Wesley Spengler

Sorta liked how this one turned out.

No, not kidding, and it's ground-level in Bellisseria's log home area where my Linden Home is. The monitor is 2560 x 1440 and capable of 180 Hz refresh, but the laptop itself is designed for 1920x1080 at 144 Hz. At the higher res with the external monitor, it chooses 60 Hz refresh (via G-Sync), and Firestorm is showing at or very near 60 fps consistently. At the laptops native resolution, it'll hit 100 fps or so, but depends on where I am, if I'm moving, etc. I've not tested how it works in a crowd; that'll happen tonight. For the record, the laptop has an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, 16GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050.

Ditto the Mac fanboi thing; me too. I just got a new Mac mini with an M2 Pro a couple of months ago, and have found it to be the best Mac I've ever owned. SL was a secondary consideration for me, but before I knew better and understood the underlying issues, I was hopeful it'd be reasonable for SL use. In some ways, it's acceptable, but this thread proves that you can't just throw more horsepower at something and magically make the real problems go away. I've not owned a Windows machine since the XP days, but I just bought a mid-level Asus gaming laptop in part for SL, and holy crap... It's nice to run SL on a decent WQHD external monitor with graphics at Ultra and consistently see 60 to 100 fps — instead of the 10 to 15 fps range (often less) even at middling graphics settings. In other news, Windows is still the ugly mess it's always been, with the added "benefit" of Microsoft using it as a direct marketing channel every chance it gets. 🙄

Since converting to mesh, I've continued to make small tweaks in my shape and stuff like facial hair choices. I'd taken and posted a shot a couple of weeks ago that I cropped into my profile photo; decided to re-stage the same shot in the same location. Liking the results.

None of which were on my list, so thanks! More to explore. Like I already said, just finding applicable stores is 90% of the battle it seems. I did also see some cool boots at Lapointe (L&S) last night that I need to go back and demo... Things to do when you've got well over a foot of snow outside in RL and don't really feel like shoveling! 🤪

Exactly. It all just feels like a bit of a roll of the dice... Because it is, apparently. But of course, not just boots or shoes with pants, but tops and bottoms not clipping into each other, blah blah blah. As always, the usual advice to demo, demo, demo is key. But it's a ton of trial-and-error. Yup, and so far, in this category, that's eluding me. I've managed to find a couple of matched sets (boots + jeans as an outfit), but it's either non-rigged (which might be OK if it's decently made), or the modeling and textures are so incredibly poor, it looked like something out of 2009. C'est la vie... I'll continue the search!

Ahhhh, OK. Not paying enough attention I think. Thanks for that! I think what so many sellers and shopping event people don't seem to realize is that not everyone is a seasoned veteran, or sees everything the way they do. Clear signage, clear websites, clear anything seems a little too much to ask for in SL a lot of the time. (Or, I'm an idiot, which is of course always possible.) Thanks again!

So funny you mention that. Once I got the mesh body and started working to find clothes, I did consult ManlySL and others, and started a OneNote note with the SLURLs (landmarks in inventory are too difficult to manage for me). It's grows into a categorized master list... Clothing, jewelry, furnishings, shoes, hair, etc. Good to know I stumbled upon the right idea. (As an aside, I don't seem to fully understand Seraphim I guess... Am I just not seeing the links? I guess if nothing else, I can make a list of vendor names and find them separately.) Flickr is a great idea as well. I use it for my prolific RL photography; I'll create an account for my SL stuff. I need a place to post my photographic experiments anyway (other than here in the forums). Thanks for the continuing advice!

Apart from myself, you mean?

Oh, the fitting... 🙄 Trying to find a stupid pair of biker boots that fit Jake and work with and/or are sold with a pair of decent mesh jeans. I don't know how many demos I've tried, and how much time I've taken doing it, I've still got nothing that works. And don't get me (or any of us) started on how difficult it continues to be to find anything in SL... Between the marginal tools and the keyword stuffing, it's useless. (Preaching to the choir, no doubt.)

See? You're my kind of person, Love... Lemon meringue, pumpkin, cherry, apple... Hell, even quiche! Pie FTW!!! 🎉

Such a good point, and cool examples, too. I have to say I empathize with LL on the position they're in. Surely it has to feel like, "damned if we do, damned if we don't." The community — the residents here — are (understandably) passionate, vocal, and want the cake of new capabilities while still eating the legacy content, legacy rendering, and complete compatibility with everything from 20 years ago. I see it both ways. But a mandate to "change nothing, improve everything" is sort of inherently impossible.

