Friday, May 15, 2009

New Features Lead (Eventually) to Higher Quality Merchandise: V. Avatar Attachments

Sirena Camille Hair Up
Sirena Camille Hair Down
Written 15 May, 2009

New Features Lead (Eventually) to Higher Quality Merchandise
V: Avatar Attachments

I once saw a display at the annual Hair Fair that depicted Second Life hair across the years. The introduction of torii and flexible prims made a huge difference—and so did sculpties. Hair is far more realistic than it was before 2006. Scripts can make hair even better. I’m particularly fond of Sirena hair, which is scripted to be worn up or down; a simple voice command or the removal of a hair ornament will initiate the change.

Sculpted prims have made big improvements in garments—especially in coats and casual garments. Sculpted shirt sleeves and tails, pant cuffs, collars, and belts are now commonplace.

Nowadays most shoes and boots are sculpted. When they’re not looking like big round blobs on your feet, they look great, for the most part.

As the scripting and building tools continue to improve, and as new features arrive (everyone is looking forward to being able to navigate the web from a prim), Second Life will continue to become more and more sophisticated. This will of course, place bigger and bigger demands on our video cards and processors and hard drives, but hey! Progress is inevitable.

(You can see some of the sculpted clothing attachments in my forthcoming non-fashion blog about Paper Couture).

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