Conifer Dada

Today I learned something new and useful in SL. I'm lucky enough to have a good computer and internet connection so I usually have shadows enabled. One problem with SL avatar shadows is that they don't begin at your feet but a short distance away, giving the impression you're hovering above the ground. I played about with debug settings and found that setting RenderShadowBias to 0.000 fixes that problem. The default setting is -0.004. There's still a slight hover effect, but much less. I did find this fix before, a long time ago, but it didn't then persist so you had to reset it each time you logged in. Now, though, it does persist. Many of you might already know about this, but I learned it today - after 16 years in SL!

I've been back to the Beta Grid to try out 'Blake', the male NUX avatar, out of curiosity. I chose one of the Blake shapes and one of the Blake skins. This male avatar doesn't have any of the shortcomings I mentioned in relation to the female one. True, the standard Blake might not have the friendliest of facial expressions, but it wouldn't take much to change that (if you want to look friendly, that is!) I suppose one difference is that with the Jamie avatar, I wanted to see how close I could get to my present appearance, and didn't have much success. With the Blake one I wasn't aiming to look like anyone in particular, just a realistic man. The walk animations in the AO for both female and male are worse than the basic LL 2003 walk! The run animation is OK and the stand animations are passable, though. I am conscious that these might just be test versions on the Beta Grid and that Jamie and Blake might be joined by other avatar choices in the future.

I think the whole NUX thing is a good idea and just what SL needs. Unfortunately my first impressions of the new Jamie body and head, as found in Library while on Beta Grid, are disappointing, but concept is good.

Or it could go the other way. Clubs for Senra avatars only, a militant Senra resistance movement . . . 🤣

Slightly off-topic but has anyone ever encountered a working escalator in SL?

Another new profession might be a 'lag consultant', who could even have a store selling expensive 'quack' anti-lag remedies that don't work.😁 Re. new residents, when I joined SL many years ago, it was confusing, with lots to learn. But the thing that brought me closest to giving up as a newbie was poor performance of the game - lag, slow-rezzing and crashes. Although there have been big improvements since then, imagine how much more popular SL would be if everything rezzed instantly and all movement was smooth.

I logged in to the Beta Grid and I found all the Senra stuff was there. I tried the Jamie avatar and was disappointed as it was impossible to get near to my normal shape, which is slim and not very curvy. As someone who still uses a classic system avatar, I was hoping that the NUX bodies would correspond very closely to whatever shape the underlying classic avatar has, but it's nowhere near, and can't even be adjusted to come anywhere near. Even on minimum settings the Jamie body has an enormous butt! Maybe LL will release more NUX bodies. I will say that the NUX body has a smoother outline than the classic avatar, less jagged, it's just the overall shape is disappointing.

Maybe LL wanted to do a main grid test with a few people, using the main viewer and its inventory.

My Senra sub-folders are all empty too. I use the LL viewer and I cleared cache and tried again. I'm guessing the folders have been added in preparation for filling them soon.

I've aimed at the same look ever since I came to SL in 2006. Over the years I've improved the look, even doing my own skin a few years ago. I embraced mesh hair and mesh clothes but have stayed with a 'system' avatar, possibly because I'm quite skinny and not very curvy. I even have bare feet occasionally which, with carefully designed skin texture, look OK - except for close-up! Many times I've reached a stage where I've said to myself "this is my look" only to do another minor makeover. I think now I'm going to stay with my current look until the NUX avatars come along. Even then, I'll try to keep my look as close as to what it is now, but a better version.

If you want your avatar to look realistic (as in looking like someone in real life) then it's best to use pictures of real life people as reference rather than other avatars.

I made these system jeans a while ago because I couldn't find any good plain ones. All the ones on MP had very low waists, embroidery, rips, patches, big painted-on belts or were just not very well made. All I wanted was some plain jeans that looked fairly new! I also made shadow 'glitch' socks to make the jeans less unrealistic when seen from below. I also couldn't find any mesh jeans that fitted me properly. I'm hoping I'll be able to re-work the texture for these jeans to go on NUX fitmesh pants without too much trouble!

The two avatars in the snapshots posted earlier in the thread look disappointing but what will count is what you can achieve with the sliders and a good skin. As someone who still uses a classic avatar, I'm still looking forward to NUX.

