Skell Dagger

@Madelaine McMasters I guarantee that you're probably one of their favourite customers, too. You'd have been one of mine when I worked retail! Sadly, it seems to always be the abusive customers that one remembers at the end of a long working day. I've seen young checkout girls reduced to tears by some idiot who needed to verbally harangue someone just to feel macho for the day. I've long advocated that there should be a mandatory Customer Service Draft (kind of like National Service in the UK, decades ago). If everyone had to stand or sit at a checkout for eight hours a day, or answer support calls for the same amount of time, and experience the levels of abuse that many retail and customer service workers receive, for - let's say - a minimum of six months, the world would slowly become a more pleasant place.

What does that have to do with the topic of this thread, which is that the OP wants builders to offer demos of their homes? Builders were offering demos way back in the days of Ye Olde Prims, too, y'know. I still get messages from people asking me if I could rez positively ancient (8+ years old) prim-only builds of mine that are now being sold for pennies in my Bargain Basement section.

This. The approach you make when asking for help can be absolutely key to the help you receive. Even with a large organisation, where you would expect a certain level of service and support, the people giving that support are more likely to go the extra mile for you - over and above what's expected of them by their job - if your initial approach is pleasant, courteous, concise, and offers upfront all the information they need in order to help you. The old adage about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar really does apply when it comes to support. Consider the OP's post, and how it could have been worded by two different people, and then consider that you're the person whose desk their issue has landed on: Person 1: Hi there. I think my account may have been compromised. I received an email from you on [date] informing me that [avatar name]'s account was locked for 'suspicious activity'. I'd like to get this fixed as soon as possible, so could you please let me know how to proceed with doing that? Many thanks, [Name] Person 2: WTF? Why is my account locked? Fix it! NOW! Linden Lab most likely works on an 'as they come' basis for support requests, but I know whose request I would feel like prioritising. Like many people, I've worked my fair share of crappy retail jobs in the past, and - while I always gave a good level of service - I would go above and beyond for people who didn't treat me like some kind of uneducated (ironic, since I was working to pay my way through university at the time) second-class citizen. I have always treated others with the same courtesy whenever I've needed support for something, and I've rarely received anything but excellent levels of support.

Yes, but it's not 100% accurate. You'd need to obtain a demo of the item to wear, but many demos don't contain all the various scripts for resizing or colour/texture options. It'll be close enough that you can rule out anything horrendously weighty, though. Wear the item, then right-click it to edit it. If it's rigged mesh, you'll need to right-click the worn item in your inventory and edit from there. Then, in the General tab of the edit menu, click the 'more info link' (arrowed below). Under the 'weights of selected' header of the new window that'll pop up, 'display' will give you the render weight of the item. As you can see, I'm wearing a very high-complexity hair here, with a render weight of 42,004:

I don't know if it'll be more popular. I like that it comes with two base shapes - slim and athletic - so you have something to start with, regardless of whether you prefer Slink (the slimmer type of body) or Signature (the more muscular type). It also depends on how many designers pick up on it to create clothing for. Currently, Signature clothing seems to fit best. It's Omega-compatible (you do need to buy the Omega HUD to install it, though) and I've had no problem applying any of my Omega skins. It also comes with hands and decent-looking feet (which can be clicked off for Slink feet) and a really nice Catwa head applier, which I'm wearing in the pic above. All in all, I'm happy with it. The neck join is a bit problematic, but by default there's a neck sheath enabled, which covers it up. It does show somewhat when you get close to the neck and you're wearing dark clothes. It could be because I'm wearing the Catwa Daniel head with the SL neck fit. I expect Catwa may come out with a Belleza neck fit in an update.

The new Belleza male mesh body is finally out! (And holy crap, do I love the alpha cuts on the HUD.) Skell's on the night train, on his way home from the pub Credits Body: Belleza - Jake Head: Catwa - Daniel Skin applier: Belleza - Daniel (comes with the body) Hair: Dura - B77 (dark) Jacket: Not So Bad - Dante Jacket Pants: Minimal - Harvey Suit Jeans Shoes: Minimal - Harvey Shoes Eyes: Avi-Glam - Celestial Eyes (earth HUD) Necklace: Yummy - Alchemy Charms Necklace Bracelets: Codex - Arhat Bracelets Piercings: LittleFish - Ezili Lip Ring Set Earring: No.Match - No Salvation Earring Location: FoxCity - Destination:London photobooth & poses (purchased separately) The London Tube photo set is out at the new eBento event, if anyone's interested. Four great sets of poses to go with it: two male and two female.

I remember seeing them on money trees years ago, but it took me a while to hunt down an image online. This was the L$ that always used to show up in those trees: (Apparently, a Linden dollar would give just L$1 when picked, but the various fruits would give more.)

