Can you tell me what are skins vs shapes?

[magickspell]

Im confused, I did a web search and I can't get a definition. Thanks in advance! (to explain, I am new to the site)

[Syo Emerald]

A skin is a skin....the object with the texture that is the skin of your avatar.

A shape is what gives your avatar its size and form and defines things like how big your nose is or how wide your hips are.

[Teagan Tobias]

Have you ever see the Blue Man Group. Well the person is the shape and the blue is the skin. Just like you in RL (real life), your skin covers your shape. Same in Second Life.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Magick,

Also understand that the preferred photo-realistic skin include shading and other make-up like attributes that require a shape to be worn that is within 10% to 20% tolerance of the model that the image was originally captured on.

So when you see shapes offered with high-end skins you are best advised to obtain one to see what the skin maker was seeing when creating the look. Afterwards you can make needed adjustments of your own shape design to incorporate as many of the sizing attributes you want to keep so that the skin looks proper in the "shaded and lightened" places.

You can get a glance at a lot of skins & shapes dressed and undressed from this excellent blogger as well.

http://sydd0sinister.wordpress.com

And as always, the BOSL Fashion Blog is the 1st place to go for current trends from haute couture to down home fashions.

http://fashionfeed.thebestofsl.com

Good Searching to ya...

[UncommonTruth]

This is me, in the skin/shape combo I usually use

 

this is my shape with a different skin

 

and this is my skin with a different shape

 

they work together to give you your unique look. for me it is easiest to pick a skin I like, and make a shape that works with it

[Dillon Levenque]

linklinkI don't know how long you've been in SL but this is a terrific question and one I wish I'd asked early in my SL existence. Things are changing, but up until just recently, your shape is just that, a shape.

If you select the Appearance option in your viewer and then select 'Edit Shape', you'll see the very same menu everyone works with.

I went almost a year thinking that the shapes sold in stores were some kind of special custom creation not available to the average user. They aren't. They're made by people moving the sliders on the standard SL avatar shape. Now that's not to say they aren't custom: they for sure are. It might be well worth your while to just go ahead a purchase a shape you really like, rather than spend all the time using trial and error to create one yourself. Just be aware that in fact it's not magic; it's just someone moving the sliders. You can do it yourself if you want to.

Skins, on the other hand, are ground-up creations by individuals, at least as near as I can tell. They're images created by the designer upon an existing pattern, and the good ones are really good and usually fairly expensive.

Oh and that's all changing, a bit at a time. Now we have mesh shapes, presumably designed from scratch and bearing no connection to the original/basic SL avatar.

We need a whole new wiki on shapes, I think.

Anyway, great question.Google again, there are tons of really good articles about editing your shape. Unless you're a PhotoShop whiz, you might want to just deal with your shape and buy a skin (get DEMOS FIRST! ALWAYS!) but that's your choice.

 

Enjoy :-)

 

Edited to add this link I just saw posted by Qie in another thread: http://avatartoolbox.info/Skins.html. It's designed for beginning creators, but it's really stuff that everyone should know and it will give you a much better idea of how skin 'works'.

[Phil Deakins]

One bit of information that hasn't been mentioned is that a shape cannot be seen. It doesn't actually exist. Imagine it like this. Imagine a totally transparent human-shaped blob. That's your shape, but you can't see it unless it is covered in a skin. You cannot remove your shape. All you can do is replace it with another shape. Even then, you aren't literally replacing it. What you are doing is loading a different set of numbers to define the shape you already have. If you buy a shape, you simply buy a set of numbers to define the shape you already have. What you buy is a file, but it contains the numbers to set your shape to, and not a blob or object or texture or anything like that. When you drag another shape onto your avatar, or click to wear it, the system sets your shape to the new numbers. You don't actually see the numbers and you don't have to modify your shape to them.

Skins are textures and they do exist. Like the shape, you can't remove it but you can replace it. This time you do literally replace it. You replace the texture on your shape with another one.

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

One bit of information that hasn't been mentioned is that a shape cannot be seen. It doesn't actually exist.

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Phil, what are you talking about! :smileysurprised:

The shape does exist. The shape is a mesh. Have you ever ever looked at your avatar in wireframe mode? Then you can see your shape without the skin covering it.

 

[KarenMichelle Lane]

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

One bit of information that hasn't been mentioned is that a shape cannot be seen. It doesn't actually exist.