To succeed, the NUX avatars need to: 1) Have a set of complete out-of-the box avatars for new users 2) Be fully customisable on sliders, as with 'classic' avatars, and also be further modifiable outside of SL in Blender or similar, for example if you want an obese avatar with rolls of fat! 3) To be compatible with existing skin templates. 4) To be realistic and glitch-free.

I stopped using flexi hair a few years ago because I didn't like the way the hair disappeared into one's shoulders at times. i did even make my own flexi hair style with two long plaits, which looked OK 75% of the time, depending on how you moved! I still use a system avatar and I'm happy doing that, although I'll certainly give LL's NUX avatars a try when they come along, but unless they come up with flexi mesh that doesn't disappear into my shoulders, I'll give flexi hair a miss.

I'm lucky because I can easily get out into nature for walks, bike rides etc. where I live in the real world. While the pleasing effect of being in nature in SL isn't as strong as in RL, I think I do experience it to some extent. I notice the effect a bit more when visiting a nice SL beach, as the real world sea is an hour and a half's drive away. During the covid pandemic, when we had lockdowns, the effect of being in nature in SL was much stronger for me. We were allowed out for limited periods for exercise but that was basically doing the same half-hour walk every time.

My guess, which I mentioned before on another thread, is the the NUX avatars will be announced and fully showcased at SL20B but will not become available until after SL20B closes. The reason I think availability will be after SL20B is because if they're available during the event, everybody will be busy trying them out instead of attending the event!

Doing a bit of double denim at a place called Slam . . .

With my optimistic hat on, my guess is that they'll announce, and fully showcase, the NUX avatars during SL20B and make them available to all shortly after the celebrations close. Just a guess 😊

Given that he was unimpressed by any of the games he tried, his view of SL was at least balanced! His point about SL's slow performance is valid though. Imagine how much more popular SL would be if everything loaded instantly, there was no lag and a smooth frame rate. There have been times when SL's performance has been better. It seems to go up and down over time, even when my graphics settings haven't changed.

My shape came up as 'failed to find . . ." yesterday when I changed outfits, despite the fact I was already wearing the shape (all my outfits contain a shape, as some use a slightly modified version). I'm about to log in to see if it's been found . . . Just logged in, shape still missing. Luckily I have another shape that's almost the same so I can copy and modify that. In my inventory, 2 shapes are in bold,, indicating I'm wearing them both - the missing one and the alternative version. I've only had this happen very rarely during my long time in SL. Coincidentally, I also had the same problem in OpenSim a couple of days ago. I use different viewer for that (Firestorm). I use the LL viewer for SL.

I still see mesh avatars with flexi hair or even with ballgowns made from flexi sections that separate when they move. I even saw a mesh avatar wearing twinkling bling the other day. So some people are happy to mix and match. Aside from the couple of people I mentioned who offered to 'update' me, I haven't encountered any anti-classic discrimination. I'll certainly give the NUX avatars a try whenever they come along, but I'll stay with classic until then. I'm not against mesh avatars - I did try quite a few demos, but none would let me reproduce the understated shape I was after. I do agree that LL could have done more to rectify the shortcomings of the classic avatar's basic mesh, though. I even made this T-shirt (mesh) for fun . . .

I still use a 'classic' avatar after 16 years in SL. I can live with the disadvantages - the 4 main ones are: 1) less smooth joint articulation at shoulders and wrists 2) Less detail to shapes of hands and feet 3) Not possible to have differing textures on left and right arms, hands or feet. 4) Not possible to add a proper dynamic sheen to your skin. But I find the classic avatar works better for my thin shape. Combined with a good skin and a good AO (animation over-ride) one sometimes needs to look closely to spot a 'classic' avatar. I've been advised to 'upgrade' a couple of times over they years, and in both cases I thought (but didn't say) that the person advising me could do with some assistance themselves regarding their shape and choice of skin! On the other hand, mesh is pretty much essential for hair and for any loose fitting clothes. Before spending lots of money on a mesh avatar, it's worth bearing in mind that Linden Lab is planning to introduce new mesh avatars of their own soon, presumably available free to all.

Bear in mind that something that is permitted within LL terms of service might be illegal to view in your own country.

My SL profile starts with: "Just think of me as as normal and everything will make sense" !! People are left to make what they will of that. Do they need to get their head round my version of 'normal' first? 😄