steeljane42

Always since the very first few days in SL. Performance impact without shadows enabled is minimal for any modern hardware, and not so modern either. It was fine for ancient (by now) stuff like overlocked i5 2500k (this microarchitecture will be 13 years old in January) and GTX 770 (also over a decade old by now), and that wasn't the "top gaming PC hardware" back then either. SL doesn't look all that great compared to actual games, but materials (that can only be seen with ALM enabled) always made it quite a lot better. Upcoming PBR will be another step, and while, of course, it still won't look like some games, it's a step into the right direction. Having non optional ALM on is a nice thing as well in my opinion. It doesn't happen all that often these days, but every now and then I still get a message saying how some part of my clothing looks "pitch black". You can tell right away they don't have ALM enabled that way. And it'll be quite a revelation for those who have ALM turned off, but still insist on pushing "those sliders that do nothing at all" on their mesh bodies and heads. Ever seen those people who look like they were bathing in oil last week, or sometimes not even oil, but liquid metal? Yeah, those. To add: I think more people would have them on even 10 years ago if default graphics preset of "ultra" didnt' enable shadows along with it. Given how badly optimized and (mostly) single-threaded viewer is those shadows really do hurt performance even on decent machines. So perhaps people did try it once, saw their viewer got slower, and pushed the preset slider back not realizing they can enable ALM on, but keep shadows off.

Could be this. https://jira.firestormviewer.org/browse/FIRE-33151 But it probably doesn't affect all systems, I don't have it and can't reproduce it with turning shadows off/on (or on/off) on either of my PCs.

Some people seems to really just don't get that some of us do not others on our property. For the record I never had a parcel at mainland, never will, because I simply dislike everything about mainland (and Belliseria). But at times I was renting at private estates I had banlines and 10s security orb on top of it. More than enough to see the warning and TP out if by some chance someone used an old LM. If I had mainland I'd do exactly the same there. Thankfully full regions can be just closed to random teleports completely, so it has been a lot easier since then. Why? I do not want random people around. That's good enough reason for me. It doesn't matter if I'm online or online, but not home, or offline. I still don't want random people around not even for how long it takes to eject/ban them manually. They are free to buy/rent their own parcels, homestead, regions and do whatever they want with them if they want to, and enfource any rules they desire to, and I won't feel bad for being ejected because "that parcel" has the "only blondes allowed" rule. Yep, I'm not a very social person in SL just like I'm not one in RL. People are different, nothing new about it. Whining on the forums for decade+ (probably longer, I'm only around since 2012, but pretty sure it wasn't any different before) about "But muh vehicle experience" is rather silly at this point.

