Fashion

Second Life: EBody Review

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Looks like we have another mesh body out, EBody by ABAR. The Mesh Addicts blog has a review of the body. See: New Mesh Body Review – EBody by ABAR. The actual review is on another page, I’m not sure why they did that, unless it is the nude avatar…

EBody 2015 ARC
EBody 2015 ARC

They show the nude body, HUD, and list compatibilities. But, they include no ARC comparison, which is a shame. I got the demo so I could look to see how dense the polygon mesh of the body is.

I started with my nude base avatar with hair, ear rings, Slink hands and feet. It has an ARC of 54,127. Adding the EBody and alpha layer the ARC jumps to 131,391. In my article Second Life: Mesh Body Revolution I used a bas avatar with an ARC of 44,571 (9,556 less than the current base). A Slink body pushed that to 59,251. Maitreya’s mesh body pushed the ARC to 94,381. On this 44k avatar EBODY would come in at 121,835. So, EBody is the highest ARC of the four.

Next Generation Platform-SL2: The Avatars

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Everyone is curious about what the avatars in the Next Generation Platform (NGP), or SL2, will be like and what we can do with them. Now we have some clues. High Fidelity is working on their avatars and has just release a set of improvements. See: Creating and rigging an avatar with Blendshapes in Makehuman. The information is somewhat compatible with the current Second Life™ and I suspect a hint of what is coming for SL2 or the Next Generation Platform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZHyypkXDd4

This is a great video for designers. You’ll find references to a number software tools I have not heard mentioned in relation to Second Life. Some of those look to be handy for SL.

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Second Life: Mesh Body Revolution

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Strawberry Singh has a meme called What’s Your Digits? It is about shape and mesh bodies. So, what can I add to that?

My Digits 4/2015
My Digits 4/2015

If your new to Second Life™ you may not know the viewer’s appearance editor reports the wrong height for avatars. You can check this yourself by rezzing a cube and stretching it to whatever height you think you are. Make it phantom and walk into it.

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Second Life: The Jelly Babies Are Coming

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I went to the Open Source UG Meeting this morning. Not something I usually do. I had some questions and this UG is a good place to get certain questions answered.

So… what is a jelly baby? The picture explains it better than words.

Render Muting Effect
Render Muting Effect

The solid color avatars in the image are what we call jelly babies. I first heard Whirly Fizzle use the term. I like it. I’ve also heard avatars rendered this way called Gumby or Gummies. I talked about this in: Second Life Performance: Render Muting. 

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Second Life: Avatar Render Cost

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This is a subject that comes around every so often. I tend to look beyond the drama and actual issue to see who is arguing and how they are arguing. Tells me a lot about them. Even more when I later learn more about them.

Avatar Render Cost Comparison - 2015
Avatar Render Cost Comparison – 2015

One of the interesting things about Avatar Render Cost (ARC) is the numeric value. Have you thought about that number? What is it? Inches, meters, light-years, weight of electrons used in the render process?

It is a nonsensical number. The Lindens used some equation to calculate an arbitrary value that is useful for comparison only. More is bad, less is better. They color the number is based on a coloring scheme that reflects there idea of good, heavy, and bad… green, yellow, and red. You can find the equation (sort of) here: Second Life Render/Draw Weight. 

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Second Life: Weekly Fitmesh Finds!

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iHeartsSL,com has an article from the site Mesh Body Addicts and their weekly articles on Fitted Mesh Finds. The point of the article is to report on fitted mesh items found in the past week. The contact for the site is Lil Daria (LilDaria Resident).

What's new: Slink Physique fashion
What’s new: Slink Physique fashion by LilDaria Resident, on Flickr

The Addicts can be found on Facebook and Flickr.

I think this is a great idea. I see very little fitted mesh on the grid. There is lots of standard size stuff. But, that stuff doesn’t fit me well. 

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