PLEASE NOTE: My blog is still on indefinite hiatus; I have made a single exception for this blogpost. After this, I will be going back on my self-imposed break from blogging.
I wanted to break my hiatus from the blog to announce that I have discovered a very nice dollarbie male mesh head and body package called Neo, from a company called Meta! Here is the link to the Second Life Marketplace listing, which says:
This package will provide you with everything needed to set up your mesh avatar base to build on, which includes a Fitted mesh body with Bento rigged hands and a fully Bento rigged mesh head! The package also includes an Alpha HUD to hide parts of the body to make it easier to wear clothes on.
This product is our gift to the community and is meant for those new users as well as those who want to get [the] hang of mesh avatars!! ENJOY!!
Here is what the Neo male mesh body looks like, right out of the box, with only a minor adjustment to the eyes, and with the included underwear and body shape. It’s actually a very nice head and body, especially for only one Linden dollar!
Here’s what the Neo male mesh body looks like with some hair and clothing; the outfit is from the free Casual Male Starter Pack capsule wardrobe from No Shot, and comes from the Freebie Megastore on the London City sim as shown here:
I found during my testing that clothing and shoes designed for the Signature Gianni mesh body seem to fit this particular body very well (you will need to use the alpha HUD, though):
Now, there are a few drawbacks to this body. For one, although it comes with a HUD with plentiful alpha selections, the Meta Neo body does not support skin appliers or Bakes on Mesh (there is a Bakes on Mesh version of this body for sale for L$999 on the SL Marketplace). You are stuck with the single skin tone for this body. Also, the mesh eyes shown here are included with the mesh head, not separate, and they only come in the light brown colour shown.
Have you joined the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group yet? I will be posting EVEN MORE news and tips on finding fabulous freebies and bargains in Second Life than I post here on the blog! More information on this brand new SL group here.
Last year, I wrote about a free, Bakes on Mesh compatible, Bento female mesh head and body called Viva (here and here). There’s been a bit of chatter about this body lately, including a video review (see below), so I thought I would update my review of version 3 of the Viva mesh body.
There are two ways that you can get version 3 of the Viva female mesh body. You can purchase it for only L$1 on the SL Marketplace (which gives you a completely unpacked version in your inventory). Do not be dissuaded by the rather poor imaging used in the Marketplace listing…you can do a lot with this body! Alternatively, you can teleport to the Elegance & Style store in-world (exact SLURL), click the vendor panel for the Full version/version 3, select Deliver from the blue pop-up menu in your SL viewer, and get the body for free (although you will have to unpack several boxes).
Now, unlike other mesh bodies (such as the free Minou body I reviewed the day before yesterday, which you basically just wear and go, with zero options), there is a rather large learning curve associated with this body, and a somewhat overwhelming HUD with a great many options! In fact, I will say that this is one of the most complicated HUDs I have seen for any product! So my recommendation is that you find a quiet spot in Second Life, unpack everything (there are nine boxes/subfolders!), and read through all the documentation. There is a Read Me First notecard, which states:
I’ll keep this short. Let me pass on two important things . . .
1 . . . First, you’ll find a wonderful and easy-to-use “Quick Guide to Viva.” It’s on-line and has lots of illustrations. Look for this prim in the Viva Main Folder: “**Rez Me & Click Me for Viva Support.” Rez it and click it. It will take you right to the support page. (If you can’t rez where you are, you can also wear it and click it.)
2 . . . The following information is covered by the above link, but if you don’t go there, here are some brief instructions:
(a) If you look in Viva’s Main Folder in your inventory, you’ll see a series of “*Sub Folders…” These are packages that haven’t been unpacked yet.
(b) To unpack, WEAR each of the *Sub Folder packages, and they will automatically unpack.
(c) You’ll end up with a series of Viva SubFolders in your inventory. They all start with “Viva:” which keeps them all together. Now, TAKE EACH and DRAG THEM into Viva’s main folder.
