Fixing Shoes, mesh eyes, hair, and shoe alphas.

[Fennet]

I have several questions regarding fashion:

1. First, why do all the mesh eyes I try to use show a seriously jaundiced bright yellow tint? I'm using the latest SL viewer, and have wonderful mesh eyes, but can't use any of them. I can use system eyes, regular prim eyes, but the mesh ones are messed up.

2. Second, I'm trying to fix my favorite gorgeous old invisible prim shoes (that I paid a small fortune for years ago) by taking away the invisible prims. It's working well, but, unfortunately, I can't seem to find any decent Alpha layers, especially for short ankle boots. All I can do is stretch the shoes to clownish proportions and ram them halfway up the legs, which is not a good look, I must say.

Does anyone know of any decent foot alphas with clean edges?

Are they really hard to make?

Why do most of them have jagged, nasty edges?

Would it be possible to just apply an alpha mask as a texture to the system foot shaper? 

I have little interest in making shoes, but it appears I might have to learn, as I am have no plans to get mesh feet anytime soon. I have at least three pairs of lovely barefoot feet that just aren't cuttin it these days.

Buying shoes and feet is a risky business

3. This isn't really important, but I was messing around tinting a hairstyle while wearing it. (It didn't seem like such a good idea dragging it out on the grass to do it; maybe I'll try that next.) 

Anyway, when I detached the hair, it must have taken a chunk of my skull with it, because that avatar now has a great big hole in the back of her head, lol. It doesn't seem to affect the other hairpieces, and the hair that stole my skull still looks and works fine, but I'm wondering if this is a common occurence. I've had hats and things steal the hair off my head, but I've never had an attachment steal part of the avatar body before.

If anyone has any answers to these questions, please let me know.

[Tazzie Tuque]

well I don't know how much help I can be but here goes:

1.  the eyes,  mesh can react differently to light then prims do, so the first thing I would check is see what your lighting is set at (environment settings).  I have mesh eyes and have not encountered that at all.  Good mesh eyes come with a system layer eye as well, I wear both and get a perfect result.

2.  As for foot alphas,  Long ago I found a whole set of foot and leg alphas for boots of different lengths on Market place.  made by this guy, https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/25970  check out his store perhaps he still sells them. 

As for making alphas no it is not hard if you have photoshop or gimp, and a body template to use as a guide.  You simply black out the area you want to become alpha on a seperate layer and save in png format. 

3.  As for the hair thing, In 10 years of SL, and messing around tinting hair etc., I really have never experienced anything like you are describing at all.  In fact I have never heard of any attachment leaving a hole in the avitar after detaching..  Does the hole stay there after a relog?  The attachment and the avatar are two entirely different items.  I really am at a loss here as to even begin to figure out what that might be. If the hole is permanent,  you can fix your avitar, but I would need to know what viewer you are using to tell you how to do that.  And hats or attachments to hair or head will bump off the hair if you attach them by using the "wear" button if the attachment point is the same as the hair...  to avoid this I use "add" not wear for any attachments like hats etc. 

Maybe some other residents have experienced the same issues you are having and would be of more help than I am.  But this is the best I can offer..  good luck with it all.. smiles..

[Pixieplumb Flanagan]

The hole in your head will be caused by an alpha mask that accompanied one of your hairs; quite a few styles have these now to hide bits of the head - check your worn tab to find and remove it.

Re finding alphas for your ankle boots, drop by my store and check out the boots section.  When you find a pair with a similar shape, get the free demo and use the alpha that comes with that.  It's the same as the one in the full packs, and it's free - yay!

[Fennet]

OK, your answers are great, thanks both of you. The head: Yes! She wasn't wearing a separate alpha mask on her head, but the hole went away and her head eventually became whole again. (It was there for a long time, through various hair switches and log-ins and outs. Sometimes my alphas are slow to react.) Maybe it was an alpha layer built into the wig that lingered when I took the wig off? I've noticed, now and in the past, that a tuft of stubble is sometimes visible for a while after removing the hair, too. 

The yellow mesh eyes; I changed the settings and the yellow seems to have gone away.

*I have more question about attaching shoes:

I've removed the invisible prims and relinked the parts, the shoes look great, I try them on. I'm wearing the appropriate foot shaper and alpha mask, (as appropriate as I can find). 

I get the shoes attached to the lower leg, (not the foot; I read that somewhere). I get them adjusted and they look good on the pose stand. But when I walk around, you can see the foot flashing in and out of the shoe.

