During an interview for ‘Designing Worlds‘ I met Brooke Linden and DaveR Linden and I noticed that they both had rather good looking mesh avatars.
So I asked them if their avatars were two of the new starter ones that are going to be released next week.
They confirmed that this was the case, so with their permission, I hereby reveal two of the 24 new avatars future users of Second Life will soon be able to choose from.
You can see them in action and hear them share some very interesting things in the next episode of ‘Designing Worlds’ that will be broadcast on the 19th of May, so make sure you keep an eye on the Designing Worlds website.
Jo Yardley's Second Life 
So a newbie will choose these avatars and then,founds that all free content will not fit or will be insane to make fit (Guessing those avatars will be fitted mesh ones.).
Well it is still a good innovation and welcome one, but with fear that will make a lot of fuzz, cause many reg users simply don’t use mesh fit viewers (perhaps only when firestorm blocks the latest release without it, Ll launch these new ones, some i fear, to be so depended on firestorm viewer for all progress) and it will create even more fuzz, when newbies will try to ask how to dress and so on, as i doubt many reg users know cause they don’t use fit mesh avatars at all (I don’t and i don’t intend to change my avatar sooner and i see much more thinking in so).
But of course in the end, if they are already fit mesh avatars, at least this time nobody will accuse LL of being offering poor and dated content.
And Creators will finally have a reason to start pushing fit mesh and support it.
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OMG, Thank goodness the African guy actually has African features.
minor /facepalm that he looks like a 70s stereotype… 🙂
But at least its not a white guy with brown makeup on like ALWAYS happens in these things…
This will go a LONG way towards improving the issue of alienation non-whites feel if this guy is part of a trend. Just his presence along is a seriously welcome breath of fresh air.
To whoever heard me on that at LLs: Thank you.
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I want to see a standing pose. He looks like his arms are long enough to be human, but in a sit pose its hard to tell. I can’t tell either way for the female avatar.
Also do you happen to have them set against a more contrasting background?
random ps: Ethiopians had dreads and afros for centuries – particularly well groomed afros, and in the first half of the 1900s, they sent missions all over Europe including students to a number of universities. Though they wouldn’t be dressed in 70s American night club wear…, some of them were probably in Berlin in the 20s. 😛
(Most likely in outfits befitting Ethiopian nobility as I suspect they didn’t get to socialize with the locals much.)
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Berlin was a very cosmopolitan city, they had people living there from all over the world, including black people, chinese, muslim, etc.
They even had a mosque in the 1920s!
And when Josephine Baker visited they treated her more than a star than they did in much of the US.
I am not sure they would have had dreads or afros then though, maybe nobility, yes, they would also wear traditional clothing, mostly there for a short visit.
But when looking at the foreigners living in 1920s Berlin at the time, most seemed to have adapted and dress just like the Berliners.
There is a famous story of a little black boy growing up in 1920s Berlin, I think you will love his story, I did.
His name was Hans Massaquoi.
PS I did make one picture of them standing up, but it wasn’t very good.
I’ll add it anyway.
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Not always the 70s-fros, but here’s what I mean:
http://www.missjones4history.com/the-league-of-nations-in-the-1930s.html
– scroll to the part about Abyssinia. This is 1930s. The Emperor’s escorts on many of his trips in Europe pulled in people that had earlier been sent as students, to advise him on local protocols. I don’t know the two guys in this photo, but in his autobiography he names a lot of the youth who helped him. What I forget is how many were sent before his reign (as he began his reign in 1930). Most of the time I’ve seen these sorts of images they’ve been wearing Ethiopians clothes. That is very different from Africans who were living in Europe permanently as a result of colonialism: those Africans assimilated as you note.
But either way… the new avatars will let people have more diverse ethnic looks. I with this one sample guy didn’t look he was coming out of a disco club in the 70s… But just having those features on his face means if the hair comes off, and the clothes can be changed – I could use that to throw an African character into any period. And hopefully the remaining list will work for Asian, Native American, and some other looks not presently as easy in SL.
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Well look like some realized that the avatar eight on Sl was a bit out of….
Still without changing default camera Fov, Linden Lab will make newbies feel out of place and real small.
Please Linden Lab, it is time to follow Penny advice!!!
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How is it that designers aren’t in a total uproar about this? In one fell swoop, LL is going to obsolete every shape, skin, hair, and piece of clothing on the grid, and at least for a moment, they will be the only source of clothing for newcomers? What am I missing here?
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1st: We don’t know if they just improved the skins and dressed the avatars with better mesh clothes.
2nd: Until they release per facto, the new starting avatars, one can only speculate.
3th: Even if they do release the most top notch avatars with all (mesh body, much better mesh hands, feet, clothes and so on, in sum, the best of the best that one can have on Sl now) that will make only creators and users aware (and how many are really aware?) that Sl has really changing for the better on last years (Rod Humble legacy) graphically speaking.
4th: No matter the hype on 3d reality,Oculus rift, whatever gadgets, the 1st step is to make users aware (as LL will never dare to just destroy legacy content) that Scale is as important now as never before and the 1st move is to make default camera fov that makes one much more aware of that.
5th: Chui is a pain, much more with SL Go. It is time to admit its a clutter cluster on the screen that takes out all immersion and change it, unless the last goal is, to not type (if we all will be forced to go with oculus rift or whatever, for sure that will happen) or to look at Sl as a giant chat room only, Chui needs to be revised as much as Camera Fov.
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