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Phil, what are you talking about! :smileysurprised:

The shape does exist. The shape is a mesh. Have you ever ever looked at your avatar in wireframe mode? Then you can see your shape without the skin covering it.

 

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I think Phil is operating on a different existential plain than us.

[Perrie Juran]

 

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KarenMichelle Lane wrote:

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Coby Foden wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

One bit of information that hasn't been mentioned is that a shape cannot be seen. It doesn't actually exist.

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Phil, what are you talking about! :smileysurprised:

The shape does exist. The shape is a mesh. Have you ever ever looked at your avatar in wireframe mode? Then you can see your shape without the skin covering it.

 

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I think Phil is operating on a different existential plain than us.

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I'd been wondering about that also. 

Could it be said we only see the frame because it is colored illusion?

Or are we getting too esoteric?

[Phil Deakins]

To all intents and purposes, the shape doesn't exist as a thing that you can normally see, Coby. Thinking of it as a humna-shaped invisible blob works very well, and the OP is wanting to understand the difference between a shape and a skin. It's how I've always thought of it after it was explained to me at the beginning.

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

To all intents and purposes, the shape doesn't exist as a thing that you can normally see, Coby. Thinking of it as a humna-shaped invisible blob works very well, and the OP is wanting to understand the difference between a shape and a skin. It's how I've always thought of it after it was explained to me at the beginning.

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The OP indeed wanted to understand the difference between a shape and a skin. Why should we tell "fairy tales" instead of telling the actual fact how things are? I find it rather odd that something supposedly "easy" is invented to explain even fairly simple things - like for example the difference between a shape and a skin.

The actual fact is not too difficult to understand:

• Shape is made of mesh. As the name already suggests, the shape defines the shape of the avatars body.

• Skin is a texture (combination of three textures). The skin is wrapped all over the avatar's shape to give it natural look.

We actually can see our avatar's shape - always. What we see is the shape, defining the form of the avatar. This shape is painted over with the skin texture. The skin faithfully follows the shape. The skin is just like a paint on a car. Even though the car is painted we can see the car's shape. Same thing with the avatar: even thought the avatar's shape is painted with the skin, we still can see the avatar's shape.

 

Finally, a short "how to view avatar's shape structure" for those interested.

 

Hide the following "Rendering types" using the shortcuts:

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-6 = Sky

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-7 = Water

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-8 = Ground

Ctrl-Alt-Shift-9 = Volume

(To render the above back just press again the key combinations.)

 

Then switch to "Wireframe mode": Ctrl-Shift-R

Observe your shape.

This is how the shape looks: :matte-motes-big-grin:

To view the collision skeleton, from the menu select: "Develop, Render Metadata, Collision Skeleton".

 

[Turning pedantic mode off...] :smileyvery-happy:

[Phil Deakins]

I haven't been telling "fairy tales". I gave a good explanation of the difference between a shape and a skin. One that works very well. My description for the OP was simple. It may not have been techically accurate, though it may have been, but it's a very good way of thinking about shapes and skins. I was also puzzled by them when I started and it's done me very well through the years.

Without jumping through a hoop or two, no you can't see the shape, and even after a few hoops you are still not seeing it*, so it's useful to think of it as an invisible human-shaped blob. I.e. you can't remove the skin to have a look at the shape in the way that you can remove clothing to have a look at the skin, or remove the paint from a car and leave the car's shape there for all to see (a car was a bad analogy ). For the OP (and me) there is no need to think of it as anything other than an invisible, human-shaped blob.

* The wireframe view is not a view the thing itself. The wire frame is merely an indication of the invisible shape, just as the wire frame view of a sofa, for instance, is merely an indication of the shape of the sofa, but it doesn't show the sofa itself - as witnessed by the fact that you see straight through it. Yes, they both show the mesh that makes them up, but they don't show the things themselves. Incidentally, there's no need to go into wireframe mode to see the shape of the shape. Just strip off. The skin shows its shape, just as the wireframe shows its shape, only much better and much more pleasing (depending on the gender, of course) 

ETA: ctrl-shift-R doesn't switch to wireframe mode. To use that key combination, you need to have the Develop menu activated first.

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

For the OP (and me) there is no need to think of it as anything other than an invisible, human-shaped blob.

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I'm very happy to hear that your "it may not have been techically accurate, though it may have been,..." explanation works for you very well.

