Put on your winter coat
It’s almost embarrassing, really, how much I love pea coats. You may remember that I’ve featured more than a few here over the last few years, and I’m highly confident that I own at least a few others. I do have one in RL as well—just the one, but it’s a very nice one, and my favorite coat. But in RL I have just one, and in SL I can have as many as I want. You do the math.
Strictly from a scientific perspective, it’s interesting to see how design and construction have changed over the years on such a specific garment. This early example uses no prim add-ons at all, except for an optional scarf accessory. Most recently (where does the time go?), I featured this coat by Amerie Spittler, with its finely sculpted collar and other components. The progression seems clear: although of course good texture work is essential as always, new techniques for adding dimension and volume make possible ever more realistic clothing designs.
Where do we go from here? What is the next step? Love it or hate it, you know the answer: mesh. Ramses Meredith’s rigged mesh pea coat is, in a word, remarkable. It’s finely textured, with fabric artwork that’s softly shaded and arguably more visually interesting than simple, traditional wool. It’s also highly detailed, with chunky cuffs, turned-up collar, and shiny oversized buttons. Last but certainly not least, thanks to its rigging, it moves more naturally with your avatar than it has any seeming right to do. I might just be in love.
You can choose to wear the coat with or without an integrated, slightly grubby undershirt. Even if it’s not your thing, this is a nice option that’s essentially thrown in for free. And of course you can accessorize with your own favorite shirt, or shirts, to your heart’s content. If I may be permitted one minor grumble, it’s that the coat can only be worn open, not buttoned closed against winter’s harsh chill.
You’ll find the coat very reasonably priced at L$250; a free demo is available. Choose from ten different, not necessarily wintry colors—I particularly like the Persian Blue you see here. Five sizes/fits are included, so you can choose the one that best suits your shape. At Egoisme (Dominus 169, 111, 22).
It’s worth noting especially that my boots here, traveller Bade’s very fine DH Boots, are currently just L$50 a pair in your choice of six colors on SL Marketplace.
On Ryan: “Andrej” skin by Aida Ewing (Tableau Vivant). “Tito” shape by Alair Cortes (Pocket Mirrors). Y-62 hairstyle by Fuu Sohl (ZEUS). Buttered Hazelnut eyes by Ampersand Artful (sauce). Fit denim boots cut jeans by AIR Winx (ARGRACE). DH Boots by traveller Bade (Dirty Hands). Poncho scarf by Reila Karu (Reila). MARLEY Crocodile Lens A glasses MARLEY Crocodile Lens A glasses by Cheerno Destiny (CheerNo). Men’s Happiness Choker Chain by Alexandria Nichols (Wicked Gear).
So I went against my instincts and tried this out. Of course, it was as I should have expected: It wont fit an unusual shape. The alpha layer for the no-shirt version is completely inadequate and wont cover all the necessary parts.
Mesh doesnt automatically make things superior. I have seen traditional peacoats that look better.
Mesh certainly isn’t a magic bullet, and I don’t mean to suggest that mesh designs are automatically or always superior. Mesh is certainly another tool in the designer’s toolbox, and used properly it can be a powerful one. Like any other SL design tool–regular prims, flexiprims, sculpties–mesh has its strengths and limitations. Like many, I’m impressed with its potential for seamless creations that move with your avatar with minimal distortion. Like pretty much everyone, I’m frustrated by its fitting limitations, which as Marcus observes are significant indeed. I’ve written about these limitations before and, while I don’t belabor the point every time I feature a mesh creation, it’s worth keeping them in mind.
Marcus, I’m sorry your experience here was not a good one. Unfortunately I expect that’s going to be true for you far more often than not, given that designers tend to create designs that will (hopefully) fit (more or less) well on (most) avatars with shapes of usual proportions. I’m still not happy with the fairly common requirement to modify my shape, add a masking alpha layer, or both, simply in order to fit a mesh garment (rather than to have the garment fit me). Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later when mesh garments can be rigged to honor the non-skeletal shape sliders as well as the basic skeletal ones.
In cases where the main problem lies with the included alpha-layer mask, you may have some better luck with some of the sets of alpha masks being distributed for just such an occasion. I keep this set by Imnotgoing Sideways handy in my inventory (although I don’t see a mask in this set that would likely help you here). I’ve seen other sets both inworld and on SL Marketplace.
I do agree that traditional clothing designs still look great! They can also offer more flexibility in fitting, especially for unusual shapes, as you can modify each prim attachment individually. There’s still no guarantee of a good fit on absolutely any shape, and if there are numerous prim components the fitting process can be tedious. But the greater flexibility may just make the difference between a good fit and a bad one. I mentioned Amerie Spittler’s pea coat Amerie Spittler’s pea coat in my post above, and I also still love swaffette Firefly’s design from (gasp!) three years ago.
Thanks for that MP link to the Alpha mask bundle. I was looking for something like that as Mesh clothing creators constantly fail to create proper alpha masks, especially if you want to mix and match and dont use a V2 viewer. Maybe this will warm me up to Mesh clothing… I doubt it though.
Ryan, since you are the expert: how many menswear creators are still doing traditonal clothes ? Has everyone gone Mesh ? What do you think ?
I also find indispensable these sets of shoe masks and boot masks from Lindaline. Shoes and boots can be surprisingly and annoyingly difficult to fit correctly without a properly designed alpha mask, and it’s surprisng how many otherwise fine shoes and boots are provided either without an alpha mask, or with one that doesn’t quite do the job (at least for me). I keep these handy at the top of my Shoes inventory folder.
I must protest the moniker of “expert”–it’s just too intimidating. I resist making any such claim. I just know what I see, and what I like when I see it, and I’m not afraid to talk about it. So, from that perspective…
It took a little while, but these days I do see a lot of mesh clothing out there. Things seemed to go fairly quickly from a scattering of experimental, “beta test”clothing items to ranges of full-blown, intricate mesh creations. A lot of designers seem to be focusing on mesh designs–not necessarily exclusively, but to a certain extent. I have to see this as a positive thing, because it reflects a level of support for the technology. Hopefully between designers and consumers, valid criticism of mesh’s shortcomings will be heard and we’ll see some improvement down the road. If consumers and designers reject mesh without much comment, it might be more likely to be abandoned or left in limbo rather than improved in meaningful, enjoyable ways.
I do still see more traditional (non-mesh) clothing designs out there. In what proportion, compared to mesh? How much of it is new design work? I really can’t say, or even make a meaningful guess.
We could ask the same question about other earlier clothing design approaches. Are designers still creating items of clothing that use no prim attachments? No flexiprims? No sculpted prims? Probably yes, somewhere–but those once-new design tools have been widely adopted, and in most cases the result has been accepted, popular changes in clothing design. I think this is gradually becoming true of mesh, too, and will likely become even more so as times goes by. Especially if mesh is enhanced to better respect the shape sliders, and more of them. Then we might really have something.
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