Yes, the title of this post is swiped from
Love in the Time of Cholera. I never even watched it, and I didn't realize I was swiping the name until I just did it, so pfft!
Things are crazy, huh? I work in healthcare (not as a clinical worker, thankfully; I provide administrative support in an academic hospital), and it's been pretty scary. I really wish the hospital where I work would let me telecommute, at least right now, but sadly, as in so many other industries, administrative workers are treated like just another piece of equipment. We're expendable...because we can be replaced.
Whatever. Outside of work hours, the introvert in me is thriving, though I guess I didn't really realize how much I'd come out of my shell until now. Yes, I spend a lot of time at home, but we go out...to movies, dinner, concerts, etc. COVID-19 has changed that.
Back In-World
A few weeks ago, out of curiosity, I logged into Second Life to see if anything had changed. Plus I missed Skaty. I guess I sort of see her as separate from myself. I mean, I created her, and I put pieces of me in her, but she is so much more than that in a way. In some ways, she is how I view my inner self.
I didn't think I'd venture back in, but I also didn't remove the SL viewer from my computer, so maybe part of me knew I would. I logged back in last week, this time deciding that while we're in a plague apocalypse, I might as well give myself another creative outlet. So this time, I downloaded the Firestorm viewer (glad to see they're still at it!)
Anyway...I started out by exploring. It's amazing how much you forget after being away for a while (I left SL circa 2012). It's also amazing how much you remember - like favorite places, etc. I headed to Fogbound Blues, which is still exactly the same as it was when I left. I was having a LOT of lag and trouble seeing some of the avatars. A note would pop up on the screen telling me how high my "avatar complexity" was. I have a fairly newish gaming PC, so it was a bit annoying. I started reading up on changes that had come to the grid in the years I'd been gone, and learned that most folks were using mesh bodies and something called "Bento" heads.
Body By...
I had some L$ left from when I left SL circa 2012, so I started first with a web search for a refresher course in How Shit Works and where I should start looking. From what I found on the web, there are several creators at the forefront of mesh bodies - Catwa, Belleza, Maitreya - and since I always loved Maitreya's hair and clothes, I opted for their Lara body. Soooo glad with my choice, since most clothing creators seem to make clothing with options specifically for that body (as well as a few others).
Mesh bodies are...let's say, while I loved my previous avatar (hell, I'd worked YEARS to make her exactly how I wanted her), mesh bodies have (a) dropped avatar complexity rates significantly (SL runs a lot smoother, less lag) and (b) made things soooo much easier! Granted, most of my old clothing is obsolete* (god, the money spent......), but what's available now is so much nicer and a LOT easier to use, and while the items LOOK a lot better, they actually contribute less to my complexity rate than prims and "regular" clothing did.
Getting A Head...
Next, I had to get a head. I watched a lot of videos aimed at newbies and people returning to the grid since the "mesh boom," and most of them recommended Catwa...but old habits die hard and having always loved LAQ for my skins, I headed there instead. I tried a lot of demos, mostly stumbling through trying to figure out how to get shit working. It's not like what I was used to - you get a new skin, you add it to your avatar and VOILA! No...with these mesh heads, you have to add it to your avatar, then make your actual "default" avatar invisible. Not really sure how to explain it other than the head and body are attachments you're putting on top of the underlying structure of your avatar. I finally went with LAQ's Noelle head, and I'm not sorry.
You can see the differences below. They may seem subtle, but they are huge.
Skaty Circa 2012
These two images will give you a fairly accurate idea of what my avatar looked like in 2012. Granted, they're edited images (the only way to get rid of some of the little imperfections of the old system bodies and skins, but you get the idea. I'll try to add more images later.
Skaty 2020
My new avatar, which I tried to get to look as close to my old one as I could, looks vastly different. I think I was able to maintain some of her personality, but I'm willing to let it go for the sheer versatility I now have in working with her appearance.
I mean...look at these hands!
System hands (below) were just kinda "there." Unless you used a pose or a poseball, they didn't do much other than just be there.
With the mesh bodies, you have a Head's Up Display (HUD) that enables you to position the fingers in a whole lot of different positions, as well as an option to "turn on" animations so that your hands will just cycle through various positions as naturally as possible. So gone are the days of hands just "being there."
And the feet...
When I left SL in 2012, the only way to get feet that pretty was to add them as a prim attachment, and even then, you could rarely get the tone to match your skin exactly. So we relied on shoes with feet in them that had straps strategically located.
The feet, like the hands, are controlled by the body's HUD, and you can change their position to fit various shoes (and like clothing, shoe designers also make shoes customized to fit various mesh bodies). The nails are also controlled via the hud. For toes, you can change the color; for hands, you can change the color, the length, and the shape of the nails.
For heads, the makeup, facial expressions, blinking, mouth options (show teeth or not, etc.) are also controlled by a HUD. Teeth on system avatars are "painted on." On mesh heads, they are actually there inside your avatar's mouth.
You can select various expressions/animations (smiling, flirting, anger, etc.), and if you want, you can set an option for your avatar to occasionally cycle through some of those. So rather than just standing around like a Stepford wife, your avatar will occasionally flash a smile or wink or something. Brows move, lips move, nose moves, etc. Makeup options are also controlled by the HUD.
A Few More Things
I never did figure out what Bento means. From what I could find, it was the name of the project Linden Labs used when they were developing "bones" for the new avatars. Previously, skins were essentially painted onto the avatar, and then clothing was painted on layers onto the skin. Now...clothing "attaches" to the avatar at points on the avatar's frame. Prim necklaces, for example, used to attach to an avatar's chin, spine, or chest. This is still the case (so thankfully, most of my old jewelry is still usable!), but now clothing also has attachment points...but a whole lot more of them! So creators can attach a sleeve to a point on the hand, a point on the elbow, and a point on the shoulder. Pants will attach to points on the legs, so when your avatar's foot moves, that part of the pants will move and flow with the foot.
As for most of my old clothing being "obsolete," that's not entirely true. There is an option called Bakes on Mesh (BOM) that you can use to be able to use those old items. You need to have a BOM applier. I haven't really figured it out yet, but I think it basically turns parts of your avatar invisible and paints the clothing onto your invisible avatar. Frankly, it seems like it might be more trouble than it's worth, but I guess if I have some old piece of clothing that I absolutely adore, I may want to mess with BOM someday. For now, though, I'm just going through my inventory and shoving some of those old things into a folder called Old Clothing (obsolete?). Who knows, maybe someday they'll figure out some other way of using them that won't be as complicated.
Summary?
A lot of folks who left SL have apparently flooded back in due to being stuck at home in quarantine. I spent most of the weekend feeling like a total newb, but that's not to say there are not still folks using system avatars (there are plenty). Strangely, while a lot has changed, a lot has also remained the same. Some of the same creators are still there (Maitreya, LAQ, Sn@tch, etc.). Bryn Oh is still creating spooky art sims. Places like Fogbound Blues and Blackheart's rock club are still going strong. People are still making their butts the size of a semi truck while their arms barely reach their waists (LOL! See
this post!) I'm enjoying visiting and playing dressup with the occasional trip to a club for friendly chat or sightseeing (went to a few museums!). I'm not sure I'll stay long because I don't want to be "owned" by Linden Labs again...but in moderation? Maybe for a bit!
Head: LeLutka EvoX - Noel
