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Adjusting Skin Colors from Mesh Heads or SL Heads to Mesh Bodies and also BOM Baked on Mesh
The PROBLEMS(s) We had ourselves purchased a female mesh head, a Normie, that was low priced and looked good. It did not come with a skin though. We then realized that skins often cost more than the mesh head. So we resurrected some skins we had made and just made a head skin HUD that works for Omega, and also Omega makeup, and sell that as a product at a low price. Since it is just a head skin, yes, it must be matched to the mesh body. In our case that is Maitreya. But then we wondered in the process of updating this product, what if I were to buy a skin that can do both Maitreya bodies and an Omega ready head? Would I not have to worry at all about neck skin matching? Since then, mostly in curiousity, I have purchased more than 10 skins. Only 2 skins required no neck touch up, although some came close. And since some skins did not allow an array of skin colors or even a demo on the one skin color offered, I had issues there as well - lighter or darker than I wished. Well what I found is that there is no guarantee that skins will match your mesh body with your mesh or SL head. I have to admire that some of the more expensive skins even carried a warning that they could not guarantee no neck issues between mesh body skins and their own mesh head skins. I would beleive that perhaps some mesh heads take rgb colors differently than mesh bodies. Perhaps this is because one or the other begins with a tint already there. Or perhaps the difference is glossiness. I am not certain. But yes, it does sometimes happen that a skin will do a match all by itself. But I would find it best not to count on it. Use the demos if there are any. And of course, like our product which is only head skins, take note that adjusting will be necessary. And then we found that perhaps since we made our own head skin, we found it easier to adjust skins with that. But after more and more experimenting, we found ways to live. And unfortunately, this information does not seem easy to come by. Some different thoughts below where learning helped: ADJUSTING MAITREYA BODY COLOR Maitreya, well, I just love the company and their product. They seem to make it easy also to adjust their skin color - that is if one knows how and reads a bit of their information. One would go into skin color. If trying to match Maitreya to your mesh head, then first select a Maitreya skin mesh a bit lighter than the head skin shade you are trying to match to. Then of course, look at it where it joins with your head, ensuring that your hair is not on your head to stop you looking everywhere. Next, Go to Advanced and it will drop down some adjustments below. H: Hue or Tint if you prefer S: Saturation: how intense is the color L: Luminesence (brightness, but also takes hue into account) As Maitreya will tell you, (L) luminesence has to first be adjusted to something less than 100 to allow adjustment of the other two settings. Something about 90 or less. Then in the colors, if you know what color tint you need, click on that. Then adjust the (H) tint, (S) saturation and last the (L) luminescence to match the colors of your head. For our sold skins that use an Omega HUD for mesh heads, the tint (H) value will be always 0 to 21. That is because for Maitreya skins, our head skins have slightly more red. The actually tint of our head skins is 21 - and the variations of lighter and darker effect lumininescence and saturation, but for us, the tint is always 21. But note that since you are only adding a little bit of tint to a color already there, you might have to add more read, a value of less than 21, in order to get a match. Hopefully that makes some sense. But the real issue is to set luminescence at 90 or lower, and then modify to suit. We found we could get great results. However, sometimes second life would take a few seconds before showing us the new value, and sometimes we had to work at the values under advanced Maitreya settings for skins for a bit. But then, once you have it, you are done and can save it all in a safe place. In my case, I try to get the color right first. And then at the end, and only at the end, is when I bring up luminesence a bit since I often need the Maitreya skin lighter as well. NORMIE OMEGA HEAD ADJUSTMENTS The above info said that you could adjust Maitreya skin tinting. How about Normie Skin tinting. Well, you can, but be careful. It will damage eyebrows and eyelashes, and you will have to fix those two at the end. So be sure and only work on a copy of a normie head. Highlight the whole head and edit. I usually just change the gray scale of the color tinting to make the head darker a bit to try and get a match to a body skin. It often works. But unfortunately, the tint also becomes the color of the eyebrows and eyelashes. So we need to put those back. How to do that? Again, edit the Normie head. Now on your edit list, click "face". Now click away from the head and clock away from it for a second, and next just left click the eyebrow and eylash area one at a time. I just then add the color black instead of the light gray color on each. Can you add red or dark red or the like? I would think so. Then when done of course you will want to save your adjusted normie head tinting also. BOM = BAKED ON MESH It seems that this could be a great alternative if you have a skin that can come close to matching both the body skin and the head skin that is sold as a complete skin unit. I admit being a fan of "Esode." Esode can be pricy, but I find that they can do good work. Even if they do not match exactly, one of their skins had a hud with it where I just used a slightly different hud choice for the body than the head. But let me get to the main issues. The idea of BOM, backed on mesh, is that if you have an original older second life skin and you wish to use that rather than spending a fortune, perhaps you can. You would put the old skin on the second life original body item that is going to be under your mesh. In my case, I often had a body applicator for Maitreya skin, such that for BOM I only needed to Omega BOM my mesh head - which is Normie in this case. However, I did notice that a number of mesh heads like Lelutka and some others are omega ready just like the Normie head. Well, as one author said, think of BOM as just letting what is on your body show through onto the mesh above. So then, put the skin you wish on the Second Life original skin below. Then well, Omega at least today as I write this has an Omega BOM for free. How nice of them. So I used the Omega "head version" and left clicked it for the BOM. It worked. However, until I learned what I was doing, the first two attempts I got a totally red colored Normie head. I then learned something that it seems few people warn you about. You have to remove the "alpha" hide body stuff from anything where you wish a BOM effect. And so, what I did was instead of using the Normie Full Body alpha hide item, I went back to my Maitreya supplied body alpha with no alpha on the head version. Then it worked. The red head was gone, and the correct skin showed. I found the next part confusting. Do I use Omega applicators or HUD to add maekup on top of the Normie Mesh head? Or should makeup be on the Second Life avatar skin below? I am not certain, but it seems that perhaps both could work depending on the mesh head. But in some cases, I did use the normal makeup tattoo that is used for second life heads with BOM - baked on mesh, for mesh heads. SECOND LIFE HEADS Should work as the BOM mesh heads do above, but much less work. No BOM applicator needed. Just add the head skin if you have it. NECK BLENDING TROUBLES Oh, one more thing to note about neck blending areas. It seems that some skins like to put shading there to mimic real life shading under your chin. But then what if you mesh head instead does not do the same shading and just has its normal skin color there? Yes, that can be a problem. A few times I would stare from a distance and I would find that my head and body seemed to match, but the neck did not. And yes, some people claim to either give away or sell neck fixes. Oh, I have also found some skins sold that include both the head and body skins, and yet, oddly, they have not only a neck problem, but a bad one. At times bringing up the Maitreya hud and clicking "neck fix" on or off under skin tones might fix it or at least be a bit better. Sometimes the neck area is a real pain. SUMMARY Hope this helps someone. I found much of this out the hard way. But it seems now that I know this, that awful neck not blended area can be fixed in a few ways.
- Hunter Bronet thanks! Hope you enjoy our products Visit us at the Owl and Pussycat Mall
in Second Life at Tissela http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tissela/64/92/102 |