This is the NotSoBad packaging. I really love this. It doesn't make you look silly; it's rather a wry little look at what most of us probably would look like if SL shopping involved actually carrying bags! I actually have a Flickr album called Packaging: You're Doing It Right for things like this. From great animations to really gorgeous boxes and the like. I really need to start adding more to that album, because there's some great stuff out there.

Exactly! Let's make our customers look a bit daft doth not a good business model make. I really love what Rozoregalia have been doing with their jewellery demos. They use the Experience Tools to rez a full copy of their jewellery on your avatar. You can resize and move it and see exactly what it will look like and whether you can size it to fit perfectly. It's technically a demo - even though it's the full, actual object - because it vanishes from your avatar when you exit the region where you tried the demo. I can see how this would be harder to apply for things such as hair and clothing, because people often want to take those home and try them on with lots of different things, but it works beautifully with accessories such as jewellery, and I hope more creators start to use it.

For me, the biggest pet peeve when it comes to clothing demos is the ones that have no texturing. They're either all-white, or the 'texture' is all-white with DEMODEMODEMO all over it. I want to see what the damn texturing looks like, as well as the fit! Second-biggest demo pet peeve? The ones which - when wearing the bag/object/whatever to unpack it - then put me into a ridiculous animation or rez things around me. I don't mind the various holding poses (some are pretty hilarious; NotSoBad's pile of bags and boxes that your avatar is struggling to hold is actually hilarious) but the ones I reserve my especial ire for are the ones that rez things around you. A silly moustache in front of your face is one thing, but a hair demo bag I once wore to unpack attached an entire 'hair salon' scene around my avatar: long bib across my torso and a hairdryer hood covering my head, a mirror in front of me, and a chair to sit in. Very clever, yes, but I never shopped there again. I also now teleport home to open every purchase. Even demos. In short: let me see your texturing, and don't make me look like a complete prat in front of other people. Some people might think those animations and scenes are brilliantly funny, but me... I'm a humourless sod

As a side-note, there are more default avatars in the Library folder than those that show up in the Avatars toolbar. The ones from the toolbar can be found in: Library > Clothing > Initial Outfits, but the older ones are all found in: Library > Clothing > Older Outfits. In that folder, not only will you find the really ancient stuff, but also the more recent things, which probably includes the 'Linden hair for n00bs' that you mentioned. Lastly, at the very bottom of the Inventory Library, you'll find the Accessories > Hair Design Options (Colours & Styles) folder, which contains yet more default hair, so have a rummage in that folder, too.

@Sylvia Wasp If anyone's going to have a hairstyle similar to that Rezology one, it'll be Stealthic. Try their 'Erratic' hair. It's fairly close to what you're after, I think. If that's a bit too long, their 'Vivacity' style is also good.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion from what either Alwin or I said, but no. While you can wear other mesh eyes, you don't have to. You haven't told us which Catwa head you're using (there are several) so we don't know if it's a Bento head or not. My advice about setting your shape's eye socket depth applies for using any mesh eyes, but especially with the eyes that came with your head (assuming that you're not using one of Catwa's basic heads, which don't have eyes included). The advice that I gave actually comes from the Catwa Head Friends inworld group - the official support group for Catwa heads. Alwin's advice applies if you're using any other (unrigged, and therefore editable) mesh eyes. Normally, with a system head, mesh eyes will be mostly in the correct position. But a mesh head sits slightly differently over the avatar's system head, which means that other brands of mesh eye might be either popping out too far or (more usually) too low down, so you can barely see the tops of the irises. In those cases, as Alwin said, you'll need to manually edit the eyes into position to fit in the eye sockets. You've said in your post: Do the eyes actually move when you try to edit them? As in: could you pull them out in front of your head and then back again? I'm asking this, because Catwa offers three types of mesh head: Bento heads with rigged eyed (cannot be moved) Static heads with mesh eyes (unrigged; can be moved) Basic heads with no eyes With a Bento head you can go into edit mode on the rigged eyes, and you can move the arrows to try and edit them, but the eyes won't actually move. I suspect this is what's happening. If they were unrigged eyes, you'd simply be able to edit them into place, no matter what your eye depth setting was. In short: try the advice of the Catwa support people that I initially gave you, which was: If you're still having issues, search for the Catwa Head Friends group inworld, join it, and ask your question there. They are an incredibly helpful and friendly bunch of people.

If it's a Bento head, set your shape's eye depth to 50. If it's a non-Bento head, set it to zero.

Marketplace sales work on a commission basis. Linden Lab will take the fee out of any sales you make before then paying you the amount left over. The commission is currently set at a 5% rate, thus if you sell something worth L$100 the fee will be L$5 and you'll receive L$95 for the sale. The other main case where fees are involved is that of listing enhancements (such as your products appearing on the Marketplace front page), but if you're not planning to use those the only fees you'll pay will be automatically taken from your earnings before you are then credited for the items sold. For more info: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/listing_guidelines#fees-and-commissions ETA: I see you are planning to use listing fees. In that case, take note of this section;

@Marianne Little I'm still gobsmacked at how good that Stealthic hair is.

