LaQ Heads Era 2 ... imminent?

[Ceka Cianci]

3 hours ago, PJBear Bitey said:

I noticed differences. Especially the one built for older women. 

 

At the time when I went there, I found that I could get three maybe four of the heads there and be able to do whatever the rest of the heads could do.. I think it was 20 heads at the time.

They had one row that spanned the whole wall.. I wanna say it was 20 heads..  I just know that I was seeing much more variety in other stores at the time..

 

[Dorientje Woller]

News from LaQ:

"Dear Members,
LAQ is closing the store tonight. We are finally set to undergo the transformation into Era2! Crafting sustainable quality takes time, but fear not. We will be back. With a new chapter in mesh head development, fusing tradition and innovation.
Early access for our inworld group - Thank you for being part of this journey ♥"

[Clem Marques]

23 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

News from LaQ:

"Dear Members,
LAQ is closing the store tonight. We are finally set to undergo the transformation into Era2! Crafting sustainable quality takes time, but fear not. We will be back. With a new chapter in mesh head development, fusing tradition and innovation.
Early access for our inworld group - Thank you for being part of this journey ♥"

This is exciting. I know a few people who choose to use LAQ heads and I think they look good. Looking forward to their new creations. 

Edited January 27 by Clem Marques

[Josephine Carissa]

sounds good to me : ) i bought everything in the store when they had their big sale. (and i stayed in the group to be safe for any news or updates).

 

[Dorientje Woller]

"The anticipation is nearly at its end! Era2 is set to launch this weekend, and among its thrilling features is the inclusion of not one, but three UV maps: Standard UV, EvoX UV, and our own cutting-edge Supreme UHD.
Engineered by seasoned skin designers, Supreme UHD showcases unparalleled texture smoothness and detail optimization. With expanded details in key facial areas, achieving flawless skin details has never been easier. 
Stay tuned for more previews and further details on the event timing!"

Below the skin options: 

Edited February 7 by Dorientje Woller

[steeljane42]

It's Genus with their "4k" all over again probably, which is, well, dead already, aside of a few release window skins. But maybe LAQ didn't botch the seams/connections between textures at least. The name/marketing part of it, though, is awful. Looking forward to another niche/small creator to come with something like "8K mega ultra PBR enabled superior next gen HD" next.

[Rowan Amore]

The moon surface forehead is a no-go for me. 😆

[MillyWH]

46 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

The moon surface forehead is a no-go for me. 😆

That's probably just that specific skin and not actually part of the head. I wore LAQ exclusively for the longest time and I loved the heads. I know some people didnt' like the HUD being separate but I liked that I paid for the HUD once and the heads were cheaper. I'm not sure how the SupremeHUD but the fact that it works with EvoX means I'll probably be buying another LAQ head again.

 

I also liked the animations for the head and other features so I hope that this has been worth the wait.

[Dorientje Woller]

3 hours ago, steeljane42 said:

It's Genus with their "4k" all over again probably, which is, well, dead already, aside of a few release window skins. But maybe LAQ didn't botch the seams/connections between textures at least. The name/marketing part of it, though, is awful. Looking forward to another niche/small creator to come with something like "8K mega ultra PBR enabled superior next gen HD" next.

3 different types of skin in a head aka the normal SL UV based bom for those that want to keep one using the old skin line up of LaQ, EVO X mapping and whatever the SupremeUHD may be. For me, all depends on the price of the head and as said, if the HUD is included with the purchase of the head, and the ease of shaping it and using the head.

[PheebyKatz]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

The moon surface forehead is a no-go for me. 😆

She just forgot to use her cover stick when she applied her foundation. I've been there. Heck, I logged in the other day and I even had bed-head.

We all have our off days.

[Ze Helix]

Well, I look forward to seeing another example of the Supreme UHD other than the one pictured which is heavy handed on the details. In real life I am glad people see my face from a foot away and not from an inch away with a magnifying glass in their hands. The limits of human vision can do us a kindness.

 

[Anna Nova]

I wonder why Lelutka gave them a licence to use their EvoX UV AND slag them off ( 4x the detail... ) at the same time?  Looking forward to trying this though.  Does anyone know if having a 1000x1000 UV map cost you preformance?  Does it eat more bandwidth or something?  If not why not 20,000 x 20,000?

[AmeliaJ08]

19 minutes ago, Anna Nova said:

I wonder why Lelutka gave them a licence to use their EvoX UV AND slag them off ( 4x the detail... ) at the same time?  Looking forward to trying this though.  Does anyone know if having a 1000x1000 UV map cost you preformance?  Does it eat more bandwidth or something?  If not why not 20,000 x 20,000?

They're just splitting the head skin into 2 (I assume) 1024x1024 textures, assume the seam is somewhere at the top of the forehead and down the sides of the face. The top/rear of the head will be its own 1024x1024 texture.

