Good morning SL! I have a lot of things I want to blog about this week, but first I need to get this off my chest. I love mesh, and I don’t mind modifying my shape to fit, but I do mind having to reconstruct my whole body.
For example, I’ve been dying to wear this Breeze Kimono Jacket from Leverocci for a few weeks now. When I put the jacket on (in this case, a Medium), I found the shape bulky, especially around the shoulders. I could have worn a Small size, but it didn’t fit my waist, and parts of the kimono went into my waist. So I went with the next best size, Medium, which has a pretty decent fit — but it gave me broad shoulders, so I modified my shape and made my shoulder-width 10 points less on the slider. Also, my boobs didn’t fit, so I had to decrease that by a lot (to 40 points). Even though this jacket is adorable, you’d have to ‘work’ pretty hard to wear it. I also found that it shifts around a bit (rigged badly) when I change my poses.
I’ve always been very open to modding my shape to fit mesh clothing, but not so much for hair.
When I tried on this Flint hairstyle from Ploom, even with the alpha, it didn’t fit at all. The alpha took out too much around the forehead, and still didn’t fix the sides showing. The picture below actually shows the good side, the other side poked through a lot more! Usually I’ll mod my forehead to fit mesh hair, if my forehead shows through the hair, but I don’t like touching my head shape overall. It required too many sliders tweaking to get a balanced look.
Before | After (with new head shape & new alpha)
After I talked to a couple of friends about not wanting to mod my head shape, two of whom told me that my head is too round, I decided to elongate my face a lil bit, to see if I can “fit into” this hairstyle. My new head shape fits the hair better, but I also still couldn’t use the alpha that came with the ploom hair, so I found something from another brand that took the sides out. I think this new head shape still looks like “me,” only a lil bit longer and less round.
Anyway, I can live with making reasonable modifications to fit mesh items, but I know that many people would not make a single tweak. There are some brands in SL that fits right out of the box, so I tend to stick with them.
How much are you willing to modify your shape, to fit into mesh items?
What I’m Wearing:
Ploom – Flint (High) Ploomage
Leverocci – Breeze Kimono Jacket (M) Pearl @ faMESHed
Cherry Girl – Kitty Tattoo
BOOM – Solid Unders (Black) Classic
Monso – My Bunny HeadBand (Black)
About Post Author
I will mod for mesh, but only 10-15 points or so, I am not going to drastically change my shape for anything
When mesh first hit the grid, I was having huge issues with it fitting my body. Especially with the Elikatira hairs which I found didn’t fit my head at ALL. Once I started moving things around, I noticed something about mesh and shapes. You just have to move a little bit and modify your shape just a tad in certain areas. I found that with hairs – it’s the forehead slope. With clothing – a slight movement in the shoulders, saddlebags, and a bit in the breast area that won’t change your shape completely.
I know that a couple of hair stores (Lamb and .ploom.) both have used others shapes to help out with the fitting of mesh hairs. (I’ve given them samples of my shapes.)
The biggest thing with fitting shapes and I think Maribel Button did a great job on her blog post about it, is that standard fitting really does help out in the long run. Unless you have HUGE hips and breasts, I don’t see that there is quite a problem. I personally run a small or medium in most mesh items. Hair – there is a bit of a tweak at times, but like I said, forehead sloping.
Right, forehead sloping usually does the trick for me too, unless the hair is too narrow, then I have to reshape my whole head (in this case).
I don´t mind changing for mesh at all as long as the overall look is still the same.
Welcome to my world. BTW does Leverocci use standard sizing? I also had the same issue with that ploom hair.
I’m willing to take down my chest and butt size a LITTLE. I won’t mod my head for any hair. I don’t like the way mesh hair looks on me, though, so this hasn’t been a problem (I find it looks too flat against my head, and I prefer a little flexi in my hair when I move).
However, if I have to mod my shoulders for a mesh shirt/dress, I won’t buy it. Some of the mesh clothing I’ve encountered gives too much of a shoulder slope/slump that I think makes me look like I have really bad posture. I don’t find that particularly attractive.
