My Firestorm kitten wasn't even a half-hour old when he started sassing me...

Mesh Horse Avatars in Second Life: A Brief Review

I've been meaning to get around to this for a while, after a friend of mine expressed an interest in getting one of these avatars and asked my opinion. What you see above are the Water Horse Mesh Avatar (left, after some mods) and the Breeder's Choice Avatar on the right.

It's a pretty good question to ask, because neither of them runs cheap. The Water Horse clocks in at L$2899 and the Breeder's Choice at L$3000; when you're making a decision you want to be sure you can find the add-ons you want to go with them, because that's not a puny starting price-point. 

This isn't an attempt to rate one over the other; rather, it's a rundown of what will suit your choices. 

If you just want a straight out-of-the-box setup without having to purchase extras like tack, and you don't really care much to modify your colouring, the Breeder's Choice Quarter Horse avatar is the go-to. It comes with a basic Western tack set seen in the picture and an easy to use HUD to adjust basic markings. Texture changing is a breeze with both, though I give slightly better marks to the Breeder's Choice HUD layout, as well as to the thoughtfulness of the creator in allowing you to more precisely position your head for photography, something I wish the Water Horse had. 

Unfortunately, as of this typing, I don't know of any additional AO's that can be used with this avatar, so if you are looking for a 'lifestyle' avatar, specifically doing dressage or for authentic Western riding, you're out of luck, at least for the time being. The Water Horse's creator on the other hand sells a Dressage and a Western AO (the former being another large chunk of change at around L$1200). 

A quick note about the riding systems: They do differ; the Water Horse riding system actually animates the rider, so they will 'post' with you at trot and canter, and lean forward when you move into a gallop. I haven't seen this with the Breeder's Choice version. It's a nice little touch, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness given to that. 

Aftermarket items are where it matters, and you need to be careful to be sure that what you get will fit your horse as attachment points vary and even if you change the attachment point - especially for manes - there's no guarantee your item will fit. Manes will NOT fit very well at all (I speak from experience), as the neck shape is different. 

Other items like carts can also be a minefield; a cart designed for a mesh Water Horse avatar will not necessarily be good for the Breeder's Choice version. Read the product descriptions carefully and if you're not sure, send the creator a message/notecard.  

Shapes are also another common modification item, and those vary in price. The horse on the left sports a Morgan Horse modded shape from Cougar Spawns Designs (L$150). Be aware, however, that if you modify your horse's shape, regardless of if you buy tack labeled for it, it may not fit as well as if you went with the default shape; but I'm sure the modding enthusiasts out there are familiar with this and accept that as a risk. 

The relative market for mesh horse items is not terribly large at present, but I only expect that to grow over the coming months. Some recommended merchants include Carriage Trade (tack, harnesses and other lifestyle accessories), Abaddon Arts (for those really incredible fantasy mods), Flying Horse Head Studios, The Texture Barn (for additional horse skin textures that are amazingly realistic), Ladies' Pleasure (for the dressage tack seen on the left) and Scraggy Cat. 

Both avatars give us an excellent look at how mesh can be used to its best potential for Second Life, and it's clear that their creators spent hours upon hours finetuning these amazingly realistic horses, which for me justifies the price point. They've earned it. It's been a joy so far to experience both of them, but be prepared to open your wallet if you want something more than what's in the box.  

Finally got around to listing horseshoes for the Water Horse (Small, Medium and Large hooves) and a set for the Breeder's Choice regular sized hooves. The reason? Nobody apparently has listed horseshoes fitted for these avatars yet and it's hard to do dressage if you're unshod. 

Sculpted shoes have medium level shine for a best in show finish. 

L$35 a set, available at https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/145596

FOR FUCK'S SAKE FIRESTORM

I hate upgrading my viewer and do it as infrequently as I have to, which basically sucks these days because the Second Life viewer sees updates every month, it seems like. But after actually being ahead of the curve this weekend and upgrading to 4.4.1 in anticipation of Server Side Baking getting the switch thrown on the 9th, and spending a couple HOURS getting my setup back to where I like it on my accounts... I see that FS has fucked up and forgot to disable the logging code and now will be blocking 4.4.1 as soon as they get that fixed to release 4.4.2 this evening or tomorrow.

/headdesk

you guys, I love the FS team, honestly, this is just a minor rant at the inconvenience because I am not a fan of constantly updating things and I specifically did this update on my day off of work so I'd be all ~ready~ and now I'm not. Again. 

Should have followed my initial instinct and waited until the last minute, lol, but no, I was trying to be ~sensible. 

THIS IS WHY I NEVER UPDATE ANYTHING UNLESS I HAVE TO. 

I made a thing! 