On top of alreadying finding how Salt (and some other who sell per body/addon) do that, some unpacker scripts that allow individual versions unpacking also "call home". There was a little flickr drama when someone found out about this a few years ago. Creators actually checking that or not ever bothering is another question, but the option is definitely there even for those who don't sell per body/size/addon. If one wants to avoid such "calls" those huds should be unpacked by rezzing them in the no-script areas. Overabundance of curvy bodies will definitely die down, it already kinda does with Kupra being more dead than alive and many stores remove it from their rigging pool in favor of Reborn. Niche bodies like Peach and Erika are very much non factors, they exist and there is some clothing for them, but nothing else. But I wouldn't call Reborn and having a market for more curvy/thick bodies a fad, it always was there. Freya was in the top 3 female bodies for a long long time, even Slink's HG was somewhat popular. But the former never got more popular (and eventually got completely killed) because of its creator, with how slow bento/bom/universal neck fit updates took, how unwilling to fix anything he/their team was (hands are still not fixed even on gen x bodies). And the latter, while somewhat curvy, is rather specific shape wise, and always had that "rougness" of Slink bodies. In fact I'd say Kupra only got as popular as it did because people were starving for a new curvy body with some actual support, so it being released at the time when it was abandoned Freya, "weird" HG, and now that new Kupra body, or nothing at all was the deciding factor of it getting their year of popularity before a better body was released and it pretty much killed Kupra in a few months. Given the decent userbase of it there are still some creators who support it, but with ~250 new entries detected in the last 180 days it's almost on the verge of decline in total of its users, and that includes people who never log anymore. And lastly, many creators swapped to reborn+legacy releases. The latter is hardly extremely curvy (it can be if someone wants to). And almost no one picked up Gen X curvy, which is, well, actually curvy. So it's mostly preferences of creators, and knowing their market like Salt mentioned above. A few smaller/mid sized creators I know who have dropped Maitreya in the last 1-1.5 years saw a little decline in their sales for a bit, but it did bounce back quickly, and they've saved a lot of time by not having to struggle with the current maitreya devkit (which LaraX should fix, so it might become worth of their time to rig for it again). So timeXmoneyXsanity combination was in favor of dropping it despite the massive userbase. But yes, knowing your customers and their preferences is very important. I'd imagine of some casual/generic clothing creator like Blueberry or Addams dropped Maitreya they'd lose close to the half of their sales, and would get a lot of grief in social media, groups and IMs. It's a very subjective matter, what's the best for one is the worst for another, and vice versa. Some would call Maitreya the best female body by far a few months ago, too, while many others now will point on its angular butt, broken shoulders/armpits and say "nope", and then add "See, LaraX is going to fix it soon, because it really was bad." . For my personal tastes Gianni is not just bulky (it is, but that's somewhat fixable by shaping it better), but also has very weird torso and arms. Those are not fixable without redoing the mesh/rigging, and it would be a completely new body then, or at least something like GianniX. But some like it and see nothing wrong with it, and it's totally fine. I still expect it to continue its slow decline, though. It's definitely became much faster lately, and unless there will be that second wind it'll only speed up even further, because the "less content>less users>even less content" trend is difficult to overcome. And yes, I know it's not fun to see when your favorite body faces a decline for any reason. I knew/know some people who really liked Freya and they stuck with it for as long as they could, trying to ignore the fact they were missing on so many new releases, but eventually everyone have swapped to something else; Legacy, Kupra, later Reborn. What I also do know, however, is that none of them got/wears Gen X bodies despite endles 50% sales, as they had enough of that brand during Freya times.

It really wasn't, but it's okay, that's a lot of numbers to remember for so long and for no reason. If you check late 2021's stats you'll see Gianni at 24.4k, while Jake currently is at 26.6k. Given's Jake's growth of 2.5k+ in last 180 days alone it would mean it actually lost users for over 1 year in a row before recent growth, which it didn't. But yeah, it got closer to Gianni since then for sure, by around ~3k.

It never was ahead of Gianni, ever. Jake's got a bit closer to Gianni now, but because of the initial difference it's still behind in total numbers detected. And probably will stay so considering that they are going to relelase male Gen X body at some point, which probably won't kill Jake's support right away especially if they'll keep it on 50% sale, but some creators will definitely swap to gen X at some point. And if it'll be the same story as with female gen X bodies, then some current Jake users will just swap to other bodies (probably Legacy), because Jake's support will be slowing down and gen X's will not pick up at all. That if Belleza didn't learn their lesson (did they ever?). If they did and would offer some kind of an upgrade path for Jake users, and don't try to sell new male gen X body for 5.5k to begin with, then it might have a decent start. But knowing them and how they do things I wouldn't bet on it. Here are late 2021's stats. I'd say Avalon is actually the most versatile of all their heads they ever made, by (very) far. And despite that I said that you can still see it's Avalon; that's mostly because it's really everywhere and in such large numbers. Kinda like Catya in 2017-2018 was everywhere. Lilly is less versatile (all their other heads are, although some more and some less) and you can also easily tell who got it on. Cheeks and lips are less flexible on it for sure, especially the latter. It's mostly the matter of "experience" of checking them anyway. Do it often enough and you'll be able to see the unique traits on them all. Lilly's and Briannon's fuller lips, Ora's nose, Raven's forehead and chin and so on. Less popular and more unique heads of theirs like Zora are even more obvious, there's no hiding that nose shape with any amount of sliders and BoM addons. There are some face deformers on the market that would make heads rather different and looks more unique, but I almost never see anyone using those, and in rare cases I do it's some very "unique" appearance that barely looks like a Lel's head already.

Gianni's devkit is rather awful indeed. As for the rest, checking the trending tab is more useful as usual than the total numbers as it has avatars wearing some bodies long long time ago. Last 180 days had +1365 new Gianni detections, +2562 Jake's, +2634 Legacy Athletic's and +2105 regular Legacy Male's. Considering that both Legacy male bodies are almost identical and fit 99% of the same clothing those can be combined. Actually quite impressive considering that Jake is at permanent 50% sale since last October, while with an exception of a couple of sales Legacy bodies are 5k. Can't blame people, though, personal preferences and all, but out of those 3 bodies I'd choose Legacy as well. Never liked Gianni's shape, and Jake's bubble butt (same for all Belleza bodies, new and old) and a creator behind it is... even worse than TMP's team, somehow. But that's the stuff for VS, not those forums. So as far as new users/alts are considered, Gianni is pretty far behind and new avatars/alts buy and shop for Legacy bodies 3.4x times as much. And, of course, new avatars/alts are going to shop way more, because they don't have the basics yet. So more and more creators dropping it is a very expected outcome.

2nd is Avalon, and it never was free. It's just that generic and thus become most popular. It's still good, very good, but after it got as popular as it is I'd never really suggest it to anyone, because as versatile heads Lelutka makes and as much difference skins and addons add you can still always look around and say "Yep, that's Avalon, and there's 15 more of them nearby right now". It's the case with every bento head, and that's why there's so many of them around, sliders and skins/bom addons make a difference, but some features are pre-defined and can only be adjusted that much. It's just most noticeable on the most worn ones since they are everywhere you go. But yeah, a few more months and last Lel's freebie female head (Raven) will be in top 5. And to add, freebies are good, but as seen on this very example, being widely grabbed by new users (Genus free head) doesn't mean more content being made. It has been a while since I saw any decent skin creator releasing non EvoX skin or addon. Which makes sense, most of those freebie hunters are unlikely to actually buy stuff, or they wouldn't settle of a that rather awful looking (personal opinion, of course), Genus free head, and if they'll decide to actually upgrade, then content for EvoX is there already, so no point to make anything for the freebie head at all. Honestly I'm not expecting that many changes with the LaraX release. Some will drop maitreya completely, some will pick up the X after dropping the old version before to see how it goes for a bit. There's no new up and coming bodies to squeeze in, so even if all that LaraX experiment flops terribly and they get to keep 1/5 of the current userbase it still going to be in those top 3 female bodies along with Reborn and Legacy. It might push Kupra out even more than it already is, but yeah, it's more dead than alive as is already. And I don't think the nearly permanent 50% sale will help Belleza at all either. 10 months since its release, both bodies are still hanging around 500 users detected on the Lucia's list, and amount of content for them is awful (even worse if consider that it's divided by two, because some creators picked curvy and some classic version). It might shuffle the numbers a bit ,though, and it would be interesting to see. Like someone already mentioned in this thread this LaraX upgrade is probably the best time to swap bodies completely if someone actually wants to. Lots of old content going to become unusable apparently, and very likely updates for all current new bodies/sizes will follow shortly for some of it at least. If droppping a few thousands of L$ on a body of their choice instead of sticking to the "good old Lara with a facelift" is not a problem, then it really is the best time from now to a few months after it's released.

Keeping boxes is a good idea in case when some creator might quit SL as well. Not just leave their store in the maitenance mode with at the very least MP running, sometimes even in-world store, too, but actually quit. Then the only way to "get a redelivery" is unpacking those boxes. If something gets updated for the newer bodies I replace backup box with a new one. And it doesn't take almost any time after the initial setup, which is just making a bunch of subfolders in the backup folder so boxes with landscape stuff won't get mixed with clothes, hair and so on.

You did mention how you never got newer Lelutka heads working on Maitreya. That would be one of the benefits, you need 5.x for the universal neck fit for any newer heads (neck type 1, size 0 like I wrote in another topic already). Separate tattoo/underwear/clothing layers is also 5.x's feature, it should probably make up for having to have hands/feet on. And BoM features without some extra "relay huds".

Actually one of the earlier bootleg kits some creators still use works better than the official one. Some of my creators friends did show me the difference, but I'll skip the details/names, of course, since they do have official ones and I wouldn't want to spoil the relations with maitreya. They use that bootleg kit instead of an official one for anything that needs rigging on the back, especially upper half of the body. Even bootleg stuff aside there's plenty of creators with official kits for maitreya and other bodies that just can't rig anything. I'll skip the names/brands again to avoid naming and shaming, but in case with those creators' clothes it's a hard pass for me whenever I try to demo their stuff again. They had bad fitting/rigging when I used Maitreya, they had as bad one for Legacy, and now after demoing a few of their latest releases after swapping to Reborn - yep, it's not any better. But, yes, I also expect most creators dropping the non X version very soon after the update is out. If the devkit is easier to work with it's worth for that reason alone, and of course it means many creators get to either update (and put on weekend sales, like many do already) or plain redo some of the older ideas they had before and re-release them. There's a big potential for this kind of re-releases (remasters?), especially if they'll also include other relevant body sizes. And there's definitely some of the older content from 2016-2018 years that was only made for Slink/Maitreya/Belleza that I'd also like to see remastered, improved and released again. Mesh and textures might have aged by now, that's why I think it would be a good idea, but designs did not.

It works perfectly, but requires maitreya 5.3 and another setting on the maitreya's hud for the neck. Type 1 size 0 is what you want for EvoX. Type 2 is for the older heads like Lel's Origins line and abandoned Catwa heads, some of those also need size 5 as well.

If anything those forums are very "pro alpha layers" and I've seen some posters actually saying how everyone should just do own BoM layers while forgetting the fact that average SL users often have difficulty to put a few objects (clothing/accessories etc) together, many still struggle even after a decade(s) here. And many people here are so invested that they also forget that with just a few hours online each week making own BoM layers is just out of question for most people. But in either case SL forum always has been in its own bubble. SL forum/forumites: alpha cuts bad, high complexity bad (while 4/5 of the forum didn't/don't have a slightest clue how current useless current complexity calculation formula is, which was shown recently in a thread here, and apparently many also just refuse to understand it even after it was explained to them), complex meshes bad, HD layers (and layers in general) bad; and so on. The rest of SL: continues to enjoy their 700k polys hairstyles, bodies with alpha cuts, and 2GB VRAM skyboxes. ---- I never posted here what I actually think about those new Senra bodies, aside of a link to the dev kit on the first page. I didn't expect anything nice from those avatars, unlike some people around these forums, and still they are pretty terrible. Better than ancient pre-mesh avatars? Sure. Would/will I suggest a new SL user to swap from those to something better right away if they'll be sure they want to stay around SL for a bit? Absolutely. So in that sense it changes nothing, but perhaps they'll scare a bit less people away than pre-mesh default avatars. Especially if the pictures from the first page is not a default look/outfit for those.

We do know.

It's just more work in general to put on/remove alphas and/or auto-alpha objects if clothing doesn't come with bom alphas or auto-alphas built-in. And in some cases it's a lot more work when you mix and match many things from various sets/outfits together. It's easier to save a ready to use outfit, and if needed adjust some of its parts, than dig through your entire inventory to find "those heels that actually didn't clip with these pants", and "that top that also doesn't clip with the jacket from another set". There are also cases when some outfits might use an adjusted/modded version of clothing and/or accessories with some tinting and shininess adjusted, while some other outfits might use same exact pieces, but in their original state. In cases of some complex fantasy/RP outfits they might take hours to get right, so saving a good result in a ready to use outfit seems like a good idea.

