CommerceTeam Linden has posted an interesting blog : Help Customers Buy Clothing that Fits their Avatars. The idea is for merchants to help customers to find the right clothing for their avatar by using standards when it comes to labels and descriptions for Second Life clothing and avatars.
This is a noble aim because the rise of Mesh clothing has left many a consumer confused as to whether an item will work with their avatar. Merchants are encouraged to use both icons and text to aid consumers. The blog post advises merchants to use the following terms for the appropriate item :
- Classic avatar: original default (non-mesh) Second Life avatars.
- Standard mesh avatar: a classic avatar wearing a rigged mesh attachment, created using the standard fitted mesh model.
- Custom/branded avatar: an avatar of either type (i.e. that does or does not use mesh) that is a custom size or shape, requiring custom-made clothing to fit it. A brand name for the shape will help users easily identify which clothing fits which custom avatar.
Initially many edge cases will be raised where items don’t seem to fit a single category, which may lead to some confusion but the categories appear to work from where I’m sitting. Over at SLUniverse some points have been raised in a thread there. Tamarsk raises a point regarding the initial confusion :
So, say I have a fitted mesh jacket – is that classic or standard or both? It seems that the market space for the two last categories is very small. Aren’t 95% of the items out there just classic? Somehow I don’t think this solves much of a problem but again, I am confused.
I would say that was Standard mesh avatar myself, as long as it has been designed using the standard fitted mesh model, but I could be wrong. I’m not quite sure where mesh clothing made prior to the introduction of fitted mesh goes though, it is custom made so probably in the custom/branded category.
However Linden Lab do provide more information in a knowledgebase article, although I feel Linden Lab have missed a trick here in terms of promoting these concepts after reading that knowledgebase article, but I’ll come to that later.
The knowledgebase article provides more information for merchants and consumers, Linden Lab expand on the descriptions :
For the purposes of fitting clothing, avatars can be classified into three categories:
- Classic – Classic avatars are the original default Second Life avatars. They have a modifiable humanoid shape, and can wear clothing in the form of textures and attachments added to that shape. Most of a classic avatar’s appearance and clothing can be modified by pressing the Appearance button in the Second Life Viewer, but cannot take advantage of newer graphical features such as normal and specular maps.
- Standard mesh – A standard mesh avatar is a classic avatar that is wearing a rigged mesh attachment, usually a full-body avatar, and whose classic body is hidden by a full body alpha mask. It is classified as “standard” if it was created using the standard fitted mesh model available on the Second Life wiki.
- Custom/branded – A custom avatar is a classic avatar that is hidden by a full body alpha mask and is wearing a customized rigged mesh attachment or attachments that otherwise replace the classic avatar body. These avatars can come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and each model typically requires clothing specifically designed to work with such an avatar.
There are also tips there on how to discover which avatar type you have. I would imagine these labels will become easier to understand as time goes by and more merchants use them, which would in turn mean more consumers become familiar with the terms, however initially there will be some grey areas. However one issue that is a tad disappointing is Linden Lab’s choice of icons to accompany these items, they are copyrighted images :
© Depositphotos.com/i3alda
Now there’s nothing wrong with using copyrighted material, as long as you’re allowed to. However where I think Linden Lab have missed a trick is in not running a competition for merchants to design the icons. This would have served two purposes, firstly it would have meant the icons could be used without the copyright notice within Second Life properties, but more importantly it would have helped to spread the word about the new standard descriptions, more people would have been talking about them.
However the icons have been selected and can be downloaded from the knowledgebase article. Now there are only two icons, this is because the third icon is for branded items and people may want to use their own icon for that, which makes sense to a degree but it may have helped if there was a standard icon for that too.
However as I said earlier, this is a noble aim and if it helps consumers find suitable clothing for their avatar more easily, then that will be good for consumers and merchants.
It’s a good move, but I have to agree, the suggested terms aren’t all that clear at first glance- it doesn’t jump out at me what I need for my avatar. I guess it will become clearer with repeated use.
The need for standardized labelling is especially necessary with the new fitted mesh. But I would like to see more consistent labelling in all products in terms of naming, so I know what is inside that box in my inventory – names like “mesh Valiant khaki” don’t really help when I am trying to figure out what something is six months down the road.
That’s a great point about naming in general, this is why items get forgotten or end up underused, we forget what they are!
Hopefully the terms will become more familiar to people, there is merit in this move but time will tell if it’s adopted.
This really seems like a solution in search of a non-existent problem if you ask me. Most of the mesh clothing I get, rigged or not, requires an alpha and some standard shape tweaking. They don’t “come” with new avatar shapes to conform to the clothing. Not sure why labeling helps for what seem to be edge cases or those where the user already knows what he/she is getting.
I do think the wording in terms of avatars and clothing could do with some tweaking and in terms of custom mesh there is some crossover between the two types and people will still need to try them on before purchasing, even with fitted mesh there are quirks.
I can see what they’re trying to do though, this may evolve or it may be a damp squib.