Why is avatar creation so complicated... (and why is there no 'undo' button)

[msmaybach]

Hey everyone. This was my second attempt and I'm growing sick and tired of it. The first time I spend two hours customizing my avatar to the smallest details, then the eyebrows out of blue sky dissappeared. I spend half an hour more to find how to restore and customize them too, then accidentially clicked on the male shape and all hell broke loose. Then, not finding any proper option to undo that I chose the detach option and ended up with some gargoyle-looking abomination.
As only way out I had to load some ready avatar (the Maria, namely) and tonight spend at least a hour more customizing it but didn't like how it played out. I tried to load the Senra instead and it loaded on top of it, look what I got as a result:

https://ibb.co/vvF71vk

It's worth mentioning there's not option to remove the worn skin and shape as you see in the screenshot. Why?! You can put on something but can't remove it!

After finishing the body parts and before getting my hands on the face I clicked 'save' but I don't find anywhere the  allegedly saved version.

Why the *****in hell is there no basic undo option when something gets screwed up?

How do I get back to the saved version or to the proper female Senra avatar?

 

[Persephone Emerald]

Hi, msmaybach

I'm sorry you're having difficulty with your avatar. The reason it's so complicated is that many of the pieces you're working with were created by users without a real standardized process. The original avatars were simple, but very ugly by today's standards. Users created better-looking options over the years, but these options also made the process of avatar customization more complicated.

Right now, I'd suggest using the Senra Jamie avatar for a little while, because it's less complicated. If you ever get stuck with a weird-looking or naked avatar, you can also Replace with one of the avatars in the Library of your Inventory.

Next, I'm sure the people on this forum will be glad to help you straighten out what went wrong with your avatar. Let me ask you a few questions to that end.

Which mesh body and head are you trying to use? It's important to use a shape that's made for the brand of head you're wearing. It helps that you took a picture of how your avatar looks. If you can take a screen shot of what is Worn in your Inventory, this will also help people determine what when wrong.

You will always be wearing some kind of Shape, Brow Shape, system Skin and system Eyes. If you want to change any of these, you'll need to Wear or Replace them with a different one. 

Clothing, tattoos, makeup, and mesh body parts, in contrast, can be Removed or stacked with multiple pieces by Adding them to your avatar.

The Senra Jamie avatar will need to use a Senra Jamie Shape, but you could probably wear the Maria skin on it if you wished. (I used one of those skins on my Senra Jamie because I liked how it looked.) You'll have to use either system/ BOM clothes or mesh clothes made for Jamie or Blake on the Jamie mesh body. Other mesh clothing won't fit right.

Edited February 11 by Persephone Emerald

[MissSweetViolet]

1 hour ago, msmaybach said:

Hey everyone. This was my second attempt and I'm growing sick and tired of it. The first time I spend two hours customizing my avatar to the smallest details, then the eyebrows out of blue sky dissappeared. I spend half an hour more to find how to restore and customize them too, then accidentially clicked on the male shape and all heck broke loose. Then, not finding any proper option to undo that I chose the detach option and ended up with some gargoyle-looking abomination.
As only way out I had to load some ready avatar (the Maria, namely) and tonight spend at least a hour more customizing it but didn't like how it played out. I tried to load the Senra instead and it loaded on top of it, look what I got as a result:

https://ibb.co/vvF71vk

It's worth mentioning there's not option to remove the worn skin and shape as you see in the screenshot. Why?! You can put on something but can't remove it!

After finishing the body parts and before getting my hands on the face I clicked 'save' but I don't find anywhere the  allegedly saved version.

Why the *****in heck is there no basic undo option when something gets screwed up?

How do I get back to the saved version or to the proper female Senra avatar?

 

Persephone mentioned it above, but for more detail, the reason you can't remove the skin is because it is vital to render the avatar at all, same with the shape, brow [sometimes referred to as system hair] and eyes. without any of these your avatar can't show up, you won't be able to remove it, but you can replace it with one you like better.  

Also in the pic you have no body on, so your seeing the bare default, which probably doesn't go well with the shape made for Senra.

As for getting back to the Senra, what I would recommend is creating a folder in your inventory for it [right click on the inventory folder to that and click new folder, name it with something that'll help you find it later, and then find the folder marked Library. In there is a Senra folder and you can copy and paste that into the folder you just made, then you have a copy of the body to add as needed.

