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PixelBerry

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Posts posted by PixelBerry

  1. Oh boy... I honestly believe using NPC AI to learn newcomers about how to do things within Second life won't make a difference at all, it's a waste of time and money that should go somewhere else. Back when I joined in 2007 I was 13, I learned and understood the important aspect fairly quick, other things I learned over time, there were a lot of other newcomers with me, and we were eager to talk and figure out things together. However back then we didn't have complex avatars. I feel like the difficult part for most newcomers is the avatar and how to meet and socialize with people, and both those aspects have changed a lot since then. Now people will have to figure out how to replace their standard Second life avatar with replacement body parts, what clothing, skin, hair etc fits said body parts, what is bom? why is my avatar looking all funky, what is even going on?! Who can the newcomers talk to to be able to figure this out, when most people now days are either at their skybox/platform, in a club full of other silent lurkers, shopping events, or in general hiding somewhere or spread sparsely through the big world of Second life (honestly the world should get smaller, we are less people), even if people are somewhere social or easily available to newcomers, they don't bother to be social or welcoming to people, unless it is their own friend group or friends.

    At least this is from my own experience, I try to go to popular destinations, I try to find places where one can be social, but it has all been bad luck, so I can't imagine how it is for newcomers, how demotivating it is to keep "playing" Second life as it is now. 

    What they should invest their time on doing, is to figure out how to bring the community back together again so we aren't so spread out. But also figure out a way to easily explain and introduce third-party body parts, clothing, etc. Most people don't intend to stick with what they start out with.

    And please, give the poor newcomers an ao that doesn't make them look like a stiff penguin.

     

     

    • Like 3
  2. People don't get their skills from nowhere, it takes time and practice to get good at something, if you give up easily you won't get anywhere and that is the reality of it. Yeah it's not fun to not be as good at something as others, but you have to keep trying to get to the same level or further than that, once you get over that mindset you will start to enjoy whatever it is that you are trying to get good at. You will have to figure out what you have a passion for or really want to learn and go from there, don't beat yourself up or stress over it, it is not a contest of who is the best at something, it's the joy of doing that is the important part of it. 

    • Like 4
  3. I used to be a big legacy body fan, It's a really beautiful body and loved how it was shaped with the exception of the thigh gap and that it didn't do a chubbier body type as well as I wished. But what made me switch over to reborn was because legacy uses a web-based hud but also a overly complicated hud + the material/layer hud, it is no mod and has a higher complexity, rather than making the body mod and creating addons they are creating more bodies with minimal changes to shake all your coins out of your pockets, they are not easily giving permission to other creators to create addons for the body,  the stores past shady behaviour and another reason why I hate the web-based hud, there is nothing stopping them from yoinking your coins and shutting down the hud, they are not really listening or interacting well with their customers, who wants a non-web-based hud among other things, with that in the back of my mind and seeing how Reborn was just better in many ways I decided to switch over.

    Reborn is mod, it has addons and a lot of third-party addons that gives customers a lot of possibility, that also doesn't need a separate material applier to match the body, it gets a lot of updates compared to other stores who are dormant compared, which shows that they are indeed listening to their customers. Getting the devkit itself is so easy if you already have a marketplace or a little store and intend to sell content, never in my life did I think I would get one, but I sure as heck did even with the lack of blender knowledge or mesh products, which is so motivating if you are trying to learn blender and want to create content, being allowed a devkit gives you that possibility. 

    The body itself isn't perfect, there are parts of it that I find odd looking, such as the hands, feet and knees, and the butt being big even at the smallest, but with body deformers I can solve most of my visual issues that I have with it, with the right deformer like for example the Warm - Full Body Deformers HUD that I use, requires just one attachment slot after setting it up the way I want, which solved most of my issues, such as the knees and butt, if someone made a modify deformer you could even link it with your body so it doesn't take a extra slot. 

    Basically I find the body very flexible and I find that it gives you a whole lot more potential and room for creativity, I do understand that it might not work for everyone, especially people who prefer a more petite body type or a body with less of a butt, but I do find that the body can give you a petite body type with a slight chubby twist if you decide to play more with the body and deformers, but again I understand that it isn't for everyone, I just really feel salty that legacy is going around what people actually want instead of meeting in the middle with the customers, I think most people don't want to pay full price for the same body that has a bigger chest as the only difference, which would of costed less if the body was mod and that the chest was a addon they could plop on. I also just feel bad for customers who are getting stepped on, even after staying and supporting the body that they love, hoping that it will get better, that they will get listened to or that they will give other creators more room for creativity with their body.

    Anyways I really love reborn even with its few flaws, their juicy rolls and boobs are having me at chokehold, maybe I'm biased. 

