Help with Shape

Oh, and a forum tip - if you do not already know - go to User Cp and fiddle with your settings to where you would like them. The default is to have sigs, photos, and avatar profile pictures turned off. Oh and the default is to have the Private Messages also turned off.

Thank you so much

You're welcome, although I'm not sure I'm much of a guide. The other week, some guy said to me "WTF Girl, you look like Michael Jackson"!!! He was wearing a big leather coat, had guns strapped to his thighs and dreadlocks, so not sure he was much of a judge!!!

Dang! I want dreadlocks! Seriously, if they look even half decent, I really want dreads!

Sinabunz - that's the correct way to edit your shape. You can buy a premade one and not have to bother with it, or you can just make your own. Making your own and getting it just the way you want it can take a lot of tweaking with the sliders, since changing one thing can make something else look weird. It's a real art for some people. I think it's sort of fun.

I know some people have shapes for specific outfits as well, so when they put on the outfit, their shape compliments it. You can make a folder and drop in the shape and outfit and then just drag the folder onto yourself. Practice in private a few times before you do that in public, though, because if you don't get it right, you end up naked.

I don't change my shape to fit clothes. I change the clothes to fit my shape. I like who I am, and who my avatar is, and I don't give a crap if that skirt makes me look like I have a bubble butt. I identify strongly with my shape, probably since I made it, and in real life, I believe strongly in buying clothes that fit, not clothes that I hope to fit. Hence buying more glitchpants/prim skirts because the bubble butt sucks. I'm already bootylicious, but damn.

I'm always ending up naked - last time I walked off into the distance pantiless and wearing a box on my right hand!!!

Speaking of which, Dr Trout, have you had a chance to consider my submission yet?

That's not what I meant. I bought an outfit a few day ago and it wasn't cheap! All of a sudden my skin shows through it as if my avatar gained weight, so needless to say, it looks stupid. I am actually very mad that this happened because I liked the outfit and like I said, it was not cheap.

Ya learn something new everyday I have "tweaked" versions of my shape for certain outfits, I never realized I could put it all in a folder and drag it on, LOL. I have gotten really good at just changing each item seperately, LOL Thanks for that tip Trout

Sinabunz, another thing to get to make that nice skin look its best is a facelight. Its an invisible light source that attaches to your avi, and projects light onto your face to get rid of the shadows and stuff that might not look right in certain lighting conditions. If you buy a demo at RaC skins, they include a facelight with each demo.

I was just commenting generally. But you need to buy skirts with glitchpants, precisely because many shapes will show through prims. It's not "as if you gained weight" - prim clothing needs to be adjusted to fit your shape. You didn't "get fat."

Thanks so much. I will check that out tonight.

Hellllooooooo Joss! No. Actually, I've had a little trouble getting online. I'll try tonight. It's been weird lately. I got the email that I had an inventory offer, and I logged on that night, but it disappeared into inventory instead of popping up, then stuff happened and things went down...etc. I'm sorry. I should be on tonight, barring RL catastrophes, which, considering my RL of late are a definite possibility. (let's see...Drama Wednesday follows All Hell Breaks Loose Tuesday, but comes before Emergency Thursday, right?)

How do you "adjust" clothing? So, when I buy skirts, should I always make sure that they come with "glitchpants"? And, what are prims? I am brand new to this game. I know very little lingo at this point.

Its actually more difficult to do a fuller sized shape than a thin one anyway.

so even making a Av bigger in many cases wont even appear that you "got fat" just that you got larger.

Personally I think fuller sizes done well can look good, theres just a lot of room for error (no pun intended this time).

If I got a facelight then do you think I wouldn't look like Michael Jackson anymore???

I bought a really nice skin/shape, but didn't notice it was No Mod, now can't get rid of the purple crotchless panties with the word "skin" emblazoned across the backside!!! I rezzed the skin/shape fully clothed, so didn't notice until I got my kit off. Shame, looks really pretty, but none of my skirts now fit, which they did before, and now I know they are there, even though most of the time you can't see them. Like wearing two pairs of panties really, just in case. My mother always told me to keep a spare pair handy.

For the new people:

Glitch pants are pants that are worn underneath a prim skirt. They have the same texture as the skirt, so when the skin pokes through a little here and there, it's still covered. Prim skirts also tend to fall below chairs and things when your avatar sits. They can hang straight down (imagine sitting in a chair wearing a dress, but your legs and the chair don't stop the dress - it hangs straight down to the floor). This would be very revealing if you didn't have glitch pants on underneath.

They also stop guys from camming up under your dress to see your underwear...or lack thereof. Not that this ever happens...I've never done it. I've just...you know...um...

Derbor told me.

Edit: Prims are the building blocks of SL. Everything in SL is made of them in one way or another (well, almost everything). Basic clothing is not, but a lot of it is, as is almost all jewelry, nice shoes and hair. You can build anything you want out of prims, but if you buy something premade, you might not be able to edit (or modify) it.

Basic lesson #1 - get some freebie prim hair and wear it. right click on it and you'll see a pie chart. Select edit. The hair will turn all glowy yellow and you'll see three axi represented by a red, blue and green arrow. Click on an arrow and drag. Your hair will move about on your head. Use this to adjust your hair into the right position. You will also need to do this with jewelry and shoes. With jewelry, sometimes it helps to use the stretch tool to resize it to fit you better. Stretch is in the menu that pops up when you hit edit.

Practice with freebie stuff before you do it with something you care about.

