Setup
What is Alpha, and why do clothes and restraints need it?
Alpha is a mask that makes parts of your body transparent. Clothes and restraints are made for specific bodies and can clip through others; hiding the covered or clipping parts with Alpha fixes it.
What Alpha is
Alpha is a transparency mask: it makes parts of a mesh body, head, etc. transparent, which means hidden. When you see "a piece of the body is missing", Alpha is usually the reason.
Why you need it
The most common reason is clipping.
- Clothes, restraints, and latex suits are usually made for one specific body. Worn on a different body, or when tight or thin, parts of the body poke through.
- Anywhere covered by clothing does not need the body displayed anyway. Hiding those parts with Alpha stops the clipping and the overlapping look.
So check the compatible bodies when you buy clothes or restraints; even when something is not fully compatible, small clipping spots can often be fixed by adjusting Alpha.
How to use it
Alpha comes from two places:
- The Alpha tab in your body HUD: pick the parts to hide by hand. Hide the spots that clip.
- Auto Alpha: many clothes and restraints apply the matching Alpha to your body through their own scripts when worn, hiding the covered parts, and restore it when removed.
Common problems
- A part went transparent after hiding: the clothing does not fully cover that part because it does not quite fit your shape. Adjust your shape further (right-click the worn shape and edit it) so the clothing covers more, then restore some of the Alpha, and repeat.
- Auto Alpha does not apply: this often happens while switching outfits, when the clothing is worn before the body so it cannot apply. Take the items off and put them back on, sometimes several times. For spots that clip often, setting that part's Alpha by hand in the body HUD fixes it for good.
- Auto Alpha conflicts after changing clothes: different outfits' auto Alpha can interfere. Give each outfit its own copy of the body so each manages its own Alpha.
- The whole body disappears: with BOM on, Alpha layers also apply to BOM, so you must not wear a full-body alpha or the whole body is hidden. The same goes for Lelutka heads. Only wear alphas that hide the parts you need. For BOM, see What is Bakes On Mesh (BOM)?.