Chie Salome

The worst thing that ever happened to me was when a random guy TP'd in where I was building with friends and said "want a huge white **** in your tight asian ******?", etc etc, but that was more hilarious than insulting tbh so we gave him the classic griefer treatment of freezing and decorating with ribbons and tutu, all the while chatting in a language he didn't understand, lucky for him, and then hit eject & ban when we got bored. If it happened in RL, which it actually does, we'd have been scared and hurt, but honestly, in a world where we don't have countless layers of context and consequences, I don't see the point in getting worked up about Second racism or Second sexism. You are what you put in your profile and on your avatar. Nobody can attack you for who you really are. Nobody can overpower you with racial privilege, physical strength or systemic power. Of course there will be people who let the extension of their bigoted self manifest in SL but you can always block and derender and they pretty much cease to exist for you.

The "bento guy" or 弁当男子 thing is certainly exoticized and blown out of proportion in the article. It's a very minor media buzzword and not an actual trend. I'd say 99% of single men would just buy pastries and rice balls (1.2 to 2 US$) or bentos (3 to 6$) or grab a quick bite at beef bowl/noodle stand (4 to 7$). If they are too lazy/busy/desperate, they would stock up on instant ramen in their lockers. But I agree that Japanese people in general are getting more frugal, as the median wage has been pretty stagnant and slightly declining for 20+ years. Median lunch money is about 580 yen now, which used to be around 800 in the 90's. Living in Tokyo now is WAY cheaper than, say, NY and SF Bay area. 1500 US$ per month would get you a pretty decent studio or 1 bedroom apartment in the central metropolitan area. If you can withstand jam packed train commute, 800 will do. You can have a complete meal with side dishes, soup and dessert for under 10 US$. The same franchise charges 30 in NYC. Sure, we still have the exorbitant fruits (10 US$ per single grape, 50 per one strawberry) but everyone I've given tours in Tokyo were amazed at how cheap everything was. All the stagnation and decline is not because of disasters but a series of drastic socioeconomic "structural reforms" led by LDP at the beginning of the millennium. Companies stopped paying livable wages and started filling positions as temp hires. As a result, Gen X and below are not buying cars or houses, much less luxuries. Economy is screwed and the politicians are wondering why we aren't pumping out babies. With all that said, people are still dumping A LOT of money on gachas in smart phone games. Some even pay more than they earn. As for SL, many of my recent Japanese friends seem to have no problem spending 20 to 50 US$ per month to pay tier and buy L$, saying it's cheaper than a night out or two. Flickerites may spend much more. Personally I'm squatting above my own shop which generates measly but sustainable income so practically paying zilch. Also, younger Japanese people tend to do everything with their phones and not own PCs, much less gaming rigs that can run SL, meaning if they are already in SL, they are likely to be 30+, and/or have reasonable amount of disposable income. Another thing is that many Japanese people are uncomfortable with, or even afraid of communicating in English, making mistakes and embarrassing themselves in public (I'm a weirdo). So if Japanese people are not renting from prominent SL landlords, it's not because they can't afford $5. They would rather pay mediocre Japanese landlords $10 so they don't have to speak English. Those who don't rent in those Japanese estates rent directly from LL and build high up for the same reason. One of my early friends rented from you in 2006. Back then it was virtually impossible not to mingle with English speaking people and we enjoyed it. The current set of Japanese residents tend to have a completely different mindset. They can stay in the Japanese-speaking bubble from the start and never have to venture out except for business and shopping, and wish to remain that way. Note how most if not all Japanese residents explicitly state "I can't speak English" "Sorry no English" "my English is poor" or something to that effect in their profile. (whoa I can't believe I just wrote all this!)

If you mean a plane, 2 tris are 2 tris. Just select the same file for all LoDs and physics. If you mean something more complex, it depends on the size and typical placement of the object. For example, if it's something fairly large, like a painting frame, to be placed and viewed only in a small room, you can probably get away with just High and maybe Med. If it's a small trinket, or if it's for outdoors/huge rooms, all LoDs should be set up. Either way, making all LoD models manually is the best practice. As arton said, making imposter models (like textured plane in place of detailed door) helps with LI but you can start from dissolving edge loops that don't affect the general shape of the object. You might want to consult this nifty feature of Firestorm (I believe) which lets you see exactly at what distance the object switches LoDs. Test uploading on the beta grid helps.

You are doing great! 👏👍👏 I understand that some people dig the steroid experiment gone horribly wrong look, and that's fine, each to their own, but I honestly think your current avatar looks much better than what you are going for. What I would suggest going forward is to visit some fashion events (or browse seraphim.com) specifically targeted for men to get the feel of what's "current", hopefully find some merchants you like for hair, tattoos and clothing etc, and visit their shops.

「痘痕も靨」 (abata mo ekubo, Japanese proverb) "Pimples be dimples" Love is blind. When you are madly in love with someone, even pimples and pockmarks on their face can look as charming as dimples.

Thread got derailed but here's my contribution, including some non-conforming avatars. Reptilian is the new Asian you know. I'm a Japanese and although most of the Japanese friends I have on SL don't really look Asian (why stick to RL when you are in SL!), I tend to keep making my avatars look Asian because it used to be a fun challenge to make Asian avatars that actually look Asian and the habit stuck with me. Back in the days I had to be creative as there was literally no decent Asian skin in the market. These days we have tons of gorgeous Asian skins coming out almost daily from various creators, so the challenge is gone but the fun remains. To OP: Your avatar looks very pretty with south-east Asian vibes. We may look very different depending on the geographical locations and origins but we have so much more important things in common -- like passionate love for rice🤣

I don't upload SP exports directly to SL as I tweak them in Blender and Photoshop first, but at one point made a quick export preset to test in SL, which looks like this (old version, haven't upgraded my personal copy after Adobe acquisition). Add glossiness channel in your texture set and export glossiness map as specular map. SP's specular map doesn't seem to work too well. Pick OpenGL normals instead of DirectX. For texture sets with opacity channel (like glass) you'll need to add alpha to the diffuse in export settings. Not too sure if my settings are optimized for SL but they seem to work for me. Making output template is kind of confusing at first glance but pretty simple. You are going to need to make custom settings anyways as you advance in the use of the software so better start early. They have an updated tutorial video.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post URLs on this forum but they have a dedicated Flickr group where makeup/skin designers for their heads post new products. Great way to find unknown stores. If you are looking for something specific, asking in their in-world group or Discord channel may also help as people are very active and always helping each other finding things. Lelutka Mesh Head Developers - Promotional Images only *sees the post date* Ugh, I'm always too late to be helpful.

Pretty sure it's too late now but could it be overlapping faces? Maybe try removing doubles by merging vertices by distance? Or, more likely, it's just normals facing the wrong way. You can check in overlays and fix with either shift-N or flip normal.