I used to pride myself on having a chubbier av than most in SL.
She wasn’t fat, just curvier (without gigantic boobs to match).
Then Mesh, soon followed by Standard Sizing came in, and when I molded my shape to the standard Large it was… ugly… Blockish and manish, frumpy as opposed to curvey.
So I scaled down to a Medium and am … quite happy with it, though sometimes I look at my av and feel almost ashamed at how thin it looks…
But now it’s medium, and I refuse to alter beyond that (er aside of increasing boob perkiness for bustiere tops or something).
The 4-5 good and reputable high producers of Mesh clothing have never let me down, but then there’s a few brands who claim to be standard but simply aren’t. I won’t name names, but there’s one ‘skanky’ kind of clothing store who decided the Standard boob sizes were too small, so when I try on their demo’s there’s inches between my boobs and their demo’s… grr!c
Yeah I don’t mind changing my shape a bit, but I generally stick to standard sizes. Even stores that arent “perfect” to the standard, tend to be closer than most. I am a bit biased though and wary to shop non standards because I find I have to change my shape to extremely to adjust to it. That said, Ive noticed (and this includes my own work). It’s a bit of a learning curve with modeling and weighting. Before I thought we had to model around the avatar, but I then realized for a better fir you have to model and have it clip into the av and the alpha cuts out most of the issue. I know for me, my stuff is still a bit big but getting much better. All about progression! A thing to bare in mind, many of us havent been doing mesh, or even 3d design as long as the damien fates, maitreya’s, celoes and mon tissu’s of the world have. I’d honestly give it another 6mo-year before a lot of those learning eventually catch up in weighting, and model quality. I have to say though, even without the perfections, its really brought back my enjoyment for creating in sl. I love seeing the progression.
<3
I never had a problem with making a skirt shape for a system skirt because there the idea was to compensate for the skirt adding volume and trying to reach a final result that matched your initial shape. It is the same with tweaking lips (maybe nose) for a skin; for me I’ll do such tweaks if the end result means a similar look to what I started with, only with different slider numbers.
But I won’t tweak for mesh because the tweaks that I need wouldn’t result in a similar look when I was done. If I take off 5-10 points of body fat or 5-10 points of muscle, that is a radical change to the overall appearance of the shape. If the issue was breast size or butt size, I could perhaps see tweaking down a little, but my problem (at least with standard sizes) is too much body fat and muscle and too little breast or butt. And if there’s anything I want even less than reduced fat or muscle it is larger breasts or butt.
So, I wear a few pieces that happen to work while crossing my fingers for the deformer.
^^^ So much this. I couldn’t have said it better. 🙂
Have you read Luna Jubilee’s post on mesh fitting? She was able to change her shape for standard sizing without changing her look at all. It is identical, just using different sliders to get the same results. It’s actually very cool. http://lunajubilee.com/2012/05/05/tutorial-fitting-mesh/
I know how to mod my shape, and do it for every single mesh item. But with the head, it is a bit trickier and definitely will change the overall SHAPE of the face.
This might help you, if you feel uncomfortable altering your shape for mesh.
It helped me.
http://maribelbutton.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/on-mesh/
By no means did I actually keep the guidelines. If I wanted to be more rounded in places I raised the bar for those sections. Such as, fitting into mediums. My butt and hips do and I decreased the torso more to retain and slimmer look. It is all about slightly changing a few sliders, and you still retain your look.
Hi GoGo =)
I typically go up or down on the dimension slider by 5 points. That is USUALLY the norm for me. Recently with a mesh bikini, I had the scale all over the place just to make an avi pair of boobs fit! I had to laugh about it, maybe because I could see that the results would be worth the time spent, or maybe I just really liked this bikini. LOL, who knows? But all in all it worked out in the end, and I was pleased with the results. Mesh is just something we all have to adapt to when it comes to editing our avi’s shapes. And this is when the “save” shape click comes into good use for when we “dont” use mesh clothes.