So yes, it costs performance. 2x the textures of a standard EvoX skin which is a single 1024x1024px texture that does the whole head. Not as bad as Genus with their 4 textures though! they put the seam right down the center of the face as well...

You can't do a single giant texture since SL only supports 1024x1024px textures.

I say it 'costs' performance since of course it does but really... ehh. It's not going to be an observable performance hit.

 

 

Edited February 8 by AmeliaJ08

[steeljane42]

46 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

It's not going to be an observable performance hit.

It especially won't be a performance hit because those heads are likely not going to be popular unless they are going to do some crazy promotions with those. Like free/nearly free heads. Going EvoX didn't help Catwa at all, last time I checked that last release of theirs with EvoX had around 225 entries on the worn heads list after over 3 months since its release.

And if you don't see something around at all, then no performance hit even if it's terribly made. /s

Edited February 8 by steeljane42

[Ajay McDowwll]

13 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

The moon surface forehead is a no-go for me. 😆

Yeah, I get that realism and details are A Thing, but this looks like girlfriend forgot to exfoliate and use her moisturizer.  Also primer, hello!  I'm 53 in RL -- sorrynotsorry to break the illusion that I'm thirty years younger -- and my skin isn't this rough.

The brows are... a choice.  I get that less groomed (or maybe way differently groomed?) is a thing now, and it's not one I'm embracing in either world.  But that's not the "OMG WHY" that the skin texture is.

Edited February 8 by Ajay McDowwll

[Orwar]

6 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

So yes, it costs performance. 2x the textures of a standard EvoX skin which is a single 1024x1024px texture that does the whole head.

   EvoX mapping uses a separate channel for their ears though, so it uses both the standard 'head' channel plus .. Aux 1, I think it is? So it's two textures 'for the head'. I'm not entirely sure if you can set those textures to 512 x 512 at all, especially seeing as the way avatars are baked, all layers are compiled into a single texture per channel (i.e if I have a texture for my skin, and 12 different tattoos that use the torso channel, they're baked as a single texture which is then what people load). This is why we 'rebake' whenever we change the tattoo layer order, for example (and, since the texture is cached we can sometimes have a nigh-instant re-bake when we change back to the previous layer order).

   The trouble really is when it comes to using more channels. But then, it's not a 'huge' problem either. You may well have a pair of shoes with thrice the amount of channels (faces) with unique textures than you do in a head (hence me occasionally ranting about when someone puts a 1024x1024 texture for a single button - no one's really ever going to zoom into that button to a point where you see it anywhere near its native resolution anyway). So, yes, having more faces on a head is a bump to the performance, but in the grand scheme of things it isn't terribly high - but it is rather pointless in most cases (although arguably bumping up the 3 avatar channels to 2048x2048 would probably satisfy everyone's 'HD-mania' - as long as you have the option to turn it down on your end, like we can currently limit them to 512x512 client-side).

[MillyWH]

So LAQ Era2 is open for group members. And there are some really cool features like animated blush, tears and sweat in the hud.  You can adjust eye position, eye brows, mouth positions, there are a bunch of animations.

 

Instead of getting a head that you switch from Standard to EvoX to Supreme there are different heads. Also the head is everything except the eyes. 

 

The skin has the texturing that people didn't like not the head itself.

There's a men's head. I did notice on the EVO X and Standard heads the bottom lips didn't seem to line up right and it was kind of blurry.  The first image is t the EVO X head with Glam Affair Wolfie skin and some addons (like the brows and freckles) (hair base is part of the head) The 2nd is the Supreme UHD head with the skin  I played around some with editing the shape and I don't think tihs particular head is going to be able to end up with the shape I prefer so I may wait until I see what else is released.

[Ceka Cianci]

I'll demo them, but I really doubt I'm gonna bounce to another head..

I'm just mostly curious.. My Lilly pretty much meets all my needs so far, but you just never know.. hehehehe

I know I keep going back to it like I did with my Maitreya body after trying all the others..

It'll at the very least be interesting to try..

[Stephanie Misfit]

5 hours ago, MillyWH said:

I did notice on the EVO X and Standard heads the bottom lips didn't seem to line up right and it was kind of blurry. 

Yes, finding this as well, it is very hard to find an EvoX skin that will work with the mouth. Other than that, very pretty head.

[Dorientje Woller]

1 hour ago, Stephanie Misfit said:

Yes, finding this as well, it is very hard to find an EvoX skin that will work with the mouth. Other than that, very pretty head.

Let alone to alter the mouth corners of that EVO X head is a disaster.

[Lysistrata Szapira]

I decided to buy the new head at the discount price.

This is using the EvoX head with the Boataom skin that was given away in December. I used a few Izzie's corrections on it.

Surprisingly, the shape and eyebrow base that came with the new head needed no adjustments for the Boataom skin,  Even though it's the EvoX head, I expected that I'd need to do some tinkering.   I WILL do tinkering, just not tonight. 

In general, I don't do reaction animations because I'm too lazy to click on things. Very few people look at other people's faces anyway.  The sweat and tears are neat, but they will clash with alpha layers, like in this Doux hair.

