The Complexities of Sorting - My New Method

FYI _ WORK IN PROGRESS
I will be updating this as I really work with this method

One thing that has become abundantly clear over the years is that sorting inventory is complex. Especially when you want to automate as much as possible of the process of dressing, undressing and amending what you are wearing. It is Second Life after all, and much can go wrong. You try to plan for some or all of these things always with varying levels of success. It is thinking about these complexities that has lead me to have numerous conversations with other people in the wardrobe community, as well as in the broader Second Life community. Those conversations have lead me to this new method for updating and maintaining my Wardrobe moving forward.

Before we jump into it, I wanted to add that this post is a reference guide for me as much as it is a way to share what I am doing with others. A place for me to get it all down, see if it makes sense, and tweak as I go.

The core of my new method is to divide my Wardrobing into three distinct areas. I call these three areas the wardrobing of Items, Avatars and Outfits. Each of these has a set of rules I will follow for process, naming and usage. The goal here is to leverage all of the different tools we have to make it so I can swap from one look to the next, one outfit to the next and make variations on those outfits to fit a need quickly and easily.

Items

Adding individual items to my Wardrobe is nothing new. It is the activity I have shown in most of my videos up to now. This is the core of what I do and it has gotten an over haul.

Goals

• Provide a visual reference to the things I already own.
• Enable the ability to wear with a single click as many items as possible.
• Ensure that the items I wear with a single click remove any appropriate items I am already wearing.
• Serve as the corner stone of my ability to rapidly switch out something in an outfit to provide variety or simply meet an unintended need.

Items Method Checklist

Entering items into Wardrobe is largely unchanged from my normal method. I tend to save vendor images to my local drive or use full perm and marketplace images when feasible. I am not making any sweeping changes to tagging. The biggest change is that I am making a decision at the time I wardrobe something whether or not it should be entered singly or a group. In this example, the Afton top and shorts have been entered singly enabling me to wear either the shorts or the top with a single click. The bodysuit from The Forge comes in 10 individual colors and while I could make 10 entries I decided I would most often wear white. I can always use the wear options dialog if I want another for a specific need.

Checklist

• Ensure you tag for the proper body!
• Manually set the proper attachment points for each worn item to enable proper replacement.
• Change the wearing policy for the item to replace (if appropriate)
• Set the item to remove the things on left hip for dresses, bodysuits and similar items.
• On shoes, set the proper foot size base outfit
• Create HUD sub-directories with a + (ie. +HUD Metals)

Attachment Points
(Thanks very much to Teqi Falta for many of these suggestions)

Left Shoulder: Shirts, Tops, Dresses, Body/Cat Suit, Jumper, Jacket (anything worn alone on top)

Right Shoulder: Jacket (over), Shrugs, Bras, pasties (anything additionally worn on top)

Left Hip: Pants, Shorts, Skirts (anything worn as bottoms)

Right Hip: Panties, Suspenders and Garters (anything additionally worn on the bottom)

Left Lower Leg: Shoes

Right Lower Leg: Socks, Stockings

Chin: Mesh Heads

Skull: Hair

Avatar Center: Mesh Bodies

Forearm: Mesh Hands

Right Foot: Mesh Feet

Do not change the attachment points or make replace on gloves, jewelry, masks, bags, wearables (mouthies, held drinks etc) and other accessories.

Avatars

This is a totally new process for me and one in some ways I have spoken out against before. However, it is the best way to leverage the automation I want. 

I have had to rethink this section. It simply was not workable to create copies for every combination of skin, body, head. I would end up with many hundreds and updating/maintaining them would be far too much of a chore. For me, using appliers on the fly to build a look isn't particularly onerous.

I am going to use Avatars then for very specific sets of looks that I use often and are particularly challenging to setup. This might include things like furry avatars or very stylized RP avatars (Star Wars Twi'lek for example).

For skins and body components I am going to revert to using my Fast Access Toolkit (FaT). The FaT is nothing more than a collection of links with individual entries in my Wardrobe that allow my to pull thing together into a collection. In the example below, I have a collection of skins appliers setup for easy access.

Wardrobe Fast Access Toolkit Skin Example

Outfits**  This Needs to be re-written

I have struggled greatly with the use of outfits. In large part I think this is due to not having a proper setup as described for Avatars. It just made the process overly difficult. Outfits then are completed looks, based on an avatar, that can be worn quickly and adapted as needed. They are exactly what you think they are in most respects. The combination though of different avatars and the change to defined attachment points means that minor changes can be made to the outfit quickly without the need to save a whole new outfit.

Goals

• Enable the ability to quickly dress in a variety of looks for a variety of different situations
• Use only links to save outfits
• Provide an easy to follow name structure that removes the chance of duplicate naming issues

Usage

• Set Put on more outfits to the proper avatar (Except with Lara)
• Write details in remarks for appliers and other accessories
• Copy links to clothing, hair and accessories in the outfits folder in inventory
• Create a +HUDs folder and place links to any makeup, applier, clothing or other HUDs for this outfit in that folder
• Name the outfit based on guidelines below
• Create these as needed, even daily
• Don't be afraid to toss out old outfits
• Always create a new outfit from gacha sets
• Optionally add ONE outfit category tag along with the default Dress Me Up tag
• Optionally add ONE genre tag

Naming Outfits

All outfits should follow this naming convention
Mesh Body (or Avatar) - Date - Outfit Name

Examples (all unique)

Lara - 050419 - Bikini Top and Shorts
Kemono - 050419 - Bikini Top and Shorts
Hourglass - 050519 - Just Because Strapless Formal
Android - 050519 - r2 Akme with Guns

Outfit Category Tags

Casual:  Most things go here.
Formal:  This is for those few times I wear those wonderful formals I have. Also for outfits I might wear to a wedding for example.
Swimwear:  Because I live on the water and own way to many swim suits
Sexy:  This is for all those short dresses, and generally sexy looks where everything is covered even if barely so.
Exposed:  This is for those outfits where something somewhere is on display for the world to see.

Outfits vs Avatars

As a general rule, if something needs a custom skin it becomes an Avatar. If you want to create a cyber look with some mesh arms, or a demon look with custom legs for example, those should be added as outfits to a specific avatar. If I want to use my red fantasy skin from Amara Beauty, that should first be saved as its own Avatar.