Wowmeh Body Mesh Review v2.8

Unless you've been living under a rock the last month, you've heard a lot about the new Wowmeh Fitted Mesh Body.. so I ordered it off Marketplace but after some extended lag in delivery, Baby Ghosn was nice enough to give me the latest version!  Creator responsiveness will always score brownie points with me :)

Baby created this new mesh body using the new Fitted Mesh (formerly called Liquid Mesh) technology released by Linden Labs in February, which is now supported by the Linden viewer and Firestorm, the two most popular viewers in Second Life.

I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical about a Fitted Mesh skin.  Like many people who use many mesh bits and parts on their avis, I have a well developed love/hate relationship with mesh.. where I absolutely love mesh's smooth lines over the blocky linden avi with the gorilla hands, I'll have equally negative reactions to texture mismatches on the back of my Cute Azz (the infamous "line") and self-detaching parts during teleports.

In short, I have plenty of questions when incorporating a new piece into my overall look.

• Is this going to change my shape drastically?  
• Are the textures going to look right?  
• Does it play well with other mesh parts and clothes?  
• Are the clothes appliers easy to work with?

The longer I stay in Second Life, the more I just want it to get easier.. fortunately, the Wowmeh mesh body is a step in the right direction in terms of style and usability.  It's not perfect, but there are plenty of encouraging signs and is under active development!

These comments relate to version 2.8, released May 3, 2014.


Adapting the mesh to your avatar

First off, the Fitted Mesh sits on top of your avatar skin like a laminate, so I highly recommend making a copy of your avatar, and then modifying your shape.  If you have mesh bits like the Lolas Tango and Cute Azz like I do, you'll want to modify your shape to match what you look like with your mesh bits on.

The key items you may want to adjust are

Saddle Bags (for Azz)
Breast Size (for mesh breasts such as Lolas or Lush)
Hand Size (for mesh hands such as Slink)
Foot Size (for mesh feet such as Slink or N-core)

Once you have your shape modified to match your mesh bits, you'll also want to reduce these sliders by 1 or 2, so when the mesh skin goes on, it will look right -
Belly Size
Leg Muscles
Body Fat
Torso Muscles

In these next sections, I'll write about how the Wowmeh mesh works compared to existing mesh parts..


HUD and other goodies

Wowmeh comes packaged with a mesh foot and hand out of the box, along with a HUD to apply skin textures and clothes.  There's also a notecard with thorough documentation.

When applying a skin texture, Wowmeh flawlessly applies a texture bridging the hand, foot and skin.

Applying clothes on top of your Wowmeh is just as easy - you can drag a texture onto the HUD, or you can use appliers provided by your creator.  Click, and voila!


Feet and Shoes

I tested the Wowmeh foot versus two popular mesh feet in SL - Slink and N-core.  I actually preferred the Wowmeh foot compared to either of these due to the seamless match.

However, the non-Wowmeh mesh feet are definitely slightly out of alignment with the rest of the foot.

N-core Barefeet

Slink High Heels 

But where it really needs work are shoes and heels - regardless of whether the shoes are rigged or unrigged, heels or sneakers, I had a devil of a time matching the shoe to the leg without gaps between the mesh and shoe, or jamming the top of the shoe into my leg.  Ow!

I've heard some people running into a "double nail" problem on the Wowmeh foot that's also common with Slink users - go to your skin creator's store and see if they have an applier for your skin!  Also if you're feeling daring you could try editing your skin yourself and removing the nail on the texture..


Hands

The Wowmeh hands have a perfectly flush appearance when applying a skin texture. The shape looks right, but I still prefer the Slink Elegant hands I compared them to... I prefer the smaller hands on the Slinks where the fingers aren't spread out quite so much.  A bit picky on my part maybe.

Slink Elegant Hands

Wowmeh Hands

On the other hand, the wrist on the Slinks give the impression of wearing a glove when looking at the joint between the Wowmeh mesh skin and the Slink hand.  Definitely a mismatch I'll expect will be resolved in a future release.

There's also the same "double nail" issue on the Wowmeh hand that's also common with Slink hands - again, refer to your skin vendor for appliers.


Breasts

When I resized my chest to match my Lolas Tangos, I ended up with a much more natural looking rounded curve rather than the "implant" look of the Tangos.  After applying my skin texture, the "girls" looked perfect, without any lines or indication they'd ever seen a knife in their lives :)  Woohoo!!

Before - With Lolas Tango

After - Wowmeh only

The Wowmeh mesh could definitely use a texturizer for the nipples tho - I'll want more than a single on/off switch - nipples on, nipples off :)

Lolas Tangos

Wowmeh

Butt

I really liked the Cute Azz when it first came out.  Sadly, Linc recently went out of business(!!!), so I suddenly found myself in the market for an alternative..

To be fair, the Azzes weren't without limitations - the "remove" part of the Azz appliers was never released for some reason, the calves were super thin, not to mention the infamous "line" in the back where the Azz mesh changed to avatar skin.

So another great surprise here - after I resized my tush to match the Azz, the Wowmeh mesh addresses all 3 of these long-standing issues.. in a beta!

Linc who?? :)

Pussy

My X4 Pussy required some minor repositioning, but I'll let you tell me how it looks ;)

Price

As of this post the Wowmeh mesh skin retails for L$599 Correction, the price has jumped to L$899.  When you figure in the cost of mesh breasts, Azzes, hands and feet, it's a very compelling price.  It's just out of range of casual Second Lifers, but that's kind of the point... I want to be unique and certainly want my avi to be my own.  I certainly won't miss having separate texture appliers for each mesh piece!

There's a fully-functional demo (L$0) of the Wowmeh skin that works exactly the same as the full version.