(d) Afterwards, if desired, you can delete all of the *Sub Folders…” You won’t lose anything. You’ll still have a copy of them in the original package.
To keep things simple to start, you can wear a fully-assembled version of the Viva mesh body from the main folder. Attach the Master HUD, click on the Bakes on Mesh tab, and enable Bakes on Mesh for this body as shown below:
Here’s what the default body looks like, paired with the recent free group gift of the Chelsea head by LOGO, with the Hope skin in dew by 7 Deadly S[k]ins (a gift from their Advent calendar), and using the shape included with the Chelsea head as my starting point.
What the Viva body looks like after enabling Bakes on Mesh
(Although the HUD says that the Bento hands would be automatically Bakes-on-Mesh enabled when I clicked ON next to Enable BoM for Body in the HUD, I found I had to double-click the green hand icon below the button, to get Bakes on Mesh to apply to the hands properly. Just a small bug.)
Now, I will be honest: I have a problem with the hands on the Viva body. Last year, I was able to get such beautiful-looking, graceful hands when I first tested it on an alt (see the proof here), but then I did something wrong, and no matter what I do, and no matter which avatar I try it on, I always get this as a result, and I nothing I do seems to fix it! I find the hands are rather misshapen, with these horrible, stubby-looking thumbs! If somebody can tell me what I am doing wrong, I would dearly love to know.
When I wear a Bento animation override for the hands, I also find the the middle sections of the fingers are rather strangely elongated, and the result is a bit unnatural looking to me. It looks like my avatar has arthritis! Then again, I usually set my hand size in the body sliders to somewhere between 25 and 40 for most mesh bodies, so you might want to keep it set at a low 13, which is what the default, included body shape has. Even so, I think that the hands are definitely a weak point on this mesh body.
The feet are quite nice, though, and there are certainly lots of options in the HUD to tint your fingernails and toenails! The feet come in three heights: flat, mid-height, and high, and I have found that shoes designed for Belleza feet seemed to fit best overall (again, you might have to adjust the foot size in the body sliders to get the best results).
One option which I have never seen before in a mesh body HUD is the ability to set an image as a pattern or texture on your fingernails and toenails. Note that I had to remove the pattern shown here, using the button on the HUD, before I could select a nail polish colour for the high-heeled version of the mesh feet. Another small bug.
Here is what my avatar looks like, with the LOGO Chelsea head, wearing the red dress included in the Viva package (which you can retint or retexture as you wish):
One of the definite strengths of this body is the wide variety of clothing layer options, which are built into the HUD and available under the Layers tab: tattoos, bra and panties, pantyhose, a sweater and blue jeans, even socks! All clothing layers are infinitely tintable using the HUD.
Now, there is also an optional Bento, Bakes on Mesh-compatible head included in the Viva package, located in the Modular System folder. Unfortunately, there is no included starter shape for this head, which made it very difficult to obtain the best possible look. I found that this head did not respond very well to the various sliders, and in particular, I had problems around the mouth and chin area with the various Bakes on Mesh skins I tried on it. Here is my best result, which I am still not quite happy with (I couldn’t remove the slight chin cleft, no matter what I did):
The included Bento, Bakes on Mesh Viva head (wearing the Hope skin in the dew skin tone from 7 Deadly S[k]ins, a recent Advent calendar gift)
For the price (free or L$1, depending on how you got it), this is a perfectly serviceable head, but you will probably find a more beautiful head elsewhere, that perhaps responds a bit better to the head and body sliders. I would suggest pairing the Viva mesh body with your choice of a brand-name Bento mesh head (including, of course, the recent gift heads from Catwa, Akeruka, LOGO, LeLutka…last year certainly had no shortage of free group gifts of female Bento mesh heads!).
Also, the Makeup Choices tab on the Viva HUD is currently empty, with a promise to include makeup options in a later version. But of course, you can use any existing Bakes on Mesh makeup with this head, so you shouldn’t have any problems there!
