Very upset newbie

I thought I would explore this game. It sounded interesting...a lot different than my previous dabbles.. EQ2, WOW, Vanguard. Being a girl, well "woman" in my thirties, I still like playing dress up I guess. I made the huge mistake of buying Linden dollars so I could buy a "skin". At first I thought this was well worth it because my character was looking very nice...(important to me for some reason). Plus, I have this "thing" of making my character look like me. More immersive I guess. Well, for some reason, my character has taken on a very "clay like", ugly appearance. I am not a happy camper. Is this common place in this game? I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't cost me "real" money. The people on the forums are wonderful, but I feel like a lost puppy trying to figure how everything works...and Im certainly not a dumb person. It seems that a lot of people that offer help, talk in SL slang that I am completely unfamiliar with.

There is a HUGE learning curve in SL, even just for the basics. It just takes a little time and practice. If you're on tonight, I have some free time and could probably walk you through a few things. Just IM me and I'll be happy help.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about your av though.

Hi Sinabunz. Welcome to SL!

Is this claylike appearance you describe your new skin (becasue it sounds very much like a default skin that would be in your inventory)? If it is you should be able to go into your inventory and find the skin you had on before, right click on it and select "wear" to put it back on. Skin, unlike clothes, cannot be removed, only replaced.

As for regretting a bad purchase, we have all done it. Most decent skin vendors, all that I can think of, offer demo skins for 0 or 1L$ that you can get to try them on and see if you like them before making the plunge on a big purchase.

If you are new to SL I would spend some time searching for freebies though before I did any big spending. THere is a great deal of good stuff out there for free, and even if you don't find what you want it is good to know what is available free so you don't get ripped off when you go shopping.

Does that help?

Hi Sinabunz, I sent you an in world invite to the Forum Cartel. There is usually always someone online who can help you out. Just give a shout in group IM. Only problem is, getting everyone to be quiet once they all start talking.

/me, like Ann, is also a bit confused.. You did look good with your new setup but now look like clay?

Sometimes lighting can have a bit impact on how you look. Does changing the sun settings under the World->Force Sun menu make you look better?

Hi Ann, thanks so much for responding. My hubby wants to watch a movie, so I won't be on tonight, plus, I'm scared to look at my characer lol.
As I said it my thread, I wouldn't mind so much if it didn't cost me "RL money", ya know? I don't understand why my character turned ugly either. I think I need to do some research on my day off over coffee lol

Hi Nimue, thx for responding, I bought a skin at Celestial and I loved it..it was 1,000 or something. I was very happy with it. When I look in my inventory, there is nothing that specifically says "Celestial Skin", it just says "skin and shape" worn..Sorry to sound so clueless ;-p

Hi Sindy, I looked great for a couple of days and now I look really weird lol

thx so much Chirs

Hi Sinzbunz and welcome

When I joined, there was only one default male and female av, and I SCREAMED when I saw my av for the first time. I still refer to myself as a monkey to this day, I will never be happy with her.

However there's lots of things you can do, and it doesn't have to be expensive. You'll get lots of help but I will offer my help too if you like ... just say hi inworld I have a LOT of nice things you can have which will help you out, as do some of the other mentors around here

thx so much Cherry..I just don't know what happened along the way that changed my looks..it's weird. I bought a pose, but I can't see how that would change my looks?

Hi again.
The Celestia skin I have is labeled (CS) Vogue Skin ...
If you open your inventory and type in (CS) in the little search bar at the top it will look for anything you have that has that phrase in the label. Maybe if you try that you can find the skin (I think Vogue is the type, and yours might be different). You can also type "worn" in that window to sort for all of the things you have on. skin and shape are seperate things, so one of each should show up.

No worries about sounding clueless. I am still clueless about many many things there.

(BTW tete a pied has free skins for players under 30 days old. You might want to drop in and pick them up while you still can. Also, Calla and ETD have prim hair for new players that is quite nice.)

Good Luck!

Hi again Nimue, so, if I bought a skin, it will never be removed? It will always be my skin? If it's replaced, it's not removed? That doesn't make sense to me. Does that mean that I could have on two skins at once?

You can own several and have them in your inventory, but you can only wear one at a time and you must always be wearing one, unlike articles of clothing or shoes. Sorry, I didn't make that very clear before. I hope that is better.

hi, I just signed on and did a search for CS and it came up that I was wearing CS Vogue Skin Bronzed Noir-Mid, yet I look horrible . I had a long day at work today. I think I will re-focus tomorrow morning over coffee. I appreciate all your help. Everyone is great on here. Thx so much.

Sinabunz........it sounds to me like your skin somehow got changed. A crash could cause it or maybe you accidently put on another skin (the ugly one). But, no you do not wear two skins at the same time. You cannot "take" your skin off, it's only replaced when you wear another one. You need to find the skin you want (the Celestial one) and wear it. Do as Nimu suggested and seard CS. It will find everything in your inventory that has that letter combination contained in the name and discription. It could be that you are in fact wearing the skin you bought and your veiwer is showing a borked copy of it. So if the search shows you wearing the correct skin you can try to clear your cache and relogging. You do that by going to preferrences either in the UI or at your log in page and going to the network tab and clicking on clear cache. The next time you launch SL your cache will be cleared (so, if in game it' would probably be easier to use the preferrences menu from your UI). One more thing to try too. Look in your library and find one of the default skins and wear it then go back to your intended skin and wear it again. That trick works for clothes too.......seems to jolt the servers into remembering what it is that you are wearing and resends the appropriate data to make it appear.