My first completed house ever. I challenged myself to make a Craftsman-era home, and keep it under 100 prims. I did it! It took me about 11 months, given RL and some SL commitments that kept me very occupied. It's quite basic; I have not ventured into security scripts or the like, but since it's modify, anyone can do what they want with it once they buy it :) 

2 rooms

68 LI

20x25m footprint (approximate)

L$199

Listing is here: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Z-Deco-Craftsman-House/5042908

SL photography can be as time consuming as RL photography. So many windlights, so many poses to go through... 

The Cornfield makes a comeback for SL10B 

I came into SL about 4 years ago, long after The Cornfield fell out of use, but its legend has persisted among the older SL denizens: a whole sim covered in nothing but corn rows and the occasional windmill and a non-working TV and an old pickup truck, to which troublemakers would be confined by LL for various transgressions. In perpetual twilight, they could sit and think about what they'd done (or alternately, get bored and log off and actually do something with their time), until their 'sentence' was up. No IM, no teleporting, no nothing. 

It was located originally at the North West tip of Orientation Island 1, and closed to the public. It was finally removed from the grid in mid-2012. If you're feeling nostalgic, go check it out at the SL10B celebration, going on now. 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Corn%20Field1/200/168/23

Always be yourself. 

Unless you can be a sparkly rainbow unicorn.

Then always be a unicorn. 

W&Y Hair is closing in Second Life and has set all the hairs there for $0

Be prepared for the HORRENDOUS lag and the random logouts at inopportune times. No idea how long this is going on for, there's no date given on the blog. 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/TSUKIJI/195/213/23

Regina's Pride Dawson's Blue

I've been modding mesh horse avatars again. Here's a Water Horse mesh mod into the very obscure breed called the Canadian Pacer, which I wasn't aware of until this week - and then I just had to make a version in SL.

So here's what little I know about the breed which originated in the early 19th century: a cross of French mares with Dutch and English stock (bloodlines unknown; speculation is the Narraganset or English pacer and French Norman), the Pacer is currently thought to be either extinct as a distinct breed or living in a small herd some far reaches of the Northern territories wild. It had a natural ambling gait thanks to this breeding that made it highly desirable as a long distance endurance horse and was an influence upon the Tennessee Walker, the American Saddlebred and the Standardbred lines. It was quite small, at an average of 14.3 hands, and was said to have a head that was too large for its lean body, along with smaller than usual eyes. This unappealing visual aesthetic probably contributed to its demise as it was crossed into other lines and 'improved' upon. 

Acceptable coat colours were any solid, including blue roan, with pinto, grey, chestnut, black and bay being the most common. 

A famous blue roan Canadian Pacer sire, Tom Hal, won a bet for his owner - carrying him 80 miles across Kentucky in one day then turning around and taking him back again the next. They are sturdy workers and were popular as ranch horses and for pleasure riding. 

The name Dawson's Blue for my mod is a reference to the old capital city of the Yukon Territory before it became Whitehorse. 

Modding details:

- Morgan shape (Cougar Spawns Designs)

- Roman head (included with avatar)

- Sporty body (included with avatar)

- Small hooves (included with avatar)

- Blue roan coat texture (Ladies' Pleasure)

#nerd

Photo location: Helping Hoof Virtual Equine Therapy sim

Second Life profile shot

#no prizes for guessing the base inspiration for this one

Decent skins in Second Life

I waded through 70 pages of shit at 96 results per page to find these decent merchants (and that was just the skin+shape category). Some of these may trend towards 'younger' but win points on not being on the current trend bandwagon that to my mind grossly oversexualises tweens.  I seriously saw one vendor that specifically made VERY young skins+shapes that would make one look barely approaching double digits with Lola's appliers included. Talk about a mess of DNW. D:

Here are some decent adult skin creators. 

  Unique Megastore - They actually thought to ake a ‘mature’ skin line for male and female avatars which aren’t too shabby

WoW Skins (sawsan SecretSpy) - Nice vintage skin that appeals there

[Tokyo.Girl] which features some very nicely detailed Asian skins if one’s into that kind of thing

Izzie’s (Izzie Button) - They trend toward the young end of the scale, but at least they’re actually nice looking. 

Echelon - They have ‘hybrid mesh’ avatars but also regular ones which are reasonably priced and look pretty adult.

OtherSkin - Fantasy skins which are pricey but look pretty awesome. 

Amacci  

{PSALM} - $300 for both skin and shape as intro price. 

The Addy Style 

Moosehead Avatars - Some of these are hit or miss but generally pretty good looking.

JOMO 

{T&T} Design

ZOUL

Back on the skin shopping quest

I mean this isn't even really serious, like I'm not desperate for a new skin, but I think it's mostly curiosity driven and largely stubbornness on my part to find the good stuff that's drowning in the dross

and yet

I keep asking myself why I'm doing this every 3 pages

Made it through 16 pages @ 96 results per page before I felt my brain start to melt

So. Many. Terrible. Skins.