It's as if the layers are all joined at one point but flopping around an axis at different angles, if that makes any sense. Or as if the alpha I'm using isn't attached to the foot, but loose? Or blinking off and on? I've seen this on some purchased shoes as well. It may be it only happens sometimes, I'm not sure, because I'm not always watching my shoes.

Are there tricks to attaching shoes that I'm not aware of? 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Here is a free set of excellent alphas for all types of shoes and boots.  You will find what you need in this pack.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Skifija-SET-ALPHA-LAYER-FOR-FOOT-TEXTURES/1474794

[Fennet]

I Finally figured out how to add pictures to a post so I can see them. Here are pictures of one pair of the offending partially-repaired shoes. The first is how they're supposed to look. The second is how they look when I jump off the pose stand and walk around.

 



 

[Fennet]

Anyway, I'm thinking there are two separate issues:

1. The alphas, and thank you for the link.

2. The shoe attachment. No alpha is going to prevent the foot from slipping in and out of the shoe like this:



[Amethyst Jetaime]

The alpha link I sent you is for shoes with prim feet or boots that cover the whole foot. 

The shoes in the picture are old school.  You need to wear a shoe base that will force your foot into the right position.  Then you need an alpha that will cover just  the part of the foot in the shoe not the part that is visible on the top of the shoe.  That will have to be custom made for those shoes.

Shoes without feet are so old school there is little support for them anymore.  I suggest you just trash these types of shoes and buy something up to date. 

Buying is not all that scary.  There are two types of shoes now.  One that fit on feet, such as SLink, made out of mesh that replaces the standard avi foot.  The advantage is that you only have to match the foot to your avi once.  Many skin sellers have appliers that will texture the foot to exactly match their skins.  You just buy shoes that fit that foot. 

The second type comes with a foot in the shoe already but you have to match the feet for each pair of shoes to your avi.  Most people find this to be a pain.

[Fennet]

I love those dam shoes! I don't care if they're vintage.

I did exactly what you wrote, I used a foot shaper , which doesn't really shape the foot to the shoe, but with the alpha mask I used it looks fine on the pose stand. The problem is,  the shoe and the foot don't seem to move in tandem. As I walk, the foot moves one way and the shoe another, and the alpha layer seems to move around and appear and disappear as well.

Surely the shoe, once adjusted to the foot, is supposed to stay on the foot and not flap around, isn't it? I never had this problem years ago. (I've been gone for a long time.)

I did attach my shoes to the leg, not the foot; maybe that's the cause of this mysterious snafu?

I haven't found any new shoes that I like as well as my old ones. Besides, I've had the flopping problem on shoes I recently purchased. Granted they weren't expensive, but sometimes they work perfectly, and other times the feet stick through the shoes. It's an utter mystery to me.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I don't really want to buy more feet.

I'd really like to fix some of the shoes I have. I'm thinking maybe I need to add feet to them. Some of them are ankle boots, anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem, but it is.

How can I put on an alpha that cuts the foot off at the ankle and still have feet poking through the shoe from time to time?

The feet in the last picture have an alpha layer that hides all but the top of the foot, and yet you can clearly see the toes. It's as if the alpha sticks to the shoe instead of the foot.

As for the market, I just tried on demos of shoes that cost $250L a pair, and they still had invisiprims. That's one reason I'm reluctant to buy new shoes.

Feh, I'll probably buy slink feet, eventually. Or learn to make shoes...Or I can always go barefoot.

[Fennet]

Oh, the heck with it.

I just bought the cheapest pair of mesh feet I found in seconds on the marketplace, just to see what the new feet are all about. If they work at all, maybe I'll try some of the more expensive ones.

Grrr. Sometimes I hate change! I'm an old dog, you know what they say about new tricks and all.....

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Hah! Simple fix, and now I don't have to chuck my kitty shoes! (I AM old hat.)

Now why didn't I think of it earlier?

I attached the shoes to my feet instead of the legs and readjusted them; now they work fine. No more feet flopping in and out of the shoes.

Moving right along, time to try out the bargain basement mesh feet.....

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OK, you sold me. If $5 gets me this, (and I haven't even textured them yet), maybe I'll pop for a better pair sometime. These looked this good straight out of the box, except for the adornments.                   Now I want hands....... See what you started? 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tore apart one of my old unwearable pairs of feet to get the jewelry. I have to say I'm very impressed with how far feet have come in 5 years.

I sent a note yesterday to the person who made my favorite shoes, asking if she had an updated version, and got a surprise package in my inventory. They look great, and she told me she updated all her shoes after I asked. I'm amazed and humbled by the generosity of these creators.

I'm keeping the cat shoes, though.