Body materials meet head materials = seam on neck?

[Marianne Little]

I have been making some new "look of the day" images where I want to use materials on my skin more. I have always turned off materials on head and body, I am not fan of shine in everyday looks.

But for more artistic pictures, I want it. Since I am new to materials, I am struggling to get a flawless neck seam.

I have been looking at brands like 'This is Wrong' and want to buy some shine- 'Animatronic' or 'Cybernetic'.

I think it is safe to link since it is patches over the nipples, be aware that this is a body product so it shows a lot of skin. Cybernetic

As you see, it is no demo. So how do you suggest I get the head to match and no seam? Without using collars or neck tattoos to hide it?

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Marianne Little
typos

[Wulfie Reanimator]

If you look at your avatar's neck and see a seam caused by light/shadow, there's no chance to have seamless materials there.

Other than that, getting materials to match is the same thing as getting skin textures to match. 🙂

[Ceka Cianci]

With THIS IS WRONG products, they usually have textures for mesh heads as well in the pack..

Have you bought this already or are you asking  ahead of time before you buy?

Edited September 10, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Marianne Little]

1 hour ago, Ceka Cianci said:

With THIS IS WRONG products, they usually have textures for mesh heads as well in the pack..

Have you bought this already or are you asking  ahead of time before you buy?

Asking ahead. It is so annoying without a demo. I am a novice in use of materials on skin.

I could buy it and hope it is okay. Is it other material packs that had demos, I wonder.

[Ceka Cianci]

3 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Asking ahead. It is so annoying without a demo. I am a novice in use of materials on skin.

I could buy it and hope it is okay. Is it other material packs that had demos, I wonder.

Ya I don't understand why they don't have demos there either.. The only reason I do buy things from them is I had their work before.. I mostly went for the wet and rain and soaked  materials for my shots on beaches and things like that..

As far as neck seam line, I didn't really have that problem with their things..  Still with as many different material textures that they have, I wish they would do demos.. A big reason is, they seem to look different on different bodies..  Like something will look really wet on my maitreya, but if I switch to  another body it may look pitted and not beaded.. That could be that I need to adjust something in the body hud as well as the lighting for that body..

There is a lot I wanted to get there, but not having a demo  just held me off, where when I got the more natural wet  materials from them , I decided to go for it, because those are hard to find just what I was looking for and they had them..  I was really happy with those..

It's definitely a gamble that you may win or lose.. It's also hard to go by reviews because everyone see's things differently.. Myself I think they do really good work, but that's from my perspective of things I've already gotten and my taste on what I feel is quality.. Where someone else may not like what I like at all or vice versa..

Most of the time I won't chance things with no demo, especially these days with the prices some are asking for thing.. But with them I did and I ended up happy..

I haven't really tried their more extreme materials like the one  in the MP link, but they did do a great work with the wet natural ones I got from them..

Honestly, i can't see them switching to use demo's of each product with as much business that they have..  They have a demo room there in their store, but that's more for showing how to use materials and layers and such..

Oh another thing.. The Maitreya versions I got from them use appliers and the Maitreya applier layers.. I just thought I would mention that as well, because it kind of confused me at first when I seen those in there.. hehehe

[Marianne Little]

Materials novice... the Lelutka head has no tattoo layer? If it had, it would be smooth sailing.

Now I have to play with the head shine from the HUD to match the body shine on tattoo layer. As much as I love Lelutka, in these cases I wish I could attach a tattoo layer.

Well, it is always possible to add a dark neck tattoo or a collar. First world problem solved.

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

6 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

As you see, it is no demo. So how do you suggest I get the head to match and no seam? Without using collars or neck tattoos to hide it?

I tend to wear a lot of materials, but funny enough, I don't really have any from This Is Wrong, so I can't say how seamless they are. I have one or two of their tattoos, but it's just normal ink.

Seam issues will be a given if you aren't also wearing the same materials on the head, usually, but they can be managed very easily. I typically shop Blaxium (I believe they do demos), I use material tattoos from Nefekalum, occasionally use some layers from Sweet Thing when I want a more plastic look (that one is an entire doll kit, though), and used to use the older Stargazer layers. I also make good use of my own built-in head/body materials, as well (like wet or shine) on top of something like a mermaid scale tattoo layer from Izzie's or decorative body tattoos in different colors. And I'll occasionally run around in animated body layers, for funsies.

So to get it to look seamless - it depends. It's very light dependent. You'll have to play with your lighting quite a lot when setting up your photos. I do tend to layer things quite a bit, though, so it's not unusual that I've got on a neck tattoo in addition, so it's far less noticeable. I also make good use of necklaces, high necklines, and hair that goes across the neck if it's really difficult to match a seam.

