Welcome back! So, you've gone through the initial getting started guide, and maybe (if you used Firestorm's welcome island) you even glanced at some tutorials within Second Life that briefly speak about modifying your body and working with clothing. Well, now you're going to get the rundown.

When I was new in Second Life, I struggled for a while to figure out for myself why other users had such nice-looking avatars, and mine looked like stretched silly putty from a Playstation 1 game. But, before we talk about mesh, you should know more about what you're working with!

Modifying the base body

In order to mess around with body customization, we're going to head back to the sandbox mentioned in the first section of this guide, the Timelord Sandbox. Once you've arrived, we're going to call back to the section of the welcome island that I had you look at briefly: The short distance teleportation mechanic.

What these things are, basically, are items that the landowner has setup with special scripts within, that operate in a way that allows users to click, and then teleport to different areas. Each teleport point acts as a relay between another, allowing for quick transport between them depending on your choice.

In order to have a little bit more privacy, and to avoid getting in the way of sandbox arrivals, we're going to teleport up to Platform 1.

Go ahead and click the red circle on the ground, and then in the dialogue box that appears at the top right of your screen, click "Platform 1." Now, when the red beam appears, hover over it until your mouse point changes into a sort of chair icon, and then left click once.

Once you've arrived on the platform, feel free to move to a spot nice and far away from this landing point. Go ahead, there's plenty of space!

Now that we're in a spot away from most random passersby, go ahead and right click on yourself, then choose "Appearance," and then "Edit Shape." This will bring up a window full of body and head sliders much like a character creator in a regular videogame.

A lot of mesh bodies and heads also work with these sliders, as most creators have built their products with the ability to function with some, if not most of the base Second Life features (see, Maitreya Lara, Catwa, Lelutka, etc.). This is, of course, a topic we'll explore here, soon.

Feel free to play around with as many sliders as you like. Notice how you can change the size of your body, your head, eyes, ears, face, nose, mouth, chin, torso and legs!

If you make a change you're not happy with, don't fret. Before making any further changes, click the button at the bottom in the middle that says, "Undo Changes," and your body will revert back to the way it was before you modified the slider you're not happy with.

You'll also notice that there's an "Import" feature. Around the internet, or even from other users in Second Life, you may notice that some are sharing .xml files containing customization data for avatar shapes. If you have something like this saved to your computer, you can use the import function to automatically apply those slider settings to your avatar. If you do end up doing this, be sure that the settings you're importing are for the body you're using!

If you import settings for a shape referencing the Maitreya Lara mesh body to the default Second Life body, you may end up looking quite strange. This is because the SL body and Maitreya body both have different rigging points (jargon having to do with designing bodies and clothing in a 3D rendering program), and don't correspond to each other on a 1 to 1 basis.

After you've finished playing around with sliders, and you're happy with what you've done, if anything, go ahead and click either the "Save" option at the top left of the window, in order to immediately save over the shape you're wearing (irreversible!), or click "Save As" at the bottom left in order to save a completely new shape (that you'll automatically be wearing once you close the window).

If you've used the "Save As" option, go ahead and click the arrow at the top left of the window. If you used the "Save" option, you're already where we want to be next.

What are clothes, anyway?

So you may have noticed that your avatar is wearing clothing! Some of these pieces of clothing are mesh, and won't show up in this window (and that's fine!), but there are a few things that will show up, and this should be discussed briefly, because, otherwise, you may end up confused later on.

I'm using the Kimberly avatar, and right off the bat, her shirt, shorts and shoes are mesh, and won't show up here (they'll be accessible in the appearance window discussed in the first section my guides).

What you will see here, are system clothing, alphas, tattoos, physics, a shoe base, and a slightly newer layer, the "universal" layer (a layer containing all texture channels available).

Clothing is a bit more self-explanatory, so let's talk about alphas, first.

When you buy, or acquire a piece of clothing, or hair that comes with an alpha, what this is meant to do is act as an invisible mask on areas of your body that allow a piece of clothing, or object to be worn, without clipping issues.

