smoky avatar

It seems that one particular person's avatay in SL won't load, appearing in front of me as smoke. is there anything I can do to correct this?

There is nothing you can do to make another av load properly, but you can set it so that you see Ruths and not smoke. I don't remember where I found that setting but it must be somewhere in the Advanced menu.

Maybe smokey is a bot whose owner hasn't yet learned to do it properly

Focus you camera on that person, change your active group, and zoom in and out a bit on the cloud. Don't ask me why it works, but for some odd reason it does about 75% of the time.

You might also want to make sure the other person is not intentionally a cloud.

does using Emerald have any effect?

Sorry this is incorrect, 99% of the time I can make a avatar who starts out as a cloud rezz in world in front of me, all you have to do is change your group, it kicks starts the avatar in for some reason.

Changing groups has had no effect : (

That will be the 1% then

PS it's you that changes group, not the cloud avatar.

I've never heard of the change-group trick. Good info

I'm not aware that Emerald has any effect on it.

Are you sure it's not a bot? There are reasons why some bots remain as clouds.

it works because you make the rez all about them..

like with shopping..i'll right click all the images i was the see..some reason it speeds up getting them out of the gray..then i zoom to each one and the blur goes away pretty quick..

it used to make builds rez faster too..like when you would port somewhere and nothing be there..then a prim shows up..if you right click that prim it causes others to start to rezz..

it's a freaky world we play in LOL

Did you accidentally Mute that person? I'm thinking that muted people remain clouds - or they did at one time.

no they aren't muted, or a bot. we've both changed groups several times as well with no effect

get the other person to use the advanced menu (ctrl alt D), then character, character tests, test male/female

They'll pop up eventually but will have to re-"dress"

if they go into appearance then back out..it usually will speed it up for you to see them also..

If you're using Flight Feather: go outside, click on the feather, and select "deruth".

It's a ride.

Well we've tried everything and still just smoke. the puzzling thing is it's just this one avatar, and it's a personal friend. and it appears that everyone else sees this person as smoke as well, so it's on her end of things...to make matters even weirder, she has another AV she signed in with , on the same computer, and she cannot see herself. I should mention that this is a new account and is age verified. Any preference changes or such that could help?

Did your friend try:

1. Open Advanced Menu. CTRL+ALT+D
2. Go to Advanced/Character/Character Tests/Test Female

That should make her appear as the default female avatar, the girl in the pink polka dot dress and ponytail.

Then she can put on her normal shape, skin, etc.

Note that there is a freebie hair item with various names (mine is called Cloud Hair) that produces this unrezzed-avatar cloud appearance when worn.

If the above does not work, your friend should a) check her internet connection b) completely uninstall the SL client and associated files, c) reboot her computer and her router and DSL or cable modem, and d) reinstall SL.

We've done the Character Test, it was no help. I guess it's unload and reload time. What's strange is her other AV works fine

Just a couple of days ago, a friend's avi somehow got borked and LL had to get involved to fix it -- their shape or skin or something else worn had gotten corrupted.

Something is corrupted in the data pertaining to that particular avatar, then. If the reinstall doesn't fix it, file a support ticket with LL. It may be on their end.

When I go all cloudy and it does happen, I typed (worn) in my inventory tab and systematically removed all my clothes, skin, shape etc. until I rezzed. You will reappear .....eventually. Maybe one of the items worn is corrupted. Find a low lag quiet sim and pop under the sea for privacy. Hair and attachments are usually the main culprits. Someone did give me a notecard for re-rezzing clouds, so if your friend IM's me inworld I'll dig it out. I don't recall if the advice was anything different to what the other folks here have said, but it may be worth knowing.

My shape got pretty well corrupted several years ago.


My Avatar looks pretty good though.

Put a different one on.