Getting Ready for “Bakes on Mesh” Bodies

The end of March Linden Lab released the latest version of the Bakes on Mesh (BoM) Viewer. It is in RC so we could see BoM coming out in final version soon. The recent Disconnects Problem has likely delayed BoM and other projects. That problem seems solved or at least greatly reduced. Other projects will move ahead now and BoM is probably just a couple of weeks from final release… say soon…

The questions I have all deal with how well will my clothes will work with the new BoM Mesh Bodies? Siddean the designer for Slink has provided information on what we can expect. Siddean’s Slink body is built… um… that doesn’t sound quite right, rephrase… ready for release or at least down to the final tweaks.

Whatever you look outside, the real value is what you have inside

Whatever you look outside, the real value is what you have inside

April 3rd,2019 Siddean answered questions about what she is doing with the Slink bodies. You can find this information in Siddean’s Discord channel.

The new bodies are a re-thought new design. So, we are going to be re-learning how to manage bodies, clothes, and tattoos.

The new body will work with clothes made for the previous body. Said in tech-speak, the body size and weighting remain the same. Also, the previous versions of the body will continue to work. BoM will only work with the new bodies.

I suspect if we were looking at a nude current mesh body and a future BoM body side-by-side we wouldn’t see a difference.

Gloves and Stockings – These layers change, but remain. Appliers will not be needed. System layers will be used.

Appliers for specular, normal, and nails will still work as they do now and omega also works for specular, normal and nail textures. This won’t change.

The petite breasts work exactly as they do now. You wear the main body, you wear the petite, they seamlessly fit together and the petite behaves exactly as if it is part of the main body. But, under the hood, everything has changed. No alpha layer is required for any body part. Alpha layers are back to being for clothing only.

Fancy Alpha settings have been used by some to adjust the cut-off of the masking to increase and decrease an alpha-masked area. Designers put a gaussian blur on the alpha textures after painting them and before exporting them for SL upload and they will work exactly like that in the new system.  The more blur, the more the edge of the alpha layer will move. So it seems in many respects the designer’s workflow/technique can remain the same.

Siddean will be providing both a skin and textures that can be downloaded in the creators kit, and in the consumers’ packs, along with instructions on how to make alpha layers in both Photoshop and GIMP.

Another page… link below.

3 thoughts on “Getting Ready for “Bakes on Mesh” Bodies

  1. Oh, I finally bought a mesh body last month and now I’m supposed to buy another one? Well there goes that “improvement”

    So will new clothes say BOM Maitreya Lara or classic Lara for example?

    I am depressed. I thought things would be easier and allow more things we already had to be worn……

    And I can’t see myself making easy bake alphas to be able to wear clothes …….

    • I suspect you’ll get free updates of your mesh body and head.

      Clothes are currently mesh or system… nothing in that concept changes with BoM. What is being added is the ability to use system clothes with mesh bodies, something we can’t do now. To get ‘system-like’ clothes on mesh bodies we use appliers. There will be less need for appliers.

  2. Hi Nalates
    Is there any news about bakes on mesh? Could you give me the link to the discord Slink?
    tysm 🙂

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