Second Life Has New Avatars?

Did you know Linden Lab has new avatars for the noobies? I had not realized it. But, Cerise @ SLUniverse posted about the new avatars and I noticed that post. Want to see some of the new avatars and mesh clothes?

Linden Lab's New Starter Avatars - Classic is now the default.

Linden Lab’s New Starter Avatars – Classic is now the default.

This image shows the first page one lands on after clicking JOIN. By default they now have ‘Classic’ avatars selected. It is still possible to select Vampires and People. Those are mesh body avatars. But, the Classic Avatars look to be all new. The older avatars are still in the Library. I just don’t see them on sign-up process. 

This new group of avatars uses the Classic SL Body… I think this is a smart change, but new mesh clothes. New users coming into Second Life™ were popping up in the forum asking WTH!?! They would try to put on system/classic clothes while wearing a mesh avatar body and wonder why it didn’t work. The mesh avatars for new users was walking them into a wall. Not such a good idea for a welcome.

The Library outfit are now labeled differently than I remember, but on this point I can’t rely on memory. I was never really paying attention to how starter avatars were named. Whatever the case, you can see the mesh body avatars are now labeled with ‘mesh’.

I think Amy is cute. Her Avatar Complexity rating is way low, 7,190… My nude self is twice that without my genitals attached.  Amy’s other Complexity Information; 2.68m2 and 50kb, are also amazingly low. The image captured in wireframe below shows the clothes are all low poly and still look good. They also animate well.

I tried on 6 of the avatars and outfits. From the Library it isn’t possible to do a Replace & Wear. Copying them to a folder in inventory enables that function. I found these 6 were between 6,000+ and 9,000+ ACI. That makes all of these good outfits for events. They are about a tenth of what I normally wear.

In the wire frame view you can see how they have used alpha layers. There is no poke through worth mentioning. On the 6 I tried all looked good and clothes fit and worked well. Of course, they have probably been shaped to fit the clothes.

Plus Amy comes with an AO. There are 18± animation is it. The script, LDPW AO Script – Female, is No-Mod and made by Silent Mole. It was made in July 2015. So, it might use the viewers animation override at server feature, meaning minimal script load from the AO. But, I can’t open it, so can’t know. (LDPW = Linden Department of Public Works)

If you don’t know ‘Moles’ are employees of LDPW, meaning residents that volunteer to build things for the Lindens. They are paid volunteers according to the wiki.

The AO does not have a user interface (UI), no HUD. The animations are not that great, but they are good. I think the lack of a UI is probably a good thing for new users.

The clothes are rigged not fitted mesh, at least on Amy. Changing Body Fat in Appearance-shape reveals the difference. The shape is OK-Mod.

All in all I think these are great starter avatars. I am glad to find out they have been added. The only improvements I can think of would be to add a bit more ethnic diversity and put an image of the outfit in the folder. Having to wear the outfit to find out which is which is a bit tedious. If you know which one you want I don’t see how you hook up name and look…

I think these avatars are an excellent example of what can be done with mesh to lower Avatar Complexity.

As it is now many people are complaining about how mesh slows their computer down and how it has ruined Second Life. Well, mesh hasn’t. The designers that don’t know how to work with mesh are the problem. As it is in so many areas of life, the ignorant and loud voices propagate misinformation. The ignorant and incurious accept it and decide fixing it means imposing more rules, which basically take away freedom. Sad.

These avatars may be the Lindens providing an example of what can be done once people learn to build efficiently with mesh.

7 thoughts on “Second Life Has New Avatars?

  1. They are all so beautiful:/ For the next edition I’d like to propose adding an ugly guy, an old one and a fat one. Also somebody who looks funny. A crazy guy and a nerd would be cool too. I don’t even want to start naming all the non-human types that I can imagine. They all look so serious corporate types. But from the technical side, they are an improvement. I wonder if their mouth animates in voice chat? I can’t test it, because voice is broken on my viewer (Linux). Also I noticed, most of the avatars do only render partially unless I turn Hardware Skinning off.

    • The avatar is the classic body, so yes the mouths animate… I think… I didn’t realy check to see that the head isn’t mesh.

      If you have an issue that changes when hardware skinning is enabled or disabled, it likely a viewer or video driver problem. Mesh rendering is still a problem in some viewers on ATI cards and Macs.

  2. Pingback: Is the Firestorm Viewer on schedule? | Nalates' Things & StuffNalates' Things & Stuff

  3. I’m fascinated by this stuff and would love to try the new avaqtars. But can I do this without opening a new account?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *