(See today's Ophelia's Gaze for a discussion of this issue that is more balanced and includes some photos that show just how good mesh avatars and clothing can look!)
Alas, mesh clothing has a problem as things stand now. They can take into account your skeleton, which is affected by some of your appearance settings (height, leg length, torso length, et al.), but not by a lot of others (e.g. body fat, love handles, breast size). Apparently the current solution is to use an alpha mask to hide the parts of your body that mesh clothing is supposed to cover, so that it will appear to do so even if you have, for example, a shape that makes Sir Mix-A-Lot happy. In other words--currently you have to adapt your shape to mesh clothing.
If you want mesh clothing to fulfill its promise, I join Ophelia in urging you to vote for and watch JIRA issue CTS-693. (LL hasn't taken away voting as it seemed they would earlier, but my understanding is they pay a lot more attention to people willing to put up with the email generated by an issue, which is what watching entails.) This proposal will let mesh clothing take your shape into consideration, so that it really fits around you. If you want serious booty, you should be able to have it, and your clothes should work with it rather than forcing you to hide it.
(UPDATE: CTS-693 has apparently been moved to an internal LL JIRA, so the above link is broken. In the publicly visible SL JIRA, it received over 470 votes in a few days.)
Now... the meshophobes will no doubt point and laugh, BUT... as we've pointed out (perhaps more times than you care for if you've read this blog for long) the current painted-on clothing has an issue with adapting to one's shape as well. It "fits" your shape, all right--by being stretched or shrunk to fit. It's as if in RL you went to buy clothes and found that everything was made of rubber and made for a size 6. You get to put it on and stretch it to fit over the appropriate portion of your body, with the pattern stretching and blurring as well. Real clothing actually uses more cloth for larger sizes! Clothes should have the opportunity to adapt to your shape, including the cloth patterns. Please also consider voting for and following JIRA issue VWR-10839.
2 comments:
I've come to see all the hype about mesh is nothing more than a big let down.
I am not a mesh creator but I am married to someone who is and is very deep in to Max3D, having even created many amazing mesh objects already.
I was eager for mesh clothing but it all now seems pointless. Mesh clothing does not know how your body looks.
"Not everyone will be able to wear mesh clothing without changing themselves..."
I will be one of those people. :)
Mesh avatars will be limited to clothing options designed for those mesh avatars only. For myself who likes to mix and match clothing, this is another mesh dead end for me.
From what I've learned from what and listening to my wife, mesh will make excellent airplanes, tress, houses, furniture...and furries. :)
While mesh is still brand new in SL, it has been highly active in the beta mesh grid. It's not like everyone is just starting out.
There are many talented individuals who have been creating with the new mesh design for months. All the hype about mesh from a year ago was tossed aside once people began building.
I'm willing to put my foot in my mouth...but so far mesh works great, if I'm willing to change how I look and to be limited in my clothing options. :)
Mesh clothing is out of the picture, at least for now.
However, shoes and jewelry, furniture, vehicles and just about anything that doesn't need to conform to an avatar looks great!
I think that mesh has a lot of wonderful applications in SL as it is, one of them just isn't clothing :(
I'd love to see that change!
Post a Comment