From a guy’s standpoint….it should be easier for two obvious reasons (and our hips and thighs dont tend to be such an issue either). But I have now got 23 slightly tweaked different mesh shapes for different mesh designers. Standard sizing can only go so far I guess. I bought some mesh jockey shorts today and none of the sizes worked for me…even though the designer (Wendy Starfall who also included a lovely notecard about mesh issues) had provided an amazing 18 different size options.
Changing my thigh area was pretty easy and doesnt bother me; I just wont change my face or become too much of a chunky hunk.
LOL! “Chunky Hunk”
What’s wrong with a round head? I like your round head.
I was born with a rounder head shape, and thus I try to emulate it in SL as well.
Im fine with making minor modifications to fit into mesh, so far most hairs work fine on my head, other than a few styles that frame the face and are too narrow to be flattering to my features. I find that mesh fitting is along the lines of getting a system skirt to fit… you go smaller because when you wear the mesh it gives the illusion of your properly proportioned shape. But as others mentioned I find the shoulders the hardest to fit at times, pretty much the only slider that will fix that is the body fat and torso muscles, and when you decrease them too much your arms almost get a concave look to them, I don’t mind slimming down a little, but skinny arms just don’t work with the rest of my shape, even slimmed down as it is to fit into medium standard sizing for mesh.
I don’t mind a few tweaks here and there. Before mesh, I always altered my boobs anyway, because in some outfits they just looked too “out” there. My avatar is more on the curvier side. I find Hucci tops and skirts (Medium) fit me best. Celoe fits me quite nice as well, after some very minor tweaks. I did make a copy of my avatar shape so I could keep a separate one so I didn’t have to keep making slider adjustments for mesh items that require a lot more adjustment.
Surprisingly (to myself!) my favorite thing about mesh is HAIR. Most mesh hair I have fits me nicely. If it pokes through my head, even with an alpha, I don’t buy it. I just love wearing long, sculpted styles that MOVE with my avi…love it love it love it. Exile is my favorite, they have the best shades of red.
not at all,
my shape is the only part of my avatar I made, the only part that’s completely unique and not just uniquely combined. If it doesn’t fit i won’t wear it, only exception are temporary leg/hip tweaks for mermaid-tails or overall shape-tweaks, when i feel like changing Shuri’s base-skin, but want her to still look like “Shuri”.
Luckily the small size fits her quite well and i didn’t have any problems with mesh hair i liked, so far.
I wear mesh hair and shoes and love them. The mesh clothes I demo…..if it doesn’t fit my avi, I wont buy it, I like the fact that my avi doesn’t look like every other avi. I think that as a consumer I should not have to conform to what SL designers deem a “standard Size” Gods know we have enough of that bunk in RL.
i have been pretty lucky and fit into the mesh i buy. i only buy mesh from a few stores though.
what is bugging me today is i went leverocci for their sale and two tops and a pair of shorts later i have giant gaps of invisibility where the leg meets the seam of the shorts and in my cleavage, can you fix alphas so they don’t do that? grrr that grinds my gears.
I had zero problems with the kimono jacket but the hair didn’t fit me at all and I really really wanted it to work! My head shape is already more longish than round so the changes I would have had to make to fit this hair would make me look completely different so I had to pass on it. Unfortunately mesh just can’t fit us all =
I have no problems doing minor adjustments to my body shape but if it takes a lot of work I have to pass on the clothes too. Not because I don’t want to change my body type (you are already doing that just by wearing mesh) but because I’m lazy lol and I already have several versions of my shape.
Altho the top is cute & I like Ploom hair, especially that style, I would not go to the trouble for THAT many modifications. I do actually like to get out of my SL house & explore once in awhile lol. Boobs down to 40 is too low in my opinion, low as I like to go is 45 max & having to search for another alpha for the hair is beyond my limits of patience. But you put together a great look in the end. I think the head tweak still does look like you but I really get BUGGED when I have to mess too much with head modifications. I don’t like to mess with my face haha. This wouldn’t be worth it to me.
