Introducing Senra Avatars... what do you think?

[Rowan Amore]

17 minutes ago, Casidy Silvercloud said:

I saw that. His clarifications actually only take a CYA stance. That's totally not a dig on Patch of course, it's what he has to do and what any smart legal team would tell him to do. But he didn't actually clarify anything except to say "but we might not take that part seriously". I'm glad he tried, really, it helps a lot to at least try and clear things up. 

His clarification says "we'll only use it for stuff we can't yet tell you about" (which is a good attempt at trying to ease some minds), but the contract you agree to, says otherwise (which is pretty typical in business, lol).  That's also not a dig at the lab either, all of their TOS and such things are written on convoluted legalese too, lol. I just take some issues with the way some things are worded, personally, an how they can be potentially applied in the future.  I still reserve the right to change my mind at a later date though, and I might, who knows. 

For now I can at least make BOM stuff for myself if I want to try it on and mess about with it. I used to make system clothes in sl, so that part will be easy.

Long live my flexis and sculpt parts, I'm so bringing them back! 

dun...dun....duuunnnnnnnnnnn

(ok not really)

 

(but maaaaaaaaybe....)

He actually said when addressing the questions... As long as you have the dev kit, create anything you want.  ONLY if they decide to include it with the avatar in the library will the possibly require inspection.  I'm sure that the upcoming thing he's talking about.  How to get your creations into the official Senra package or store.

You get the kit, you make your stuff, you dress your Senra.  Done.  Give some clothes to your friends, sell them.  

Asking for inspection and maybe files appears.to only be required to be official Senra content.  As if a Mole were making it.  Makes sense in that respect. 

At least, that's how his response appears to me.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Persephone Emerald]

My "returning" avatar wanted to try the Jamie body too. This is her with the starter Kimberly skin, a modified Kimberly shape, the Jamie head and body, hair, dress and shoes. Note the lips and fingertips on the Kimberly skin do not work on the Jamie mesh head and body. Her AO is the newbie gift AO set from Body Language, from the Welcome Hub Shopping region.

[Cackle Amore]

Personally I'm highly supportive of the project.
However as a creative.. extremely disappointed at the subpar quality and lack of optimization of the body.

Both the Blake and Jamie suffer from excessive subdivide, making them highly dense all over the body where it doesn't need to be.
The Jamie body in particular also suffers from really bad topology and even more lopsided here and there that it almost feels like it got rushed compared to the Blake.

I want to like it, I wanted to make stuff for it. But they should of strived to been the gold standard of avatar bodies

[Kathlen Onyx]

16 minutes ago, Cackle Amore said:

I want to like it, I wanted to make stuff for it. But they should of strived to been the gold standard of avatar bodies

If they were the gold standard of avatar bodies what would give a new user the incentive to upgrade to a non free body?

[Casidy Silvercloud]

38 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Asking for inspection and maybe files appears.to only be required to be official Senra content.  As if a Mole were making it.  Makes sense in that respect. 

At least, that's how his response appears to me.

I would like to assume that's the case too, and if it is, that makes perfect sense (whether or not I like it, lol). I do also hope that everyone who applies gets the kit. So far I have no reason to believe that the lab won't approve everyone.

Experiences I've had with copyright in rl makes me extra wary of convoluted legalese and pay close attention to any phrasing designed as CYOA (though I totally understand its necessity from a business perspective). I err on the side of being extra cautious and careful, but that's just me. I can see why others might too, and I can understand their apprehension with the wording. It's good to be cautious when it's something you work to create yourself and want to protect. 

I can still make the things I want to, for myself, anything that doesn't need the kit anyway lol. I just won't, for others or make meshes unless I want to apply for the kit. I haven't yet made my mind up on that. I'm giving it time to come out and be "a thing", give it a chance to get off the ground and have more kinks worked out first.  I think that's the best way to do it for me. I look forward to seeing what others make too, though. I've seen what people can do with system stuff, sculpts, prims and now mesh, so, could be some awesome stuff. 

[Cayenne Republic]

Best I can do. League for Lelutka (not EvoX). The AO is trash. 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Cayenne Republic

[Randall Ahren]

1 hour ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

If they were the gold standard of avatar bodies what would give a new user the incentive to upgrade to a non free body?

The avatar bodies should at least be the bronze standard to entice new residents to stay. Gold standard mesh bodies would also be good so that LL could implement the razor business model: excellent free mesh bodies, but the accessories cost.

[Persephone Emerald]

23 hours ago, Randall Ahren said:

The avatar bodies should at least be the bronze standard to entice new residents to stay. Gold standard mesh bodies would also be good so that LL could implement the razor business model: excellent free mesh bodies, but the accessories cost.

