Mesh heads are Clones!

I hear that a lot, 'Mesh heads look like clones'. Granted, each one has its own look and some are more versatile than others. Still, even before bento, there were so many heads out there and so many skins and makeups for them that they didn't really look that much alike. Now, with bento, you can change the shape of your head almost the same as you can a system skin.

Here's the Catya mesh head from Catwa in it's default skin and shape:

Here it is after I changed the shape:

I made the mouth and eyes a little bigger, shaped the nose, tweaked it here and there. Here's that shape wearing 9 skins:

Everything is the same except for the skins. If I can look this many ways on one shape, so can everyone else who has the head. Change the shape, hair, clothes, makeup, and skin tones. How many looks are possible? How many looks are possible with a system head? It doesn't matter to me at all if you wear a mesh head or a system head. There's room for everything in our wonderful world of SL. All I ask is that you think before you tell me I'm a clone because I choose to wear a mesh head.

Landscape With Owl

It's cold and snowy for me both in Real Life and in Caledon Moors. Snow is still fun this early in the season, and this lovely setting made by Luna Bliss captures the mood well. Like most avatars, I'm collecting Advent gifts. This outfit is from !Go! I'm wearing Valentine pants from Day 2 and Dagna Frill Sweater from Day 12. Most of !Go!'s Advent offerings have been mix and match. The textures are lovely. Look at the sheen on the lace in photo below:

To complete the look, I added Xmas Owl Scarf, a gift from MoonAmore+Cureless. My beret was a gacha prize from offbeat called 'I Believe'. It has an eye in a triangle patch, which I love. :) My Jewelry is from PurpleMoon's Advent Calendar, Day 10. My hair is Mara from little bones. It's available at the current Winter Solstice Event. It comes with hairpins to hold the waves and an animation hud for taking them off or arranging the hair. My boots are from G Field.

These wonderful John Lennon glasses are an Advent gift from Yasum, Day 12. You get several versions with different metal and lens options. My nails are from Nailed It, and came from the KittyCats Advent. My eyebrow applier is Ice Queen from #adored. It came from the Winter Solstice event.

Credits:

Usual Catwa head with Maitreya Body and Vista Pro hands

Wind light: *Starley* Settings 2 and Torley Foggy Fogvari

Hacking Bento

OK, I confess, I'm not a hacker, but I feel like one after saving $4000L on a Bento HUD. I'm talking about the HUD one can buy separately for the Catya head. I understand that a huge amount of work went into the head, and I believe artists should be compensated. My problem is that I only use about 10 animations out of the 500+ that the head can do, so I really didn't want to spend $5000L for it. I was really excited when I heard that the animations in the HUD would be available separately. Unfortunately, you can't put those animations into the HUD that comes with the head. All you can do is click on them to play them. That's ok, but Catwa's HUD that plays the animations is what sets it apart from other Bento enabled heads.

So I tried something, and it actually worked. \o/  I bought the animations I wanted, and put them into an empty AO that I got at Oracul. (The one that came with the Oracul bento hands that I blogged about earlier) I put them into the stand section in the notecard. (I'm assuming you know how to add animations to an AO. It's just like that.) Then I loaded the modified notecard and wore it with my regular AO. One AO makes my body move and the other moves my face.

It won't play eye and lip animations at the same time like the Catwa HUD does, so it's not as nice, but if you don't have $5000L or only want to make a few expressions, this is a way to do it. And, wearing only my Maitreya body, Catya head, Vista pro hands, Maitrya HUD, Catwa main HUD, and two AO's, it's 33 scripts. That's with no hair or clothes.

So there you have it. If you want it. :D

Urban Goddess Deck

Gingko Dryad

Normally unseen, the Gingko Dryad can sometimes be glimpsed in a swirl of leaves. She can be found in city parks and yards, anywhere gingko trees grow. When visible, she often looks like a young woman, wearing natural materials such as snakeskin. Her jewelry, if any, generally has a natural theme as well. She could be anyone, on the edge of vision, an anonymous woman going to a club. Gingko Dryads love to dance.

Credits

Dress: Solaris from PurpleMoon (advent gift)

Gingko Accessories from *Naminoke* (now at We Love Role Play)

Hair: Gracia from Phoenix

Necklace: Maiklu from Plastik (from a recent hunt)

Catwa eyes with Euphoric Jade applier 

Hypnose eye reflector from FussyxFoxcity

The usual: Maitreya body, Catwa's Catya head

Skin applier: Atomic. Gacha Elf in sugar (at the Arcade now) 

Location: Zahra's Garden

Windlight: Phototools Lo Light 04

Bento!

Two Second Life companies have made Bento enabled hands. This means you can move your fingers.  I didn't think it would be a big deal until I tried it. As you can see from the video, it's pretty cool. Keep in mind, you can only see it on a Bento enabled viewer. Linden Labs has a release candidate and Firestorm has an alpha version out for testing. You must be a member of the Phoenix-Firestorm Preview Group to test the alpha.

