First Bento Mesh Heads Available to Demo in Second Life

After a long wait, we're starting to see avatars featuring Project Bento, Linden Lab's new skeleton extensions which greatly expand the expressive range of avatars. Above is what appears to be the first Bento-enabled mesh head, complete with a crazy degree of customization options.

The main advantage to a Bento-based versus standard mesh head, SL fashionista Strawberry Singh tells me, is "Basically just being able to adjust/modify it." She allows that there are still some issues to be worked out with this trial head. "Hopefully all that will be sorted before they release to main viewer."

Speaking of which, this mesh head from Akeruka isn't available on the main grid yet, but you can demo it now. Strawberry has instructions on how to do that, plus a video of her own walk-through (head-through?):

You need to download the Second Life Project viewer for Bento in order to use this mesh head and other Bento items until it is released to the main viewer. This mesh head is only L$99 but you must join the Akeruka Mesh Head group in order to purchase it. The group should be free to join.

Much more advice and info from Ms. Singh here. 

Got any more Bento finds? Please post in Comments below!

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Comments

[Clara Seller]

This is pretty impressive. I've found some mesh heads that I like, but I really miss having controls to just change a little here and there. This is going to be so nice.

[lord]

I believe that Cool VL Viewer - Experimental Version, and Black Dragon Viewer, also currently support Bento besides the one mentioned.

[Timo Gufler]

This is interesting. Is LL still investing in their sunsetting platform, or are they just bringing Sansar features to the old one to make the future transition smoother?

[melponeme_k]

I tried this out and it was very cool.

The amount of changes aren't as vast with the regular SL avatar but just enough to make the mesh head a bit more unique.

The only caveat I have is the one that is prevalent even now. Many mesh heads send your draw number over the big top red.

[Wolkenreiter]

I think it would be smarter to model a Bento head from scratch around the default SL shape, rather than shoehorning it into an existing head.
The experiments with bento heads shown in earlier videos suggest it should be possible to make a mesh head that allows for almost the same degree of customization the default head offers.
This head, while cool, is far from that...

[Kyla Vixen]

But how these heads will look in the regular viewers? Is Bento about the Appearance controls mostly ?
Took one to review myself, thanks!