Hey, what's wrong with the plywood standard? 🪵

Edited August 3, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Gabriele Graves]

I've taken a look at the Beta and at first glance there doesn't seem to be any significant changes from the pre-release.  Just as I had anticipated despite the opinions of some.

Jamie highlights:

• Still no high heel feet
• Still got Senra tags on clothing
• General clothing quality unchanged.
• AO still bad

However now that we know for certain that the plan is for newbies to ditch these as soon as they start spending money (also as I predicated), that's not so bad.  Truly sorry for those hoping for a standardized avatar base and widespread adoption.

I just hope those new people don't "invest" too much in this avatar before realising that they should wait until they get their first full body.

[Bree Giffen]

I just tried the Jamie body. I think it's a good base for LL's new avatars but it won't be beating Maitreya or Lelutka. The AO is crazy bad. LL should try to make the AO better considering how bad the default animations have been. Animation is important. It really solidifies the presentation of an avatar. 

[Zidaya Zenovka]

I see potential but making them look not as good as they could be just to encourage people to buy different/better avatars seems rather unnecessary and a bit greedy. Why? People are going to go out and buy that stuff anyway. Why not give people something good. 

[Lysistrata Szapira]

Yeah, I just don't get LL's obsession with handing out the most atrocious AOs. Surely someone on their creation staff actually knows how to create animations that don't look utterly stupid?  I didn't think they could top the original Duck Walk (tm), but they even fell below their already basement standards with this one.  I haven't seen a Linden in world in a hot minute, so I don't know what AOs they use, but come on!

New people who are supposedly the target for this avatar, if they are used to other games and virtual worlds, will take one look at that AO and ask what amateur came up with it and then leave world as fast as they arrived. 

I hate to get nasty with this, but this was a major fail on their part. 

[Gabriele Graves]

1 minute ago, Lysistrata Szapira said:

I haven't seen a Linden in world in a hot minute, so I don't know what AOs they use, but come on!

I'll be honest, I've only ever seen them fly, hover, be animated by a pose ball or sitting on furniture.  I've never seen a Linden walk.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

Truth be told, I find all these

"Hey look people, I made a SUX Fail-atar not look like crap!"

posts annoying, because the second line of the post is basically always

"... I just dived into my 250,000 item inventory and pulled out a load of 10-15 year old stuff that no Noob can ever possibly have, and then spent 2 hours tinkering, using skills no Noob has ever heard of or had time to develop!"

So the resultant "doesn't quite look like crap" pictures of SUX, are basically misleading., no SUX wearing noob will EVER look like that. These were supposed to be an improvement over the mesh dressed system avatars, but at least half the time, they fail at that simple task.

Some people are surprised that LL spent over a year making something so substandard, I am not, because I checked out the LAST set of "Amazing New All Mesh Avatars" LL released, which are still in the Library, you know, the Vampires and Zombies themed Fuglymesh Fail-Atars no Noob ever wore for more than 5 days before switching to a freebie store system avatar.

 

The more LL try to change, the more they stay exactly the same, on the "Plywood Standard".

Edited August 2, 2023 by Zalificent Corvinus

[Persephone Emerald]

I agree that LL *could* have done better with these starter avatars, not just that they *should* have done better. Look back at my pictures with the Jamie skin vs. the Kimberly skin. Kimberly is an existing starter avatar, and her skin looks more detailed and more attractive than Jamie's. 

They had better AO sets for the free avatars at SL16B. I don't know why they haven't reused the animations from them to create better starter AO sets.

Naria Panthar's YouTube review of these avatars shows the horrible body shapes that were included. It also shows the mesh clothing that needs an alpha layer to hide the body. I assumed LL must've made alpha layers necessary, so newbies would be forced to use alpha layers and understand how they work. But Naria made a good point that newbies will have never heard of an "alpha layer" before, so why would we want to confuse them with this idea? The clothes should either fit without having to hide the body or the clothes should include scripts to hide the parts of the body that are under them. I can understand why LL didn't want to go with alpha cuts and a HUD, but then they should have made clothes that fit right.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Persephone Emerald

[Cackle Amore]

13 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

If they were the gold standard of avatar bodies what would give a new user the incentive to upgrade to a non free body?

By gold standard I more so mean by setting a good example for other creatives to follow.

