PhilippeAndre

Hi everyone, I'm new to SL and I'm wondering if there might be a breakdown/explanation of avatar basics somewhere online. I don't mean a tutorial because those usually explain changing clothes, changing overall appearance (head, chin, ears, etc). What I mean is has anyone seen a basic explanation of what an avatar consists of in its most basic state? I've looked around and haven't found anything. When I mean basic state I mean detaching everything from the avatar, including skull, leaving you with a buck naked avatar with nothing attached...all ready to be worked on. I think most of us who are struggling with adjusting the looks of our new avatar don't fully understand how skins, shapes, eyebrowshaper, hair, etc actually all work together. Or maybe it's just me. It'd be great to see an explanation along the lines that an avatar consists a shape to which you add a skin, to which you add ...etc etc. It'd be nice to see/read how each basic avatar component interacts with other components, and read about the common problems (and fixes) new SL people see when trying to put together a good look with a new avatar. Just a good overview of the above information would give newcomers/noobs a better grasp of avatar appearance. Any comments/input would be greatly appreciated.

I know the question has been answered, but an alternative to reinstalling a previous SL viewer version is to get rid of the sheets of color and texturing problem. I just experienced the same thing today (signing in and suddenly seeing all structures (buildings, etc) as black blobs while still being able to clearly see other avatars in full color as well as landscape greenery. I never had a problem with graphics before until this most recent SL viewer update. Then again I've only been on SL for 2+ weeks. On your SL viewer (in advanced viewer mode)... -click on Me -click on Preferences -click on Graphics -locate the Quality and speed slider bar at the top of the Graphics page - move/slide the slider to the left (towards Faster) This should fix the problem. I had to go completely to the left. Not too sure why because, as I mentioned earlier, I had no graphics issues until the recent update. Hopefully this update glitch will be fixed because it sucks not being able to have optimal graphics in SL.

Hi Starry, I just had the same problem within the past week. Assuming you're using the SL viewer (which I'm using), go to this link: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/How_do_I_get_a_default_avatar Scroll down to below the video at the link above and follow the steps shown. It's easy to do. Once done with the steps you'll have to find the skin/shape and clothing that you want your avatar to wear because the above step reverts it back to a basic avatar, but the problem of being a cloud will be gone.