Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion
Mesh is finally upon us, and the fashion world of Second Life is going a bit crazy over it. Shoppers are desperate to buy it, and designers are struggling not to get left behind. The hype resembles what happened when sculpted prims and flexi prims were released.
But I have mixed feelings about mesh, myself: While I think it will allow for some stunning detail and previously impossible creations, I doubt it will make the contents of our inventories obsolete overnight. In fact, a lot of mesh designs out right now are not that far superior to prim-based fashion.
So this week, in addition to showing you some of my favorite, newly released mesh items, I'm going to point out some of the limitations and challenges these have as well. Among them:
- So far, custom mesh avatars are imperfect and difficult to dress.
- Mesh clothing often forces you to adjust your avatar to conform to it, not the other way around.
- "Mesh" is a very unclear category for the average Second Life shopper.
Let's start off with something dramatic...
Yabusaka's Female Mesh AV C [Click here to teleport to Yabusaka in YABU]
The mesh of our standard Second Life avatars is far from perfect, so naturally there's a huge demand for perfected bodies like the one pictured above. Mesh can both be very detailed and can be rigged to follow our avatar's skeleton, all the while looking smooth and seamless, unlike even sculpted prims. There are three head options to choose from with this body, three expressions, and three poses for each hand, as well as free mesh layers that clothing textures can be applied to (if you have them).
But that's also where mesh falls short: You won't be able to wear your normal clothes with a mesh body, and mesh clothing that's not specifically designed to match a custom mesh body may be difficult (if not impossible) to fit properly. (Thankfully, plain old prim clothing like the outfit I'm wearing above, from BareRose, can be adjusted and worn over a custom mesh shape as easily as the standard shape.)
Furthermore, while I like the potential this adorable avatar shows, it also illustrates some of the limitations with custom mesh avatars. The skin texture is smeared in some areas; in others, the mesh comes to an odd angle where it should be smooth, and aside from a few tank tops and some jeans that are provided, you're more or less on your own in terms of finding clothing for her. Bear in mind that it is still way too early to be expecting absolutely flawless mesh products, and being an early adopter always comes at a cost.
Nevertheless, keep reading for more mesh!
SLink's Bootcut Jeans Mesh Gift [Click here to teleport to SLink in SANCTUM]
These 100% free jeans are a great way to start your mesh collection. The puckering on the upper thighs and the smoothly flared cuffs are to die for, the texturing is bold and well-done, and additionally the mesh itself doesn't look like a paper-thin skin hovering over your body. On top of that, they come in four different sizes to accomodate a range of shapes.
Which brings up another challenge with mesh: Many SL users are understandably indignant about the limitations of mesh clothing in terms of how it can and can't conform to your avatar. In short, mesh can conform to changes in your bones, like the width of your shoulders, hips, or your height, but not your meat, like your breasts, butt, and body fat. Obviously this is less than ideal. I'd urge everyone interested to vote on this JIRA proposal to allow parametric deformation of rigged mesh-- in other words, mesh that can fit to your meat as well as to your bones. Currently, designers will have to make their mesh clothes available in a variety of sizes, but the wide variety of shapes that Second Life allows for means this: Not everyone will be able to wear mesh clothing without changing themselves... and that's something many aren't willing to do.
JANE's Pencil Skirt Eliza [Click here to teleport to Jane in ZYRRA]
Jane has been a hot-spot for mesh-hungry fashionistas in the past few days, and it should definitely be one of your first stops if you're just trying to get a taste of mesh. Jane offers demos of their mesh clothing, so you can see if your shape will work with the line. In the picture above, you can see some clipping of the skirt into my back because my body fat is still just a bit too high for it-- and alpha layers that would otherwise hide these overlaps can't go to the very edge of the piece of clothing, or else you would see a gap between where your body ends and the clothing begins.
This skirt is my favourite from among Jane's mesh releases, because until now, pencil skirts had to be done using Second Life's standard skirt mesh, a very unforgiving layer that never fails to look odd and bulky. Custom mesh skirt shapes will allow for a more attractive silhouette, like the tremendously shapely backside provided on the Jane skirt.
The mesh skirt confusion brings up another important point: "Mesh" is a very unclear word for the Second Life shopper. The far less attractive kind of mesh skirts have been with us for ages, and everything in Second Life is technically already "mesh". Mesh is also a kind of fabric that is very popular with the skin-bearing SL masses. Searching for "real" mesh products as things are now is not going to be easy, even for the more educated.
Also pictured above is a mesh purse from bitch. [Click here to teleport to Bitch/Bastard in RUSTICA]. This is a very well made purse, but when I saw it in Plurk someone immediately asked if it was mesh. It is, but my first thought was, "If you can't tell it's mesh, does it really matter if it is mesh?"
What do you think-- is it mesh or bust from here on out, or do you still have room in your heart for well-made sculpties?
Iris Ophelia (Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.
"If you can't tell it's mesh, does it really matter if it is mesh?"
Well yes, actually, right now it DOES matter as not everyone is using a mesh enabled viewer. If someone is using Firestorm or Phoenix or Imprudence, they won't be able to see it, and that's a waste of money on their part.
Posted by: Alicia Chenaux | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 01:43 PM
Does it mean we sane people (aka Phoenix and Imp users) will see a lot of seemingly nekkid people around on SL soon?