Just a couple things to try. Hope it helps. And welcome to Second Life.

Did you switch viewers? Perhaps move to the FirstLook viewer with Windlight?

Hi, Sinabunz, and welcome! I like your name, it makes me hungry.

If you looked good before, and now you don't, and you haven't put on a different shape, then I'm wondering if the sudden change is due to seeing yourself under different lighting (noon light makes almost every skin look awful, sunset and sunrise are more flattering) or if there's a glitch in the skin itself?

You might try going to 'preferences - network - clear cache' before you log in next time, and see if that helps, or try 'client - character - rebake textures' from the top menu (I think that's it, I'm not in SL to check at the moment) when you're in SL.

I have a New Resident Kit that another SL resident put together - I'll be happy to drop you one when I'm online next. It has a lot of useful info.

Edit: Peggy beat me to it!

Hi Sinabunz and welcome to SL

The learning curve on SL is steep but after a week or two you will find you 'get it' and it all becomes easier. There are literally MILLIONS of avatars that never made it past orientation so you are doing pretty well!! Believe us when we say, its worth hanging in there.

Sin Skins do a newbie only skin, and its really pretty, so if you have followed all the advice in previous posts and still find your nice new skin is broken, you can go there and try again for nothing. There are others around too.

Free Dove has some freebie boxes containing skins too.

read the sticky thread at the top of this forum "Top Five Tips for the Newly Born" Lots of sense in there. Plus, if you are finding the slang difficult, read Carl Metropolitans new Glossary, that he and others put together exactly because its hard to get the lingo in the early days. You are not dumb or stupid, its just not that easy to be new, and we all remember how hard it is.

If SL was really simple and easy, it wouldn't be so good.. it would be boring in ten minutes. Its because there is so much to learn and experience that it is so good.

Have fun and never give up

imogen

Hrm, the 'clay like' make me wonder...are you looking grey and a strange shape? Sometimes when I log in it takes a while for my skin and shape to download and initially I look like a grey blob. If the problem persists after a few minutes then I clear my cache (in preferences under Network) and log out and back in again. This usually fixes it.

There are a few bugs in SL that can make your avatar look weird but there are ways to get around them. Sometimes going into 'Edit Appearance' and out again can make things right. Sometimes a restart works. Sometimes teleporting to another area. Sometimes just waiting for a while.

Other things that can reduce the quality of your appearance are...

1. Turning down your graphics settings in preferences.

2. Changing PCs to a machine with a lower spec graphics card.

You've certainly bought a high quality skin from a very good store. Nice one! The first skin I bought was terrible

I second the idea to wait until you've been playing a while before spending big bucks in world. There are some excellent freebies out there that will get you started. Rather than going to the freebie stores, try the big designer stores and look for their freebies. Those are much higher quality. If you want a list of my favourite stores for hair/skins/clothes etc. that give away great freebies IM me in world.

Hi Sinabunz - welcome to SL

I'll drop you some help notecards when I get in world later on. Like Cherry, when I joined there were only the two default avatars - only mine didn't rez out at all the first time I logged on and I could only see my name - no avatar at all. I blundered blindly round Orientation Island not understanding at all - lol! Fortunately, when I tried again the next day, my avatar was there - a nakid n00b as they say - same as everyone else. Orientation Island was clogged with avatars frantically trying to amend their appearance and make themselves some clothes! This did at least have one advantage in the early introduction to editing your appearance - so you picked up on things like shapes and skins and clothing layers.

I think Peggy's suggestions will probably sort out your immediate problem - but don't be afraid to ask for help. Most of all enjoy your Second Life.

Are you sure you're wearing the skin? If you go into the folder with the skin in, if you are wearing it, the name of the skin will be in bold and it will say (worn) after.

It's not just at log in, at random points while I'm just standing there the texture will update, and it looks muddy (low-res, messed up colors, etc.) while the image is downloading. After just waiting a minute it'll look fine again, but I suppose this can be confusing to a newbie.

sinabunz, is there any chance you could post a screenshot so we can see what you mean by clay-like?

I have a Celestial Studios (CS) Vogue skin too - very happy with it. It cost L$ 1000.
CS also do a good free skin called the CS Passport Malibu which you can find among bundles of freebies available all over the place. Your CS skin is probably not the colour you wanted, but it's still worth looking at some of their others.

But some bought skins are not so good as CS and offer little improvement over the default one. You need to find good ones.

I was wondering the same thing. Running a WindLight viewer could well make your skin look rather ... uh ... unflattering at times. Make sure your running the current 1.18.5.3 official viewer, or the un-windlight release candidate 1.18.6.1 at the moment.

I'd be intrigued to know if that is the problem. Seems to be a vocal minority that think the current default windlight settings are a "good thing". One of the reasons I think they aren't is precisely because they make expensive skins for newbies look terrible without tweaking advanced settings.

Think I might make my sig line read "*Shrugs*"...