Avatar-related concepts: Dressing for the situation

One key element of immersion is to let your surroundings have an effect on your avatar, and to adjust your avatar accordingly. First and foremost, this means to dress for whatever situation your avatar will encounter.

It may be more convenient to always dress the same, especially for guys who aren't interesting in playing Barbie. Or you may not to fall behind in the Hypergrid's eternal rat race for the sexiest or most badass avatars. But no style of clothing fits all possible situations, especially not maxed-out sexiness or badassery. Unless, of course, you completely ignore your surroundings. And that's the opposite of immersion.

It isn't like dressing for the situation isn't possible in OpenSim, even if what your favourite freebie sims offer makes you believe otherwise.

Look at Juno in the picture. She doesn't have an SL body. There is only one piece of clothing that's specifically rigged for her body. And she refuses to wear ripped SL clothes.

And yet, she manages to dress appropriately for so many situations. Summer. Winter. Beaches. Ballrooms. Fancy cities. Hippie festival grounds. Riding through the Wild West. Or the dreadful weather of the Scottish Orkneys. You'll notice that she only wears heels when appropriate. And if you look closely, you'll notice that she wears tights when appropriate.

If she can do all that with a body which many deem unusable and clothes which many believe don't exist, it should be even easier with a body for which loads of clothes exist like Athena.

All it takes are three things. One, visit a few more shopping sims and pick up clothes in various styles and for various situations, even if they aren't as sexy or as badass as possible, and even if they may be a few years old. Two, look more closely at the places you want to travel to. And three, dare not to be sexy or badass for a change.

Immersion means to stop trying to convince yourself and others that it's always 30°C/86°F or above everywhere in OpenSim, just so that you can wear that sexy Christmas-themed micro-minidress on a snow-covered sim. Immersion means to acknowledge that's even too cold for that midriff-baring jacket and put on a parka jacket or a winter coat, not although but because it covers you up.

Immersion means to understand and accept that it isn't very believable to walk on sand or snow or ice in 15cm/6" platform sandals with 30cm/12" spike heels, no matter how sexy they are, because you couldn't do that in real life. In fact, immersion means to make use of that foot position switch more than only once in your avatar's life time. When you're on a beach, go barefoot or wear flat sandals that you can easily take off, and put those feet of yours back into the flat position.

Speaking of which, immersion means that if want to go wandering and exploring, flat sneakers beat high spike heels, and sturdy flat boots beat sneakers if it's chilly enough, or the terrain is rough enough.

Immersion also means that while bare legs have their times and places, so do tights. Yes, they exist in mesh. And if mesh tights clip through your clothes, ask me where you can find good layer tights, and don't be afraid of wearing layer clothes that are years older than your mesh body. After all, that's what Bakes-on-Mesh is about.

For guys, immersion means to accept that you shouldn't really visit a subtropical beach dressed up like a one-percenter, covered in heavy black leather from your neck to the soles of your feet.

I'll probably come back to the topic of beaches later.