Your Shape

Your shape is actually a series of body part appearance settings.Shapes can be found for purchase from shops specializing in avatars or avatar customization, and for free from “freebie” places in SL or as free sample offerings through those shops.Sometimes a skin has a shape included to compliment the way the skin is created, but including that doesn’t determine the quality of the skin and makeup either way.

You can alter your own shape in your Edit Appearance dialog box, with a vast assortment of subtle changes to almost everypart of your avatar’s body.  Some avatars choose to use a pre-made shape suitable to taste in appearance.  And a full perm shape means you can adjust all settings and save it for yourself.

In the box below are some complimentary shapes. Combined with various skins, including the free ones provided in the Skins box nearby, you may find a nice look for your avatar that fits your own style. Or, create your own shape. It can be fun!

Skins

Skin is a layer applied to your avatar’s shape to add distinguishing facial and body features, skin tones, shading, makeup, and in some cases, even tattoos are included. Skin is the finishing touch to your avatar’s personal look in SL, before the clothing goes on. 

The complimentary skins placed in the box for you to wear will help you get a good start in your own preferred style in SL.

When you go shopping for skins, look for demos, and check them out!  The demo skins will be the best way to understand how well you like a skin shop’s work.  The skin signs will not show exactly how that makeup or shading along the body will really look on you, but a Demo skin for free or for L$1 will give you the whole truth of the quality and whether it’s to your liking, and will ultimately save you hundreds more Linden dollars down the road through trial and error.  Look for appealing shading on the skins, or your body type.  Skin prices can range from few hundred Linden dollars to over L$1000, depending on skin creator. 

Hair

The hair you choose to wear is a matter of personal preference.Long, straight, short, wavy, curly, you’ll see all these styles in SL.

Hair can be found free, though the quality and selections are often better on purchased hair.  You can find all color combos. Try a Demo hair before you buy (Demo is the demonstration hair for a particular style available for free or for 1 Linden dollar). With several types of hair being created, you’re sure to find a hairstyle you love.  There are three types of hair: rigid prim hair made of linked, individual prim with textures on them, next is the flexible prim hair, with both rigid prim and flexible (waving, moving) prim, to simulate the look of hair as it’s affected by breeze and gravity.  The third kind is alpha textures (transparent areas in a texture) linked and combined with other prim hair.  Alpha texture hair can appear thinned or transparent against certain other alpha textures, but it can still look good. There are a few combinations of all types in world, and so many styles.

 You can find hair in hair malls, salons, hair shops and certain designer shops.  Or, you can find a limited selection of free hair in the “freebie” spots around SL  The box below has some hair to give you a good start in appearance.

Clothing

 Clothing in SL is considered an almost definite must, if you plan to be out in the SL world interacting with others in various social settings.  When in public, you’ll want to be dressed. 

 There are many wonderful clothing designers in SL, and your style will determine who your favorite designers will be.  Some free clothing is found at “freebie” spots, and sometimes in the shops carrying the kind of clothing you really want your avatar to be seen in.  Not all designers offer free items, and it does not reflect either way on a shop if they do or don’t have free samples. What matters is quality and your budget.  As in RL (real life), be ready to comparison shop.

 Clothing can have varying rights for your use, like modify, copy, and/or transfer.  Importantly, however, check the right to a refund, should you decide upon wearing the purchase that you have a dissatisfaction you can’t get past.  A good shopkeeper will be happy to offer a refund if you follow their refund terms, so find out how refunds are handled ahead of time.  Not all clothes have refunds.Clothing can be found in wanderings, in malls, in searches and

Clothing Components in SL

 Clothing in SL (Second Life®) is comprised of up to nine different pieces for different parts of your avatar, and are worn in layers.

 The pieces of clothing for your avatar’s body are as follows: Gloves, Shirt, Undershirt, Jacket, Pants, Underpants, Shoes, Socks and Skirt.These items are worn in a similar way as skin on the avatar body.The clothing stretches and moves as your avatar moves. Because each body is able to wear all of these clothing items, most avatar body shapes except for the most exotic will allow the clothing to fit on it regardless of of your individual shape, though the seams and fit may vary slightly from shape to shape.

