DEV Muscle Angel, Catherine & Jay — The Most Advanced Bodybuilder Mesh Bodies in Second Life
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
::dev::'s Angel, Catherine, and Jay are widely recognized as the most advanced bodybuilding mesh bodies in Second Life, specifically engineered for the SML training system. These bodies are not designed for general fashion use — they are precision-built for muscle realism, gym interaction, and serious bodybuilding avatars.
Real-Time Muscle Flexing — A First in Second Life
What truly sets DEV muscle bodies apart is their ability to flex muscles in real time. This is not a pose, animation loop, or static “flexed” shape. Muscle definition actively changes while in use, creating a dynamic and responsive physique. This level of real-time muscle flexing is unmatched in Second Life and is a feature rarely seen even in many AAA graded game titles.
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For users focused on bodybuilding realism, this alone places DEV Muscle bodies in an advanced category of their own.
Angel vs Catherine vs Jay — Body Shape Differences
All three bodies share the same technology (full muscle flexing), materials, and HUD functionality. The differences lie in their default muscle range and visual intensity:
Angel is a realistic muscular female bodybuilder, offering the greatest versatility across different body shapes while maintaining believable proportions.
Catherine is larger exaggerated/fantasy female bodybuilding mesh body, emphasizing more extreme muscle mass, thickness, and definition.
Jay follows the same exaggerated design philosophy for male avatars, creating a powerful and massively muscular male bodybuilder look.
Each body is purpose-built for SML training, gym roleplay, and bodybuilding progression. All the bodies come without heads so you can use your own bento heads.
Key Features
Texture & Resolution
Very high resolution skin textures
Very high resolution specular maps
Very high resolution normal maps
Flexing HUD Features
15 animated poses
Manual flexing (override your AO)
Dynamic Flexing (works with most 3rd party AO)
Flex each muscle group manually
Muscle bounce (pecs, glutes)
Breathing animation
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Body HUD Features
Clothes layer compatible
DEV appliers
OMEGA appliers (clothes only: body, hands, feet)
4 outfit storage
5 body specular levels
24 relaxed & flexed preset definition levels that works with flexing muscles
RGB color picker
Skin color control
Fingernail color control
Toenail color control
Additional Options
Sizeable heel feet
Regular feet
Bento hands
3 types of nails
Advanced Rigging & Performance Design
The rigging of DEV Muscle bodies is exceptionally well executed. Joint deformation is carefully optimized to minimize distortion during flexing, even when using SML equipment or third-party gym machines. The bodies are non-Bento, non-BOM, and non-SLUV, a necessary trade-off to support flexing ability, very high-resolution textures, specular maps, and advanced materials while keeping mesh complexity to an optimal level for rendering. Despite this, wearing the full body (without head) remains around 20,840 complexity, which is efficient given the technical limits imposed by the Second Life engine.
Using The Bodies With Third Party Bento Heads
DEV Muscle Angel, Catherine, and Jay mesh bodies are sold without heads and are designed to be paired with third-party Bento heads. Each full body package includes hands, arms, legs, calves, and two upper body options with different neck variations to improve compatibility with popular head brands.
That said, because DEV Muscle bodies are non-BOM and non-SLUV, users should expect some degree of visible neck seam depending on the Bento head used. Seam visibility varies by head brand, skin tone, lighting, and environmental settings. Achieving a seamless result typically requires manual adjustment and experimentation with both the upper body neck option and the chosen head.
One of the most effective solutions is using a texture-based neck blender tattoo layer that is modifiable and tintable. These allow fine color adjustments to better match the high-resolution skin textures used by DEV Muscle bodies, significantly reducing visible seams.
Through testing, the following neck blenders have proven especially effective:
For EvoX Bento Heads: Izzie's: Neck Blender (LeLutka Evo X)
For Normal BOM Bento Heads: Izzie's - BOM Neck Blender
These options work well because they offer tint control, allowing users to compensate for lighting differences and texture transitions between the head and body. While no solution is completely seamless due to the advanced materials used by DEV Muscle bodies, a properly adjusted neck blender can achieve very natural results in most environments.
If you are using Project Genus bento head, like I do, the skin package that comes with it also give fairly good result with some editing on the color tint.
Clothing Compatibility & Costs
Clothing availability is more limited than mainstream bodies like Maitreya, Belleza or Reborn. Due to the complex rigging required to synchronize with real-time muscle flexing, third-party clothing typically ranges from L$300–L$600.
Known compatible creators include Junefit, Ripped Clothing Store, and SIK.
Final Verdict — Who Are DEV Muscle Bodies For?
DEV Muscle Angel, Catherine, and Jay are specialized bodybuilding mesh bodies, not casual fashion avatars. For users focused on SML training, gym-based roleplay, and the most realistic muscle behavior available in Second Life, they remain unmatched. Dev - Second Life Marketplace Dev - In-world Store - all the compatible clothing stores are also represented at the Dev In-world store.
Note: 1. There are other extremely exaggerated mesh bodies (with full flexing function) selling in the store if those are what you looking for such as Muscle DEVness - Agnesis_(x1) v4.0, The rest of the extreme bodies are mostly non full flex. 2. Disclosure: This mesh body review is independent and non-affiliated. I am not sponsored by, partnered with, or compensated by any Second Life mesh body creator unless explicitly stated.
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