A pox on "standard sizing"

The mesh clothes I picked up at the fundraiser yesterday will just have to be considered as donations to the cause, I fear.  At least the shoes, makeup and motorbike seem OK!

The problem, of course, is that they were all made using the "Standard Sizing", against which I have inveighed before... and my shape, though not all that peculiar, especially in SL, is way outside the permitted variation allowed in the standard sizes.

It's not a question of being too tall, or too thin, because the existing adjustments along avatar bones work just fine to accommodate that.  The problem lies in the subtler interplay of proportions - and, I suspect, in what's currently fashionable in SL.

The problem seems to exist mostly for those of us who want a vaguely trim-and-athletic look.  I don't want exaggerated curves and a pair of Zeppelins moored to the front of my torso, thank you very much, so the larger sizes, which cater to the voluptuous amongst us, are out.  So, no problem, right?  I just use the small sizes, and they scale up to my height, right?... Wrong, because the smaller sizes don't seem to allow for any significant musculature, or breadth (I have narrow hips and comparatively broad shoulders).  The S and XS sizes seem heavily biased towards what my friend and fellow blogger CC Creeggan describes here as "Tableau girls".  It's a popular look among the waif-like and generally gamine.  It's not my look, though, or anywhere near it.  Of course, I can just hide everything under alpha layers...

... except those don't adjust at all for body proportions, they are painted over certain areas of your avatar's surface, and if the lines on your avatar's surface don't match up to the ones on the mesh item you're wearing... tough.  So, with the best will in the world, I find myself clipping through mesh clothes in unexpected locations.  Forearms seem to be the worst - my arms are longer than many avi's, even though they are actually too short to be well proportioned in RL.  And, wearing a corsety-type top, I found that, in all the sizes available, the breadth of my shoulders made for a visible discontinuity between the mesh and me - I suddenly broaden out at the point the mesh's corresponding alpha ends.

At best, I can only hope to conceal my entire lower body beneath an alpha, leaving me looking as if I've stolen somebody else's legs.  In size XXS trousers, the legs of someone in the terminal stages of some obscure wasting disease.  In size XL, the legs of someone whose bottom needs its own postcode.  In intermediate sizes, an unlovely combination of the two.

Let's consider the tops... Well, since I have small breasts, anything above XXS leaves vast echoing caverns around my chest.  Selecting size XXS, though, generally means my breasts clip through the clothing whenever my av physics kicks in, and sometimes even when it doesn't.  I can't win.

I would post some snapshots, but they are just too, too, depressing.

I am more and more convinced that the "standard sizing" was based on a sample of commercially available shapes.... and so reflects what's currently fashionable in SL.  I will stand by my previously stated opinion: for those of us who exercise our own creativity and make our own shapes, it is effectively useless. 

And since mesh clothes continue to be a growth area, can we please have all the wrangling over the mesh deformer tool sorted out, so that I can actually wear some?

On the catwalk

It's London Fashion Week or something - or maybe it was last week, I forget.

Anyway, that spurred me to revisit an old project and make some progress on it:-

I know, it's just too sexy for words, isn't it?

Not quite finished yet - I want to script that flashlamp along the left arm so it actually lights up, and some particle bubbles for the air tanks wouldn't go amiss, and I think I need to tidy up the alpha layer around the feet a bit.  But I progress.  Oh yes.

(I tried it in an off-the-peg male shape, too - seemed to work OK, though I don't know how well it might fit the muscly man-mountain avis that are so common.  Oh, well, it'll all be copy-mod if I sell it, so that's not really a problem, is it?)

All very unmilitary

An idea or two is revolving inside what passes for my brain, and part of it involves making a bunch of quasi-military uniforms.

Now, I may have mentioned previously that clothing design is not really my thing... so, to make my life simpler, I have been off trawling inworld stores and Marketplace for some appropriate template images.

And, after some hours doing that, I have reached some conclusions:-

• I am going to have to do the damn things myself from scratch.
• It is one whole heck of a lot easier to find skimpy crop-tops than it is to find complete coverage jackets or tunics.  Either the military is under-represented in SL, or it is under-dressed.
• I will never understand product pricing in SL as long as I live.  There is no discernible link between price and quality... and, presumably, someone must be out there buying the expensive tat.  Who are these people, and how can I persuade them to visit my shop?

Mesh: It Still Needs Work

I mean, yes, OK, it's a freebie demo object, and it's early days still for mesh designers...  but just look at it!  Even my tummy is showing through the midriff, and I'm a stick insect for heaven's sake.  And there is not a chance in Hades of me ever filling out the front of that, let me tell you.  There's room in there for me to keep hamsters.

I understand a parametric deformer is in the works, which will help fit mesh clothing onto the actual shape of your avatar.  Can't come too soon for me.

Sartorial non-excellence

I have discovered a new respect for the clothiers and template makers of Second Life, since I have spent what felt like several years, and actually was a pretty fair chunk of today, making one rather indifferent-looking tartan waistcoat.  Banging a few templates together is fairly easy, assuming you know how to use your graphics software; making an even half-way acceptable clothing texture from scratch is not very easy at all! - it demands patience and exactitude and a steady hand and lots of other things I have in short supply.

Still, I progress.  Possibly, tomorrow - pants!