Curious please..how do i ..

i'm new to SL and havent been able to get to a beginner class as of yet. I just want to understand that my avatar needs to have a 'body' and then the skin of choice goes on top of this body? The skin is what makes you have the 'look' you want? Am i understanding all of this correctly.

Its hard to find the perfect skin and hair and all of that and its all so very confusing!!!

Please help in simple terms

There are a couple things that come into play. First, the avatar has a shape. That's the 'lowest layer' or level. The shape sets things like height, width, length of arms and legs, etc. It's basically the skeleton and musculature, although you never see those things. Overtop of the Shape, goes the Skin. The Skin is things like skin tone, colour, freckles, and a few other details. Then there are the Eyes. These are pretty simple, just a texture and some colour or tint I believe. Finally there is the Hair which the basic hair is just part of the shape with a texture and colour attached. The Hair also includes eyebrows, and for the gents, facial hair.

These four things, Shape, Skin, Eyes, Hair, cannot be 'taken off', but they can be replaced with other ones. There are lots of basic built-in ones, when you first log in you get one of the defaults, and then there are a dozen or two more built-in ones you can play with (Inventory -> Library -> Clothing... the 'clothings' include body parts...)

There are lots of in-world stores and designers that wll sell you very nice skins, some are amazingly realistic. Likewise, some people make Shapes, there are lots of Eyes available, and all kinds of Hair. Most of the really good Hair isn't a basic kind though, it's 'prim-hair' which is an Object you wear on your head. Like a wig, sort of.

To summarize though, when you first log in you get a default Shape, Skin, Hair, and Eyes (as well as default clothes) and the first thing you'll want to do is some editing and customizing. The beginner area, Orientation Island, has lots of inworld help to guide you through these first steps.

Good luck and have fun!

-Atashi

You're shape is the part that determines your basic features (height, weight, foot size, etc.). Like a skeleton.
Your skin is the detail (make-up) that covers it. I.E., skin.

Try Sara Nerd's freebie warehouse. They have several free skins and lots of outfits. I also suggest the Free Dove. Tonz of stuff, even free flexi prim hair! Bare Rose also has two skins for gurls that are only L$1!

I'll look for you in world Tala. I do a free AO at my shop that I'll send to you. (AO is animation overrider and changes your walks, sits, how you fly and land! I think next to prim hair and a good skin, it's the most important thing a girl needs in SL.

Welcome!!!

thanks much..whew will try to figure it all out!

Tala I just posted something to another forum here regarding the same thing! I am new too and understanding this is hard.

I went last night and bought a shape and when I put on it looked nothing like the picture did. LOL I looked awful. I fumbled franticly to find the beginer model again just so no one would see how awful I looked. LOL.

Reading Jax' post I am thinking maybe I didn't do all I needed to make this shape I bought look right. I am glad there is hope and maybe it can be fixed. It just hurts knowing I spent my money and am not happy. Being new, you need all the money you can get.

Oh and since I am here on this topic, is there anyone who could tell me if there are places that let you demo these? Just in case you don't like them you don't lose all your money.

Thanks all and Tala from one new person to another, Nice to meet you. =)

Daijah

A given skin will look drastically different on a variety of body shapes. Most skin dealers let you wear free or very cheap demo versions that will give you a chance to see how the skin will look on your shape. You can't get demo shapes though, so it's best to go skin shopping with a shape that more or less suits you.

Some shape stores have models on-site who will try on different shapes for you, and you can ask them to put on different skins to see how they differ. (Unfortunately these models are AFK more often than not, and mainly serve to boost a given shop's traffic rating.)

*wishes I had enough money to pay models for my shape shop*

Ive thought of making demo shapes with an extremely exagerated feature (such as size 100 hands and feet) as a demo but I figured newer players wouldnt understand what I was doing.

I still am wondering If I should.

Its true most skins will look different on the same shape. Generally the painted ones ar e more forgiving than the photo real ones.

Colette that was the other thing. I wasn't sure on what those were for. My shape I bought made me taller than what I already was. I felt like an amazon woman!

I am going to go out this afternoon and hopefully find a way to fix my shape and skin. Thanks all.

Lot of shape makers make the shapes near maximum heights - Some of the "big names" included.