     

    • Like 5
    • Thanks 1
  4. On 3/10/2024 at 6:36 PM, Persephone Emerald said:

    Definitely. Who of us with a larger cup size hasn't used that natural pocket space at some time? Why don't bra makers take advantage of it and put a pocket there for keys or tissue?  I'd probably use that at the gym, since my T-shirt and leggings don't have pockets.

    Why doesn't gym wear have more pockets anyway? Are people afraid that if we have pockets in leggings someone might think that bulge of tissues and a locker key is actually a lump of fat? Come on, pockets can't look any worse than a fanny pack worn on the stomach.

    Omg yeah, I always have to put my locker keys and my phone on some dirty surface when I work out because there are no pockets anywhere! 😭

    • Like 1
  5. It's already been mentioned before, the problem is that a lot of people use alts for bad intentions, cheating, stalking, harassing and so on. I have/had alts, but I used them to freely explore without having friends sending me IMS or being known or bothered by people i might bump into, depression makes me want to be alone at times, without having to think and worry about making my friends think I hate them because I'm not responding to their messages or having to explain to them why I'm clearly having myself as unviewable as online for them.

    This account at some point used to be an alt, however because of some drama between me and other people I decided to change this into my main to get a clean slate, while my old one is now my bank. I didn't want to be recognized and I wanted to stop feeling paranoid and scared of meeting the people I had a drama with, especially since one of them used to be my friend who decided it was okay to steal my private textures that I had made for myself. In general while I now think I reacted poorly by being overly blunt at the time (No name calling, rudeness just bluntness) for example (can you get your own style? Can you please stop copying me?), I don't think I deserved to be harassed the way I did, especially since I was trying to protect my textures, products, product frames and my stores identity in a way , from being copybotted or taken inspiration from. At the time I was young and dumb and had a lot of joy creating textures, and trying to find my own style and identity in it so basically I was sensitive about the subject at the time, I still don't condone stealing someone's textures, unless asked for permission, however I do think I could of just ignored it or have communicated in a different way to make them understand my perspective better.

    I now don't care whenever they know who I am, my ex-friend does and I've experienced future harassment because of it but I just laugh at it now. I know my wrongdoings, but if they haven't then so be it.

    My point is that I felt like I had to switch to a different account because I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and fear by meeting or bumping into these people (probably because of my AVPD, general fear of rejection and so on), fear of being harassed and misunderstood, after just trying to protect my own things. I after all just wanted to enjoy SL, and I couldn't with these lingering fears in the back of my head. I don't know if this type of "alt" or switching an alt into a main account is considered shady for this reason, but I don't believe that all alts are bad or should be considered bad, everyone got different reasons.

    • Like 3
  6. As someone used to say "I don't agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Why has someone's suggestion of a feature made people riled up? Why do people automatically think the worst of people, assuming it is for a shady reason? I don't understand people's obsession with assumptions, or people thinking they know a person through one interaction on a forum.

    I agree that there are things that should be prioritized, but I'm pretty sure Linden labs has a road map or a list of features or bug fixes that they are working on, just because someone is suggesting a feature that they would like doesn't mean that it will change anything, a suggestion doesn't hurt anyone.

    In my opinion anything on the profile should have an option to be shown or hidden, or in general the profile should be more customizable. I personally do not care if people know what date my account was made, but I also understand that not everyone wants to share everything. It doesn't matter if you personally would not interact with someone who hides their account age, I assume that it doesn't matter for said person doing so, as long as they have the ability to do so and feel safer that way.

    • Like 4
  7. On 10/24/2023 at 8:53 PM, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

    Just wanted to say thank you for that recommendation. It got me started down the path of finding things.

    I made a whole new alt and with with eBody reBorn (same body as my main, so easier for me to get comfortable with).

    I've found a head I liked (espen canine, might get a different animal later), and some great options in feet and hands (there's at least 2 good brands to pick between - might end up with both).

    Now I get to struggle through "does this tail work with that head if I go with this skin-kit". :)

    But things are coming along well now with this new look.

     

    No problem, I'm glad to help! :D

    • Like 1
  8. Not a furry per se but I know a few things, a few things that I can think of right now.

    Paws and hooves, hands and feet: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/39364

    Heads, skins, ears and tails: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/234558

    Skins: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/216661 https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/189577  https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/171263

    If ebody reborn user: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/aa-Fur-Materials-Material-Appliers/25004069 https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GG-x-heck-LILTUFTS/24943595

    It's kinda hard to recommend ears and tails, and heads because in the end it depends on which furry mod that you want to use, unless your going to create textures yourself.

