Second Life: Avatar Shape Files

Keep Your Shape When You Switch Heads and Bodies

How to avoid shape disasters and simplify your Second Life® avatar customization.

This problem shows up in the Second Life (SL) forums all the time: someone buys a new mesh head, wears the shape that comes with it, and instantly destroys the body shape they spent hours dialing in.

Their perfect peach butt goes flat, or their tight athletic shape inflates into something like two blimps colliding..

Second Life Shapes

Whatever your style, having to rebuild your look after buying a new head or body is annoying and tedious, so let us simplify that.

To get you there quickly, this guide contains the simple, one-time “do this and you are done” approach and deeper technical detail if you enjoy tweaking under the hood.

I use the Firestorm Viewer, as most SL residents do (~75%), and this tutorial assumes you are using Firestorm too.

Shape Examples

In all of the reference images below, I am wearing the Jennifer head (GA.EG) and the LaraX body; only the shape changes between examples.

Combined Shapes in Second Life
My Combined Shapes
  • A – Combined Jennifer head and LaraX body shapes I created and merged into a single custom shape.
  • B – The original Jennifer head shape plus the original LaraX body shape, worn together.
  • C – Jennifer head combined with the SL default body shape.
  • D – The SL default head and body shape, untouched.
  • E – My final custom face on the tuned body shape.
  • F – Jennifer head with the SL default shape applied.

OK, not as blatantly obvious as I planned. But I think you’ll get the idea.

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