I guess they sampled the typical crowded places and saw how tall people were without getting a broader spectrum of SL as a whole.

height 50 with length 50 legs and torso is about 5'6 so you can work from there.

I have spent a lot of time and some money om gertting my look to where I want it. Basically the shape is mine, i bought several but none of them satisfied me totally, so I just kept tweaking what I had done myself. Skins are easier as most will give you demos. Even so it took me a while to settle on that. The most important thing to remember with shape is when you have one you like, make a backup copy!. This way if you make changes and mess it up you will have the original.

I think shape is the easiest thing to fix and a waste of money to buy. Put on a default shape that is in your library, those are editable. Go into appearance and play with the sliders until you get the shape you like. That's all the people that are selling shapes are doing. They can't do anything more to a shape than you can by using the appearance editing tool and moving those sliders.

Now skins are a totally different thing. You have to know what your doing to make skins. You pretty much have to have a bit of artistic talent and a good graphics program to make skins.

As a shape designer, I can't stress enough that if you buy a shape because you really like the look, you should be prepared to buy the skin that was used to photograph that shape. The two can't really be separated and still get a pleasing result. Any shape for sale that doesn't also include notes on where to find the skin and hair is simply a waste of money.

For each of my shape offerings, I have usually tried on over a dozen different skins in order to find the one that best suits the shape I created. So not only do I include specifics as to which skin and where to buy it, I also include at least 3 or 4 photographs of the "honorable mentions," the skins that also looked good but had a different result than I was looking for. This allows the purchaser to avoid the time-consuming process of searching out skin demos and know exactly what they can get in a variety of options.

It's the detailed skin, hair, eye and clothing info, plus vendor landmarks, that I think makes my shape product worth buying, not just the shape itself. I'm designing an entire look and attitude for an avatar, not just a set of body part values.

It's a good idea- just put a note in big letters saying 'HANDS INTENTIONALLY CLOWNLIKE' or something.

Speaking of your shapes, I wonder if you recognize any of your work? (Please note: The page I linked to is completely safe for work, but if you browse to any other posts there, most of them are not.)

Exactly. The hard part is to remeber that people in SL tend to be oversized. I'm set a 70 in height and there are a lot of taller girls around. If you are new, i suggest Sin Skins. They have a nice freebie skinn pack for Avi's under 30 days. But shop around there are a lot of quality ski dealers out there. Also ETD has some nice freebie hair as well.

One more question if I may all? The hair...I have purchased hair and I love it. Once you find the shape and skin you want can you change hair? I mean if I have like 3 styles can I change them if I choose without it affecting the shape and skin?

You can change prim hair as often as your heart desires.

Yes hair is interchangeable, like a wig. Sometimes though they may need to be adjusted slightly to fit the head.

Most of the time, yes.

Ideally, the prim hair you get will be Copy/Mod/No Transfer, meaning you can make a copy to tweak (resize, tint, etc), but you can keep a backup of the original in case you mess up. I THINK you can still resize No-Mod items, but it seems like there's a more of a limitation on what you can do, sizing-wise. I'd have to be in-world to say for sure.

EDIT: Ah wow, I totally misread the question. As others have said: Yes. And the great thing is, if all your body parts (hair, skin, shape, eyes) allow copying, you can even use the Make Outfit feature in the Appearance dialog, which will make a folder containing your entire look. Then you can switch to any of those full-body combinations by right-clicking the folder and picking 'Add to Outfit' or 'Replace Outfit.' If any of the items are no-copy, you'll only be able to put them in one of those outfit folders.

And don't forget your bald cap! Nothing ruins a nice wig like SL mesh hair peaking out around the edges. *shudder* There are some lower prim hairstyles which require a little mesh, but the maker will provide it.

Yes the bald cap! And sometimes the bald cap will cause your eyebrows to diappear, so you may have to adjust that, depending on the skin. Some hair makers include eybrows in various colors wth the hair.

You wear a "bald cap" to cover your linden hair. The prim hair is like a wike. Always remember to adjust the hair though. Nothing worse than a bad wig! lol Edit and stretch, it'll enlarge a bit all over so that it fits your head! Long ~ short ... adjust the wig, not the shape. Hope that answers. XD