:smileywink:

[Phil Deakins]

lol. It's my thinking of the shape as an invisible human-shaped blob that works very well for me - not the bit that you quoted 

One thing that I may have said wrong is that "it doesn't exist". It may exist as an object/thing or it may not exist.as an object/thing. The wireframe view doesn't clarify that one way or the other, any more than the skin clarifies it one way or the other. But it really doesn't matter. It can't be seen as an object or a thing, so thinking of it as an invisibile human-shaped blob works very well

ETA: On reflection, nothing in SL can be seen unless it has a texture on it, and nothing exists inworld without a texture on it. An avatar shape is no different in that respect. Like everything else, it cannot exist inworld unless it has a texture (skin) on it. So I'll take back my statement that "it doesn't exist" and accept that, if it is inworld, then it must be textured, and it does exist, but cannot be seen as a thing/object. If it's in an inventory, it's just numbers and doesn't exist there as a shape.

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

One thing that I may have said wrong is that "it doesn't exist". It may exist as an object/thing or it may not exist.as an object/thing.

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The avatar mesh (i.e. the shape) can be exported from SL. The exported mesh can be opened in mesh program. I have done that, many others have done so too. That mesh can be examined in the program without skin, as a solid single colour object, one can examine it also in wireframe. One can even apply skin textures to it, then it looks exactly the same way like it does in SL - an avatar shape painted with skin textures.

Moreover, one can make changes to that shape, save it, and then one can import that shape back to SL. One can even rez the imported shape on ground - with skin textures and without skin textures. One can see the shape as an object inworld. Naturally one can inspect the imported shape in both wireframe and also fully rendered.

How is all that possible if the shape does not exist as an object/thing? Maybe we - all who have been doing the above - have been just dreaming?

 

You can safely drop the "may exist" and "may not exist", and say that "the shape does exist".

[Phil Deakins]

You probably didn't read the ETA in my previous post. So to answer your question...

No, the shape does not exist as a thing when you export it and do what you described with it. It only exists as parameters (numbers). The program you view it in uses those numbers to contruct it on-screen, just as the viewer does. When you edit it in that program, you change parameters and, when you upload it again to SL, you upload parameters (numbers) - not a 'thing'.

 

You can safely drop the "may exist" and "may not exist", and say that "the shape does exist".

I already did to an extent in my previous ETA. When a shape is not rezzed it's just numbers. But inworld, it does exist. Like every object in SL, it can't be inworld (rezzed) without being textured (skin) but, when rezzed inworld with a skin on, it does exist, presumably as an invisible object.

But even now I'm wondering about that. Do rezzed object shapes actually exist in their own right, as invisible objects, so that their surfaces can be textured?, or is it only the textures that exist and are positioned numerically according to a shape's numbers? It needs someone who is familiar with the way these 3D programs actually work to provide an answer to that one. It's an interesting question but it's not one that the OP was interested in. If the OP thinks of the shape as an invisible human-shaped blob and the skin as the texture that covers it, s/he will understand well enough.

So I still can't say whether or not a rezzed shape (of any object - not just avatars) actually exists as a thing in its own right. And neither can you, Coby But it really doesn't matter. The invisible blob is all that the OP needs to get an understanding of the difference between a shape and a skin.

[Phil Deakins]

We've departed from the OP's question but this is interesting:-

When the pre-image (a wireframe sketch usually) is complete, rendering is used, which adds in bitmap textures or procedural textures, lights, bump mapping and relative position to other objects. The result is a completed image the consumer or intended viewer sees

It's an excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendering_(computer_graphics)

The pre-image is constructed from the shape file's numbers. At that point, it could be said that a shape exists as an invisible shaped blob. Then textures are applied to it. When that's done, it could be said that only the textures exist in the shape of the blob but the blob itself doesn't exist because the wire frame no longer exists.

And at this point, it could be said, "Who cares?", and I'd have to agree with that sentiment

 

ETA: It's rather like literally building an RL wire frame of something - the shape. Then putting a piece of, say, carboard over each area of the frame, and fixing them together but not to the wire itself - the texture. Then removing the wire frame and leaving just the pieces of cardboard in the shape of the wire frame - the finished object. At that point, the shape itself doesn't exist but the texture in the form of the shape does.

