Gabriele Graves

I can see I am going to have to confiscate that camera

Outrageous, I have always admired your style

I have two hairs that I feel "define" my avatar and I wear most often but I am a very quirky person too and on a whim will change because I love the style or because I just want a change in look for a short time. Here is a case in point when I was posing at a club with my friend Soph, the hair is just something I wore because I loved it. I am the one singing in case it isn't obvious:

Even now I sometimes buy mesh clothing that wasn't designed specifically for my mesh body. This usually means using the 5-sizes versions. As I am sure you already know, most stuff designed for particular mesh bodies are based on fitmesh and even though it is designed specifically for that body, it can not fit very well and/or rely too heavily on alphas to hide the parts of the body that poke through. In these circumstances changing your shape to fit the clothing (i.e. shrinking the bum, etc.) will not work as the clothing will changing with the slider too (though at a slight different ratio so sometimes small glitches can be solved this way). In the cases where this will not work, you really want non-fitmesh so that the clothing will stay put while you shrink a bit to fit. Changing your shape to fit clothing may sound really bad but in reality, especially the bum example, the skirt will still look the same shape even if the the bum is reduced and so you will appear to have to same sized bum as the skirt but your bum will be hidden underneath without alpha. I have to say, I hate alpha'ing out my body more than slightly changing shape to fit and will always seek to minimise the alpha I apply. Obviously I will not make a wholesale shape change but there are many tweaks that can be made here and there that you generally don't notice. Needless to say that to go to these lengths, the outfit must be special and otherwise unavailable in a more easy to use form. I have even been known to wear boots made for other mesh bodies because there are a bigger fit and go over the bottoms of trousers/pants better.

These look really good and I am sure they are a great product but one thing needs to be taken into account when buying feet from other vendors is that whilst their skin colour matching system may be very good, they will never match like skin appliers do. This means that there will be a visible line between the body and the feet where they match. This is because colour matching uses a single solid colour to match instead of a texture. Your skin is usually not one solid colour. Even though these are Slink compatible, that only means that the shape will fit into the same shoes but it does not mean that they can use the Slink skin appliers. In fact that it is highly doubtful that Slink would allow another feet vendor to use the Slink appliers. Unless you buy feet from one of the main supported vendors, you be unlikely to get specific appliers for those feet from any skin makers. As a mesh product vendor you have to be pretty popular and prominent to get support from skin vendors. However, the one caveat to that is Omega appliers, if the feet support Omega appliers (sometimes by buying an add-on) then you can sometimes buy skins that come with Omega appliers to use with them. Omega mainly make appliers, they don't make mesh body parts (AFAIK) and so their purpose is to work with the mesh body parts of other vendors. Omega appliers can be used wherever a mesh product advertises they have Omega compatibility.

This made me laugh loudly, thank you.

@Telhma Diesel If you like shoes then really the best thing to do is to invest in a pair of mesh feet. Almost nobody thinks the system feet look better in anyway unless you like almost-formless blocks for feet. Almost all shoes now are made for mesh feet which actually look like feet. Going down this route will mean you will no longer be able to use your old shoes or your old feet socks for the nails. However the nails and the appliers to can get for feet are far superior as well. The most inexpensive option which gives most bang for your buck is to buy the Maitreya Lara High Feet @ L$500. The next most cost effective way is to buy basically the same thing but from Slink. These are L$650 per set. At the cost of just a single pair of shoes, you will find that all modern shoes have a version for Maitreya and Slink feet at the very least. Most shoes you find are for the High feet but if you encounter shoes that are for Mid or Flat feet, you can buy the feet for those too as separates. For Slink you can also buy a fat pack of feet for L$2475 but to be honest you can buy the whole Maitreya Lara mesh body that comes with all feet, hands and a mesh body for just a little more L$2750. This is the most cost effective option if in the end you want to go mesh for the body, hands and feet. The flip side with that is that any feet you purchase from Slink will not be wasted if you decide to go deeper into mesh later and buy the hands and mesh body from them as they are all sold as separates. Once you start going mesh you have many options but the the two most prominent vendors are the two I mention here. Buying just the feet is how I first got on the mesh ladder and was the only mesh I had for a long time. It cannot be understated how much easier and more fun shoe shopping is with mesh feet. There is a gotcha though and that is that you will have to find out if your skin comes with appliers for your mesh feet. If they don't, they may be available to purchase from the place you bought your skin, if they are not then you will have to buy a skin that comes with appliers. This is necessary because the feet need to be textured to match the skin of your avatar or they will look odd. You can attempt to colour match with the HUD from either vendor but you will not be as happy with the results. The worst case scenario is that you have to go shopping for a new skin that comes with appliers for one of the above body systems. All the major skin vendors are producing these now. Going to mesh feet will take you from this: To this:

Marianne's bath pictures reminded me of this I took in a sauna a little while ago:

Mo, thanks for organising the party at the hangout. It was lovely getting together with so many familiar names again, the music was fantastic and the chalkboard game was a hoot. Sophia and I had a really great time.

I like the mesh eyes from Avi-Glam, very pretty, lots of choice and very reasonable price.

