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Understanding Minimum Coverage Guidelines
Minimum Coverage Guidelines
The Minimum Coverage Guidelines (MCG) are rules that describe what areas of the avatar’s body must be covered for a product to be rated General Audience (GA). It covers clothing products and all depictions of avatars or humans, including product icons and any images on a product page.
To accurately test the coverage of a clothing product, IMVU created the Minimum Coverage Skins. These are skin tones that show areas on the body marked in red and white. For a product to be rated GA, these red areas must be completely covered by clothing that is 100% opaque (ie. not sheer or transparent).
The white areas on the MCG skins do not need to be covered, they are there to demonstrate that to adhere to the MCG, clothing products must be ‘held up’ in some way – ie. no pasties.
GA vs AP terminology
GA = General Audiences
AP = Access Pass only, users must be 18+ to obtain an Access Pass
If your product does not comply with the MCG then it must be rated Access Pass Only (APO).
Download the Minimum Coverage Skins
You can obtain the Minimum Coverage Skins for free – Click here
JPG and PSD templates have been made available for creators to download so you can easily verify that your products comply.
Download the files here:
Using the Minimum Coverage Skins
The Minimum Coverage Skins can be equipped through your inventory like any other skin tone. They can also be applied when you are trying on products by clicking the +MCG Skin button in the Shop window.
Also while in the Shop you can click the +MCG mood button to place your avatar in a pose that makes it easy to check the clothing’s coverage. You can use this same pose in a chat room or in Create Mode by typing *use 2111
Making sure products comply with the MCG
It is important that all red areas on the Minimum Coverage Skins are completely covered.
In the example below, only the first bikini top complies with the Minimum Coverage Guidelines.
The skin composite (or skintight) layer below any clothing layers must also be completely covered.
The top in the example below appears to cover all the red areas of the MCG skin.
However if we zoom in we can see that beneath the ‘fabric’ of the top there is nothing on the skin composite layer. The red areas are entirely visible.
In the example below, a skin composite layer has been included to create ‘underwear’ that covers the red areas. This top is now compliant with the MCG and can be rated GA.
The MCG and Peer Review
When reviewing clothing products you will need to check that they comply with the MCG. When you view a product in 3D the MCG skin will be automatically applied to the avatar. Rotate the camera to view the avatar from all angles and if needed type *use 2111 to apply the MCG pose.
As you rotate the avatar you will notice that the wall contains a transparent window on one side. This is to help you check for blending issues that can make a clothing product non-MCG compliant. Products that have sheer or transparent areas use ‘blending’ to make them appear that way. A side effect of blending is that when one such product is viewed through another that uses blending, it can disappear. This can cause problems with clothing by revealing areas of skin that need to be covered.
In the images below you can see that the window makes the top disappear, revealing the red MCG skin underneath. This product is not MCG compliant and you would be required to fail it in Peer Review.
In the images below you can see that even though the top disappears when viewed through the window, there is underwear beneath it that covers all the red areas of the MCG skin.
In the images below, the clothing does not disappear at all. In this case you would need to zoom in close to the avatar to check the skintight underwear layer.
As blending issues are a regular part of chatting in IMVU (for example when you place your avatar in a pool or behind a window), creators need to ensure that their clothing products include ‘underwear’ on the skintight layer.
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