If you want to wear mesh clothing with this body (other than the included red dress, which is designed to fit this body perfectly), there is an extensive array of alpha sections on the HUD, although I wish there were some finer selections in certain areas, like the upper arms. You should be able to get most clothing designed for other, more popular brands of mesh bodies to fit fairly well on the Viva body.
So, in summary, the Viva mesh body is a good Bento, Bakes on Mesh female body with lots of options, a few quirks, and a few bugs, for a great price—free (if you get it in world) or L$1 (if you buy it on the SL Marketplace). It’s a great bargain! Here’s my final look, once again pairing the Viva body with the LOGO Chelsea head, and adding a few accessories to liven up that plain red dress:
The YouTube vlogger Novata Second Life recently posted a one-hour video about the Viva body, which you might find of interest, if for no other reason than to see how she and her friends have styled this body (this video switches back and forth between Spanish and English). Novata also remarks on how complicated the HUD is!
Have you joined the RyanSchultz.com Steals, Deals & Freebies group yet? I will be posting EVEN MORE news and tips on finding fabulous freebies and bargains in Second Life than I post here on the blog! More information on this brand new SL group here.
Over the past year, I have received tips from various people about a free female mesh body called Minou, by a store called Little Devil, which was advertised as compatible with apparel and footwear designed for the nearly-ubiquitous Maitreya Lara mesh body.
There are two ways that you can pick up this female mesh body for free. The first way is to come early enough in the day to slap the Midnight Madness board located to the right of the entrance to the Little Devil store on the Villa Delacroix sim (here’s the exact SLURL; please note that Villa Delacroix is an adult-rated sim which hosts a BDSM club, although the area around the store seems pretty safe). The Midnight Madness board locks at 30, so get there early!
The second way is to invite a few friends and/or alts to try your luck at the Lucky Fortunes game, located immediately to the right of the Midnight Mania board outside the Little Devil store. If you and a second avatar are judged to be 100% compatible, both of you win a free Minou mesh body!
It was using this second method that I finally won a Minou mesh body! Here is what she looks like right out of the box, with the included shape and skin, with a system (non-mesh) head, and not changing any of the default head or body sliders:
Looking good! As advertised, clothing and footwear designed for Maitreya Lara bodies seem to fit this body fairly well. The black minidress I used in this picture is called Celin, from Seniha, which I bought using their free store credit offer not too long ago, and the Wales pumps were a group gift from the Essenz shoe store. The Lio hair was a free hunt prize from Analog Dog, and so my total cost for this particular avatar look is ZERO LINDEN DOLLARS (because I joined the Essenz group when they had a free group join period in the past).
The body comes in components, with the hands and feet as separate attachments. The detail on the hands is quite lovely, but these hands are not Bento, and you cannot change the colour or shape of the fingernails:
The detail on the feet is also quite good, but there is a slight ankle seam where the feet attach to the body. Also, the feet only come in one foot height, to fit Maitreya-Lara-compatible high-heeled shoes. You will not be able to wear flats on this body!
The package also includes the following complete outfit, a thoughtful added touch. (There’s also some free mesh hair included, but I did not use it for this picture.)
Below, I paired the Minou body with the recent free group gift of the LeLutka Lilly head, using one of the full-head skin tattoos in the Lilly package that matched the skin tone of the Minou body the closest, and hiding the resulting neck seam with a simple black choker (a past free group gift from West End):
This is actually an attractive mesh body for a price that can’t be beat: free! (In fact, this particular avatar look also cost me zero Linden dollars. That’s right, zip. Zilch. Nada.)
However, there are a few caveats. First, this body only comes in one skin tone as shown, and it does not support skin appliers or Bakes on Mesh skins. Second, there is no included HUD with alpha sections to erase any body parts which might poke through clothing, which means that you will have to be extremely careful what you choose to wear on the Minou body.