Posted by: Orca Flotta | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 01:51 PM
"If you can't tell it's mesh, does it really matter if it's mesh" will be true as soon as free mesh-compatible 1.x code is available for any TPV developer that wants to use it. I give it a few weeks.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 02:25 PM
If you wanna see someone dressed in a real snazzy mesh outfit, read my latest post at chromeneversleepsDOTcom. Can't get any meshier than that.
Posted by: Chrome Underwood | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 02:33 PM
Love the mesh clothing, hate the shitty v2 viewer to be able to see it tho.
Posted by: anotherdeadavatar | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 05:01 PM
I honestly can't imagine that any serious third party viewer will take long to add mesh support, because it is such a big deal to so many users.
Posted by: Iris Ophelia | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 06:22 PM
Even the pre-mesh painted-on texture and attachment clothing has a similar problem. If your legs are too long, your glitchpants will extend below your skirt (and nowadays, they're probably no-mod, so you're up the proverbial creek). Textures are made so that they only look right on the precise shape the designer made the clothing for, and are stretched into a blurry mess or shrunken into unintelligibility for the rest of us. I hope that you will also consider voting for and watching VWR-10839, which proposes allowing code to run when you first put on clothing (or put it on after changing your shape) that can do what is needed to adapt it to your shape.
Posted by: Melissa Yeuxdoux | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 07:02 PM
It matters because while you're not going to be rigging things like handbags to the avatar, "mesh" is vastly superior as far as rendering cost is concerned. I think one of the greatest mesh benefits will be this far more sensible use of polygons.
Posted by: Kota Buck | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 08:45 PM
Thanks for another great piece of demystification, Iris.
I'm very excited about mesh. For one thing, it is apparently re-invigorating some of our best SL designers, Maxwell Graf among them, who seem to love to create for SL but had become frustrated and stalled by the limitations of sculpties relative to other platforms.
I do believe (and certainly hope, for the sake of our SL content designers) that this will be a gradual integration process and I'm far from ready to give up my avatar shape for a fully mesh version just yet, in spite of the obvious inadequacy of the current appearance sliders. (But "Gimme!" those poseable hands)
I'd really urge anyone who wants to enjoy mesh AND maintain their individual choice over body shape/appearance to drop their comments into the Jira relative to rigging options. Though far from an expert, I'm convinced that's important.
Great to see fellow Aussie Siddean, whom I've supported since the earliest days of SLink looking ready and willing to hop on the band wagon. As we say here in Oz "Go, you good thing!"
Keep us posted Iris!
Posted by: Tatum Lisle | Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 09:37 PM
Mesh is just a tool, along with sculpts. It just opened us up to the big scary world of modelling polygons and proper uv texturing. And the end product is still your creativity, whatever tool you chose to get there.
Posted by: Shai Delacroix | Friday, August 26, 2011 at 01:53 AM
It's way too early for me to consider going over to mesh, if for no other reason than the low selection of items available and the bugs that seem to need shaking out of the system. It does occur to me, though, that not even prim-based clothing fits perfectly over all shapes. I'm always finding something that needs tweaking in one direction or another; belts are one of my great bugaboos, and a otherwise beautiful dress I picked up recently from a reputable house had a prim skirt that kept letting my system fanny poke through.
I believe that it's going to take at least 3-6 months for things to shake out before I decide to commit to mesh. Eventually, I suppose, it will become a forced thing as the Grid designers "converts over," but I'm willing to wait a while to let everyone get experience in designing and working with the new possibilities and limitations.
Posted by: Harper Ganesvoort | Friday, August 26, 2011 at 05:19 AM
Thanks so much for the great post. I'm so glad for more information on Casual clothing.
I have such a fascination with clothes and love to stay up on the latest fashion trends and newest clothes on the market.
http://www.clothingobsession.com/
Posted by: Janet | Friday, August 26, 2011 at 06:51 AM
We know that LL plans to add more tweaks and features to mesh. Yesterday Oskar Linden said a Phase II with fixes and updates is in the works. He was not clear on whether we'll have it on the grid by end of September or it will just be in the release channels or just the ADITI Preview Grid.
But, more changes are coming.
I personally don't care if a jacket is made from mesh or sculpty, if it looks good.
Posted by: Nalates Urriah | Friday, August 26, 2011 at 10:28 AM
If users of out-of-date viewers can't see my clothing then that's their problem for being such luddites. What matters is that *I* can see how cool I look. There's also a cool pair of platform boots where the boots bend naturally instead of the wierd ankle bending you get with sculpty shoes.
The luddites will eventually catch up when mesh makes it into firestorm and they will declare that the new firestorm version is way better than 2.0.
Whatever...
Posted by: bodzette | Friday, August 26, 2011 at 06:40 PM
I agree with you. For some kind of mesh-object which takes no advantage of new mesh rigging feature, its quality still depends on creators' craf. After all, every detailed sculpty prim was actually born as 3d mesh in the first place before having been converted into 2d sculpty maps.
Anyway I have an optmistic view of mesh. Mesh is welcome!
Though one designer's mesh isn't necessarily nicer than another's sculpty prim, all designers are now able to provide us better mesh version of their products.
I think mesh-uploading is a giant step for SL. Mesh means not only to meet 3d-game industry standard, but also a further realistic virtual world of promise.
Mesh also means a more friendly environment for skillful 3D creators, which will definitely attract more of them to enrich inworld environments.
Posted by: metatraveler | Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 09:34 AM