I am disappointed when I find a dress I like and there is no demo available. My buying habits are simple. If a clothing item costs more than L$50 and has no demo, I won’t buy it. I probably won’t buy any dress or blouse that costs less than L$50. If I violate those limits I find I am disappointed about 9 out of 10 times.
So, what do I do with those demos? Here is a video showing my basic process. Dress makers should consider this process. I use it when I test demos and when I make clothes. I figure stuff I make has to pass these tests. So, stuff I buy should pass them too.
The first dress is tight fitting camisole ‘sheath’ and has a sizable leg slit. It is tight fitting and that makes poke through VERY likely.
The dress works well with the upper body (TM: 0:30). It is possible to peak in and see a nipple. But, one has to work to get a peak. That works for me. I don’t want to be flashing everyone when just standing. But, if he is all that interested…
The deal breaker problem is the slit on the right leg. Because the legs poke through when walking I need to use the Slink body’s alphas. But, Slink uses rings of alpha on the legs. Hiding poke through (TM: 0:50) by the inner left leg, also hides leg exposed by the slit. This dress isn’t going to work with my mesh body.
I can use this dress with my classic body. My skin is useable with both classic and mesh. I can use the included alpha layer with the classic body to make the dress wearable.
The second dress is another tight-fitting sheath with a U neckline and long sleeves. The dress works well with my Slink body but, needs some alpha help.
I find more and more often I am wearing my mesh body. So, clothes have to make it through this testing. I also am beginning to avoid mesh clothes that require I use the mesh body alphas. Those alphas are a problem if I am playing in RLV areas. Quite often the Slink HUD refuses to work in those areas. I am still figuring out how to keep it working and have RLV working.
Snatch
I used Snatch demo clothes in the video because I had just picked up several Snatch demos to try. Snatch has some really nice stuff I like. So, I am NOT picking on or slamming them. Nor are these two dresses representative of all their stuff. These are the two of 6 that fit my mesh body the worst. The second dress fits well enough to suit me. I don’t see Snatch as being the best mesh clothes. There are way way worse makers. The Snatch clothes are good and many are WAY cute or sexy. I do buy some of Snatch’s stuff. The newer stuff seems to be fitting and working better, at least for me. So, stop by and check out their store: Snatch Main Store.
I don’t really support the idea of replacing the avatar body with a rigged mesh because of mixed/loose shape/size standards that most creators tried to set. It will always clashes with others. Few people thought more the better would help, which actually only make things even more complex for the customers.
LL should’ve updated the default avatar with much more “sliders” and release that before rigged mesh came. That way most creators would have used that default avatar as universal standard. Instead, we got few creators using their own and not others because they’d think it’s too “competitive”.
Oh well. Gotta make the best use of what we got, I guess.
While I agree about trying demo’s I find it hard to get my head around the idea that people still refuse to to do any slight tweaks to their shape to get something they like to fit. Back when we had standard sizing to fit people seemed to be more accepting, then you had the occasional “But I’m a size M, this dress IS as size M so it should fit. It doesn’t so the dress maker is at fault!” I found there were so many variations in a size M from different creators a true standard was never achieved. Then the firstfitmesh came along which never really worked for me, it always fit worse than standard sizing and finally clothing maded especially for the different Mesh bodies. I can honestly say I’ve never had a problem with clothes from Erratic, Blueberry, Maitreya. They all just ‘fit’ Why is that ? They have the magic weights provided to them to get them just right and others have to guess ? I think that’s partly it but that will improve now for Maitreya it’s been opened up, but I also own Belleza too, and Addams and Blueberry always seem to fit well on that body. But I’m not afraid to alter a slider here and there to get that perfect fit. I’ve got about a dozen shapes I drop into an outfit for when the Mesh body alpha of the provided standard body alpha (a lot of which are frankly awful when they come from mesh template content) doesn’t cut it. One thing I used to read on the forums was creators saying they wish people would realise there is no true, one size fits all standard . You MIGHT have to adjust your shape to fit.
With fitted mesh and mesh bodies it is much more difficult to correct a bad fit. So, if it doesn’t fit, it likely won’t fit. The clothes and body change at similar rates or conflicting rates so it is a catch-22 problem.
With standard sizes and rigged mesh people had to change their appearance. If you weren’t into big boobs and butts it was a problem. I have shapes for a number of makers; Blueberry, Babel, etc. The standard shapes never worked for me. So, I generally didn’t buy mesh. I think that was the case for many people. Mesh bodies and fitted mesh fit a wider range of unique shapes, so I think more of us are buying mesh. Thus more complaints.
I thank you so much for this video. I have been applying the alphas the best I could on my Maitreya Lara mesh then activating a vigorous dance. I would watch carefully and make adjustments to the alphas as necessary. Sadly some clothes I really loved just had unfixable problems, usually around the arm holes or hems.
Your method is much more controlled.