Back to the hands, a free version is made by Kuso/Oracul. They come with a hud with which you can change the position of your fingers. This hud has 2 pages. Page 1 is static animations, and page 2 animates the hands. You can apply an animation to 1 hand or to both hands. The detail is not great, and they do not appear to be compatible with Omega. They also leave a gap on the Maitreya body.

The other option is Vista Pro hands. They look great, are compatible with Omega, and fit the Maitreya body quite well. The nails are also Omega compatible. They come with 4 stand animations that you can put into your AO, so that whenever they come up, you move your fingers automatically. They also come with a hud for static animations.

Here's the interesting part: The Oracul hud will work with the Vista hands. This means, you can use the animations on page 2, and have your hands do all kinds of things in combination with your AO. I used the Vista hands in the video above. Each one is playing a different animation from the Oracul hud. Granted, you may not want to look like the movie above all the time, but it is fun to have the option.

Credits

Oracle Hands

Vista Pro Hands

Dress is from Go!

Hair is from Bizarre Creations

Necklace is from Pixel Box

Hairbase is from Amacci

Caledon tartan omega nail applier is here

Wind light: Twilight on the Moors (Custom)

Godiva Ride

Reenacting Lady Godiva's famous ride started out as a fundraiser for Relay for Life. There's a Lady Godiva ride coming up on Nov. 2 in Caledon that's just for fun. Here's a photo from 2011, and I'm the one in the back with wings.

We didn't have a lot of choices back then: long flexi hair, high saddles, PG skins. We have more options now, thanks to mesh. Hair can be rigged to us, so it doesn't blow in the wind as we ride. So really, what does one wear? Well, here's a thought:

This hair doesn't show anything. Unfortunately, the way it's rigged interferes with the excellent horse from KOT. The mesh of the hair goes wonky. The AKK mesh riding horse is lovely, works well, and you can ride sidesaddle if you prefer. The only drawback is that the AKK horse is very high in complexity, which means lag. Without the horse, my complexity is 28K. I'm wearing hair, a Catwa basic mesh head, the Maitreya Lara body, and a couple of bracelets. Riding this horse brings my complexity up to nearly 300K. If everyone wears something similar, there's going to be mega lag.

A note on complexity: on older viewers, complexity is the same as ARC, which is avatar render cost. It's basically how hard your computer has to work to draw these avatars, hence lag if it's time consuming to draw very many.

Fortunately there are alternatives. There are many rideable animals out there.  To check your complexity, at least on the Firestorm viewer, go to the advanced menu, then performance tools, then avatar complexity. Lower is better. For any crowded event, I can usually be in the 30-40K range, and I try to be under 100K if I have a special costume or if the event requires fancy dress.

My inspiration for this blog however was a horse. This has got to be the best value out there. This horse costs 99L, and for that you get it in 3 colors. Its legs move when it walks, and it grows wings when it flies. It's not as pretty as some of the more expensive horses, but its complexity is under 30K! If walking with a minimum of lag in a crowd is important to you, I highly recommend getting one of these. Besides, it's a Godiva ride. Who's going to be looking at the horses?  :D  Here's a photo:

My total complexity here is about 55K. This leaves me plenty of room for accessories:

This is merely a suggestion. If you want to ride your high complexity horse, and you've got a new computer, ride it by all means. I pass no judgements. Besides, if lag is an issue, you can always lower the complexity that your computer renders. You can turn everyone off and have virtually no lag. The complexity slider is in the quick preferences menu in Firestorm.

I hope to see you all at the ride! Check the Caledon Events Calendar for details.

Credits:

Hair is from Caverna Obscura. There are other options, search for Godiva Hair on Marketplace.

Wearable horse from Tomato Park

My accessories came from outfits I already had, so I'm not going to link them. The flowers are in a gacha at LODE. Search for lode on MP and lots of gacha resell accessories come up.

Wind light: Trilby's Day (one I made with the editor)

Crying My Catwa Eyes Out

Catwa recently released an eye pack to go with their mesh heads. It comes with an elaborate hud that lets you resize the eyes, add glow, make them look at something, change the texture, and even cry. Catwa eyes will work with any head, but all the features may not work with other brands. They are great for photography, and for role play. Here I am, broken hearted, in a fairy forest, alone and desolate.

You may need to go into full screen on the video to get a good look at the tears.

Credits:

I'm wearing my usual Maitreya body and Catwa Amy mesh head

Mesh eyes pack from Catwa

Eftelya 1 eye applier from Euphoric

Gia lip applier from Lara Hurley

Vamp skin applier from YS&YS at WLRP

Fuchia Crown is from LODE, and in a gacha at Shiny Shabby

Boho Dress and Necklace are from Arisaris 

Yua hair is from Monso

Location: Enchanted Forest by Keira Blackthorne at Caledon Moors

Wind light: Phototools Moonlight 05