     

    • Thanks 1
  9. 32 minutes ago, OptimoMaximo said:

    The method I'm explaining in my previous post gives that result. I made a tool for Mayastar exactly to achieve this vertex normals transfer easily and quickly, that I know is being used by at least 3 major mesh heads creators that I won't name here, besides the mayastar body at every mesh junction (hands and feet). I used it on my own monster avatar as well, which is split in several pieces, none of which show any seam, regardless of the upload method (indeed that avatar upload dates back a few years by now, so no gltf magic involved).

    For blender, I don't know whether there is a tool that automates that. But you can do it manually, as far as I know.

    I'm pretty new with blender so all these words don't mean much to me right now, as well as I have a reading and learning difficulty. But I will try and figure this out somehow lmao. Thank you for your insight, I will try googling around some more. 

  10. 6 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

    This happens because the two areas you're baking differ in their tangent space, therefore the normals *look* like they create seams, and visually do, but for the purpose of modifying the normals at the pixel level during rendering, they're correct.

    Why do they have different tangents? Well, because those derive from a few factors, namely edge orientations in 3d space, edge orientation in the uv 2d space, connected faces areas and 3d world orientation. All these factor into the calculations involved for translating the surface detail from the high poly into pixel encoded normal data.

    Is there a way around this? I got inspired by this method by someone else who made normal maps by sculpting and baking the normals, however I'm unsure whenever they used a body for that or a sculpt of their own and somehow applied that to a body, their normal maps were seamless but I don't know how they did that.

  11. Usually the most popular head brand Lelutka, gives out good female and a male heads for christmas for free, there's no guarantee that they will this year however that is something to look out for. Most stores are also a part of the black friday sales, so that is worth waiting for. I would try and go for a free or cheap route instead on investing on a good looking avatar right now and wait till there's sales or potential free heads to save money, if you guys decide to spend money on such right now, you can find cheaper clothing, accessories, hair and skins in the weekend sales that some stores are in every weekend.

    • Like 2
  12. -Do you use voice in Second Life?

    I have in the past at rare times, but not as often as I would of loved to.

    -If so, how and when do you use it? (Use it all the time, or is there conditions to where and when you use it?)

    I'm pretty introverted and shy so it has been easier just talking on voice with friends. I want to be able to join on people's conversations, but I find that quite difficult and awkward. But also, I tend to voice more on discord along with friends than in SL itself, voice quality on SL sucks.

    -Do you think you have a good voice?

    No, at least I don't think so. Comparing myself to others, who have gentler, sweeter or sexy voices I feel like I don't belong in any of the sorts, but at least I got a slight dialect and don't have a high pitched voice.

    • Like 3
  13. I think in general a good idea of a vampire skin tone, is something looking less alive. So perhaps more cool toned and ashy regardless of skin color, perhaps use a skintinter to adjust that a bit, slap on some veins, eyebags or other details that make you look like you would need a nice nap in a coffin.

    Everyone got different ideas of what a vampire should look like, figure out what you want first.

    • Like 1
  14. 19 hours ago, Aquila Kytori said:

     

    I tried baking the upper and lower body normal maps: at at first I was also getting seams. Not sure what I did differently but baking a second and third time for some reasons there were no longer any seams visible when the upper and lower body normal maps were applied and viewed in Blender.

    Can you confirm that for both the high poly and low poly models the upper and lower body parts were joined together properly and not two separate meshes with overlapping vertices at the waist.

    1-min.thumb.png.c706b0edb62befb270ffed0eb78173ea.png

     

    Are you baking both upper and lower normal maps together at the same time ?

    That's to say the low poly model has 2 materials assigned to it, in my example named Torso and Lower, :

    2-min.thumb.png.daae9ec820f5527b1bfe9460b041f1c9.png

    3-min.thumb.png.1dc66111d3d63fb682e61e6403043ea2.png

     

    With the image textures selected in each of these materials, when baking high to low both upper and lower normal maps are baked together :

    4-min.thumb.png.c46da37a727b76cbaf2104ae70621c3f.png

    5-min.thumb.png.71633256444acf4d6a4d0887749a3e2e.png

     

    When in material preview I am not seeing any seams where upper and lower parts meet :

    6-min.thumb.png.3bd1342297b32de431fcdf141f116c8c.png

     

    and in-world :

    inworld-min.thumb.png.a234667ef3bae69595106d276da3ccd8.png

     

    Avater mesh used in above examples is the Ruth2 v4 model from https://github.com/RuthAndRoth/Ruth2

     

    I tried it all I think and it made no difference, there is still a seam there when I try on the texture on the low poly body and in world, however I noticed that without the texture and the body just being tinted a color and the normals just being baked on the body itself that there is no apparent seam. I contacted you in world, hope that is okay. 😅

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