Or in my case (with old prim hair), they stick out and vibrate weirdly like I'm about to get struck by lightning. 🤪 I can't even imagine the insane scope of work with the mobile viewer project. Limitless backward compatibility issues and endless edge cases, coupled with a sky-high pile of potential features everyone's going to want (anything short of which, of course, being deemed a complete failure on the part of LL in the eyes of many), and I'm wondering why they even decided to do it.

Definitely correctly in BOM mode on both. Yeah, worked through that as well. I'm using the Not Found body skin, which is full body layer (not just tattoo layer), so ordering isn't even possible of course, then the Avi-Glam head skin is tattoo layer as you'd expect. Boston Blaisdale pointed-out in one of his videos how to order the layers (things are so much more involved since I was last in SL), which was of course essential for things like body hair additions. Appreciate the additional thoughts on things to check. Alpha set to Blend in the Belleza HUD was the major error in the end.

Ugh... Just what we all need more of... (Not.) Well, at least since turning-off Blend mode on the Alpha tab, it really is pretty much invisible even in challenging light. But what a pain this stuff is, especially for a returning user, with such a steep learning curve.

Yeah, Skell mentioned on his blog that it was back in Fall 2021. (In fairness, he did not use those exact words; he mentions "universal neck" later in the article, and the update to the article strongly implies it.)

Hey now... I resemble that remark! 😉

When you create your survey, just make sure to include a box that's labeled "both." (Suggesting on behalf of a friend.)

Yeah, good point. At the end of the day, there are simply imperfections here... In the two 3D objects you're attempting to make appear as one, in the lighting models, in the rendering, in all sorts of stuff. I just wish it hadn't been so easy to (accidentally, probably) click one single setting that threw it off and made me chase my tail. I still blame Belleza somewhat for so poorly documenting their HUD. The entire alpha mode thing is about as clear as mud, and compared what LeLutka are doing with their HUD (and their documentation for it), it seems Belleza is overdue for a refresh.

Oh geez, I totally forgot about my neko phase 12 or so years ago... I thought I was just so incredibly cool at the time. 🙄 I had to go load the outfit and grab a photo... Gotta love an avatar complexity of 270,000 or so.

Not my avatar, but one I transformed for someone from system avatar to mesh. I rather like how he turned out...

Welcome back. I was in the same boat back in late December, returning after about 10 years. While I have relatively little to add to the excellent tips already provided, I will just say to give it all some time, watch the videos, take notes (helped me a lot), try things, and be patient getting back up to speed. The whole mesh body stuff and everything around the edges of it is a word salad of new and confusing names and terms (BOM, UV maps, materials, Bento, EvoX, rigging, PBR, EEP, alphas, etc., etc., etc.), and it's a bit overwhelming. I gradually dipped my toe in the water, then went wading, then went diving in. I don't have a total investment number, but I'd estimate that it was somewhere around L$20,000 or so on mesh body, mesh head, skins, hair layers, new clothing compatible with all of that, mesh hair, and so forth. Yes, there are ways (as others mentioned) to do it for a lot less. Just depends on the end result you want, how sophisticated or polished you want it to be, etc. The regulars in the forums who already responded here are massively helpful, so as you run into things you don't get, you'll find this is a great place to ask.

Thanks for the reply, Dorientje. And yes I have, as this specific thing caused a VERY obvious problem when I was using a Senra Blake head transitionally with the Belleza Jake body. Any of the "extras" enabled was a neck seam nightmare. 🙂 But since going LeLutka, at least in the challenging lighting situations where I've been struggling, it hasn't made any noticeable difference. I did try again after mostly solving my original problem after turning alpha mode off of Blend (see my last post), and what little seaming issues remain aren't changed with the setting of the extras. While I wish I could get it just a bit better still, it really is nitpicking at this point, as it's pretty darned good... I think what remains is just slight inaccuracies between the two brands of skins (Not Found body, Avi-Glam head).

You learn something every day... Thanks again. And how it got set that way I couldn't tell you; one thing I detest about the Belleza mesh stuff is that there's no documentation (that I've found, anyway). LeLutka at least has that awesome PDF you can download from their website that documents everything on their HUD (although it, too, could use some improvement).

@Orwar, well, whaddaya know. It would appear that having it in Blend mode (as I did) makes the issue about 10x worse. Changing to Mask or None doesn't make the problem go completely away, but it's dramatically improved in the specific case I showed, and in normal lighting, it's really tough to see unless you cam-in more than anyone has a right to. 🤪 Perfection being the enemy of good, I think it's improved to a degree that I can (and will) live with it. Really appreciate that suggestion. Thanks again to everyone who replied with ideas and thoughts on this.