Very upset newbie

Sinabunz,

As mentioned above, it may very well be graphic settings causing you to "see" your skin as the "clay". You may be the only one seeing it this way.

Before you start wading through the HUGE (and overly complicated) batch of graphical preferences, use the Forum Cartel group to ask others to TP you to the Cartel, or to TP to you to look you over. If these people say your skin looks okay, then they (or others) can help you work through your graphics settings.

If others see your skin as "clay" as well, contact Celestrial Studios via IM and NOTECARD. Explain exactly what happened on the Notecard, and title it with your SL name and the date you send the card (TIP: Always send Notecards when IMing buisness owners. Thier IMs get capped off by the SL system and they lose a lot of IMs). If you bought the skin within the last 30 days, then the CS owner can look up past transactions to ensure you did buy the skin and more than likely will replace it if it was a SL glitch that messed up your skin. These things happen and the better buisnesses help those that have these problems when asked politely. And CS is one of the better buisnesses ^.^

Welcome to SL. Don't mind the riffraff, ask any questions you have, explore and enjoy the world, and see Ann for a piece of pie *grins and hands Sinabunz a hot cup of morning coffee*

~Jessy
Long Live the Cult of the Cup! [_]D

As far as I know, that skin was never supposed to be a freebie but was either obtained through an exploit or texture ripped and then passed around to the alleged "freebie" it is now.

Hi Sinabunz !!
It may be that your are seeing yourself as "Ruth" with nice skin...
We all have paid a bunch for skins and shapes only to wake up and log on the be a mutated Ruth AV. When SL is acting up and there is much lag, you will find many strange things will happen. Don't give up girl...It gets better and you will love like we do!

Blake

Unbelievable...Sinabunz, you want to report me and you don't even know what I am saying? You ask for advise here and act like that?
Yes, I waited weeks for you to apologize and of course you didn't...

Welcome to SL.
I really stink at shopping, I just wanted to welcome you.
Yes sometimes the downside is how much everything cost and when I buy things always seem to run into problems with the product.

Sinabunz,

This is probably NOT a problem with the skin, but a problem with the SL viewer. That clay-like look appears when your computer and LL's server aren't talking properly to each other, so SL doesn't know what you are supposed to look like

A couple of things to check:

1. Reboot your DSL modem or router. While you're at it, reboot your computer, too.
2. On the logon screen, select Preferences. In the Network tab, select Clear Cache, then close and re-start the SL viewer.
3. If you still appear gray, then hit CTRL+ALT+R to rebake your textures.
4. If that doesn't work, open the Client menu. Hit CTRL+ALT+D and look for a new menu at the top of your screen called Client, next to the Help menu. If you don't see it, try CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+D. In the Client menu, select Character/Character Tests/Test Female.

This will give you default "Ruth" character. Open your inventory and put on your normal shape, skin, and clothes.

Hi Sinabunz,

Welcome to Second Life

When you buy a new skin you will _very_ often need to change your Shape (that is, the settings in the "edit appearance" window) to make it look good again. I know that if I change my skin it will usually require tweaking an entirely new shape to look good. Also, different skins react differently to different shape changes, the most common problems are big ugly seams around the nose, a chin that looks either way too big or way too hard, or a mouth that looks way too small or way too big.

Another possibliity is that it is caused by lighting - you will always have a "good side" and a "bad side" in SL. You can get a "lighting kit" that tries to ensure you always carry the correct lighting with you, these are usually free.

Other than that you just have to be careful when shopping, just like real life clothes can look a lot better on the model than they do on you Yes, in SL you can choose your appearance, but you have to bear in mind that the model avatar may be made for the exclusive purpose of wearing that particular item in that particular pose and that particular lighting, and looks awful in any other situation!

mmm..report?

someone is in trouble

it could be your graphic settings too
I had this happen to me once, for some reason SL reset my preference setting for the graphics and such, and I looked very blah, like clay is a good way to explain it

not logged in at the moment to check which actual setting it was. If you want help, when you log in, do a search on my name and send me an IM, I will get it in my email and come and try to help you.

Good luck, hang in there, it is not always this confusing or annoying (sometimes a little more annoying LOL)


heh

I appreciate all the help. You guys are great. My "avie" as you say , has returned to normal yippee!!!

You are so right. I bought a skin, but I decided not to "buy" a shape and instead use the edit appearance to customize my avie...not just in her shape, but nose, eyes, etc. The funny thing is, I am trying to make her look as much like myself as possible, but in doing so, I am finding that she looks fat in comparison to the little "twig-like" avies I see trolling around and I am thin in rl, but I do have a butt and hips...lol

Yes, you always have to be wearing some skin, cause if you don't, it's terrible! You're nothing inside but . . . eyeballs!

coco

this is a big issue..and will be reported.."name"

how profound...for "you" maybe

In Second Life, _all_ of the settings that you have on the "edit appearance" window are together called your "shape" - thus it includes your nose and eyes, etc.



Yes, many avatars in SL have very unrealistic proportions. People are almost always too thin, are impossibly tall, and don't even mention, um, gravity

I am completely aware of the fact that "shape" is "body" plus face, neck chin..etc. what I said was I am NOT going to "BUY" a shape..I want av to look as realistic as possible...not like a blow up doll or porn star....I prefer not to go that route lol (-:

YAY!!!!

Why do people refer to a skin as a "Ruth" skin?

(-: thx Ann

"Ruth" is the nickname for the default female avatar - the "Girl next door" selection when you choose your avatar when creating an account. She is the basis of all avatars, even male avatars. As a result, if something goes badly wrong with your avatar, you turn back into Ruth.

For a few weeks there was an avatar hanging out in the Hanson infohub area. All gray, no skin, white eyes, Ruth shape. Stood there for days on end for no apparent reason, except possibly to look scary, or maybe steal Trout's purple chair. She seems to be gone now, probably died from exposure.

I have entirely too much "gravity" in RL! I can use all the buoyancy I can get in SL!

Meet Ruth, at times we all become her, at least in part.

Her friend on the right is Test Female, the False Ruth, an evil impostor who will steal your lindens and turn you into a frog.

Is it something wrong the avatar, or slow system download? I assumed you get Ruthed when the system isn't able to get your shape from the asset server. A while back when SL was having issues, I noticed I'd be Ruthed for a few seconds after logging in, and then the right shape would pop into place.

I have a CS Vogue Amber skin I loved and wore all the time until it also suddenly turned to "clay". The eyebrows looked like Mr. Bill's, awful. I was not able to fix it so I reverted to the freckled version which I have come to love. Reading your post prompted me to try on the old skin once more, and miraculously, it has been rejuvenated. Thanks for the post