[bought some hair, but how do I "use" it?]

Wear is a relic of the old SL before we had so many mesh attachments. You can see it in the case of things like socks, undershirts, skin etc. where you can sometimes only "wear" ONE of the item.

SL avatars has a limited number of attachment points, and if two things use the same attachment point, then using wear will replace the one currently attached with the one you've selected with "wear." Since people sometimes attach things to attachment point willy nilly, or attach all their mesh to the same attachment point, this can be confusing since, for example, shoes may attach to the right hand, but a ring might also attach to the right hand, meaning if a newbie tries to put both items on at the same time, one would remove the other...

Add, on the other hand, will add a mesh item to an attachment point without removing the currently attached item.

This means that add actually has its own pitfalls, as some new players may expect that if they put shoes on, it will remove the old shoes, and so then you can end up with players who have several pairs of shoes or hairs etc. attached at once through use of "add."

Basically, they both have their own uses + advantages/disadvantages. Especially with all of the user marketplace mesh and attachments (not knocking them, of course!), SL has quite the learning curve IMO, and the less you know about tech, the steeper the curve.

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

1 hour ago, Lewis Luminos said:

I just subtract muscle, with a tatt layer I made myself...

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Muscles-be-gone/9446144

Looks like I need to update the listing to mention BOM... 

awesome! thanks. this might solve a lot of m problems lol.

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

3 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Nope, scratch it, lol. I was trying my absolute hardest to make the Bespoke Marionette head work, but there are too many pitfalls that would wind up costing more money to fix.

In case you're curious anyway, that's an Evo X compatible unisex head that comes with a male neck, female neck, and neckless fit. It transforms from human to doll, but you could just ignore that part.

So, I tossed the demo on my male body (I have Legacy) and it fits great, but there are some issues. The eyes are BOM, but none of my human BOM eye textures would fit it properly. They show a bit too big for some reason. It comes with its own eyes, but as it's designed to be a marionette, they won't look entirely human. I just couldn't get those eyes to look right on a human avie no matter what I did.

Also, Stray Dog skins just...need some love when paired up with that head (not surprising, as the head itself is so different). I tried adding an Izzie's concealer around the eyes, which worked to take some of the excess creases out, but then I noticed that WAY TOO MANY male skins look as if they're wearing lipstick. Normally, on a Lelutka head that's no big deal - I just toss a lipstick layer on in the Lelutka HUD and tint/blend it to a more natural neutral tone (or I just leave it, because that's kind of how I roll anyway lol), but this head doesn't have makeup appliers, which means you'd have to hunt around for an actual BOM lipstick to fix that issue (if you had that same problem with your skin of choice, that is).

LOL, just not worth it unfortunately. It got CLOSE, but not quite convincing! My poor dude's looking all sultry and pouty right now and I doubt that's what you're going for lol. 

 

lol those are some VERY pink lips.

making a bom layer or tint of my own to adjust that honestly wouldnt be much trouble, but actually... speaking generally, IRL most men do naturally have pinker lips than women.... so I understand why it shows up in skins. I might grab a few demo skins from Stray dog along with the demo of that head and see what I can do. I'm curious to see how square of a jawline I can get out of it, but worst comes to worst, I can definitely slap a quick beard together to square it out >_>

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

3 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

LOL he's so cute!!!

Okay so, Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii wonder...

Okay, the original ideas I had won't work for a few different reasons, so let's just yeet them into the sun. No female bodies, no elf (the one I tried had some eyebrows that would NOT quit, and no amount of shaping would tone them down, lmao). HOWEEEEEEEEVERRRRRRRRRRR, SIR!

How pretty do you want to be? Because, I might have just found a somewhat cheaper solution (a 2000L head)...but he's PRETTY. Similar to Alain pretty but...you're gonna need lots of facial hair to pull that body off with it LOL.

If you want, I can finish dressing him up and trying to make him LESS pretty and then post a photo of what I've done.

my no mesh avatar is a pretty little waif and ngl im pretty sick of him lol. half the price is hard to argue with and i can probably make my own facial hair if it comes down to it >_>;

well.... do your best and show me, right? worst i can do is hate it lol. youve been super helpful.

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

5 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

If you like Alain (and who doesn't *swoon*), definitely demo Quinn. I wear both Alain and Ford (my main hobby is making avatars and SL photography - that's my excuse! I'm not a shopaholic I swear 😂), and believe it or not, I was able to remake both male avatars using that ONE head. Quinn is very shapeable and can look a million different ways. Fun to play with for sure! It was free over the holidays, so unfortunately you missed that, BUT, at least it'll give you an idea of what types of heads Lel gives away for free. Actually, Alain was also a free gift. Lel's male heads are quality, for sure.

