Second Life Mesh

Those into sculpties will or should know the name Gaia Clary. Gaia makes sculpty tutorial videos and runs the Machinimatrix.org blog. Gaia also makes JASS, Just Another Sculpty Studio.

Gaia has a new, and to me surprising, tutorial up. This one includes how to export your avatar from Second Life and get it ready for other mesh work.

The tutorial is for those making mesh avatars and clothes. Plus it is a way to export your custom avatar for use in Blender or 3DSMax. It goes on to cover attaching the mesh to the avatar armature and weighting the mesh so it deforms correctly with joint movement. 

While Gaia uses an avatar to show attachment to the armature the steps are most of the same tasks one would need for making mesh clothes and custom avatars. Being able to export a copy of your avatar is a wonderfully fun bonus.

If you have gotten a copy of the Linden default avatar from Domino Marama you can compare it to the export of my avatar. The export process worked flawlessly. While I look better with makeup and hair (IMNSHO); that’s me.

It appears there will be a follow on tutorial about painting directly on the avatar for creating skin, makeup, and clothes.

Check it out in: Rigg your Avatar (link fixed)