Some additional clothing items can also be built as “prim” or primitive objects that attach to various body parts; for example: armor pieces, flexibly flowing skirts,the upper portion of some boots, a high stiff collar on a shirt, or ruffly cuffs at the bottom of a lace shirt. Sight adjustments may be needed on position depending on your avatar’s body size and shape.  “Prim” clothing pieces are worn on the appropriate body area, and the prim creator of a commercial clothing item chooses the default attachment location on the body to wear the piece.  These items are

put on by right clicking in inventory and selecting “Wear” and are removed by either right-clicking the worn item or right-clicking on the worn item in Inventory list and selecting “Detach”

Shoes and Boots

 Shoes and boots are...footwear.  A shoe base is a common inclusion to all types of professionally created footwear, and is the “base” shape of the foot to allow for a truer fit for things like heels. Many of the nicer looking shoes and boots found in world are either prim shoes, or sculpted prim shoes, and on occasion a combination of both. It’s even common these days to find shoes with texture and color change menus. The basic Linden shoe that is created in appearance won’t give your avatar quite the same polished look as the prim shoes available in world.

 There are many great shoe and boot makers in SL. As with other aspects of the SL avatar, your unique sense of style will decide which shoe and boot creators you will favor.  You may even decide you’d like to make your own; and in that case, a thorough study of the components of well made boots or shoes is the thing to do, along with the right kind of practice in making your own components and textures.   

 Shoes are often built for a size 0 foot.  Your foot can be adjusted easily to 0 in the Edit Appearance window.

Animation Overrider (AO)

 An Animation Overrider (AO) is a scripted object that can replace your avatar’s default poses and animations with ones created by SL residents, when actively worn. There are several brands of AO, but they’re all created for this similar purpose.  AOs that are called populated or loaded have one or more animations loaded into them.  An empty AO needs to have animations placed in its contents and an adjustment of notecard coding. Information about loading an AO can be found in SL’s support files or sometimes in the AO contents itself.

What are AO animations? AO animations are files that move or pose your avatar.

 The most common type of AO is worn as a HUD attachment. A HUD is a Heads Up Display, and with this kind of panel, you will see your AO menu right there on a small portion of your viewer screen, not on your avatar.

Custom animations can be bought from animation shops, obtained from your friends or on the web, and some animations can even be found free in various “freebie” locations throughout SL.  So you are not without resources on customizing the poses, walks, stands, jumps, falls, dances, battles, or even the more intimate and romantic animations you want for your avatar.

Opening Boxes or "Rezzing" Objects

 Boxes are a common part of building in SL.  Not only can you build a box, but you can put all kinds of things in its contents.  Many shops use boxes to hold the products they sell, whether it’s clothing, jewelry, shoes, scripts, or even entire houses.  Note cards can go in, as can a landmark (commonly called LM).

NOTE:  Sometimes a box is not just a box!  A box of items can be in almost anyprim form, like a nice gift bag shape, or a translucent sphere, a signboard, or yes, even just a box. It’s what’s in the contents of the box that counts, when you get one. 

To open a box and get the contents, first find an area that allows builds, and drag the box file from Inventory to the ground,  This is called “rezzing” an object. “Rez” means to resurrect (no, not in a religious way) and means only to bring an item back into the SL world again in its clear, original form. Just wait for it to appear.

Now that your box full of stuff is sitting there clearly rezzed on the ground or floor, right click on it and select, “Open” from the pie menu. Let all the items show upin the popup window, then click “Copy to Inventory” or “Copy and Wear” and the items will start to copy or transfer over into your Inventory files.  Copy and Wearies self-explanatory.  Transfer happens instead of copy only when an item does not have the ability to copy enabled.  That means any non-copy item will exist in your Inventory as a single item, and will be unable to be copied in Inventory either.