For example, these skintight Maitreya-Lara-compatible leggings from ViSion (a gift at the recent Winter Shop and Hop event) are unwearable, because there is no way to alpha out your legs underneath them:
You’ll probably have better luck with skimpy minidresses and other skin-baring outfits, however. The skin detail on the Minou body is excellent for a free body (although I haven’t included a picture of them here, I think that the breasts on this body are also very well done). I can see this body proving quite popular among the working girls of Second Life, the escorts and strippers toiling away for tips in the adult sims, who perhaps cannot afford a full-blown Maitreya Lara mesh body!
So, if you are absolutely, completely flat broke, but you still want a good-looking mesh avatar body that can wear some (but not all) Maitreya apparel and footwear, you might want to consider this as an option. I will add the Minou mesh body by Little Devil to my ever-expanding list of free and inexpensive mesh heads and bodies for female avatars.
Well, Advent calendar season is almost over, and I have spent most of it focused on fabulous freebies for female avatars, but I wanted to blog about some men’s freebies that you can pick up today.
First, please meet Silver Quick, my handsome male alt who will be modeling today’s finds:
Silver Quick is wearing:
Head, Eyes and Eyebrows: the recent group gift of the Alain Bento, Bakes on Mesh head from LeLutka
Body: Romeo by Altamura (a Valentine’s Day group gift a couple of years ago; to use Bakes on Mesh skin on this body, you must first purchase an Omega system kit for Altamura for L$99 at this exact SLURL, and obtain the free Bakes on Mesh kit from Altamura (at this exact SLURL in their in-world store)
Bakes on Mesh Skin: Delphinus by Altamura (included with the Bakes on Mesh kit mentioned above)
Hair: Jamie by Firelight, a free gift available here
Shorts: Alejandro shorts from the starter avatars in the Library folder of your SL inventory
The Altamura Bakes on Mesh kit includes a BoM Omega relay and the Delphinus skin
Our first stop today is NERO N7 menswear store, where (if you join their store group for free), you can pick up a free L$500 gift card, good for anything in the store:
Next, we hit a couple of Advent calendars that are still up!
Donni’s Dollies has an Advent calendar where the odd-numbered dates (plus Dec. 12th and Dec. 24th) have gifts of menswear as well as womenswear (no group is needed). Here is the black and gold tuxedo from December 24th:
No Shot still has their 12 Days of Christmas calendar up, too. Here is one of the 12 menswear gifts you can pick up, a camouflage outfit with boots:
Here’s another nice outfit from the No Shot calendar, which also includes the shoes:
And here’s a business suit outfit from the same calendar, with shoes:
The ACCESS shopping event has many lovely gifts for both men and women (you have to join the ACCESS group for free to pick up these gifts).
Here’s a pro tip to help you quickly find the gifts you want at this and at other events: if you are using the Firestorm viewer, select Area Search under the World menu, then enter a keyword you are searching for (e.g. “varsity”). Then, from the list of search results, right-click the one you are interested in, and select Zoom from the pop-up menu as shown here:
Your camera will then zoom in on the specific giftbox you have selected! All you have to do is click on it and it’s yours! This tip can save you a lot of wandering around at crowded sales events where there are dozens and dozens of vendor booths.
Do a keyword search for “GRAILED” to get this Zion hoodie fatpack by GRAILED, which includes a HUD with 30 different colours and patterns:
And do a keyword search for “Varsity” to pick up this Randon jacket and long sweater combo from Varsity, with two HUDs to change the colour of both the jacket and sweater. You’ll need to alpha out your arms and hands for this hands-in-pockets look!
Our final stop is the Shop and Hop event, where there are a few men’s freebies to pick up. The gift from Etham is this shirt-and-hoodie combo, which comes with a HUD to change the colour of both the shirt and the hoodie individually:
The gift from Mossu is this cheerful Christmas cardigan:
The present from Lapointe and Bastchild’s SWEAR store at the Winter Shop and Hop are these wonderfully-detailed tundra patrol boots, in a camouflage snowflake pattern:
