LucyHerne

Silly question I'm sure but what is "the V"?

One thing I've discovered trying LaraX is that clothes and footwear with auto hide scripts don't work. The scripts hide different parts of LaraX than they hide on Lara 5.3.

Update on the SS Galaxy. I went on board last night (GMT)and was among the first visitors. @Pussycat Catnap there is a landing stage on the east side of the Galaxy facing Hibiki. Doc Rast has already held a party in the main ballroom which has a working drum kit and piano and two dance balls. There is a music stream though Doc used his own for the party. There's also an ice rink and more dance areas scattered about the ship. Not sure if the position chosen for it is the best though from my houseboat on Hibiki's west coast I have to set draw distance to over 200 to see the Galaxy. Still, I believe it could become another good party venue for Belli.

Another thing to watch for are stores that sell appliers for mesh heads but include a base skin which sounds like it should work with BOM. I tried one skin that said it had base system skin only to find that the system head texture was really basic and not worth keeping. Clearly you needed a mesh head that used appliers to see the full beauty of the skin on the head. As I've now gone totally BOM and never really got into appliers I had to trash it. So, beware of head appliers that say they include a "base" system skin. As said above - Rule 1: No demo, no sale.

I love BOM & I love alpha layers. Enough said by me.

Personally speaking, I totally disagree with Icheb. For me, getting rid of Alpha Cuts was the best thing ever. So I've had to spend lindens on importing alpha layer textures but once I've created an alpha layer and added it to clothes or outfit folder that's it. It's all done. I can take clothes off, wear them again later and no setting up alpha cuts. Yes, I know there are various scripted solutions provided to get over the setting up of alpha cuts but really alpha layers are so simple. Slink provides a few full perm textures & alpha layers to start customers off which is certainly a help. Alpha layers for most mesh body clothes (where needed) are usually much much simpler and easier to produce than for the old System body. Usually it's only a few small pieces of the body that poke through and the alpha texture can be really quite simple. Plus, once you've made an alpha layer for one piece of clothing you'll often find that same alpha layer will work for other similare clothes. Jeans for instance usually need only small area of the legs and sometimes the area round the groin hidden. The other big plus about alpha layers working on mesh bodies is that it brings back to life a lot of the older mesh clothes that I had boxed up in Inventory. Some of the supplied alpha layers work and some don't but that's easily solved if I really like the item of clothing. Finally, alpha layers on mesh bodies also means you can easily hide feet so some older boots now work with my Slink feet. This is only my personal view and people are free to use whatever type of mesh body they choose.

Firestorm Viewer has now updated to 6.3.2.58052 which supports BOM. https://www.firestormviewer.org/

I've been using a BOM viewer ever since it went live on the Grid and I use both the Slink Redux body and the free RuthTooRC3. RuthTooRC3 sort of fits both Standard clothes and Maitreya clothes. I was worried I'd need to either find clothes that came with an Alpha Layer included because the clothes included Standard sizes as well as mesh body sizes or create a lot of new Alpha layers myself. What I've actually found is that a lot of the Alpha Layers for Standard sizes don't actually work too well with mesh bodies, often showing the transparent area outside the clothes. However, to counter that, I've found that in almost all cases the Alpha Layer textures DON'T need to be anywhere near as carefully made as before. Pants & jeans, for instance, often need only a portion of the legs and around the groin area to be hidden. The free textures & Alpha Layers supplied by Slink with Redux go a long way to providing what's needed though I have had to create a few carefully made Alpha Layer textures myself especially for the RuthTooRC3. So what I'm saying is that, yes clothes creators will need to create Alpha Layers for clothes (customers are, in time, going to demand that) but the textures aren't going to be anywhere near as time consuming a job as before. It might well be that, eventually, community minded people will place sets of Alpha Layers & textures on MarketPlace either for free or very cheaply like this set of Alpha Layers & textures for feet & other parts from a few years ago - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Avatar-Alpha-Overlays-101311-update/2312783 . I'm actually very pleased to get away from having to use a HUD & alpha cuts to hide parts of my body. The cuts often didn't fit the clothes properly and had to be set up again each time you changed clothes unless you used special scripts. With Alpha Layers it's so easy as it's a one time creation and that's it. Plus, the texture created for one item of clothing can often be used time and again on other clothes where the same part of the body needs to be hidden. For those wanting to create Alpha Layer textures who don't want the expense of Photoshop try the free Gimp software or the very easy to use Paint.Net - https://www.getpaint.net/ .

YAY! Ty Theresa. Saw that and saw the word applier so didn't check it out. Also, I've refound this set of free full perm alpha layers & textures for feet, legs & other parts on MarketPlace - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Avatar-Alpha-Overlays-101311-update/2312783

Chic, I was a little confused as to why 7 Deadly s[K]ins were producing 2 different sets of Clsassic skins. Went to the store, found the Group is now free, and grabbed the GG. The BOM skins have finger and toenails removed. Another lovely free skin for those wanting to experiment with BOM.

Ty Theresa for that explanation. It was a small niggle and, frankly, having BOM live is worth far more than the 800 odd lindens I paid for a pair of Slink mesh hands. I am having way too much fun going through my Inventory and unpacking all the old clothes, footwear and skins that I've put away over the years. Of course I have alpha layers to create but Slink's helped there supplying basic alpha layers and textures plus I've made quite a few alpha layers myself in the past. Oh, and I have to Edit a lot of the foot shapes / system shoes that come with footwear because they use the white default texture which now shows up on mesh BOM feet and need to be changed to transparent! Easy till you come across one that's No Mod.

@Theresa Tennyson @Vir Linden What I was hoping for was a way to be able to wear a mesh body but NOT mesh hands and have the System hands remain visible. Up until BOM went live (and I changed to a BOM compatible viewer because I love BOM) I used an alpha layer to hide all my System body but not the hands. That meant when I wore my Slink BOM mesh body my hands were invisible as well as the rest of my System body. So I bought a pair of Slink Redux mesh hands and solved the problem. I was asking the question for others who I'm sure will encounter this same problem and similar ones caused by the new system not recognising when a part of the System body is NOT wearing mesh. The system sees the Upper Slink Body as having the BOM texture and assumes the whole Upper System Body should therefore be invisible. I hope this makes sense.

@Vir Linden I had an issue with my Slink body when BOM went live that meant I had to buy a set of Slink mesh hands. Before BOM I was using the Slink Mesh Body & Slink Feet but kept my System hands. With BOM I found my System hands were invisible because the BOM system was assuming the whole of my Upper Body was mesh. Is it possible the above suggestions from @Henri Beauchamp & @Ai Austin could be used to overcome this issue?

I have been working through my Inventory, trying on boots & shoes, and realised that Footwear Designers in SL will now have to make the texture on all foot shapes / system shoes transparent. If they're left with the Default texture then, if the mesh feet are visible, you'll see a white area depending on how tall the Shoe height is set. This affects all shoes and any boots that show feet or toes. It is very easy to fix if the foot shape / system shoe is Mod. Just right click the foot shape in Inventory, choose Edit, and change the texture to transparent (using Kokua viewer). If you're on the SL Viewer you'll need to locate a transparent texture in Inventory. If, as many are, the foot shape / system shoe is No Mod then you'll need to create a new one. Hope this helps. @Vir Linden Perhaps the Lab could consider making the Default texture for foot shapes / system shoes transparent?

Marianne, I suggest u try the Kokua Viewer. I started out using the default viewer when BOM went live and it's a real pain after Firestorm. I think Kokua comes half way between the default viewer & Firestorm and it's BOM compatible. https://sourceforge.net/projects/kokua.team-purple.p/