 

Oooo a writer! And yeah, working in SL can be a bit of a chore unless you're doing something you're really into. There are some other things you can do for Lindens (fishing, etc.), but they'll take you quite a bit of time to earn enough money for a head.

I mean...depending on your overall budget for a complete, dressed avatar, I do have one trick I've used before to make male avatars using all female components, but...wait hang on, that might work, actually... hang on for a few. Lemme go demo some stuff on my alt. I have ideas... 

While I'm gone, I'll also play around with that free elf head and see how far I can push that thing, too... 

Looks like Alain was free in 2020 and I've just missed Quinn SIGGGGH. With the fishing and such, I was able to make a little bit, but at like $100L/week, it would take me longer to fish or crystal hunt than to just wait for a sale LOL. Tho that's another activity that's easy to do while I work, so I might get back into that... It'll certainly offset the cost, even if not by much.

The elf head is quite charming! I worry about the ears, but otherwise I think it could work.

This is more or less the shape I'm going for, pushing Jake to it's bearier limits. Ideally I could find some salt and pepper hair and/or beard, but it is what it is. That's also using an Alain demo because he really is so swoon-worthy lol...

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

11 minutes ago, Phillip Aubin said:

Lelutka heads have a hefty price tag, this is an unfortunate reality, they've come to dominate the market, basically. Around the holidays is usually when Lelutka will give out a free (or even discounted) head, but for the time being, a stopgap can be considered until that time comes.
Vista Animations has a free male head that is Bento and BOM compatible, it uses standard SLUV, so there should be some freebies out there compatible with it, and from personal experience, non-EvoX BOM (standard older Lelutka) skins will work with it.
Stray Dog for example has Belleza Jake skins and non-EvoX head skins, but given you're looking for less muscle definition, anyone that still has non-EvoX Lelutka skins and Jake as a supported body skin should work for you. It can save you money on the head to put toward a skin, and you can slowly build up a linden balance to afford a EvoX Lelutka head in the future.

Yeah the shape isn't my favourite, and it's one of the ones I tried 😅 But if Stray Dog has some good skins, I may demo a few with the various free/1L heads I have picked up and see if I can find something that works for me since most of the free heads are, understandably, BOM only.

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

10 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Well, it is SL UV om a lot of older stuff. If you don't care about new hairbases ever week, you should be fine. I think you have to pay full price for them. It is so much weekend sales where you can save money, and I see EvoX are the dominant one. Many does not bother to make both now, it is only EvoX.

Lelutka took over the market totally by giving out free heads for christmas, I think it's the third year in a row. And free updates for Evo X on all their Evo heads. Everyone and their alts has Lelutka heads now. Lelutka had only a few heads, and suddenly it is new Lelutka releases all the time. The latest were 25% off for a weekend. It was a male and female head. They have many male heads. I really like the "Jon" head, it wasn't free, but I see many are buying it for full price.

Lelutka reduced their prices during the Stay at Home year of 2020, and are cheaper than Catwa that's 5500 now.

The Evo X UV is too big now, it is not a fad, but it is going to stay? I don't know. Things change fast in SL. I would never think I could part with all my makeup on SL UV, if you go back in time. "Oh, I can't use the new UV, I have so much makeup...sob". Then it was cheap makeup everywhere, and I liked it better. And since you mention hairbases, they are better too. No seams.

Lelutka includes a huge box with hairbases, in different styles, facial piercings too. I haven't really needed to buy hairbases. Or beards for my alts. I got a few, like Relentless shaved hairbase, because it comes with plasters and scars. And it is Evo X only.

That's what I thought. It looked like everything I was seeing, especially gifts, is Evo X only. For sculpters, I know Catwa is one person and LeL is multiple ppl, so that is probably part of it.

Jon is way too hypermasc alpha chad for me. I have my eyes on Skyler or Alain, especially Alain, because they're quite gentlemanly IMO And can achieve an over 35 look quite easily, which I want. Still, the $3990L price point is quite a lot, especially when I'm not even sure if I want to stick around or not, so I'll definitely be waiting for a big sale, which probably means waiting until the holidays. Too bad I couldn't decide to come back two months ago lol.

  

59 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Awwww for human roleplay - yeah that's a whole different thing then. The one thing I'll advise in that case - make sure the roleplay sim you plan on joining plans on sticking around for a bit, and is active enough to warrant updating to mesh solely for that reason. It's expensive (as you're learning!) and without a good sale, it's going to hurt a bit. The body - not so much. Jake is very, very supported by clothing creators, so there's not much risk there. But yeah, as of right now, I don't know of any good head sales for you. 

Oh, and as for Evo X - honestly, it's not worth getting a head that's not Evo X compatible IF you aren't a big shopper. You can still find hairbases and beards and things on the SLUV map, but it's getting harder. If you're okay with digging around on Flickr and the marketplace, you can find stores that still carry products made on the old map. Evo X is pretty much the new standard these days, though.

