shape

please can someone help,ive bort a mod shape after having a non mod since joined sl.and whatever i do i cant get the shape to look right.is there any guides anywhere that tell you where the sliders shud/could be when modifying the shape?thankyou for any help

I think there was some advice to be found in this thread: /327/8a/277099/1.html

Why not use one of the shapes in your library to practice on? Go crazy with the sliders and learn what they all do.

It is more art than science. Some people have a feel for what looks right and can make great-looking shapes, some need a lot of practice, and I guess some will never get it.

My tips (for female shapes):

Save your original shape first (assuming it's copy).

Wear the skin you'll wear with the shape. A different skin can change the look of a shape totally. Don't spend ages making a shape you like before buying a skin, you'll probably have to spend time tweaking it to fit.

Don't go too extreme, the mesh gets a bit messy at high and low ends of the spectrum. Huge boobs look fake. Huge butts look fake. No offence to any BBWs, but SL just doesn't model it very well.

Add some body fat. RL women have a higher %age of subcutaneous fat, it's one of the things that signals 'female' rather than 'male' in our perceptions. Don't worry that it'll make you look tubby and put people off (unless you go to extremes). A bit of fat hides some of the jaggy edges of the avatar mesh.

Add some saddlebags. Most of us don't like the idea of saddlebags in RL, but ignore the unattractive name. A small amount gives you some curvy hips (far better than the hip width slider does). And hips are another thing that says 'woman' not 'man' (or 'child' for that matter).

One slider affects another. Buoyancy changes how big boobs look, as well as size. A butt size that looks good with one hip width will look artificial with another.

Face sliders are fiddly. I've never been 100% happy with the way my mouth & cheeks merge, for example. Small changes, keep checking and stay away from extreme values is the best I can do.

I disagree a bit with this. It *might* be true while developing a brand new shape, but I simply won't buy skins which require me to do more than adjust the brows slightly on my established shape in order to look good...to look 'Ann.'

In other words, I feel that the skin should suit the shape, not the other way around.

That's a good point... maybe I should have put it better. My intention was to let the OP know that skin & shape affect each other, and that just because you have perfect looking shape and perfect looking skin, they won't necessarily be perfect together. If you already have a shape you like, yes, you should be looking for a skin to complement it, not t'other way round.

hey!

Inventory/Create/NewBodyParts/NewShape
creates a new shape for you with all permissions play around with ->learning by doing
have fun

Shape making is definitely a trial and error process.....but the good news you really do get better at it the more you mess with it.

I make shapes.....I have a shop (that I really barely focus on any more) But one of the things that is really helpful in making a new shape is get a photo of a person you'd like your avatar to 'resemble' (being exact isn't totally possible in SL but this method helps the learning process)..... the face is normally the bigger challenge.....but the sliders on the entire body have very obvious effects.

Study the photo.....as you mess with the sliders.....look at the photo and focus on the corresponding body part on the real human. Anotherwords....if you're working on the face....look carefully at the eyes in the photo.....how far apart are they......do they slant at all.....are they puffy.....do the lids show or are they creased.....and so on.

Same goes for the body......all though we cannot get quite as technical with the body...we can definitely give the shapes a very realistic form with practice. If you want some shapes to practice with....I've got plenty of 'retired' shapes in my inventory so I'd be happy to toss a couple your way, just so you can mess with em.

My guess is that with SL shapes there are certain proportions that work very well. Some of these can involve extremes.

I'm an example 7 (height) and 40 (thickness). At the short end of the spectrum, use thickness rather than saddle bags to gain hips, and shoulders. This distributes the weight all over the body which is good for animations.

There may be other proportions that work equally well. I'm not sure why these work. If I knew more solid geometry, I might be able to figure out the other ones.

hey!

@Iyoba Tarantal
i have a "real" height 1.73m (5.8 feet) incl. shoes, thickness=0. also no problems with animations.