Edited February 11 by MissSweetViolet
Spelling corrections.

[LittleMe Jewell]

I want an 'undo' button for my Inventory -- for when I accidentally drag a folder to the wrong location.

Yeah, I know - not really related to your issue, but your topic title reminded me of it.

[msmaybach]

Good news - digging through all the shapes, skins etc. in the Senra folder, I loaded them all and managed to restore the avatar I had lost! It was quite difficult but still worked out. Thanks for the tips.

Now another questions: is it somehow possible to save the entire avatar configuration as backup and to restore it with a single click in case something gets botched again?

It would be good if positive...
 

[Orwar]

29 minutes ago, msmaybach said:

Now another questions: is it somehow possible to save the entire avatar configuration as backup and to restore it with a single click in case something gets botched again?

   Yes, create an outfit with all the components you want to be a part of that backup, and just wear it when you want to 'reset'. The only thing it won't do is change settings made via scripts (such as foot height or appliers and such). 

[Arielle Popstar]

50 minutes ago, msmaybach said:

Good news - digging through all the shapes, skins etc. in the Senra folder, I loaded them all and managed to restore the avatar I had lost! It was quite difficult but still worked out. Thanks for the tips.

Now another questions: is it somehow possible to save the entire avatar configuration as backup and to restore it with a single click in case something gets botched again?

It would be good if positive...
 

Use the "Edit Outfit" option and then "Save as" to create a new one or just Save to edit an an existing one.

The lack of a Revert or Undo option is why we cannot take SL viewer dev's seriously. There are convoluted workarounds and it could be done easy enough considering that on logout what is currently worn will be restored but there is no choice in any of the viewers to get back to that state manually.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

5 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Use the "Edit Outfit" option and then "Save as" to create a new one or just Save to edit an an existing one.

The lack of a Revert or Undo option is why we cannot take SL viewer dev's seriously. There are convoluted workarounds and it could be done easy enough considering that on logout what is currently worn will be restored but there is no choice in any of the viewers to get back to that state manually.

There is so much more to this can of worms than the viewer...

Also, don't use the Outfits window to make a copy of your current outfit as a backup. If you do this and edit your attachments in one of the outfits, the other will be affected. You have to find every attachment in your inventory and literally copy (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V) them. You're only creating links to the items in your inventory when you save outfits, not actual copies of them, so the two outfits would both link to the same inventory items.

Edited February 12 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Gabriele Graves]

SL avatar creation was envisioned by Rube Goldberg.

[Frigga Freidman]

Having recently converted a number of system avatars to Senra Jamie, here are the steps that work for me (using the Firestorm viewer). 

1) Find the folder called Senra in your Inventory, right click, Copy and then paste it into your Clothing folder. (Because the folder you'll see is an updated version and not the Senra folder that was originally included in the Inventory, and because there *may* be another update in the future, I recommend changing the name in your Clothing folder to SENRA V.1; it's not possible to change the Inventory sub-folder's name).

2) Take off all of your system avatar's clothing and hair, retaining a system skin, shape, system eyes and brow shape. Click on Appearance > Wearing > Save As and add a name - I suggest PRE-SENRA NAKED.

3) In Clothing > SENRA V.1 > Jamie > Body ADD the Body, the Head and the Eyebrow Shape

4) Expand the Eyes folder and choose a color (note all of this can be changed afterwards)

5 Expand the Shapes folder and choose a shape (this can also be changed later, and any of the shapes chosen can be further adjusted)

6) If the skin you started off wearing looks OK, leave it for now; if not, expand the Skins folder for Jamie and choose one

7) Expand the Nails folder and ADD the box icon for Nails, then ADD one of the six nails tattoos

8 ) Click on Appearance > Wearing > Save As and add a name - I suggest BASIC SENRA NAKED.

9) Right-click your avatar > Appearance > Edit shape; use the sliders as you would with a system avatar to customize your shape - but keep in mind that the sliders are *not* as responsive with Senra as they are with system avatars, particularly with regard to Jamie's mouth and lower face shape. While you're getting a feel for what's possible, you may find yourself wanting to make several tweaks (I've saved at least a half dozen versions for each avatar until I was happy), so I suggest saving each body version with a name and/or date. DO NOT CLICK THE SAVE BUTTON, CLICK SAVE AS at the bottom, and then amend the name, otherwise the name used will be the same as your previously-named version with (new) added at the end. 