So I now understand a rezzed avatar to be a texture (skin) in the form of the shape, and that the shape itself does not exist in the rezzed avatar. Presumably, when we view in the wireframe mode, we are seeing the pre-image with a shading of skin added. It's possible that the texture and pre-image, which iself is in the form of the shape but not the shape itself, go into the world together, in which case it could be said that the shape does exist when the avatar is rezzed.

[Phil Deakins]

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Coby Foden wrote:

Moreover, one can make changes to that shape, save it, and then one can import that shape back to SL.

One can even rez the imported shape on ground - with skin textures and without skin textures. One can see the shape as an object inworld.

Naturally one can inspect the imported shape in both wireframe and also fully rendered.

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I missed that bit. No doubt the external program allows you to do that by creating an object from the shape. But what you can't do with it is take that object from the ground into your inventory and wear it as your avatar shape. So that feature of the external program doesn't mean that avatar shapes are objects. They are not.

 

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Coby Foden wrote:

Moreover, one can make changes to that shape, save it, and then one can import that shape back to SL.

One can even rez the imported shape on ground - with skin textures and without skin textures. One can see the shape as an object inworld.

Naturally one can inspect the imported shape in both wireframe and also fully rendered.

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I missed that bit. No doubt the external program allows you to do that by creating an object from the shape. But what you can't do with it is take that object from the ground into your inventory and wear it as your avatar shape. So that feature of the external program doesn't mean that avatar shapes are objects. They are not.

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Of course I can wear the imported shape. It would be imported mesh avatar shape. That's what the so called "mesh avatars" are. The "mesh avatar" shapes have been created "from scratch" in mesh program. They have been rigged there to the SL avatar bones so that the mesh moves with animations just like the SL avatar does. Skin textures are created. Then the mesh and skin textures are imported to SL. Now the mesh avatar is ready to be worn.

One thing to note: the imported mesh avatar cannot replace the default SL avatar. As we know, the SL avatar shape and its skin cannot be removed. So what is being done is that the default SL avatar is hidden by wearing full body alpha mask - then as we wear the imported mesh avatar only it will be rendered.

(But nevertheless, the default SL avatar is still worn and present even if it is hidden from view - it does not magically vanish from existence by wearing an alpha mask.)

 

You keep insisting that the shapes are not objects. Well, you might not be familiar with terminology - or you are trying to twist the things what generally are called as "objects" in virtual worlds, games, mesh programs, to something metaphysical. If I create a table, in SL or in mesh program, what it has is: vertices, edges, faces. Generally we call that table "an object". The table's shape is defined by the location of various vertices, edges and faces.

The avatar shape is no different from any other shape - like the table shape for example. Avatar shape has been created exactly by the same methods as any other mesh item. So, it is an "object" by the general definition. Where do you get the idea that the avatar shape is not an object? It is not something special - different from everything else.

 

[Phil Deakins]

Then you've been talking about something different, Coby. You ought to have made that clear, and you ought to have realised that the discussion has been about the normal SL shape and skin, and not about anything else. The OP was only interested in the difference between a shape and a skin - like we all needed to learn at the start. Mesh avatars are not what the OP was asking about.

Also, I'm not interested in any other use of the word 'object'. I use it the way it is used in SL. That's where we are, and that's what we're talking about - SL. In SL, a texture isn't an object, and neither is an animation. They may be called objects elsewhere, but they are not called objects in SL. Also, shapes are not called objects in SL. They are called shapes. Objects can be rezzed in SL but shapes can't be rezzed. I don't care what they are called in other programmes. This is SL we are talking about.

I looks like you've been beating about the bush without telling anyone, perhaps because you are into mesh avatars, but the discussion was never about that. It was only about the difference between the (standard) shape and skin in SL. The fact that the OP is new and asked about the shape and skin, as we all did when we were new, ought to have made that clear.

It's been interesting though. It caused me to think about the shapes of objects (not just avatars) and their skins (textures) and how an object, including an avatar, is put together for display. And I found out - an overview anyway. I'd never thought of a sofa, for instance, having a shape just like an avatar does, but they are the same in that particular respect. I'm happy to know that an object, including an avatar, is rendered by creating a wireframe from the parameters in its shape data, and placing bits of texture on it so that the texture is displayed in the form of the wireframe.

[Coby Foden]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Then you've been talking about something different, Coby. You ought to have made that clear, and you ought to have realised that the discussion has been about the normal SL shape and skin, and not about anything else.

