What is a SecondLife Mesh Avatar?

A SecondLife Mesh Avatar is a pre-made body. That’s all I know about know. I haven’t been in SL for over 2 years and so much have changed again. I really want to know more about SL Mesh and starting with the avatar…. and here are some things I found out about it. 

So where to find a Mesh body to start testing?

I discoverd that in the Library folder in your Inventory you can find LindenLabs newbie Mesh Avatars.

Go to Library > Clothing > Initial Outfits. I am wearing the Delilah Mesh body. Right there I noticed the little icon which is an orange cube in front of the name. So I figured a mesh body is something which has to be attached to your own avatar. In the ‘Edit Appearance mode’ I had that ‘aha….’ moment. The Delilah Avatar Mesh Body is attached to a new attachement point on the ‘real’ avatar body called the ‘avatar center’. See how my own avatar (in the orange/brownish skin) and the Delilah Mesh avatar are mixed. That looks strange. And It needs to be fixed.

So now I only had to hide my complete avatar with an invisibilaty layer. See the picture above. This layer can also be found in the Delilah Folder in the inventory Library folder. Aha!

So now I am wearing the Mesh body attached to my real SL avatars body. And I am wearing an invisibility layer to hide my complete SL real avatars body. Apparently the Delilah Mesh Avatar comes with a premade skin, which has really sexy tatts on it ;).

The only thing I am not sure is if I am able to modify this Delilah Mesh premade avatar. So far the ‘edit appearance’ mode does not give acces to the slider where you can change the avatars body, like you can do with the SL real avatar body. I guess since the Mesh Avatars are made in a different program like Blender outside Second Life you can’t change them once they are inside Second Life.

So what have I learned so far?

1. It’s a premade body which is attached to your SL ‘real’ avatars body. (the real body needs to be invisible by wearing a transparant layer). The Mesh body acts like your normal avatar body in case of movement and such.
2. It can not be modified or created by you in SL.
3. Mesh bodies come with a skin already on them .
4. Once wearing a mesh avatar body, you can only wear mesh clothes in the right fitting size.
5. I haven’t purchased a mesh avatar body yet. But I have been ‘window shopping’ as there are a few. Some come with a HUD which you can wear and which will let you control various things on the body. Like preset skins and tattoo, clothes and such. Also some come with appliers for your new mesh body.

So far my journey into What is a Secondlife Mesh avatar. Correct me if i’m wrong about anything in this blogpost. And If you have suggestions please let me know by leaving a comment!

xxx Farah