/me is breathless with anticipation!!

If you need me to have another go, just shout! Hope you like the boots!

The common solution is to make an avatar that begins to look sickly - no ass, stick figured thighs - it loses the curves that makes a woman look like a well developed adult instead of a heroin-chic coathanger model. This is why there are so many avatars out there with huge pneumatic breasts but because the av skirtmesh is so big, the ass only looks right in skirts when the bottom half of the woman looks like it's an Ethiopian.

If she is happy with the shape she has, the only gap is to learn how to adjust prim clothing.

As for what is a prim... I'm tired of giving that explanation, someone else pick up the slack?

Ok then. Anyway, I, by no means am looking to have a skinny little avatar..I actually want to make her more curvy, but because of my recent clothing malfunction, I figured that if I made her bigger, the clothes would disappear alltogether.

I dont think of my avi-self as an Ethiopian, LOL, but I actually find alot of the prim skirts and prim belts are too big. I assumed it was because alot of the female avis I see in-world have over-exaggerated curves. I find that a combination of tweaks on the skirt itself, and sometimes to my shape, gets a very realistic result. I dont think of it as an affront to my woman-hood, or in anyway an insult, to tweak things so I look my best. I will agree though, I find I adjust the clothing more than my shape. The only thing I usually have to adjust is bring in my butt size a touch on some skirt outfits I have. Other than that, I usually have to adjust the skirt, not my shape.

There are places that do pretty good looking dreads. When I remember the names I'll let you know

@ Sinabunz...... when you wear a prim skirt, as in one of those that move instead of being painted on, make sure you wear the so-called glitchpants underneath and you'll be perfectly decent.

Seriously the bubble butt problem is a real one. Slacks and jeans look great, but no skirt, unless it's a prim one, looks right. That's reason enough to use a modifiable shape.




Yes, I've had that happen too. Price is sometimes not indicative of quality. There are some stores that have excellent product though. I wish more clothing makers would offer demos of their styles though. Sinabunz, check out Blaze if you haven't. The clothes there don't "show through" and all the dresses have a demo you can get.

Do a web search and find one of those drawings that show the proportions of human anatomy. The key measurement is the head...a "well proportioned" human is about eight heads high. A smaller head (8 1/2 heads high) gives the classic comic book "superhero" proportions. A larger head makes the person look more childlike.

The diagram will show other useful proportions, like where to place the waist, arm length, hand size, facial feature placement, and so on. You may want to upload it and paste it onto a box to serve as a reference in-world.

Get the head/body proportions right first, regardless of your avatar height. Then adjust the height to suit you. Note that people tend to be taller in SL than in RL. My avatar stands 5'7" in bare feet, a little on the tall side for a RL woman...but I'm quite short, compared to most of my SL friends. The appearance sliders are not an accurate height measurement...rez a box of the correct size and use it to measure your height.

By the way, a box is a "prim", or primitive. So are any of the other basic geometric shapes in the Create menu. SL is made up of these objects, in various combinations. Plus, of course, the underlying land and us avatars.

Clothing is made up of two different things. First, there are a number of "clothing layers" that are a part of the avatar itself. Socks, gloves, shirt, pants, skirt, etc. When appropriately textured, these layers form most of the clothing we wear. Some of their features (sleeve length, for example) can be altered with the appearance sliders. Other clothing parts are made out of prims...especially shoes, flexible skirts, and hair. These items can be edited like any other prim object, with the object Edit menu (right click/Edit). They are attached to one of about 27 attachment points (skull, nose, chest, pelvis, r/l hand, etc) on your avatar. Only one item per attachment point at a time...so if you put on a prim belt, the prim skirt you were wearing might disappear. Oopsie!

No matter what else you do to your shape, set your foot size to 0. This is the standard for women's shoes in SL, and it will save you hours of tedious re-sizing your shoes.

The "acceptably human" range in the appearance sliders is surprisingly narrow. For many of the settings, a difference of only one or two numbers will produce a significant change in appearance. So go slowly and make small changes. Also, many of the settings interact with one another, so don't be afraid to go back and tweak things a second or third or fourth time. But don't be afraid to experiment, either...one of the most beautiful women I've met in SL has gorgeous up-tilted slanty eyes...very rare, or even nonexistent, on a RL woman, but striking nonetheless.

When tweaking your shape, be sure to check your changes from different camera angles, not just the front view. And leave the hair off, so you can clearly see your skull and jaw shape.

I'll send you a landmark tonight. One the few times I didn't actually take a picture.

Called Adimu.
Here is one that I got here:
http://shop.onrez.com/item/338408
Also got this one here:
http://shop.onrez.com/item/310274

Judge for yourself (I mean after you try the demos, like many places, don't judge just by the picture on the box ). I do not think I like dreadlocks. not sure. I mean in general. Well, I could say the same for ponytails. I like long flowing hair, most of the time. Strange, I know.


Just a friendly warning. While I love Blaze, they are transfer not copy, so when my favorite dress had the prim skirt disappear completely from inventory, I was very very sad. I still sometimes wear a Blaze dress but it just makes me very sad.

RIP Favorite Dress:

A sad lonely bugle now plays.

Just a friendly warning. While I love Blaze, they are transfer not copy, so when my favorite dress had the prim skirt disappear completely from inventory, I was very very sad. I still sometimes wear a Blaze dress but it just makes me very sad.

Excellent advice. Thank you so much. This was extremely helpful. I am very impressed with how much people are willing to help. It's very refreshing.