Well made, optimized, good topology, not drowning in multiple layers of subdivide.
The models instead are excessively high poly where it doesn't need to be, and the Jamie one in particular is a hot mess with the density of the topology kind of all over the place.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Cackle Amore
re-worded some text

[Persephone Emerald]

6 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Truth be told, I find all these

"Hey look people, I made a SUX Fail-atar not look like crap!"

posts annoying, because the second line of the post is basically always

"... I just dived into my 250,000 item inventory and pulled out a load of 10-15 tear old stuff that no Noob can ever possibly have, and then spent 2 hours tinkering, using skills no Noob has ever heard of or had time to develop!"

[snip]

Except for 1 eyelash tattoo, I purposely used only items that a newbie would have available on my Jamie avatars. I adjusted the shapes, which most newbies wouldn't know how to do, but the skin, hair and clothing I used were all from the Inventory Library. One avatar is shown posing with the starter AO. The other one is using a free gift AO that's available at the Shopping region of the Welcome Hub.

I wanted to show how Jamie could look for a newbie, not how a long-time resident could restyle her.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

2 hours ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I've taken a look at the Beta and at first glance there doesn't seem to be any significant changes from the pre-release.  Just as I had anticipated despite the opinions of some.

Jamie highlights:

• Still no high heel feet
• Still got Senra tags on clothing
• General clothing quality unchanged.
• AO still bad

However now that we know for certain that the plan is for newbies to ditch these as soon as they start spending money (also as I predicated), that's not so bad.  Truly sorry for those hoping for a standardized avatar base and widespread adoption.

I just hope those new people don't "invest" too much in this avatar before realising that they should wait until they get their first full body.

but wait.... I have a use for all my "feet included" old style shoes!

[rasterscan]

Introducing Senra Avatars... what do you think?

Judging by the pictures in this thread, and that includes the male in a dress funny ones, Senra is a huge improvement on the old classics. 

Will SL be modifying the 'Choose an Avatar' portion of the viewer ? The success of new player retention absolutely depends on new starters landing inworld for the first time automatically set up, and looking good as Senras by default.  imho. 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by rasterscan

[Persephone Emerald]

@rasterscan

This video shows how the Choose an Avatar process should be working now from the SL website. I'm hoping a similar functionality will be added into the next SL viewer update.

[Cackle Amore]

17 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Naria Panthar's YouTube review of these avatars shows the horrible body shapes that were included. It also shows the mesh clothing that needs an alpha layer to hide the body. I assumed LL must've made alpha layers necessary, so newbies would be forced to use alpha layers and understand how they work. But Naria made a good point that newbies will have never heard of an "alpha layer" before, so why would we want to confuse them with this idea? The clothes should either fit without having to hide the body or the clothes should include scripts to hide the parts of the body that are under them. I can understand why LL didn't want to go with alpha cuts and a HUD, but then they should have made clothes that fit right.

This is actually one of the good things about the body imo. That its not full of a million tiny material faces with a script heavy alpha hud. That's kind of the whole purpose of having the alpha layers. However, the body being one solid mass is not so great as it greatly limits modability, like if someone wanted to replace a limb or two with mechanical parts or a peg leg.

 

As for clothing, while it can be nice when we're able to get clothes to fit seamlessly over our character models, we can't always get it 1:1 when it comes to how the weights behave so most games will just have the body split into separate chunks and slice out the hidden parts of the body under the clothes. But most people wouldn't want to to have random body parts attached to their clothes, so that's where alpha layers come in.

[shireena1]

Ok, for fun,  I went back to my old system avatar, and tried out the jamie body and head!🤢🤮. Honestly, i got the look of a older eastern block female weightlifter!! ( a pic similar to this is on page 1 of this posting! ) .  As if SL doesnt confuse newbs enough, gees, i hope that is not the default female avie. I certainly want my avie to at least look like a female lol.

Edited August 2, 2023 by shireena1
typo

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 minutes ago, shireena1 said:

ok, for fun  i went back to my old system avatar, and tried out the jamie body and head!🤢🤮. Honestly, i got the look of a older eastern block female weightlifter!! ( a pic similar to this in on page 1 of this posting! ) .  As if SL doesnt confuse newbs enough, gees, i hope that is not the default female avie. i certainly want my avie to at least look like a female lol.

"...it takes the anabolic steroids and wins the Gold Medal for the SL Peoples Republic in the 200kg Jerk & Lift contest, or it gets the Cornfield Gulag Season Pass again..."

 

[Stephanie Misfit]

I will probably make some skins for the female avatar and give them away in my alt's store. It's been quite a while since I made skins, the last one I made was a freebie too, and this has got me interested again.

[Fionalein]

Official video starts with a dude wearing another avatar... just saying...