I don’t see it, so it must be your settings

People often walk around with the wrong materials on their mesh heads, eyes, or bodies.

Especially people who don't use the Advanced Lighting model (ALM) activated in the preferences - Graphics menu might not be aware of this, because you need ALM activated to see it.

Materials can look very beautiful, but it can also create many issues. For example, it can look like you have a neckline or that the sky is reflecting on your face, like in the image on the left side, see how it turned a bit metallic blue.

So you wonder, how do I fix this?
Well overall, with every mesh item, there is one basic item you require, their HUD and you need to know what the material setting does.

Try to find these settings in the main hud of your mesh item.

Typically, you will find 3 sliders.

1. Glossiness
2. Intensity
3. environment.
To turn it off, just put the slider completely on the left side.

The glossiness slider will give you a water/oil effect. This is perfect for photos, giving you a beautiful, healthy shine on your face and most people including me are using this setting for photos but also day to day.

The Intensity will work on Glossiness as well as on the environment setting and make the amount look more intense.

The environment slider will give you that metal/glass look. While they might look gray for one viewer, the PBR viewer might give another color due to the increase of options within materials.
On the image left, I have not set a certain color, so it turns a bit blue.

Worn:
Hair: Truth/Whisper
Top: Tetra/Maple
Body: Legacy
Head: Lelutka/Billie

I don’t see it, so it must be your settings
Wrong!

Everyone with ALM setting on will be able to see it. In the past, that meant you had to run your computer on the higher settings and those that turned ALM off would not be able to see materials on their avatar, others, and their surrounding.

But at the moment, it seems that the new PBR viewers won’t be giving you that option. At this time it seems that you won’t be able to turn off ALM anymore and that means that everyone will be able to see the materials you’re using. Of course, this could change, we all know Linden Lab loves changes, and they are still actively working on the PBR viewer.
But even if they change it, that doesn’t mean that if you’re unable to see it, it’s not there.
It does mean that you have set it that way.

Sorry, this was a pet peeve of mine, you have no idea how often I have been told that it was my issue because they couldn’t see it and nobody ever told them.

Let me give you one example.

What you see here is the Hud for the Lelutka mesh heads, yours might look a little bit different based on the version you’re using.

I have selected the second tab that is shaped like a head.

This head has a few more options than I mentioned above. It also gives the option to choose where the shine will be located on your face and how it will look.
It gives you 4 options and it also comes in “young” and a “Mature” version.

Below those options, you will find the sliders I was talking about.
As you can see I have set mine to Glossiness and I like a bit more intensity. But everyone’s taste is different, I would suggest going to stand in front of a light source and start playing with the material settings, maybe even the color settings that you see below the intensity slider.

One more thing, these are not all the options you have, you can buy different types of materials for your face and body from 3rd party creators, but the basics are the same, you will often need the main hud to set the type and intensity of the material.

If I have missed something or if you have more questions, you can contact me by clicking the contact form below and I’ll try my best to help you out.