I’ve always thought males in Second Life look way to gay. A bare chest and jeans is about as macho as they get. Now that mesh clothes are here I think that will change. I found a YouTube video that shows what is possible.
He is not the cutest guy I’ve seen nor is the suit an Armani. But it is a huge improvement over the typical skin tight suit worn in SL until now. I have hopes for more masculine looking guys.
This changes how women’s dresses will work too. EboniHucci is working with dresses. You can see the dress does not have the texture smear problem the basic SL skirt displays when walking, which is a really nice improvement. Not perfect but a big improvement.
There is still the skirt-makes-my-butt-kook-big problem in the video but that can fixed.
You can also see the mesh skirts do not have the problem of legs coming through the skirt, a problem in most prim and sculpty skirts.
Also, notice that the dresses are rezzed in-world while not worn. The dresses are more in the attachment type of thing than a clothes type of thing. We are going to need some new language to differentiate between regular avatar clothes and the new mesh clothes.
Not only are clothes changing, avatars are changing. Hamlet has an example of an alien avatar shown in his article Open Forum: Mesh Finally Goes Gridwide Across SL, What Do You Think & What Have You Seen?
One of the limitations now is the lack of facial animation. We have no idea what or when the Lindens will do something to allow facial emotes. I suspect some type of mesh deformation to come down the road some day. The following video show another complete avatar replacement. While the lack of facial mobility is hard to notice in an alien, it is far more noticeable in this video by coo0120.
Some creative types are animating the face by changing the texture. Some use multiple meshes and make them visible or invisible to fake motion. There are creative work-arounds. Eventually some type of mesh deformation will be added to reduce the number of textures and meshes needed.
While we are still limited to the basic avatar skeleton for avatars in SL, we are able to manipulate some of the skeleton to suite custom avatars. So, horses use the arms for the front legs. Because we can adjust bone position the front legs can be the right position. The Lindens plan to all changing bone length and to allow bone rotation. But, we are limited to 4 appendage avatars for the foreseeable future. A third pare of legs has to b faked with scripting and attachments.
Along with mesh comes changes to physics. We have a new physics engine running in SL. This new engine handles mesh with less lag. FEenergy put up a video of their testing mesh for products they plan to build. For many the video does convey much meaning. But, that number of physical objects would normally bring a region to a full stop. But, you can see avatars moving through the physical barrels. Near the end you can see the barrels falling, bouncing, and rolling around. Quite an improvement.
Changing the physics engine is also changing how vehicles will look and perform. Here is a really impressive motorcycle. Notice that is 3 prims… it is unclear what the actual PE is after scripts are added. But, that is still an impressive prim count.
This last one I included just because it is fun. The avatar animations are fun and all the stuff in the background gives a good idea of what the mesh preview grid looked like as we worked our way toward the mesh release.
What the heck does “look to gay” mean? (it would be “too” btw). As a gay person who has gay friends in every size, shape, and color, and who wear everything from jeans and flannel shirts to business suits, what exactly does “looking gay” mean? And I guess by your tone this is a bad thing?
I used to read this column daily – had it in my blog feed. You usually presented a fair and thoughtful approach to things SL. But if somehow I should be something to be avoided, well, I will avoid this column. I don’t want you worrying about your readers being “too gay.”
Thanks. It is nice you insist I tolerate your preferences, but I can’t have mine… And you guessed wrong about it being a bad thing. Bye.
Curiously, I use a Female shape (zero-breasts) for my Male avatar because I couldn’t create a Male shape I liked – they looked too macho to me.
Nalates, do you have anything against gay people? I bet you don’t. And if you don’t, Addison should keep reading your blog.
I feel this is a misunderstanding – Addison, I think Nalates just wanted to explain that the appearance range of SL male avatars is currently limited, and that mesh will expand this range, allowing users to create avatars that fit more precisely their needs. This is what I understood.
OO, you got it right. Addison, doesn’t know me or my preferences obviously. Addison revealed his personality.