What's this in my head?

[Anna Nova]

I should know this, but I have this big grey object in my head, even after taking everything off, and clearing cache, and rebooting.  How do I get rid of it?  It sticks out the back, and you can't select it.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

It's the system hair, it's an integral part of the base avatar. You can change your brow(?) shape to scrunch it into your head.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

It's the hairbase/eyebrow attachment. If you've never seen it before, you're probably using a different one to the one you're used to not seeing. Usually, wearing an alpha layer for a mesh head/body will hide it.

Edited February 6 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Orwar]

   In addition to changing its shape, you can also set its texture to transparent. It's best to do both, as having transparent bits poking out of your head may mess up hairs and such.

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   In addition to changing its shape, you can also set its texture to transparent. It's best to do both, as having transparent bits poking out of your head may mess up hairs and such.

Depending on the shape of your head, setting to zero doesn't always work to hide it all.  It's best if you have it colored, then use the sliders until it's all hidden.  Transparent hair that  sticks.through the skull can still mess up rigged mesh hair.

Edited February 6 by Rowan Amore

[steeljane42]

I'd also add hair section in worn alpha layer to make sure it never show up regardless of those style settings. It's actually enough to eliminate all of the system hair based issues. There's some very sparse content where hair alpha section must be unchecked, though, like the Aii&Ego's BoM hairstyles, but aside of those rare examples it doesn't get on the way at all.

Edited February 6 by steeljane42

[Anna Nova]

Thanks guys! Oddly it was the eyebrow shaper that came with Lelutka Nova.  Maybe I did it by mistake at some time.  Fixed now though.  Even after all these years, still learning.

[Ceka Cianci]

6 hours ago, Anna Nova said:

Thanks guys! Oddly it was the eyebrow shaper that came with Lelutka Nova.  Maybe I did it by mistake at some time.  Fixed now though.  Even after all these years, still learning.

They brow shape is the same thing as the system hair.. it handled a lot of that stuff going on up there.. hehehe

 

[Orwar]

9 hours ago, Ceka Cianci said:

They brow shape is the same thing as the system hair.. it handled a lot of that stuff going on up there.. hehehe

   'System hair', 'hair base', 'brow shaper', it doesn't feel as if the denizens of SL have ever really come to agree upon what to call this thing - if you create a new one in your inventory, the menu option simply says 'create hair'. Especially confusing as 'hair base' now tends to refer to a tattoo layer for painting hair on your scalp (but there's also mesh hair bases, I noticed, which are essentially an onion layer for your scalp .. As if we needed more onion layers in our lives!). 

   It's also one of those things that everyone in SL run into sooner or later, as it's one of those 'core' bits of your avi that can never be removed; much like a skin, a shape, and eyes, you always must wear one and can never wear more than one of at a time (and if you do manage to remove them or wear multiples, you won't bake). And since it is such an integral part of our avatars it's highly unlikely that it will ever really be changed much in terms of its functions.

[Love Zhaoying]

5 hours ago, Orwar said:

   'System hair', 'hair base', 'brow shaper', it doesn't feel as if the denizens of SL have ever really come to agree upon what to call this thing - if you create a new one in your inventory, the menu option simply says 'create hair'. Especially confusing as 'hair base' now tends to refer to a tattoo layer for painting hair on your scalp (but there's also mesh hair bases, I noticed, which are essentially an onion layer for your scalp .. As if we needed more onion layers in our lives!). 

   It's also one of those things that everyone in SL run into sooner or later, as it's one of those 'core' bits of your avi that can never be removed; much like a skin, a shape, and eyes, you always must wear one and can never wear more than one of at a time (and if you do manage to remove them or wear multiples, you won't bake). And since it is such an integral part of our avatars it's highly unlikely that it will ever really be changed much in terms of its functions.

It sounds like "Skullcap" would be a good name for it, also!

[Wulfie Reanimator]

5 hours ago, Orwar said:

'System hair', 'hair base', 'brow shaper', it doesn't feel as if the denizens of SL have ever really come to agree upon what to call this thing

"System hair" and "hair base" are both terms that've been used since the very early days of SL, the former refers to the visible mesh of your system avatar and the latter is more of a concept. If you wanted to hide the "system hair," you would wear a "bald hair base" which is the Hair Shape with everything set to minimum/invisible. Skins also came with a painted "hair base" just like like today, though we might use them as separate layers or onion mesh.

"Brow shaper" is a newer term, earliest reference I can find is from 2011 but popularized 2013-2015. It makes sense I guess, but it seems niche. (Only reason I used it was because I didn't actually remember it's called Hair in the viewer. I haven't had to touch those for a decade. 😋)

It's pretty funny/annoying that we run into issues like this because of old features nobody realistically needs to use until they're the cause of the issue.

Edited February 7 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Orwar]

4 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

"Brow shaper" is a newer term, earliest reference I can find is from 2011 but popularized 2013-2015. It makes sense I guess, but it seems niche.

   It's about when I first joined SL, and by then there were all sorts of other hairs (flexi prim, sculptie, and mesh was introduced around then as well and was getting popular early on for me). One of the starter avies I worked with (a freebie I picked up at Caledon Oxbridge, if I recall) had stubble hair as a part of its skin, so I was using a 'bald hair base' with it.

14 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

(Only reason I used it was because I didn't actually remember it's called Hair in the viewer. I haven't had to touch those for a decade. 😋)

   I very seldom touch it, but then I very seldom change skins or heads that would require me to adjust the shape of the brows, most of the shaping for the face is done in the shape anyway!

