In which I rant about wearing layer hosiery with Bakes-on-Mesh and why next to nobody does it in OpenSim
Things I do which allegedly "literally nobody" does, part 9: Wear stockings or tights when appropriate or necessary. As opposed to going with naked legs even in the deepest winter.
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I've been a rather early adopter of #
BakesOnMesh, and I'm one of the few in #
OpenSim who actually use it to its full extent. Not only have I understood that BoM makes it possible to wear layer clothes on a mesh body, but I've understood two more things.
One thing is that BoM doesn't only work with layer clothes stolen from Second Life within the last two years with the teal "Free Bakes on Mesh" brand on them (and there's precious little to which this applies). It works with all layer clothes, even clothes made before there was rigged mesh.
The other thing is where BoM works amazingly well. Sure, it's non-sense to use it to wear full non-mesh outfits with a pullover and a pair of jeans or so like they used to before 2015. Where it really shines is everything skin-tight and sufficiently stretchy: underwear, swimwear and especially hosiery. I can wear old, technically out-dated layer tights from before 2015 underneath
everything. I can wear them under all my skirts and dresses without them ever clipping through. I could even wear them under bathing-suits or bodysuits, Playboy bunny-style.
In the meantime, the users of Athena & Co. are conditioned to only ever wear mesh. They were taught that mesh is new and hot, and layer clothes are outdated. Not only that, but before BoM came around, mesh was all they could wear. So even those who have made the switch from non-BoM Athena 5 to BoM-enabled Athena 6 continue to wear only mesh.
However, mesh stockings or tights have to fit under mesh skirts or dresses, and most mesh skirts or dresses cling to the skin so that stockings or tights clip through them. Therefore, not only do most female avatars by far on the Hypergrid never wear hosiery, but actually, most freebie stores don't even offer it with the possible exception of stockings in lingerie boxes.
On the other hand, I think the problem lies elsewhere. It's the general thinking that female avatars have to be as sexy as possible, and that, in order to achieve this, they have to bare as much skin and wear as little fabric as they can get away with. So they stand there on a snow-covered winter sim with bare legs from their open sandals with 10cm spike heels all the way up to their micro-minidress or micro-miniskirt; the latter is usually worn with a bare midriff. They justify that with OpenSim not being reality.
I mean, it isn't like there's no newer layer hosiery available in #
SecondLife. There's a lot of it on the Marketplace. Sheer nylon tights, opaque tights, even knit tights for winter, it's all there. So why does nobody buy it from the Marketplace, export it without asking the creators for permission like it has been done in certain circles for three years or so, import it to OpenSim, put it in "Free Bakes on Mesh" boxes, advertise it as something revolutionarily new and the best thing since sliced bread and then have their female alts (unless their mains are female) stride around in it at big parties where everyone can see it? Or, the cheapest way, copybot them at an in-world sales event without paying a penny?
One reason is because it's hard to sell the return to avatar technology from the 2000s as something new and innovative. People in OpenSim are quite firm in their belief that layer clothes are outdated, and everything has to be mesh nowadays. It's similar to the idea that alpha masks have been outdated, and the alpha HUD has been state-of-the-art ever since the arrival of the first Athena.
The other reason is because even those who rip clothes off Second Life to offer them in OpenSim free and full-perm want female avatars to be as sexy as possible and therefore as naked as possible, always and everywhere. Either they only steal what they'd wear themselves, or they want to keep female avatars from wearing something they don't want to see on them (one of the reasons for a lack of longer skirts not made in OpenSim as well), or they can't for the lives of them imagine that any female avatar would ever wear tights because they wouldn't.
Well, I would. And I do. No matter how old the tights are, no matter how old-fashioned their creator is in clinging to their system body and layer-plus-prim clothes. At least they're legal, and they were made in OpenSim for OpenSim.
Now, I'm not prudish. I'm far from it as my next post in this series will show you. But there are two adjectives that do apply to me. One, I dare say, is classy. The other one is warm.
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OpenSimulator #
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VirtualWorlds #
Avatar #
Clothing