I'm pretty sure it'll be the case too. Now older Belleza's bodies support already wasn't great to begin with as their updates took forever, but the moment Gen X bodies were released it pretty much killed what was left of it. Not counting FP template creators that make 20-25 different sizes anyway (and "creators" who use those templates to retexture them and make some profits). As already noted in this topic Lara was slowly being dropped by a number of creators as is, although most of them do focus on clothing styles that are very much Reborn/Legacy (and sometime Kupra) market to begin with, but still. Given this refresh and a very likely boost in the shopping interest for those Lara X users I can see more creators dropping original rigging instantly and picking up the X. For how long... time will tell, might be until hype dies now, might be a while longer. That said I did ask a few smaller/mid sizes creators I know who have dropped Maitreya a while ago in favor of Legacy/Reborn only releases. The answers were the mix of "Wait and see." and "Do a test release or two if time allows." Then again none of them focus on the Maitreya market anymore, so it's not exactly a good indicator of the general trends.

Total body users/numbers on the Lucia's list is a good thing to check every now and then, but sadly it has one major flaw - avatars that are not around anymore. So I do think those numbers for the obsolete bodies like Freya are pretty much those. Trending tab shows a better picture, and it's obvious that those older abandoned bodies like Slink's, old Belleza's (except Jake, because male's version of gen X is not out yet) are on decline. Kupra is about to hit decline with just ~350 new entries in the last 180 days, but their constant giveaways keep them away from that for the time being. There's also a bonniebots site with a daily top attachment list, it also gives a good perspective on what is worn in-world these days. I believe Freya was around low 300s last time I checked. And likewise the Catya with has that massive number in the "total list" at Lucia's stats is slowly getting phased out of 100 for the daily seen attachments. So, nope, it is, in fact, dropped already, and has been for quite a long time.

Might have something to with an X in its name. /s I mean if it was just a next major update labeled as Maitreya Lara 6.0 or something like Lara 2.0, then some people would still guess what is new, but adding that "X" to the name given how EvoX and Gen X both include new UV, even if the latter only optional one for the feet, is just asking for speculations about the UV changes. I'd say it's a missed opportunity if they'd kept the original SLUV like Lelutka did with a simple toggle in the HUD. But oh well. ----- As for the rest... Good for some Lara users I suppose, but I'd be way more excited about a new body instead. Especially since some(?) clothing is not expected to fit with those new changes. I suppose shoes might still fit, but they could fit on a completely new body as well (unless it's Belleza that never did a single thing right, including this). So it's essentially a new body as far as clothing is concerned, but also not really new at the same time. Being a free update is a great way to introduce that, though. That said I do feel for creators getting swarmed with update requests on the very day it's released. Way more than it has been with people wanting something updated for the newer bodies. Given what I see around big shopping events on the opening days (and it's mostly Reborn and Legacy users) most who wear those newer bodies also want newer things, so might not be very interested in most older clothing updated to begin with. But those loyal Maitreya only users who might have accumulated a very large wardrobes will want to wear those things on the "better version" instead of swapping to included older fit version.

Problem is Belleza bodies are not using P0 or P1 idle hand animations, theirs are P5 poses, so they'll override every single AO on the market (most are P3, some are P4). So people disable those poses from the Belleza's HUD and this is what happens. Bento AOs with animated hands will fix it while standing, but for the furniture sits they won't as they stop playing standing animations (obviously). And if animations in said furniture are not bento enabled, then that sprayed animation will happen as well. If said body's user sat on the furniture when another person is around, they'll see them fine, but if someone will arrive after, then sprayed fingers is a 100% case. Fix is almost what you've said, except those P5 poses can't be used and Belleza users have to find some other idle hand animation, then put that animation and an autoplay/refresh script into something they wear all the time (or just drop them into a prim, make it invisible and attach somewhere) and call it a day. Most funny (or sad) is that was reported to creator at the time of bento update, and not only it wasn't fixed in the BoM update years later, but it's exactly the same in gen X bodies that were released even later, nor in any of their updates.