16 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

It's pretty funny/annoying that we run into issues like this because of old features nobody realistically needs to use until they're the cause of the issue.

   Yes, if SL was being designed to fit today's standards, a lot of the archaic things that were introduced at the very start would be unnecessary - but it's not as easy as to just move the sliders over to the shape and ditching the requirement to wear a 'system hair'; it would break a lot of shapes for people, and I imagine there's a fair bit of spaghetti in the code to change such things by now.

   Maybe in Second Life 2 there will be no such thing!

[AmeliaJ08]

Gosh I wish they'd just get rid of the default 'system' attachments. At the very most have some sort of way of enabling them if you want but clearly we are past the era where these things are necessary given LL provide a mesh avatar to all new users.

I know the system avatar is a basic feature of the software but... it can be killed.

 

 

Edited February 7 by AmeliaJ08

[Persephone Emerald]

3 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Gosh I wish they'd just get rid of the default 'system' attachments. At the very most have some sort of way of enabling them if you want but clearly we are past the era where these things are necessary given LL provide a mesh avatar to all new users.

I know the system avatar is a basic feature of the software but... it can be killed.

The system doesn't work that way. These parts of the avatar are not attachments. They are intrigral parts of what makes an avatar. If any of them were not worn, your avatar could not be rendered and would appear as a cloud. 

We use the shape and brow shape when we adjust the shape of our avatar. If LL were to get rid of these, there would be no more shape sliders.

Without a skin and eyes there would be no more BOM layers, because BOM layers bake onto the skin and eye texture. System avatars would also be completely invisible, because they would have no texture.

Even the skeleton of our avatars is part of our shape. What would we attach anything to if we didn't have a skeleton? How would we be able to sit or use furniture?

Edited February 7 by Persephone Emerald
Typo

[Dorientje Woller]

Don't we call that scrambled eggs for brains? 😉

[Katherine Heartsong]

I've always found it funny that inside your head and body (in human avis at least) the creators have decided that having a brain or heart or lungs rendered often with the creator logo when you goof up with the camera makes any sense. They're not visible, why bother? The invisible skeleton and attachments points, yes, but why a brain in your head? I've not seen many residents actually use said appendage in world anyway

[Persephone Emerald]

14 minutes ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I've always found it funny that inside your head and body (in human avis at least) the creators have decided that having a brain or heart or lungs rendered often with the creator logo when you goof up with the camera makes any sense. They're not visible, why bother? The invisible skeleton and attachments points, yes, but why a brain in your head? I've not seen many residents actually use said appendage in world anyway

It's cute, but it creates an added, unnecessary texture to render. I can understand having a visible base prim when the creator is making hair or another object that's going to attach to the avatar, but it really should be made invisible once the item is ready to be sold.

[Fraser Lisle]

7 hours ago, Persephone Emerald said:

The system doesn't work that way. These parts of the avatar are not attachments. They are intrigral parts of what makes an avatar. If any of them were not worn, your avatar could not be rendered and would appear as a cloud. 

We use the shape and brow shape when we adjust the shape of our avatar. If LL were to get rid of these, there would be no more shape sliders.

Without a skin and eyes there would be no more BOM layers, because BOM layers bake onto the skin and eye texture. System avatars would also be completely invisible, because they would have no texture.

Even the skeleton of our avatars is part of our shape. What would we attach anything to if we didn't have a skeleton? How would we be able to sit or use furniture?

I think I've miscommunicated. The functions that we use should be there but the visual items like system hair, system eyes etc don't need to exist as far as the user is concerned.

I mean there's a whole mess of system clothes still! When's the last time anyone created a pair of system socks? Or a skirt? It's all there if you want, ready to confuse the hell out of a noobie who mistakenly tries to use any of these things in the mesh era.

 

I just think there's a lot of vestigial stuff that could be wiped clean - as far as the user is concerned - and whatever technical function they still perform could still be there, it's just you wouldn't need to worry about scrunching your system hair into a state of tininess so it doesn't cause issues for example.

 

[Ceka Cianci]

4 hours ago, Katherine Heartsong said:

I've always found it funny that inside your head and body (in human avis at least) the creators have decided that having a brain or heart or lungs rendered often with the creator logo when you goof up with the camera makes any sense. They're not visible, why bother? The invisible skeleton and attachments points, yes, but why a brain in your head? I've not seen many residents actually use said appendage in world anyway

If you squeeze your system hair down it looks like a brain in your head..Since most use the brow base now more than the hair, it's usually transparent.. But before when it was just system avatars. most people just shrunk the hair and had brains instead.. hehehe

[KathrynLisbeth]

To Really,  Really,   Really.....    Really. 

Hide the system hair.

On a worn object,  on one of the faces of the object...

Set the object face transparent (not the texture on the face) & Set the Face to Grab the Hair Channel.

This is How those system avatar hider objects work.   This is just like how a mesh body part grabs the textures.

Doing it this way negates the hair base from showing up,  including potential alpha halo effects.

Image shows exaggerated system hair as example, includes alpha blended 'background' to delineate the alpha halo.

-- Would be simpler and easier if mesh head, eye, and body makers took advantage of this application of BOM and included relevant faces as needed.

 

[PheebyKatz]

I remember having that hair bone sticking out of the back of my neck... darn hair bone.

I even knew what it was, I just couldn't remember how to edit it. I honestly thought they had removed that capability from the edit window for a while there.

Imagine my surprise when I went to fix a new pair of eyebrows that looked all funky and found out that thing I was editing was the hair bone.

Edited February 8 by PheebyKatz