Basics

Visually Organize Your Second Life Inventory With Wardrobe

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Your Second Life inventory can be a scary place. It’s so easy for it to balloon out of control. Have you ever been browsing your items and thought “I forgot I had that!” Or perhaps you remember those awesome shoes you loved but you can’t find them no matter how hard you try? That can be a thing of the past with Wardrobe.

I’m going to preface this by saying I started writing this blog post on August 9, 2020 but every time I opened it up to add more I just ended up wanting to Wardrobe more so I’d get distracted. I “Wardrobed” 500 items in less than a month because I’m just having way too much fun.

What Is Wardrobe?

A Second Life avatar in black lace and boots stands in front of her Wardrobe.

Imagine if you could open your closet and see all your Second Life clothes, shoes, etc. Now imagine grabbing it off the rack and then putting it on. That’s Wardrobe in a nutshell. It’s an inventory management system that allows you to see visual representations of everything you have. You can even get dressed right from Wardrobe too! Just a click and your shirt is on. Or your whole outfit is on. You choose. The high levels of customization make it perfect for pretty much anyone with an inventory. Yes, even you who just installed yesterday. And yes, even those like me who have 14 years worth of inventory built up.

While Wardrobe is worth it on its own, I find it most helpful while using the Archive add-on. This is a separate purchase that makes boxing up your unused inventory super easy. Imagine all those items you never use being tucked away safely, but in a place you can still browse them and see what you have. Wardrobe has another add-on called Rulebook which allows you to automate putting things on/taking them off, RLV commands, and more. All in all I’ve found Wardrobe and its add-ons to be the most helpful, most comprehensive inventory management tools out there.

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BOM (Bakes On Mesh): What It Is and Why You Want It

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You’ve probably seen advertisements for BOM, or Bakes on Mesh, products. It’s becoming more and more popular with heads, bodies, and even some other avatar parts. This post will dig into what BOM actually is, how it impacts you, and why you want to give it a shot.

What is Bakes on Mesh?

BOM is Linden Lab’s newest avatar customization feature. Before digging too far in, let’s cover why it’s called Bakes on Mesh. “Baked” textures are multiple textures that have been combined into one. Previously this could only happen on system avatars (ones that weren’t using mesh). “Mesh” refers to imported 3D objects (ones that are not native to the grid). While mesh is used for all sorts of objects, we’re going to be talking about avatar parts here. Heads and bodies are the most popular mesh parts, but things like tails, ears, and even adult bits can be mesh too. Bakes on Mesh, at it’s most basic, means textures are combined into one and applied to mesh.

In this image you’ll notice that the visual quality doesn’t suffer between BOM and applier.

 

So what’s the difference?

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Animesh: What It Is & How To Use It

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Animesh has been live on the grid for a few months now. With Firestorm recently updating to support it more and more people are curious about how it works.

What Is It?

Animesh is SL’s way of letting objects use rigged mesh and animations just like our avatars can. This gives creators the ability to design objects that can move like avatars. A quick search of the Marketplace shows various animals, toys, and humanoids created with animesh support. Objects that look like avatars are becoming more and more common. These can be used to make sims feel more populated or even keep people company when their friends aren’t around.

Animesh and Avatars

So why am I telling you this when Regeneration is an avatar blog? Because it can impact our avatars as well! There is more freedom than ever before when it comes to animating objects. This includes objects we add to our avatars such as tails, ears, and naughty bits.

It doesn’t stop at body parts, though. Have you ever had a cute cuddly pet that you wanted to hold and snuggle? Now you can, and it can animate too!

Even though animesh came out late last year, it’s still fairly new. I’m sure we’ll start seeing even more animesh exploding into the market over the next few months.

How Do You Use It?

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Vista Lia’s Animations

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Vista Animations released their bento head Lia last week. This post covers her animations and how she can make your avatar come to life. For more information about her appearance, cosmetic options, and to see her HUD check out my Lia announcement post.

Moods & Expressions

The Moods section is the first chunk right at the top of the animations tab. The four options allow you to choose the default mood your face will display. Each mood is a long and subtle set of animations. You can have one mood selected at a time. The mood serves as a nice baseline for your own unique personality to shine through. You’ll spice it up with your expressions.

Expressions are the flavor, so to speak. Each one selected adds a more obvious facial movement into the loop. You can select them all, none, or anything in between. With twenty four expressions to choose from you can build your very own personality how you see fit. The large pause button in this section will halt the expressions until you click it again. The stop button will clear all the selected expressions. I highly recommend you grab the demo and play with the moods and expressions because it’s really fun to make your own combinations!

It’s not just the movement that’s exciting, though. Using the smaller pause icons will freeze the face in an expression perfect for photos. You can see every one of the static facial expressions in the slideshow below.

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Lia: The Vista Bento Head Is Here!

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Vista Animations has released their bento head Lia! Vista Facebook fans have been excited for this for the past week, though many people on grid are just now hearing about Lia. Can’t make it to the store to pick up your demo? Not a problem! Learn everything you need to know right here then snag that demo (and maybe the full version) once the crowds die down.

First Impressions

Right upon opening the box I was excited to see how many shapes Lia comes with. You don’t have to be an experienced shape maker to have a nice variety of looks. I also loved that Vista included a notecard explaining that this is their first head and feedback is welcome.

Originally I planned on making one post about Lia, however she’s so in depth that I had to split it into two. Today I’ll cover the main appearance of Lia and my next post will dig more into her animations and poses.