I will not change my shape for mesh. An alpha is as far as i will go. My avie is RL me. I’m short and curvy and that’s that. Now clothing in SL is just like clothing in RL. You need to find the store that works for you. For example, I can’t wear Jane’s mesh, but Cold Logic’s medium is a perfect fit.
I love mesh, but for hairs all I’m prepared to mod are my ears and I’ve been pretty lucky that that’s all I’ve needed to tweak so far.
For clothing all I’ll fiddle with is boobs. I can’t be fussed with anything else.
I’ve not had any issue with mesh hair yet. But I do seem to have issues with standard sizing not really being standard. When I first started with mesh, I used the sizing guidelines for a small. Most pants/skirts i am a small. Tops not so much. I usually have to go to medium. So when it comes to dresses, they look a little odd on me. I’ve also found some places where i can fit into a xs. I’d just be happy if they all went with the same measurements.
I just don’t like mesh stuff. My avi isn’t too tall or too slim, or either too curvy, but mesh things just don’t fit on me. I know that most desigers are now crazy about creating only mesh stuff and I’m sorry about that. I like nice flexy dresses and tops that fit nicely on my body. I really hope that designers will continue making old fashoned clothes too, because chanching my shape for mesh things isn’t option for me. Only mesh thing i do like are feet.
I wish more designers would do dresses that simply have a mesh skirt prim instead of 100% mesh. You get to keep your shape and still have the smooth look of rigged mesh over the skirt area. And it allows for sheer dresses. 100% mesh dresses cant be sheer because of the alpha.
I agree! I love the Westbury Mini skirt and Oxford skirt from Mon Tissu.
Personally I think that the whole idea of fitting yourself to the clothes (or hair, or whatever) rather then them to you is anathema to the whole concept of Second Life.
If I want clothes than don’t fit me I can shop in RL.
I agree with Lark. A huge amount can be achieved with judicious use of Mesh rather than throwing yourself headlong into 100% Mesh.
I blogged about this in my resent “Oh what a Mesh!” article (apologies for the Odeur du Fromage title. LOL)
http://beccapet.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/oh-what-a-mesh/
i’ve been pretty lucky with hair, a long time ago i made my headshape using a notecard from ETD and never messed with it afterwords. so far every mesh hair creator has fit me with absolutely no adjustment what so ever. i consider that a win.
my biggest issues came with my body shape, i’ve finally gotten myself into a nice happy M in standard sizing and that’s where i plan to stay. now the only thing i have to edit is my boobs once in a while.
I personally think a lot of mesh creators are jumping the gun and not yet finding the potential mesh offers. I think a good handful think YAY MESH! and just make something as fast as they can while it’s new and hot. Either way, I am having a little bad luck with mesh hair myself. I need things that will work for ad photos and a weird shaped hairline is a PITA unless I feel like Photoshopping which is something I try to avoid.
I’m an oldbie; I was overspending on SL clothes even before we had sculpty and flexy prims. In all my years in SL, I have *never* found a prim belt that fits me, not even once. Okay, I have an unusual shape (body thickness and body fat higher than the SL norm: not ‘fat’, but not Hollywood-starlet-skinny either). No biggie, it’s not like I *have* to have a prim belt. I do without.
But now with mesh clothing it’s *all* prim belts. I’ve tried all the standard sizes, and my size appears to be decisively non-standard. Nothing fits.
I am proud of my shape. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort on it, tweaked it to be exactly what I want. I’ll be damned if I am going to reshape myself to conform to what some clothing designer expects me to look like. If it doesn’t fit me as I am, I don’t want it.
That pretty much means I don’t buy mesh clothes at all. Maybe this will change once we have the deformer. But I consider the ‘standard sizes’ an inadequate hack, and I will vote with my L$ to back that opinion up.
Juicy,
I share your pain but likely moreso. My avi is “fat” by SL standards and “Curvy” by RL standards. I can wear the Slink boots (I <3 you Slink), mon tissue stuff, and a few other creators.
As for hair (since I bought one of your shapes and modded the body (didn't touch the face) I am having a hard time with Ploom and Lelutka on getting them to fit without showing gaps on the sides 🙁