He's an older look where it's not too noticeable - wearing :

BOM Tattoo: THIS IS WRONG - Oceania
Shine/stars on head & body: Stargazer Body Shine
Scales: Izzie's - Body Mermaid Scales
Mermaid Tail: Cynefin - Lorelei Bento

 

49 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Oh another thing.. The Maitreya versions I got from them use appliers and the Maitreya applier layers.. I just thought I would mention that as well, because it kind of confused me at first when I seen those in there.. hehehe

You typically want actual appliers for materials and material tattoos for the best effect. They don't really work all that great (or at all) in BOM format. Many are sold with head/body-specific appliers and with Omega appliers, and some also include configured body lights to help enhance the effect. And it's not too uncommon for materials to have no demos while the tattoo portion does. Nefekalum sells like this, I believe.

Try Blaxium, though, as they do demos and they've got YouTube videos showing off all of their material shines if you're curious.

[Ceka Cianci]

27 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I tend to wear a lot of materials, but funny enough, I don't really have any from This Is Wrong, so I can't say how seamless they are. I have one or two of their tattoos, but it's just normal ink.

Seam issues will be a given if you aren't also wearing the same materials on the head, usually, but they can be managed very easily. I typically shop Blaxium (I believe they do demos), I use material tattoos from Nefekalum, occasionally use some layers from Sweet Thing when I want a more plastic look (that one is an entire doll kit, though), and used to use the older Stargazer layers. I also make good use of my own built-in head/body materials, as well (like wet or shine) on top of something like a mermaid scale tattoo layer from Izzie's or decorative body tattoos in different colors. And I'll occasionally run around in animated body layers, for funsies.

So to get it to look seamless - it depends. It's very light dependent. You'll have to play with your lighting quite a lot when setting up your photos. I do tend to layer things quite a bit, though, so it's not unusual that I've got on a neck tattoo in addition, so it's far less noticeable. I also make good use of necklaces, high necklines, and hair that goes across the neck if it's really difficult to match a seam.

He's an older look where it's not too noticeable - wearing :

BOM Tattoo: THIS IS WRONG - Oceania
Shine/stars on head & body: Stargazer Body Shine
Scales: Izzie's - Body Mermaid Scales
Mermaid Tail: Cynefin - Lorelei Bento

 

You typically want actual appliers for materials and material tattoos for the best effect. They don't really work all that great (or at all) in BOM format. Many are sold with head/body-specific appliers and with Omega appliers, and some also include configured body lights to help enhance the effect. And it's not too uncommon for materials to have no demos while the tattoo portion does. Nefekalum sells like this, I believe.

Try Blaxium, though, as they do demos and they've got YouTube videos showing off all of their material shines if you're curious.

The other bodies that I have do use appliers for the bodies material layer.. I wasn't in world at the time  so I didn't want to say what it was because I couldn't remember at the time..

I just thought  it was nice that they used the Maitreya layers for that rather than the bodies material layer.. You can just apply to those layers and have them setup to go in outfit folder with different shines in different folders and not have to mess with the appliers anymore.. they load when you put on the outfit, where the ones without extra layers you have to use the appliers each time you want to put the shines on..

Edited September 10, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Ceka Cianci]

38 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Materials novice... the Lelutka head has no tattoo layer? If it had, it would be smooth sailing.

Now I have to play with the head shine from the HUD to match the body shine on tattoo layer. As much as I love Lelutka, in these cases I wish I could attach a tattoo layer.

Well, it is always possible to add a dark neck tattoo or a collar. First world problem solved.

 

It won't use a tattoo layer, the shines from them will use appliers to the heads materials layer on the head..

Then when you want to remove the shine, you go to the head icon of the lelutka hud and just like the other shines in there, you choose blank and it will remove that shine from the materials layer..

[Ayashe Ninetails]

43 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

The other bodies that I have do use appliers for the bodies material layer.. I wasn't in world at the time  so I didn't want to say what it was because I couldn't remember at the time..

I just thought  it was nice that they used the Maitreya layers for that rather than the bodies material layer.. You can just apply to those layers and have them setup to go in outfit folder with different shines in different folders and not have to mess with the appliers anymore.. they load when you put on the outfit, where the ones without extra layers you have to use the appliers each time you want to put the shines on..

Oh yeah, I think (don't quote me) Maitreya is the only body with detachable layers? Orrr...something like that. But yeah, I love that, too, because then I can layer my materials, as well and like you said - make copies and save them right along with my outfits to avoid dealing with the appliers themselves.

[Marianne Little]

I went for the basic shine and a fantasy skin under. It was the safest option, and I can use it for sweat on a human skin later.

[Nuuna Nitely]

It's kinda impossible to get a perfect seamless match with materials because of the big resolution difference between the head and body textures. Especially around the neck area.  That's why pushing for "4k" textures for the head makes the contrast between neck and head even bigger. And it is very lighting dependent, so for pictures you have to get it close enough and then fix it later in photoshop etc.