 

And yup this is very true. There are just soooo many bodies now that some of the older ones (like Freya) are slowly getting dropped.

Yeah same friend was like "check out this sim" bc I'm a writer in my day-to-day and we met through old-fashioned forum RP which is why I was thinking about it. She does a ton of non-RP stuff through SL, so she's on all the time and I just kind of stopped playing because basically yeah... I'm not a big shopper. I hate having to dig through a bunch of different websites and groups. I only need a couple outfits to get me by, really, but even just finding anything with those "MENS CLOTHING!!" groups feels impossible. I thought about getting an SL job, but I spend like 6-12 hours a day (7 days a week) on work and I don't have time to work in AND out of game .-. RP is nice because I can just have my docs open while I wait for replies.

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

16 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Akeruka got permission from Lelutka a while ago to use the Evo X map (make sure the heads you demo are from the Advanced X or ADV X line), so yep they're legit and yep, they go on sale a bit more often. The group join fee isn't free (I believe it's 150L?), but it's worth joining as they also make free heads available to group members at least once at year. Maybe twice? Don't quote me on that. And yes, by holiday sales, I mean winter - Black Friday, Christmas, etc. That's the best time (usually) to get yourself a whole new head/body.

Now, if you want a bit of a crazy suggestion that you might actually hate, you don't have to make a mesh human avatar right away if the price is too high. [...]

*wanders off to contemplate buying a cute otter in a dress avatar that helicopter spins in the air by her tail...*

NGL, I spent my teenhood chilling with furries, but unfortunately those don't fly for most RP sims 😔 Especially more slice of life ones. If I was just going to wander around I wouldn't even think twice, probably wouldn't drop a single cent on mesh at all, but since my goal is to join in on RP sims, I need a glistening human male. Akeruka has some older heads for 1900L, and I grabbed demos of two of those that I liked, but it's looking like I might just ask my friend to keep an eye out for those sales and go back to ignoring SL until then lol. Or maybe I help her out more with her store more and hope for some kickback to help offset those prices lol.

17 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

Hmmm, Freya is still around quite a bit, but maybe not in the new new newest releases. Still, worth a check. Have her browse Seraphim's weekend sales (Happy Weekend, Saturday Sale, FLF, Wanderlust, etc.) - lots of discount items can be found and I'm always seeing some Freya mixed in here and there.

I dont know a ton about it, but I think it's just a case of she got used to having her pick of sales and gifts and now there's other bodies lol. But considering how much these things cost, I kind of understand the grousing even if I do ALSO understand rigging and changing mesh for other bodies takes time and effort, and it makes sense to focus on what's popular.

3 hours ago, Marianne Little said:

Thanks. LOGO has male heads, but they are not updated to EvoX, are they?

Am I correct in thinking that Evo/X is taking over the market? Like, is it a case where it's not worth buying something non- Evo/X even if it would be half the price because I'm just going to never find a hairbase again? Or is this more of a thing where Evo/X is what's trendy and what all the skins are for etc, but if I'm just looking at tattoos and hairbases and stuff, I can definitely survive on something pre-Evo/X?

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

56 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Ya, they didn't show those in the demo..I had to look it up when I was helping the person the other day.. Then we both found out he had them in his folder already.. hehehe

Someone may come along with some good answers about mesh heads.. I can't think of any male heads on sale at the moment.. I'm not really sure about good free male ones off hand..

 

 

I found a decent head on the MP for 1L that I like all right, but it's not Evo X compatible, which is why I started looking at LeL at all. I've looked at several free male heads, but most of them come with a body that can't be detached, or else they're really only made to work 1 shape or they're kind of playdough-y... Or they're BOM only and since I don't have any decent BOM skins, I'm kind of stuck. LeL is CLEARLY the head that has stuff being made for it at all, and plus it seems to come with facial hair and there's good shapes if you want something older looking, which I do. There's one I'm absolutely in love with (can't remember the name off-hand...) which looks incredibly handsome and actually looks over 35... but at 3990... That's literally half a week's food for me. I can't justify it.

14 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

For lighter muscle tone, you could try Gloom, Velour, and Not Found.

Gloom has their own body skin, Dioscuri, but it looks like it excludes Jake. You could demo the others to see how they fit, though. They also make for the Velour line.

Velour has two lines - Eros, which is a Legacy Male exclusive at the moment, and their older line, which does include Belleza Jake. Neither one seems to be overly muscular, but demo.

And finally, Not Found has two body lines - neither seem overly muscular and there are a few body options, so demo those as well.