It rezzed about a millisecond after I clicked to delete the damn thing! I'd just spent about 20 minutes fiddling with the positioning of both sections so they were perfectly aligned with my pose, so I was buggered if I was going to re-rez and re-shoot! Today's look: leather, latex, and heels. Credits Coat: ZED - Distressed Black Goth Leather Coat Hair: Ayashi - Nobuko Hair (male - black) Piercings: Cerberus Xing - Deepforge Chains (silver) Collar: RealEvil - Predator Collar Eyes: Avi-Glam - Celestial Eyes (earth pack) Pants: Sn@tch - Lowrise Latex leggings (dark) Boots: Pixelfashion - Devil Boots (black) Belt: Lapointe & Bastchild - S'Wear "Death" Skull Belt (black) Skin applier: Swallow - Martin (ivory) Brows: Avi-Glam - LOGO Eyebrows Head: Catwa - Daniel (Bento) Body: Slink - Physique Male Hands: Slink - Dynamic Hands Male (Bento)

Technically they can be created inworld, if you're willing to spend in the range of L$5000 on gadgets which convert prim builds into mesh objects. However, things like that rely on external servers to generate and serve up the .dae files, so everyone who has made that purchase (including me) is at the mercy of someone else paying the server bills. I noticed a few weeks back that the reviews on the product that I purchased have gone from "absolutely brilliant" to "absolutely brilliant... when it works". I do, however, agree with you regarding your other point of user-generated content. While anyone can still create using the viewer's inbuilt tools, far fewer people want to buy prim-only content these days, purely because mesh content allows for more detail and simply looks amazing. And, while gadgets such as that mentioned above can allow creators to make mesh objects, they're still limited to looking like prim builds in terms of shape and form. SL has definitely become more of a consumer-based society* than it once was, and the hobbyist creator who just played around with the building tools to have fun and maybe make a little money inworld finds himself edged out of the market if he's not prepared to spend hours learning tools such as Blender. (And thank god we have that, otherwise the sheer cost of buying 3D modelling software such as Maya would edge out even more people.) But, eh. Plus ça change. Everything is still available to us; it's just that many of us no longer choose to make use of it. *ETA: It always was consumerist, granted, but the ratio of creators to consumers is probably vastly more skewed to the latter than it once was.

I think I went to Baileys precisely once, and that was because they had some free boots at the landing point. Country ain't my thing, but I remember it looked like a great build. Curio Obscura, however, is my thing. I've spent a ridiculous amount of money there over the years. I recall feeding L$100 into the fur coat gacha over and over so that I could create Candy Fabuloso (I think the hot pink zebra stripe one was my favourite, but Candy was a little more... sedate than that.) Another place I've always loved is Grim Bros. Cutea Benelli made some amazing stuff.

Surprisingly, many men don't want to have the default SL paddles at the ends of their legs I recently put in a request on behalf of all us freaky boys who love to wear heels, for Slink to make a high-heeled foot for men. The reply I received was positive: it's on the to-do list already, and I couldn't be happier about that. Since most heeled footwear these days is made for Slink High or Maitreya Lara, those of us guys who love to wear heels have been edged out of that style, unless we want to buy the Maitreya body and the V-Tech flat-chest 'boi' mod for it. Some have done that, but I like to retain Skell's broad shoulders and overall blokeishness, even when he's wearing makeup and six-inch heels like these:

Happy birthday, Clover

At L$5000 it's more than likely The Mesh Project. According to the Mesh Body Addicts blog, the female basic version of the TMP body costs L$2500 and contains an alpha HUD, but in order to get the alpha HUD for the male body you have to spend L$5000 on the deluxe version; the basic male body doesn't have one. Just one of many reasons why I've always absolutely refused to buy anything from TMP.

*laughs so hard he chokes on his cuppa tea* For those going Rhonda is referring to my somewhat insane inventory count. Even more insane for the fact that I'm a bloke and most of it* is clothing, hair, shoes, etc - *Okay, and quite a lot of textures, as well.

I see your point, but that same point implies there was only one painting and the artist would have only made that single sale from it, as opposed to a Second Life creator who would make multiple future sales from an item. In the first case, the artist has made all the money they were going to get from the original sale, and the subsequent theft is that of their intellectual property. In the second case, the theft is not only of IP but also of money, in the form of those potential future sales. That's why my analogy was that - having purchased one t-shirt before - the OP was asking if it was okay to 'take' as many as wanted (eg: make copies) then alter them (the OP said "work some mesh around") before selling them or giving them away. Perhaps another analogy would be that - having purchased an e-book - the OP wanted to add another chapter to the author's original work and then upload it for anyone to download, or to sell it as their own work.