10) Add hair and clothing - stick with clothing from the Senra Jamie folder to start with and let us see how you get on! I also recommend taking a look at the Senra thread: Avatars > How does your Senra look?, particularly from page 13, December 2023 onwards, as that's when the revised version of Senra was released.

Edited February 12 by Frigga Freidman

[Persephone Emerald]

^ This is good detailed advice from Frigga.

Personally, I seldom use Outfits except to save a few basic configurations such the "Basic Senra Naked" one. I'd save the Senra Jamie subfolder into the Body folder, rather than the Clothing folder. I'd skip saving the pre-Senra Outfit and save "Basic Jamie" with a BOM bikini on rather than naked, in case you need to quickly change your avatar into something with clothing in a public place.

[PheebyKatz]

And, I must add, don't feel bad if you screw up your avatar. Even people with years of practice do it.

I've had pretty much the same face for 8 years and I broke my face shape the other day. Did I have a backup copy, of course not. I had to mod a copy of my grownup lady shape and recreate my own face.

Do not feel bad, just keep calm and carry on. SL teaches us a special kind of patience, which, once you have it, is beyond what mere mortals IRL could ever expect. Stick with it, be one of us. We are the champions.

[Theresa Tennyson]

12 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Use the "Edit Outfit" option and then "Save as" to create a new one or just Save to edit an an existing one.

The lack of a Revert or Undo option is why we cannot take SL viewer dev's seriously. There are convoluted workarounds

Because clicking on "Undo Changes" for a saved outfit is a convoluted workaround.

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Because clicking on "Undo Changes" for a saved outfit is a convoluted workaround.

As a matter of fact it is hard when one has No Outfit on or if one has made a number of changes to an existing one but only wants to revert the last one or two changes.

[Nalates Urriah]

On 2/10/2024 at 7:13 PM, msmaybach said:

Hey everyone. This was my second attempt and I'm growing sick and tired of it. The first time I spend two hours customizing my avatar to the smallest details, then the eyebrows out of blue sky dissappeared. I spend half an hour more to find how to restore and customize them too, then accidentially clicked on the male shape and all hell broke loose. Then, not finding any proper option to undo that I chose the detach option and ended up with some gargoyle-looking abomination.
As only way out I had to load some ready avatar (the Maria, namely) and tonight spend at least a hour more customizing it but didn't like how it played out. I tried to load the Senra instead and it loaded on top of it, look what I got as a result:

https://ibb.co/vvF71vk

It's worth mentioning there's not option to remove the worn skin and shape as you see in the screenshot. Why?! You can put on something but can't remove it!

After finishing the body parts and before getting my hands on the face I clicked 'save' but I don't find anywhere the  allegedly saved version.

Why the *****in hell is there no basic undo option when something gets screwed up?

How do I get back to the saved version or to the proper female Senra avatar?

 

Well.... it used to be simple... then things got better... sort of and obviously the simplicity or better is WAY debatable.

There is not an easy way to implement an UNDO button. The tech is too complex to go into here. But there is a simple work around. We can save an avatar setup as an Outfit. I have a basic nude avatar outfit which I use as a starting point for outfits. These base outfits are made for the various bodies, heads, skins, and tats that I use. I also have one body/outfit that I use for experimenting. So when I find I suddenly can't find where something went, I can revert to the starting point body/outfit.

There are basic components of the avatar that cannot be removed, only replaced. Consider. If the skin were removed what would the avatar look like? Basically it would be an invisible avatar. Then people would be complaining about losing their avatar. So as a logical step the Lindens made it so an avatar has to be equipped with the basic parts needed to render the avatar.

You misunderstand what 'save' means in this instance. In SL a different paradigm is in use. In SL people "CREATE". There is no imposed limit on what can be created and users have often surprised the Linden engineers with what they come up with. This makes it ridiculously difficult to create save slots similar to what you likely have used before. So a different paradigm is used. Once the SL Paradigm clicks you'll find things much easier.

[Love Zhaoying]

On 2/11/2024 at 11:15 PM, Gabriele Graves said:

SL avatar creation was envisioned by Rube Goldberg.

Before he died, or via Ouija Board from the afterlife?  The latter seems more likely, with the uncertain steps.