As far as Belleza Jake itself, Belleza has confirmed they're in the middle of working on a Gen X male body, so Jake will have no future support from the creator itself, much like the older female line (Venus, Isis, and Freya). The price seems to be staying put at the current discount, but that's definitely something to keep in mind.

As for heads, Lelutka does discounts kind of whenever right now - they dropped the price on two heads by 25% off on their release, so who really knows. The BIG Lel sale (50% off) happens around Black Friday/Christmas time.

Akeruka ADV X also has a nice male line, which is compatible with Evo X skins, and they run sales more often, which usually brings the heads down to about 1800L. Both Lel and AK offer free female and male heads around the holidays, as well.

Yes, my friend uses Belleza Freya and she's been bemoaning the sharp decline in clothing for the body with the Gen X release, but I've heard with male bodies, alphas can do me a lot of favours, so since Jake can make a shape I'm reasonably happy with... the price is hard to argue with.

I hadn't heard of Akeruka. I will have to go have a look and see if there's something I like there, because if they run sales more often, that would be great. Sounds like I have JUST missed all the good sales 🤦‍♀️ Since I assume by holidays you specifically mean winter holidays, and we're not likely to see, say, big easter or 4th of july sales lol.

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

perfect ty. ive only played w the demo so far so i didnt know that whoops

[good male skins that DON'T add muscle?]

so i haven't had a mesh body and ive played the game off and on for a while but, but i want to play around in rp sims again so im considering dropping a bit of money on a belleza jake since it's on sale in order to make myself a nice-looking gay bear. however, even with the shape i've made myself, it definitely still has some muscle, which is fine because if i want any clothes at all ever, that's the price you pay, but i'd like to keep the muscle as limited as i can.

the basic non-bom skins in the jake hud do a pretty good job, but ideally i could go bom so i could whip up some quick body hair without having to do a crash course in appliers.

also, does anyone know how long the sale might be? seems like it's permanent at this point lol. and if anyone has an idea of when lelutka heads might go on sale again, that would be great to know. otherwise i'll ask my friend who plays more often to keep her eyes out for me. i know how it sounds, but i'm barely keeping my head above water and i just can't justify the $L3990, but, again, if i want good free skins, hairlines etc, seems like lel is necessary.

[Sound Only Plays on SOME Sims???]

6 hours ago, KT Kingsley said:

Unfortunately HUD sounds are affected by the Avatar Sounds setting in about land. JIRA: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-227962.

This was my fear. That makes NO sense lmao 😩 Ok thanks. I'm going to use the workaround suggested.

 

1 hour ago, Quistess Alpha said:

If you're not already using keyword alerts, that could be a useable workaround if this is only a personal project. Check your viewer settings, 'chat-> keyword alerts'.

(NB. Things you say yourself don't trigger the alerts. )

I was considering tossing it up on the MP bc I was making it for my escort friend and IDK others might find it useful...  BUT given land settings can affect the project, I guess I won't do that rofl. Your solution will work for my friend, tho, so ty!!

[Sound Only Plays on SOME Sims???]

All right. I feel like I MUST just be missing something obvious.

I tried on a sim with full permissions (build, voice, pushing etc.) and the sound played, but while elsewhere testing my script, it did not. It's just a HUD. I just want the sound to play for me, locally. The message plays just fine, and like I said, it worked elsewhere. Is there something I should be using other than llPlaySound to get the sound to play in all sims? I really don't get what in the world is happening.

The relevant aspect of the script if you're interested, but like I said, it works, just not on all sims.

if (DDif < 50) {

                llInstantMessage( llGetOwner(), "Pay Attention.");
                llPlaySound ("whistle", 1.0);

}

 

"SOLUTION": Unfortunately, Land settings are currently able to disable HUD sounds. I will be using keyword alerts as a workaround for now, but there's no real answer here 😶

[Looking for DJ Work]

You don't need the sob story, but basically I lost my job about a month back, and I am doing okay, but I'm only seeking paid work at this time. Tips count as paid. I'm fringe-friendly. Kink/furry/etc. are all fine with me.

• Trans Man (FTM) and Gay. I'm not saying this so you can prove to me your an amazing ally, I'm just telling you what you're getting into.
• Last time I worked as a DJ I did so full-time (up to 6 clubs a week) for about a year.
• I have and will use mic. I will also take requests.
• I like rock covers of pop songs and vice versa. Can also do electroswing or blues. Generally speaking, I lean contemporary. Not going to be doing your favourite 80s jams.
• My leanings are for clubs rated A, but M are also welcome. I'm not what a G club is looking for, I promise.
• I can also work NA or Euro clubs, but keep in mind I am available 9A-4P SLT. Fluent in English and French.
• I'm an ex-escort both RL and SL, so don't be shy.

It's easiest to contact me here on the forums and I can get in-touch with you in-world.