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No Phil, I was not talking about something different. I am fully aware that the subject is SL avatar's shape and skin. My reference to mesh avatars was just to show you that SL avatar's shape is nothing different from any other mesh item in SL. The SL avatar shape is constructed from vertices, edges and faces; so are all other objects.

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

... shapes are not called objects in SL. They are called shapes. Objects can be rezzed in SL but shapes can't be rezzed.

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The fact that avatar's "body" is called shape in SL does not mean that it would not be an object. Neither does the fact that the shape cannot be rezzed. The shape is a mesh object.

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

I looks like you've been beating about the bush without telling anyone, perhaps because you are into mesh avatars, but the discussion was never about that. It was only about the difference between the (standard) shape and skin in SL. The fact that the OP is new and asked about the shape and skin, as we all did when we were new, ought to have made that clear.

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No, I'm not into mesh avatars. As I mentioned above I'm fully aware what this discussion is all about. You just caught my attention as in your first post you wanted to point out: "One bit of information that hasn't been mentioned is that a shape cannot be seen. It doesn't actually exist.". So, I thought that for the benefit of the public (i.e. those who don't know the facts) I explain a bit how things really are. :smileyhappy:

 

 

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

It's been interesting though. It caused me to think about the shapes of objects (not just avatars) and their skins (textures) and how an object, including an avatar, is put together for display. And I found out - an overview anyway. I'd never thought of a sofa, for instance, having a shape just like an avatar does, but they are the same in that particular respect. I'm happy to know that an object, including an avatar, is rendered by creating a wireframe from the parameters in its shape data, and placing bits of texture on it so that the texture is displayed in the form of the wireframe.

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I just want to add the following comment:

I rezzed a prim cube, changed the default plywood texture to "blank" texture. When I examined the cube, this is the info what I got:

• Texture data: size 32 x 32 pixels, on faces 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

• Mesh data: 108 triangles, 96 vertices

So the cube's mesh is still there. It has not vanished because of the texture. Why there are all those 108 triangles and 96 vertices still left? A cube has 8 corners and 6 faces, that would be all the data needed for placing a textures to all the faces of a cube if your thinking was right. Why didn't all the superflouos data vanish?

One more thing: Have you thought why all objects need faces to be able to texture the object? Your thinking implies that all face data is not needed at all - just the wireframe data. So why the faces then?

 

[Coby Foden]

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Freya Mokusei wrote:

In my veryvery brief 

reading of this thread, Phil and Coby are both right. :-P

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Perfect, thanks Freya.  :smileyhappy: :matte-motes-big-grin: :smileywink:

[Freya Mokusei]

No problem. Sorry for the late entry here, too - had I profiled this thread properly I'd have chirped up earlier.

There are more experienced res-hackers around. I think Penny led some detailed investigations of the Ruth meshes - she's a modern professional, my own mesh experience is getting more historical every day. So I can't figure out how it was built, and she'd know more about whether the male shape is clearly separate from the female Ruth - my basis for this assumption (that there are two standard mesh models, male and female) is that the min and max deviations are different for the same attributes - male shapes can have longer arms and taller forms than female shapes can possibly achieve.

Shapes closest analogy is sculpted prims - all sculpts are deviated from a sphere (again, viewable in this state as sculpts rez). This 'pure' sphere itself is not a transferrable asset - every viewer has the same model of the pure sphere. The UUID of the sculpt goes 'on top' of the sphere, using the sculpt map (after it's been summoned from the asset server) to deform the pure sphere in a programmatic way.

That's what shapes do, programmatic deformation (via transfer and interpretation of shape asset) of a common asset (the mesh asset).

 

[Phil Deakins]

In that case, perhaps you shouldn't have even mentioned the new mesh shapes then, and especially not that the shape itself can be rezzed on the ground, looking like an object. Perhaps you also ought just have accepted the use of the word 'object' as it's used in SL Those things only confused the discussion.

I am satisfied that a shape is not only not an object but it also cannot be rezzed or seen in its own right (alone), like an object and texture (skin) can.

If all you were going on about was the fact that I said a shape doesn't exist, I partially withdrew that some time ago, so there was need to continue - particularly not with shapes than can be rezzed on the ground. A normal SL shape doesn't exist as something that can be seen in its own right, of course and, to all intents and purposes, it doesn't actually exist.

Anyway, I learned a bit about how an item is rendered to it was interesting for me, even if we were at loggerheads