Everything Old is New Again

Baked on Mesh is a new feature in Second Life, available now on both the official viewer and the Firestorm viewer. Basically, it allows us to wear system clothing and skin on mesh bodies. This is exciting because I, like many others, have favorite clothing and skins that were never available with adapters. So, how do you do it, and how does it look?

BOM ready mesh and system layers are coming out, but if you want to wear something that's not BOM ready, there is a work around. Just wear this with your mesh body and head: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Bake-on-Mesh-skin-applier-Omega/14391590 , click it, take off your alphas, and wear your system layers.

This is how it looks:

I'm wearing a BOM ready system skin from 7 Deadly Skins along with MOCK makeup on a system tattoo layer. The dress is from Skye Qi, and is system layers and a flexi skirt. My head is from Genus, and my body is from Maitreya. Hair is from Exxess, ears from Swallow. Note: If your system skin is not BOM ready, the hands may not line up with the nails. You can fix that with these gloves: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Rose-Nail-Gloves-White-Modifiable-Bake-on-Mesh/17933441 Toe socks are also available. Here's a photo showing nail gloves on the right:

You may have to wear Omega System relays for your specific head/body. If you see system hair on your head, wear a bald base, usually a system eyebrow layer. If you look like this, it means you are still wearing an alpha:

If you look like this, it means you're not on a BOM enabled viewer:

Pre mesh creators take heart, your clothes and skins may find a new following. Please put your clothes on Marketplace if you decide you don't need an inworld store anymore. If you want to learn how to make your own mesh, I recommend joining the inworld group, Blender Benders, to find out about free classes, both in Blender and in Avastar, a program for making mesh clothing in Blender. Or you could team up with a mesh creator to continue making original creations. Some of those pre mesh creations are still favorites and our new alts want them.

Phantom Obsession

When I first saw the 1925 silent film version of "Phantom of the Opera", I wasn't haunted by Lon Chaney's unmasked face, or even by the unrequited love story. They affected me, but what I really wanted was Christine's bed:

I always called it the swan bed, though it's shaped more like a boat. Christine, held against her will, hardly notices it, but I was captivated by the shape, the trailing drapery, the utter wonder of it.

So what happened to it? In a stroke of genius, Norma Desmond has it in "Sunset Boulevard" (1950). Gloria Swanson played a silent star trying to make a comeback, surrounded by memorabilia from her Hollywood days. And yes, it was great seeing Buster Keaton and Erich Von Stroheim again, but seeing the bed was even more thrilling.

I started Second Life in 2008, and thought, "Maybe here I can have the swan bed!" But no one had built it. In 2009 I tried to build it myself and got this far:

I tried again in 2011 with a bit more success, though it still wasn't what I wanted:

I'm telling you this to let you know that this bed is something of an obsession for me. In 2015 DRD did a Phantom gacha. I played it until i got the bed. It's nicely done but the design is a bit different, more masculine:

Skip ahead to the present, and I'm taking a Blender class. There was an assignment to make a bed. Can you guess what my first thought was? I still can't do the baroque carving, but I'm getting closer.