Comments on mesh bodies

I normally don’t comment on fashion trends or item trends, but the nature of mesh bodies has gotten a lot of attention lately and some people keep asking my opinion about it.

I’ll begin by saying that many people ask me what kind of mesh body I’m using and are shocked when I tell them that I am using a regular SL body. They seem skeptical as they state that it looks so good. I do remind them that SL still has amazing skin makers for SL bodies. Some of these skins are better than the skins that come standard in any of the mesh bodies available.  So it is possible to look just as good.

At the same time, the shape also makes a difference. Finding a well proportioned shape that has nuances to it is not hard and there are many great shape makers in-world.

Two mesh items that are a must, are mesh hands and feet. The SL hands and feet are just plain ugly to be wearing around. I use appliers to blend the hands and feet with the SL body. The blending took me a while to figure out but once I did, everything is seamless.

That said, I’ve nothing against mesh bodies. They look gorgeous with or without clothes all the time. Having a SL body you have to work a little harder to make it look as good or even a little better. I’m sure I’ll be wearing a mesh body soon enough since I’m starting to see some amazing ones.

Where the big difference still persists is in the mesh heads. I don’t have to remind you that the abundance of mesh heads makes some gatherings look like the “Return of the Clones” and a lot of them are expressionless or worst yet, have some crazy animations that make the person look ridiculous when they laugh or the teeth are shown. Developers still have a lot of work to do.

But … the heads don’t have to look like clones. I was talking with a person that had the expressionless clone head (and the eyes in the wrong spots inside the head), and I told her that with a little make-up (a make-up applier), and some editing she could look a lot nicer and just a tad different, she didn’t know. I asked her to open the hud for her head and of course is as complicated as it can be, and a lot of add-on appliers create an added cost to the already expensive head. She just didn’t know all the possibilities with a mesh head and didn’t realize that she had to change some settings to make the eyes fit correctly.

All of this reminds me of the early days in SL when we had to edit each individual object to make it fit well on our bodies (oh yes we still have to do that even with mesh bodies). There is a learning curve, but it is worth it.

P.S: Bento heads are a whole other topic. All I’ll say now is this, if you don’t know how to edit it “DON’T TOUCH IT.”

Anonymity in SL (Part 1)

It is a good feeling to being back to the blog. I have not been away from SL, just hadn’t found the time to blog. What got me thinking about it was this particular post that I saw in someone’s pick.

“A few years ago I heard something about money that I believe is very true. Paraphrasing basically says that if you are idiot and you become rich then you become a bigger idiot. More money doesn’t change you, it just amplifies who you are.
Can we say the same about SL? Now that beautiful mesh bodies are available, all of the sudden some in here are av shaming others because they don’t have complete mesh bodies. I guess these same people must be extremely bigoted in RL. The anonymity of SL just amplifies their bigotry in SL.”

To say that anonymity makes a person in SL express themselves without any fear of repercussion and therefore show their true colors is not a new concept, but it’s something worth to look at when meeting new people and trying to have a relationship with them.

This anonymity is expressed in SL the very moment we enter this world. How? We try to change our look to be our idealized presence, or someone very different. SL opens the possibilities to be able to construct a new self, and a new body in very many ways. From day one you are remaining anonymous to the rest of the people in SL.

Some people do put their RL picture in their profile, but most don’t, and a great majority put a fake picture taken from the Internet (see other posts to know how to identify them).

There has been some research on this field, and most of the outcomes are very similar. In a nutshell, the fact that from the very beginning of an experience in a virtual world people are not using exact representations of who they are, this will bring into their minds a level of anonymity that they will nurture throughout their life in that virtual world. Some researchers have also found that this level of anonymity leads into a creation of multiple bodies (alts …).

What does this all mean? Basically that a person can explore different types of their personality either with one av or many avs, but with the anonymity that SL provides, each part of their personality is basically multiplied and expressed in extreme ways. If you are a bigot in RL, then you will be twice as bad a bigot in SL.

If you are a sub in RL, your feelings may be twice as strong in SL as you don’t have the issue of being found out.

Of course all of these things are very relative. There are some people that do live SL as they do RL and they are open about who they are and try to behave the same way. Or are they?

Back to posting

Thank you all for the messages and words of encouragement about liking the posts and wanting more.

I will start posting again and have one ready for this weekend.

Hope you all enjoy it.