What Lia Comes With

While many of these are pretty self explanatory sometimes a cheat sheet can be helpful. Here is everything that comes with your Lia purchase and what it does. Note: the head itself can be copied, but not modified or transferred. All modification options happen with the included HUD. The shapes allow for copying and modifying so you can alter them with appearance sliders.

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Sneak Peek: Lia The Vista Bento Head

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Featured image above showing off the Vista bento head Lia was made by Vista Animations.

Lia is here! Feel free to keep reading about the preview, but if you want to see more about the head check out Lia: The Vista Bento Head and Vista Lia’s Animations!

Yes, you read that right! Vista Animations is currently beta testing a bento head. Vista is arguably the largest, most popular Animation Overrider (AO) company in Second Life. Their bento hands enjoyed popularity when they were the first to be released on the grid. With plenty of bento heads on the market will Vista’s be as much of a hit? Read on to learn all we know and see the  head in action then let me know what you think!

7 Deadly s{K}ins created the Saga skin for the vista bento head
Promo Image by 7 Deadly s{K}ins

What We Know

Vista’s Facebook page opened the beta testing for the new head (named Lia) up to 30 lucky users on November 17, 2017. The first public version of Lia will be available Friday. The full price will be L$2500, however invited beta testers get it for half off.

7 Deadly s{K}ins is also a part of this release! Their skin Saga (shown here) is included in the Vista HUD. 7DS’s November group gift Chantal (skin & shape) came with the following information via notecard:

“This month’s group gifts come with a little story, A story to soon to tell.”

In addition the shape is called “7 Deadly s[K]ins – VISTA shape Chantal Group” leading me to believe that 7DS VIP members have a free skin/shape for Vista’s new head already! Not a group member? The group is currently L$225 to join and includes skins every month. Next month the group price is increasing as there is an advent event planned with tons of free skins for group members. If you want to join the time is now.

Additional HUD skins come from YS&YS and Avenge.

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One Hair + Three Skins = Three Girls (ft. 7DS & TRUTH)

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It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of 7 Deadly s{K}ins and TRUTH; they’re in almost all of my posts! Today I want to show off a few of their products and show how you can get different looks without changing much.

The Basics

Every pic used today has almost identical products (all of which are credited at the end of the post). There is only one actual product that is different in each picture and that’s the skin. You’ll see the style and color of the hair changes. The hair itself isn’t being swapped out, it’s all controlled by HUD. The color of the bathing suit is adjusted the same way. The mesh parts and shapes are all the same. This is a great example of how different you can look with a new skin and hairdo.

Serika

This look is based around the Serika Omega applier from 7 Deadly s{K}ins. While it’s designed for LAQ (there’s a shape for sale too) I find that she works fine on my Catwa head as seen here. She’s available in eleven skin tones as seen below:

  • Box 1
    • Caramel (shown here)
    • Cotton
    • Dew
    • Marshmellow
    • Sand
    • Snow
  • Box 2
        • Caramel (shown here)
        • Coconut
        • Oak
        • Pineapple
        • Taupe
        • Walnut Serika is available at anyBODY until September 30 at 8AM SLT.

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What’s Changing With The Second Life TOS Update?

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This is something I’ve seen a fair amount of buzz over so I’d like to cover it for you guys even though it’s not directly avatar related. Second Life’s TOS (Terms of Service) has been updated and goes into effect July 31, 2017. As of this weekend you cannot log in without accepting the new agreement. So what does that mean for you? Probably not too much. I highly doubt this will change the way most of you use Second Life. Due to the nature of the content this is a very text heavy post.

What’s Changing?

Linden Lab stated in their announcement, “We’ve restructured the Terms of Service to contain terms and conditions that apply to all Linden Lab products, and we have separated out product-specific references (such as Linden Dollar and LindeX for SL) into product-specific policies. The new Second Life Terms and Conditions contains all the Second Life-specific references that were previously in the Terms of Service.”

Most of the changes appear to be tidying up the document and clarifying things. For example the content covered in the old Infringement Notifications section was split up throughout the document a bit differently. There are some changes, however, that are still likely to stick out when looking it over. Though they may look scary (as policy changes often do) they really aren’t anything to worry about.

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Mesh Crash Course: Troubleshooting Issues

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Note: While the images are from 2017 products, the content has been reviewed and is up to date as of July 2020.

Need more mesh help or info? Check out our full Mesh Crash Course.

Sometimes things just don’t go as expected when using mesh heads and bodies in Second Life. Here are some of the most common issues:

  1. Skin, makeup or tattoos don’t apply
  2. Skin, makeup or tattoos appear distorted
  3. Eyelashes are clumpy
  4. Skin, makeup, or tattoos are shiny
  5. Makeup or tattoos are faded
  6. Old body parts show through the new mesh body parts
  7. And many, many more…

While all of these things can be very frustrating, thankfully they are usually an easy fix!

Appliers

Some of the most common problems come from trying to use appliers. If you’re not familiar with them make sure to check out our in depth post on how appliers work.

If you’re finding that skin, makeup, or tattoos aren’t showing up at all it can be a few different things. First you’ll want to make sure you’re using the correct appliers. A Catwa applier, for example, won’t apply to a Lelutka head. If you’re using Omega appliers (the “universal” applier) make sure you also have your Omega System Relay Kits on. You may have to click the relays to activate them. For more information on ensuring you have the right applier and how to use appliers please check out Appliers: How Do They Work?

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