I first read this as "Do you give your avatars backsides" after that any attempt at a serious answer faded for some time. For me, yes my avatar has a backstory but that is only one aspect it which is fused with the real me. It is difficult to know where one starts and one ends at times. Related questions: Do you find your SL avatar behaviours bleed over into RL? and do you ever dream of being your SL avatar in RL?

These are the places I hide my victims who may be only at the point of death. Often they are underwater, people just think they are sorting their inventory or changing clothes but I know better.

I was dancing at Franks not too long ago and I was IM'd by this guy who asked me if I was a FinDom. I have to admit that though I have been around a bit, I had to look that one up. I told him that I would check, after a small wait said that I had thoroughly checked several times and was pretty sure I wasn't. He thanked me politely and left. SL is definitely the place to get your strange on.

I would like the ability to manipulate inventory via scripts. I realise that this is dangerous but the benefits would be great to me. There are just so many inventory tasks that are boringly laborious and would benefit from automation. I do like the offline idea too though.

No touching up here, just the good old SL camera:

Morbidity only occurs when we are unsettled by the subject matter, there is a need for people to ask these questions. It reminds us to reflect upon the bigger picture from time to time, even if that unsettles us. I hope you continue to ask questions like this.

*Is drawn to the presence of death in the thread* Fascinating question. For me, I seek knowledge, wisdom and the truth of all things in this life and so I would want to know. Yes I would open it. Do I think it would make me happy to know?, I expect not, it could quite probably sap all enjoyment out of the rest of my life just as surely as if I just learned I had cancer and only a short time to live. There is never enough time, no matter how long away it may seem. Knowledge often doesn't bring happiness but that is no reason to resist seeking it.

Happy Birthday Mo!

Sadly, it cannot be fixed by just adding a nice beach to these sims. The whole design is now based around a solo "Experience" where you perform tasks and get rewards to gain proficiency in using SL. They really are designed to move new residents off to other places once they have gained a basic level of proficiency. In effect, its purpose is really the same as it was for Orientation Island and really "Social Island" does not describe what they are now. It isn't really designed for them to come back, mix with older residents and socialise after they have done that. I believe this was a deliberate design decision on LL's part so that the islands didn't stay full so that new people couldn't start there. This is understandable but sadly destroyed the most magical part of what was happening there. The whole set of sims were beautiful with wonderful little touches in each separate area (like an oriental gazebo with rain outside, seats with nice poses in, etc). The beach area was beautiful and had these lovely tiki huts that gave some (illusion of) privacy, places to sit, a campfire which became the focal point for folks hanging out. It cannot be understated how important these little touches were for making a really attractive space where people want to hangout. What I saw there led me to believe it was a very successful formula for retaining a new residents for longer than would often otherwise happen. The new residents got to mix with older residents immediately, saw what was possible, asked questions, listened to the experiences, histories and stories of others and got to goof around as well. This is so different and far more personal way of integrating new residents with older ones. Mentors stood around fielding questions and helping with problems which whilst incredibly valuable too, can sometimes be clinical, aloof and brief as far as interactions are concerned. The old islands had this as well though if you did just need a answer to a quick question from someone who was specifically there to mentor in that way. There was generally a buzz about the place which I hadn't seen for a long time at a new resident place. New residents would form (and break) friendships and as well as deeper relationships there. They would go to other places, develop their avatar a little bit more, come back along with their own experiences so that they could show, swap stories and information with their new friends. I saw this pattern repeated many times. It became a base to keep coming back to without stopping them exploring the rest of SL. This happened without any of it being artificially induced. There were no "Socialise Here!" signs or get a reward if you add 5 friends to your friends list for example. Forming these communities is difficult and destroying them is so easy. Sadly, once done, you cannot simply undo the damage.

I also miss the Social Islands of the above older design, they had just lovely beaches and there was a great beach-side community on #3 which has all gone now.

Ooops I didn't read far back enough to realise that it was Amara who started it off, that'll teach me. Still definitely a fab idea Amara

I pretty much have the jellydoll feature disabled all of the time. I am a firestorm viewer user and I have the option to see the complexity information avatar in the name tag turned on. In preference to seeing jellydolls, I use the derender feature for avatars I don't want to see for whatever reason. At extremely laggy places such as shopping events, I switch my settings to "Show Friends Only". I would say that the addition of the complexity information has been helpful to raise my own awareness of the impact avatars have on other viewer and the sim. The jellydoll feature not so much for me. However, I cannot say if it would be different if I was using the official viewer because I don't know how many of the other options I use are available there. For my own avatar, I tend to float between 40K and about 130K depending on what I want to wear but mostly in the 40K-80K range. I tend to be more conscious of avoiding high complexity for my own outfits when I know I am going to be in a place with a high avatar count and/or high lag. I am finding that newer mesh items are more complexity friendly which I do tend to notice when demoing items and will prefer when buying.

Amara, Lindal lovely to see you and everyone else here too *hugs to all* Lexxi, I know that sadness too well myself unfortunately I love the oldest picture theme, Lil', so here is the oldest picture of me (pre-turned too) in SL I could find: I have also brought along something for us all to have a toast with, raises glass to one and all:

Ahh, OK. I agree though that "painted on" clothing will always have their uses even in a mesh world.

Clothing appliers for mesh bodies are just like system layers except instead of painting on the system body, they paint on the mesh body. These are very popular for underwear, etc.