You'll see here, in the appearance tab, I've gone and removed my avatar's shirt, and in its place is a mask covering her entire body and part of her arms. This allows the shirt to be worn without skin or body parts poking through.

When it comes to alphas, you'll want to keep track of which and how many you're wearing. If you have a piece of clothing that requires an alpha, make sure you take off the alpha whenever remove that piece of clothing so that you don't run into any issues when equipping completely different clothing items.

In regard to mesh avatars, most clothing designers these days have clothing that automatically hide parts of a mesh body that need to be in order to work correctly with clothing, as mesh bodies do not require worn-alpha layers, at least not if you're using baked on mesh, which is another larger topic, for another time. If not utilizing baked on mesh, you will be wearing an alpha layer with mesh bodies in order to hide the default Second Life body.

Again, a much more complicated topic for another time.

Going back to the outift parts window you should still have open, we'll now talk about the physics layer. This is a really simple layer that not everyone even utilizes, but many do. To put it simply, the physics layer provides realistic bodily part movement, or buoyancy. For example, you may have seen avatars walking around with breasts that appear to move in a realistic, or maybe even unrealistic manner.

This is what the physics layer accomplishes.

You can find these for free in many different places, or they may even come along with purchased items.

You'll also notice a layer called, "Shoe Base." What this is, is a simple layer that alters the shape of a default Second Life avatar's feet in order to fit a pair of shoes.

Notice how, if I navigate to the appearance tab, and remove my avatar's shoes, you'll see that her feet are squished inward slightly. This is an effect of the shoe layer, so that her sneakers fit correctly, and her toes don't poke out the edges.

This is, again, something you'll only notice being utilized on the default SL avatars.

Now, onto the simplest part of the clothing array, your clothes!

The rest of what you see in the window will detail things such as, shirt, pants, socks, underpants, tattoos, and so on. What these actually are, are textures applied directly to your avatar, in layers. Think of Photoshop and how you create a new layer each time you make aspect of a graphic you're designing.

This acts in the same way. Say you've put on a new tattoo, and that tattoo stretches all the way up and down your legs, but you also want your avatar to be wearing underwear and socks! In order to be sure everything overlaps correctly, you would put on a tattoo layer, and then an underpants and socks layer.

Once you're done looking through this window, go ahead and click the back arrow at the top left. Notice that this brings you to the appearance window by default, where you can see all of the items your avatar has equipped.

Animation Overriding

Take notice in this window, you may have equipped an "animation overrider" attachment. This is part of what was discussed earlier in the first section of these guides. Remember the "AO" button I said we'd talk about later? This is related to that.

In Firestorm, the AO button at the bottom of your screen acts as a built-in animation override that does not require equipping. It accomplishes this by allowing you to load purchased single animations into each corresponding animation slot, after you've created a new "animation set." This is quite advanced and will be something we go over later.

By default, most animation overrides are items that you'll equip into your appearances tab, which will then act as a replacement for the default animations (that are very stiff and rigid). This gives your avatar a little bit more of a realistic stance when idling, and some better walk, jump and sit styles.

Animation overrides are filled with separate animations that correspond to different things your avatar will be doing as you sit, stand, or move. In the appearance tab (if you have an animation override equipped), go ahead and double click it, and take note how the animations your avatar has change as you unequip, and then re-equip it.

For now, the AO provided to you via your chosen avatar is good enough, but we'll discuss how to get new ones in another section!

As far as basic avatar customization goes, that's about it! You can go ahead and toy around with items you may have acquired in the Freebie Galaxy. Take some time to explore and learn how these items alter your avatar. Go through a little trial and error and remember, if you think you've messed something up, simply go back to your appearance window, right click on the name of the outfit you saved earlier in this guide and then click, "Wear - Replace Current Outfit", and everything will go back to normal.

In our next section we'll talk about marketplace shopping and stores!

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