The bit with the mouth opening slightly even without animations turned on is a tad annoying. 

I may go back to Lel Noel, but I'll wear this one for a few days to decide if it's me.

[Lysistrata Szapira]

This is the SupremeUHD head using one of the accompanying skins.   I think I'd want a lip corrector because I don't like the slightly open-mouthed look. I also don't like the UHD lipsticks that come in the HUD (second photo). Those make my lips look so wrinkly!  The lashes have really rough ends on them, and I tried all of the different HUD settings.  One of the eyeshadows included is absolutely gorgeous though (third photo). 

 

Edited February 12 by Lysistrata Szapira
additions

[Dorientje Woller]

4 hours ago, Lysistrata Szapira said:

I decided to buy the new head at the discount price.

This is using the EvoX head with the Boataom skin that was given away in December. I used a few Izzie's corrections on it.

Surprisingly, the shape and eyebrow base that came with the new head needed no adjustments for the Boataom skin,  Even though it's the EvoX head, I expected that I'd need to do some tinkering.   I WILL do tinkering, just not tonight. 

In general, I don't do reaction animations because I'm too lazy to click on things. Very few people look at other people's faces anyway.  The sweat and tears are neat, but they will clash with alpha layers, like in this Doux hair.

The bit with the mouth opening slightly even without animations turned on is a tad annoying. 

I may go back to Lel Noel, but I'll wear this one for a few days to decide if it's me.

And, does the EVO X version of the head suffers seriously of the alpha crashing on the ears with certain hair sets? 

[Ze Helix]

I tried out the demos, they did a great job but they are not unique enough to get me to purchase right now. Still I am glad to see another place putting out quality heads. I'm a collector and enjoy variety. The current sale price would of 2300L be enough to get me to buy if I saw something I loved and didn't already have. Both heads are nicely shaped, I am super impressed that they came out with a male head right off the bat. 

I like the HUD, its easy to use and laid out well. I had some problems that might just be on my end, getting used to it. The BoM button for the eyes didn't seem to work. I had a few issues with the ears, at one point turning on both elf and human ears and no combo of buttons I could figure out would get the extra pair to go away. I also managed to clear my evoX ear layer at one point when wearing the evoX head, and the reset button didn't bring it back. I couldn't figure out how to fix that either and I consider myself pretty good at HUDs like these. These are issues wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't clicking around on all the buttons though and a fresh unpack could solve it if nothing else. The men's HUD is exactly the same as the women's. So same makeup options, no beard options and the same eyebrow options which are all pretty obviously female shaped brows. The eyebrow positioner on the HUD for applied brows gives a ton of freedom in moving the brows around the head, making them close together and super high or very low. 

UHD textures are not impressing me. I didn't see anything especially crisp about the UHD even when I zoomed in super close on problem areas like the eyebrows. It's possible with a different skin creator it might be noticeable, but LAQ is probably going to be the only one releasing for UHD and I can't tell till I demo with someone else's skin. I'd say its basically equal to evoX, and a few small issues make it worse. There is texture smearing on the sides of the head, by the cheeks and under the chin. It isn't at all noticeable under normal zoom, but it might be an issue when it comes to face and forehead tattoos. The top of the head has a little shadow dot that you'd never see unless you go around bald like I do sometimes. I did love the textures they used for the teeth, and tongue is nice too. The men's head has an issue with the teeth texture causing some dark spots that I expect they will fix. I'm sure there are many issues getting reported that they will update and solve. But for me that tooth texture currently is like having a piece of spinach stuck in the teeth and would be enough to keep me from buying. The makeup options are not great which is a problem since I don't expect many other shops to be releasing for UHD and lelutka lash and makeup HUDs won't work with this head. The feeling I get when I look at the lipsticks and eyeshadows is that they were cut out from real photographs ( I know that's how makeups typically start) and not very processed for use in SL. The thin winged liner has a white halo around it. The eye pupil animation is neat but I also am not a fan of all the eye textures. The browns and the first blue are sorta blurry while the other blue and hazel colors have beautiful detail. 

The animations are pretty cute, the sad face animation is so adorable with the skin under the eyes wiggling just about to start tearing up. Many of the animations move in tiny ways, like the giant smile has the bottom lip moving as if straining to keep the pose. Makes it more realistic than a static expression. The saved looks are very easy to save and to change, and shows what you will be applying when you press it. The response to shape sliders is okay I only tested them on the female head. It seemed there wasn't much that could be done to the mouth that wouldn't make it look weird. Lip thickness and especially lip ratio pretty much should stay at the default or risk distortion. The mouth gap on the corners is tiny but noticeable and its one of those things that would bug me.

[Lysistrata Szapira]

15 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

And, does the EVO X version of the head suffers seriously of the alpha crashing on the ears with certain hair sets? 

I haven't tested it with more than one hair, so I can't say one way or another.