Making a simple alpha layer is within most people’s capability. So, most people will be able to make their own alpha layers for mesh clothing that doesn’t come with an alpha layer. Before mesh bodies with alpha cuts making one’s own alpha masks/layers was common.

The Deluxe Feet Switchers will still work and shoes using them will work.

Narisa 8

And now the ubiquitous gotcha that has to come with any new feature. Bakes on Mesh hands and feet will not be able to be worn with system bodies – only mesh bodies, for dumb, technical reasons that designers have no control over.

Seems the Lab and legacy compatibility bite again. Because the hands, arms, and upper body all use the same texture and as designed one can only apply the texture to one or the other, not both. Remember. A significant part of the idea is to reduce texture use. So, while double use of the same texture wouldn’t require double downloads or use up twice as much texture memory, the system just wasn’t set up for double use.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone found a workaround for the hands-body use.

Siddean will be releasing a comprehensive update of the creator kits inworld with new instructions, maps, etc. plus tutorial videos to make [the] transition to the new body easier. So keep an eye out for that announcement.

From 4/14 – Regarding alpha layers. BOM does not allow a full body alpha. If you wear a full body alpha, your BOM enabled body will be red. Slink uses other under the hood magic to hide the system body for wearing BOM bodies, which allows us to use alpha layers to hide pieces of the body like we did before mesh bodies and [their] alpha zone control huds and auto alpha systems.

Siddean said, “The alpha zone section, and the auto alpha system will be going away with the BOM update for Slink bodies. You won’t need to program an auto alpha HUD any longer for the updated body. You will need to make an alpha layer which consists of one upper texture and one lower texture with alpha channels, – white where you want the body to appear, and black where you don’t want the body to appear, and made into a system alpha layer. I’ll be providing tools, and tutorials to make this as easy as possible and it’s a thousand times easier than making an auto alpha HUD.

I’ll also be providing those same tools and tutorials to my customers so they can build their own alpha layers, in the case of mesh clothing that doesn’t have them and won’t be updated, for example.

and I’ll be providing some utilitarian alpha layers for generic use.”

Summary

As best I can tell the BoM update will allow us to do all the things we have been doing. I suspect it is going to be a bit more complex to explain BoM versus Classic and Mesh to new users. The tradeoff is easier to learn dressing and lower rendering cost. Well… lower viewer side render-cost and reduced download volume. The BAKE SERVICE is a set of Linden computers that will be doing a significant share of the render work and compositing numerous textures into 3 composite textures (I’m simplifying). The overall result should be better performance in a crowd of avatars.

I don’t have much hope that legacy clothes for the classic avatar are going to look that good on BoM Mesh bodies. I have kept some of my favorite old time classic clothes just in case it works better than I expect.

I have put off buying skin, tats, and makeup until we see BoM Mesh in use. However, I still buy S H  O  S   E   S… and dresses and jeans…