It was released as 3 new heads (for 4k each) and started to become popular right away, though. Many (most?) big/popular skin creators didn't release a single SLUV skin since the original EvoX's release. And at first Lelutka weren't sure if previous Evo heads would updated with all EvoX features, especially with the "hd skins". You can dig that information from various sources like flickr, discord, facebook etc. But given such great feedback they've decided to update previous heads completely. So, yes, free updates of such scale are always great, especially for customer's loyality and brand's name, which will eventually bring in profit as well. But if the product is great it's not really required. In fact if the product is half decent and also has a proper promotion behind it, then even previous awful reputation like the ex-TMP team has/had won't stop it from becoming popular (I do mean Legacy bodies, of course).

If it's true, and if the new body won't be compatible with the older clothes, then for a while (and for some people for a really long while) it will make things rather complicated. I've got used to swapping bodies for a needed outfit a long while ago when I've got legacy, but still wanted to wear maitreya for some RP/fantasy outfits. And recently after getting a reborn I still swap to a few legacy based outfits for the same reason. But I know some people just dread the thought of maintaining multiple bodies with different shapes, skins, keeping more than one clothing size and so on. So if it's entirely new body and not just a new UV and some tweaks here and there, then given lack of clothing for the new body at the start and for quite sometime it'll be the game of swapping for many many people.

Given how those new bodies/heads look like, general idea and presentation of them by LL (and Patch) they are very likely thinking it's just a body/head most new (actual new) users will swap for "something better" the moment those people will decide to buy some L$. In a way it reminds me of some F2P mmos, especially mobile ones. Give a new user something not truly awful (like the current starting bodies). Gear/characters etc. Just enough so they'd stick around for a bit, then gently (or not so gently in case of those predatory mobile gacha games) nudge them towards the shop with "way better stuff". And since LL doesn't sell any actual content in SL's case this nudge will be towards the currently popular bodies and heads, which not only do look better, but also will have pretty much unlimited choice of clothing/accessories available to them compared to a very limited and curated pool of releases approved by LL for the Senra. Thus making a new user a part of the ecosystem/SL's economy, or shopping part of it anyway. In a similar way I'm sure those tiny LL homes are also were meant as a starting step giving new land owners a bit of taste in decoration and having a land in general. Except many people are actually totally fine with something as small, so they never got anything else.

I meant the new UV the X update if it's actually a thing in the update. Lelutka, for example of new UVs, are much more "relaxed" about their devkits compared to Maitreya, and even they did share the EvoX permissions with only a few other brands, all of which are pretty tiny and a non factor on the current mesh heads market compared to the top 3. To be fair I'm not sure if other (bigger) ones have asked, though. So given the "history" of how it is/was difficult to get Maitreya's devkit compared to most other bodies I said about them/you not sharing that UV with other body creators, since it's pretty much direct competition. Looks about the same to me, especially if consider the fact it's a perfect angle to showcase the body/skin. You can pose (current) Maitreya in a way it'll look fine as well, but static pictures from the good angle is one thing, real-time and all kinds of animations is another.

Sadly there's no way to update the shoulders without breaking existing content. Even if they'd include some kind of deformers, which anyone can get already, it's still only a partial fix. So it's either a new body with a generous free upgrade for current Maitreya users, or vanity updates that won't really change much. Perhaps a new UV given the X in its name? That would be nice, especially if they'd share it with others like Lelutka did. Although knowing maitreya if it happens they won't share a thing.

In most games with online elements it's a posibility for a long while now. Most people have it off and it's one of the endless complaints of those who have it on if you check related games' forums and/or communities (like on reddit and such). In games that actually show if someone has it on/off I've played, like some kind of UI symbol, from my personal experience I also see it being turned off in almost all cases when it comes to random games with random people. Friends lobbies/parties/teams are another story, of course. Doesn't mean there are no random people using it, some do, just like in SL. So Coffee's message you've quoted is correct.