Suntanning Skin

Has anyone tried to make a skin that will darken over time while sunbathing?
Giving the effect of suntanning?

I know it can be done manually with the skin slider while editing appearance. Is there a way to script it?

Cool idea, but there's not really a way to do it very well. Avatars parts cannot be scripted, so getting the skin itself to change autonomously is out.

I suppose one possible method would be to attach a light to yourself that casts an increasingly brownish hue over time, but it would affect everything in the vicinity, not just the avatar.

Another idea would be to cover yourself in semi-transparent tan prims that become more opaque over time. If you worked at it enough, it's conceivable you could make the effect somewhat convincing.

Beyond that, I'm out of ideas.

Multiple Skins.
I have a great one that's deep tanned, complete with a 'cottontail'.
I put it on at the nude beach...just to let everyone know that I'm NOT a frequent visitor!

Hahaha

Great idea , but it can't really be automated unless there is a way to cause the servers to rebake the avatar textures in an endless loop. As far as I know that can't be done. Putting on a new skin would accomplish the same thing.

Thanks to all of you for the replies. I couldn't find a way to do it either. At least I'm glad to know that I wasn't missing something.

I have one of Nammsor's skins. I just used the sliders to slowly darken it and make tan lines stand out during the summer.

I am now going back to my fair look. It only takes a few seconds, ever so often. I copied down the slider numbers before I started. So, now I can go back to where I started.

Jen

Could this be done by writing a script, worn on the body somewhere, which gradually dons new skins? Like a series of slightly deeper tanned skins, and every few minutes the script puts a darker one on?

It sounds like people were assuming the script would need to be embedded in the skin itself, or that the skin itself would have to change colors. But if scripts can at least change the skin you're wearing, this would bypass that problem.

If scripts can't even select which skin you wear at all, perhaps it'd be possible to put a pixel-thick layer of prims over the body, and change that? Or would such a thin layer run into problems bending with the body shape? If bending wasn't a problem, this might work either with the prims having their own texture, or just being grey alpha channel and getting increasingly grey textures loaded on them over time.

At the very worst, perhaps one could simply have a folder with a whole bunch of increasingly tanned skins, and a script which pops up a reminder to manually put on a darker one, every N minutes.

I don't claim to know what I'm talking about, as I'm relatively new to SL design, but in my time as a computer wizard I've learned that any time someone says "it can't be done", it probably can, just not in the obvious, straightforward way. A few years ago I was told "javascript can't talk back and forth to the server" by a customer's tech management, so naturally I wrote that customer a system which did exactly that.

There's probably some kludge to make a skin tan, regardless of whether I know enough yet to do it. It just may break some rules.

Unfortunately there's no way to script clothing changes. It would be cool though. We could do things like have clothes that get wet when exposed to water, or paintball uniforms that show splotches when hit. Alas, the only way to do such things currently is to manually change clothes or skin.

If we ever get additional texture layers that can be stacked in any order it would be great if one of the things you could put in a layer is a script that controls what texture is there. Doubt we'll ever see that though.

If one was crazy enough, it could be done through time delayed macros (actions) in Photoshop, overwriting the client side color layers from a single set of skin files. One would still need to remember to rebake the skin textures every 10 minutes roughly. Also, one would need to have access to all the layers in the skin's master files for controling the effect. The only glitch I can see is if one was to rebake the textures at the moment the files were being saved and end up with a tanned upper body and a slightly less tanned lower body or any other combination of that sort.

Too much hassle for the effect IMHO.

How about the idea of making a very fine prim layer over the body? Am I correct that the problem would be making it flex with the wearer?