehe

[Anna Nova]

No one mentions it, but Lucybody have a couple of mesh heads at 500L$.  I already have several EvoX Lelutka heads that I like so I have not bought one, but the demos looked okay.

[Nalates Urriah]

Appliers and BOM...

I think no one has pointed out that whether one can mix appliers and BOM depends on how the item has been built. For instance my GA.EG Jennifer head was made before BOM was a thing. That head has onion skin layers. Gael adapted the head to BOM by providing a way to set the Skin Layer to BOM. None of the other layers in the head can be set to BOM... well not by the HUDs Gael provides. So, I can use appliers on any of the other layers in the head without the BOM setting for skin being overridden. Then poof goes the skin. I love being able to mix appliers and BOM. The advantages are outside this discussion.

My Slink Redux mesh body has a single layer. No onion skinning. Making it a lite ACI and script body. But any use of an applier would disable the BOM. So all tats, and other things, are added by wearing System Layers on the Classic body.

Various heads and bodies use various levels of onion-skin layering. The individual construction of these items determines whether one can use a mix of appliers and BOM.

The SL limitation is that the prim render pipeline only allows one diffuse texture per face. Mesh heads and bodies are run through the prim pipeline. You can experiment with what is possible by editing and playing with a cube.

The Classic Avatar passes through the 'avatar' render pipeline. Some time ago the Lab built Server Side Baking (SSB). All the System Layers are baked into composite textures on the Linden server side and passed back to the viewer. The result is no matter how many layers you wear the avatar body only ever renders as wearing 3 textures; head, upper, and lower. The new BOM (Bakes On Mesh - aka bake the classic avatar layers and put the results on a prim) changed the SSB to make the composite textures available for use on prims.

This was all done to improve performance...

[Ceka Cianci]

45 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Appliers and BOM...

I think no one has pointed out that whether one can mix appliers and BOM depends on how the item has been built. For instance my GA.EG Jennifer head was made before BOM was a thing. That head has onion skin layers. Gael adapted the head to BOM by providing a way to set the Skin Layer to BOM. None of the other layers in the head can be set to BOM... well not by the HUDs Gael provides. So, I can use appliers on any of the other layers in the head without the BOM setting for skin being overridden. Then poof goes the skin. I love being able to mix appliers and BOM. The advantages are outside this discussion.

My Slink Redux mesh body has a single layer. No onion skinning. Making it a lite ACI and script body. But any use of an applier would disable the BOM. So all tats, and other things, are added by wearing System Layers on the Classic body.

Various heads and bodies use various levels of onion-skin layering. The individual construction of these items determines whether one can use a mix of appliers and BOM.

The SL limitation is that the prim render pipeline only allows one diffuse texture per face. Mesh heads and bodies are run through the prim pipeline. You can experiment with what is possible by editing and playing with a cube.

The Classic Avatar passes through the 'avatar' render pipeline. Some time ago the Lab built Server Side Baking (SSB). All the System Layers are baked into composite textures on the Linden server side and passed back to the viewer. The result is no matter how many layers you wear the avatar body only ever renders as wearing 3 textures; head, upper, and lower. The new BOM (Bakes On Mesh - aka bake the classic avatar layers and put the results on a prim) changed the SSB to make the composite textures available for use on prims.

This was all done to improve performance...

I'm not sure I'm following  what you are meaning with the bolded part.. I don't think any of my heads that can go in either direction of bom skin or applier skin, will kick me out of bom for using appliers for makeup when the head is set to bom..

Maybe i'm misunderstanding what you are saying or something.. hehehe

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 2/23/2023 at 4:01 PM, Dorientje Woller said:

LOGO has 2 new heads in promo at the moment, both 999 Lindens. Both are EVO X enabled. One side remark with those: due to attachment of some parts of the heads to different points of the skeleton for an advanced animations of these head, they aren't that shapeable. If you wanna go shape modifying, it's better to use the standard head version, which is included in the package.

Is it specifically EVO x or can it be classic as well.. I deleted my free AK head because I didn’t like that it was not both…  

[Persephone Emerald]

4 hours ago, SpiritSparrow Skydancer said:

Is it specifically EVO x or can it be classic as well.. I deleted my free AK head because I didn’t like that it was not both…  

As far as I know, the only heads that can use either the SLUV map or the EvoX map are the Lelutka EvoX heads.

They cannot use applier skin, but they can use either applier makeup, BOM makeup, or both at the same time.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Dorientje Woller]

4 hours ago, SpiritSparrow Skydancer said:

Is it specifically EVO x or can it be classic as well.. I deleted my free AK head because I didn’t like that it was not both…  

The new LOGO heads, both Advanced & Standard version in the package, are capable of using the normal SL UV BOM and EVO X UV BOM. It's with a flip of the switch on the hud for the head, and a tap on the BOM button to toggle between SL UV or EVO X ears. Once EVO X activated, as example, the rest of the layers from the hud like lipstick, eye shadow and so on are following the EVO X scheme. Furthermore, but that's still up in the air as I haven't heard anything yet back from Maximillian, is that he is trying to come with a quick process to update his old range of heads to this EVO X UV.

[Ceka Cianci]

9 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

The new LOGO heads, both Advanced & Standard version in the package, are capable of using the normal SL UV BOM and EVO X UV BOM. It's with a flip of the switch on the hud for the head, and a tap on the BOM button to toggle between SL UV or EVO X ears. Once EVO X activated, as example, the rest of the layers from the hud like lipstick, eye shadow and so on are following the EVO X scheme. Furthermore, but that's still up in the air as I haven't heard anything yet back from Maximillian, is that he is trying to come with a quick process to update his old range of heads to this EVO X UV.

The only problem that I can see and it may not be that big of a problem for some, is when it comes to lashes.. A lot of my older Logo lashes don't fit too well on the new eyelash mesh and any other 3rd party lashes would have to be used by the omega system or come with an installer  made just for LOGO to install them to the customization  hud..

So I'm limited to what's in the hud already.. I went to the store to try and see if they made anything for the newer head and couldn't find any demos for their makeups.. Everything else in the store has demos but the makeups.  Plus everything in the store looks like the older makeups with a BOM version added..

BOM is fine for makeups, but when it comes to the lashes, I don't know of any lashes that are BOM..

I haven't dove too deep into the head but just a couple of times, so I may be overlooking something.

But if not, Hopefully that is on their list of things in the future..

 

LOGO Alexis was my very first mesh head and the one that is in the picture in my forum avatar.. I really loved that head.. It was a nice fit right out of the gate and worked great with the sliders..  I wouldn't mind getting another actually..

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Ceka Cianci
Just working on my typo skills again