Just Say No to No-Mod

This gorgeous mohair skirt comes in green, grey and blue.

I love this mohair skirt from The Closet. In fact, I have it in three colors and if she made more colors, I would probably have it in those colors as well. And putting it together with some warm cozy tights and well, you have my favorite sort of run-around outfit. And it must be, I think I ran around in it for three days. But there was a problem – and not to single out The Closet – it is widespread problem that affects clothes from many stores and designers. It’s one that would be very simple to fix, though. The thing is – no mod prim clothing is just plain bad business practice.

You see, for the longest time our mesh was grey and so all our system clothing was a bit darker than our prim clothing unless we or the designer added a dash of grey in the texture window. But now, in the Release Candidate, that old glitch has been fixed and our mesh is white and so our system clothes are the color they shoud be and our prim clothes no longer need a dash of grey to match. Because this skirt was no-mod, the photo above is what it looked liked.

Now, I was able to IM the designer and she graciously replaced all my prims with white ones so I have my lovely skirt back and I can wear it again. However, that’s not the best option, it’s going to be onerous for her to replace every prim from every outfit she has sold. How much easier if the prims had been sold as modifiable in the first place. There are fashion lovers by the score frustrated with clothes that are tinted for the old mesh and not modifiable to match the new mesh.

The Closet Mohair Skirt with Muism silk shirt, Nova tights and Tesla ankle boots.

I know that designers choose No-Mod to make copy theft harder – but it doesn’t prevent copying and it’s not your prims that give your clothes their value. It’s your textures, the way you add light and shadow, crickles and wrinkles and realism. That’s the artistry that gives value. You can have the nicest prim in the universe, but a flat texture won’t make it pretty. That’s why very few people get exercised about some people selling full-perm sculpties for others to texture, it’s the texturing that takes it from being a shape to being clothing. People who know much more than me about computers and coding are pretty unanimous that no-mod is no protection.

That gorgeous bangle is from EarthStones and the necklace and earrings are from Muse

So, why not make life easier for you (do you really want to be sending out replacement prims to every customer) and for your customers (do you really want to make them IM you to make their clothes wearable again) and make it modifiable. Besides – what guarantee do we have that some time in the future the mesh won’t change back to grey, or pale lilac, mauve, chartreuse?

Okay, I feel a bit guilty using this fabulous skirt to highlight and illustrate my short rant about the no-mod issue so here’s one more picture showing you how perfectly lovely the skirt is.  Remember, this affects clothes from across the grid, from Lelutka to Zenith to The Closet to DP YumYum and many many more. These are good designers who make quality clothes that hundreds of people love so let’s hope that the future is modifiable.

Please comment. I plan to send a link to several designers and your comments might help persuade them if they see this is deeply and widely felt.

****STYLE NOTES******
Promotional Copies are denoted by a Bold R

  • Poses: Reel Expression
  • Skin: Belleza Belle Med Gold Wine R
  • Eyes: Poetic Color Night Forest
  • Lashes: CyberNetic
  • Hair: Truth Damien 2
  • Nails: PXL Creations
  • Top: Muism Open silk Shirt
  • Skirt: The closet Mohair Skirt
  • Tights: Nova Cashmere Charcoal
  • Shoes: Tesla Hylda Boots
  • Jewelry: Earthstones Gimme Those wood Bangles &
  • Muse Sea & Shore Kailina Set

23 thoughts on “Just Say No to No-Mod

  1. Heidi

    And it’s even worse when the prims are cuffs for a shirt. I guess this particular designer expects me to modify my shape to a rail thin model to make the prims fit? It’s driving me up the wall, and I will never shop in this store again, especially since they won’t answer my notecards.

  2. Nissa Nightfire

    Also agree 100%! Thanks, Caj. Re-size scripts don’t solve all the fitting problems there are. I’d be willing to live with it if I thought that it truly protected designers. But, it seems the general consensus is that it does not.

  3. Stormy Wilde

    I used to sell things no mod //then// I bought a prim item that was no mod and it did not fit my avatar at all. needless to say now I will not buy any sort of prim clothing if it is no mod. I understand wanting to protect your creations but there is a point where you have to give a little bit of leeway to get.

  4. kesseret

    Since I am a heavier avatar I never shop in a place where prims are no mod. If I buy something like that I will contact the creator and request a mod copy. I cannot do no mod prims. Because of that almost everything I sell is modify (prims/clothing layers- only scripted wedding objects are no mod). Making it no mod doesn’t protect me one bit.

  5. Annah Whitfield

    As a designer (or a wannabe), I usually do prims mod or I insert resize scripts in them!
    If it is a skirt or part of an outfit, definitly mod, because some people are still using the old viewer!
    but for belts for example, I use the resizer script! I don’t think that kind of stuff needs mod! am I wrong? I think it also protect the designers! It’s not hard to copy a texture, if the prim is mod! so they can copy everything :S

  6. Voshie

    I agree! Not everyone is the same size as the creator. Another problem I’m encountering is an SL bug making mod items no mod. This is even worse imo, as then I have to IM a creator about something that should be working. In fact a LOT of my moddifiable prims are suddenly becoming no mod and it’s frustrating 🙁

  7. Gidge Uriza

    The importance of mod/no mod hit home to me when I tried on this HOT little outfit I was going to blog and found my ass sticking out the back of the prim skirt. I slipped into my normal model shape (the one you see here every day) and still – bootie sticking out. I slipped into my SKIRT SHAPE version of that shape and STILL…..
    BOOTIE STICKING OUT.
    It looked nuts, and I had just paid 500L for this outfit.
    I notified the creator 3 times – got zero response.

    It was a really hot outfit but guess what – you never saw it. We coulda shot around it- obviously, but that’s BS and we don’t play games like that.

    So just another reason why MOD matters – we bloggers who are promoting your wares can’t do so, if you clothes can’t be made to adjust to our Avatars.

    And seriously man, I wear a MODEL shape….your skirt didn’t fit a MODEL shape? And it’s NO MOD?

    Who the hell did you make it for? (names withheld to protect the innocent and to prevent me from ranting further).

  8. Arcadia Nightfire

    I’m not sure I can say it any better than Gidge, really. I HATE it when I buy something to blog and then can’t because the prim item is all funky and I can’t mod it. I have this problem a lot with things being too damn big for my av. I’ve got several outfits I can’t wear because of this issue.

  9. Heidi Volare

    I agree. No mod, no wear for me. I hate modifying my beautiful ghetto booty to fit in stuff. OK, maybe to look fierce in a system skirt. My avie is thin enough though. :-/

  10. Harper

    Often, there’s something that needs fixing, even from the best and most thoughtful and careful of designers. The ability to modify, at least to an extent, what you purchase helps us solve these glitches without driving the designer batcrap with customer complaints.

  11. Marianne Little

    An old post, but I post a link back here to the creator of a very well known store. Japanese creator? I hope she read English well enough to understand what my problem is. She sell the best tights in SL (IMHO) and her cuffs are no mod with resizer. And grey! I can see they are much darker than the rest. She sell other items (armwarmers, scarf, sweaters) where the sculpts are mod, and I can tint it back to white, so I am pretty sure it’s not just my viewer that’s wrong. I hate no mod, that they put in a resizer script don’t help this problem.

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