I’m guessing if I showed the above photo to a few of my SL friends, they would know it wasn’t me, but they wouldn’t necessarily guess I’d disposed of my current fave mesh body and head. That is exactly what I have done for this blog.

A while ago, someone on Reddit suggested I do a blog on the Ruth 2.0 free mesh body and I decided I would!

Ruth 2.0 or Ruth Too is a low-poly mesh body originally designed for OpenSimulator. You can find out more about its origins and the people who worked on it on this blog by Austin Tate from early 2018.

The fact that there are people who work on open source things to help people using virtual words makes me happy. Those folks deserve my admiration and appreciation for all they do and I give that, unreservedly.

HOWEVER, I will be reviewing this body and mesh head as an SL user and not as a creator. I’ve used the standard avatar for many years before switching to a mesh body. This means I won’t shy away from pointing out the issues as I see them for the blog readers and SL users. It shouldn’t detract from the immense work and efforts that go into producing such items. It also should be noted that as I (and most of my readers) have no experience developing or working with skin textures, for example, that the blog will be aimed squarely at the ‘see it and wear it’ people, like myself.

So, firstly and most importantly – THANK YOU – to those who have worked on, contributed to and modified the Ruth 2.0 and all related parts.

Secondly, let’s get down to business and look under the bonnet 😀

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My question to myself was this – Is it possible to use the Ruth 2.0 mesh body and head instead of one of the more popular (and expensive) mesh bodies and heads in SL? Let’s find out!

There are various versions of the Ruth 2.0 avatar on Second Life marketplace and I eventually went with this one sold by Vlad Blackburn. I recommend it not just because it’s free (he’s not even charging 1L$ for it, as some do), but also because I did get some others and this one had the best selection of skins provided for it.

The first issue is right there, unfortunately. Your choice of skins is limited to those available for free. Skin makers don’t make and sell skins for the Ruth 2.0 mesh body. The skins provided in the HUD were basic, like circa 2008 basic. They had the make-up already on the face, for instance, but they are okay if you’re out and about and don’t take close-up photos of yourself.

You can see in the main picture above that I’m wearing Blueberry’s 7th Anniversary Sundress which is available in a fatpack for 650L$ (here’s the marketplace link for convenience). Of course, immediately we hit the next issue like a fly hitting a windscreen on a motorway – designers don’t make clothes for the Ruth 2.0 body!

Indeed, I asked my Facebook buddies why they bought a mesh body in the first place and pretty much unanimously, it was so that they could enjoy fitted mesh clothes for their body which looked perfect. That is not going to happen here.

The best option for the Ruth 2.0 body from Blueberry’s lovely sundresses was the Maitreya Lara – it fitted the best. That’s not to say that there weren’t fitting issues. Luckily the Ruth 2.0 comes with an alpha HUD which is perfectly adequate. You can see a small preview of it below in one of Vlad’s marketplace pictures.

There are no save slots, but honestly, I don’t use save slots much in SL anyway – I forget which outfits I’ve saved alphas for and end up doing it again from scratch. So… not a huge problem. You can alpha out the bits that stick out of your clothing.

The third, not insurmoutable, issue was that the shapes provided for the body are awful. Each and every one is really bad. I’m sorry to say that, but it’s the truth. I made my own shape for the body and head, which I’d be happy to share with anybody who feels they’d like to go down the route of having a Ruth 2.0 body and head. Just hit me up inworld – Mericat Ireland – and I’ll send it right over. If you just get the body and decide to use my shape, brace yourself for the fact that your face without the mesh head on will look terrible. So you’d have to work that out by yourself.

I took some candid, naked shots of the body to show you what you can expect.

The smoothness of the body is fine, however, the inner elbow joint, wrist joint, hands and feet are very basic. The feet in particular are only better than standard avatar feet in that they have something resembling toes, but toes that met with a tragic accident. I’m thinking flip-flops, door being opened over the toes… you get the idea.

The rear view is okay but the buttocks are a tiny bit jagged and the thighs are too straight in my opinion (ie. adding body fat does not apply any flesh to the inner thigh in particular), of course, I’m being picky, but that’s my job here. You can see also that, once bent, the rear of the elbow bends like a cardboard inner from a kitchen roll.

And now onto the mesh head. I was surprised to get a mesh head in the pack honestly, initially it was all going to be about the body but when I saw it in there, I thought I should go for it – after all, a free mesh head is not to be sniffed at.

Or is it?

The mesh head is adjustable via edit shape, but there are elements which are not fixable via those sliders. The mouth seems to be that deep as a minimum, the jaw has very limited options and the cheeks remain blocky – like Kryten from Red Dwarf – no matter how much you attempt to round them out.

This second photo shows clearly the issues around the nostrils, mouth and cheeks, as well as a neck gap you could use as handy storage for your credit card.

Frankly, this mesh head is worse than my standard avatar face, I cannot see the point of using it in its current state.

To answer my own question – Is it possible to use the Ruth 2.0 mesh body and head instead of one of the more popular (and expensive) mesh bodies and heads in SL?

It’s possible you could use the body, but it would depend entirely on the reason you wanted a mesh body… the main reason given by my small survey for having a mesh avatar is to dress it well, and I can see there is a case for looking good naked.

Dressing the avatar will be a constant challenge, but perhaps it’s a challenge you’re willing to take up? There are freebie clothes for mesh avatars (not this one, but still) and you can try to adapt the best-fitting option for your use.

It could be preferable to the SL standard avatar body of 2008, but is it any better than the new mesh standard avatars provided by LL? Yes, yes it is. It is better than those. They look like they are made of your mum’s old tights stuffed with carrier bags.

If you just want to look better naked, you might also consider Svetlana Elonara’s free mesh body which has limited usage – no alpha HUD for instance and you can’t change skin, but you can pick it up for 0L$ on marketplace. Looks quite nice!

The head could be useful for impromptu football games, or for passing as an android at a human-free space colony. All joking aside, I mean it needs more development before I can see it as an improvement over the standard avatar head.

The body could be much improved if someone had the skillset to produce their own skin for it. There’s nothing much that isn’t forgiveable with good texturing and detailing. I simply don’t have those skills and so can only work with what was kindly provided.

If commercial skin makers, mesh clothing designers etc. embraced the body, it would be a game changer. But I guess in order for them to do that, the body would have to be popular in game – and for it to be popular, it would have to look better. A bit of a chicken and egg situation going on here!

And that, dear reader, is that. If anybody’s feelings are hurt by my frank review, then I’m sorry about that. My job on this blog is to present the truth. I don’t airbrush my words or pictures. (I mean, I do use PS or Gimp, but I don’t airbrush out problems).

Meri did not wear her Catwa head or Maitreya body for this review, that’s kinda the point. Hope you enjoyed it 🙂