New #SL Mesh Import Information

It seems Magus Freston has created a viewer patch for a problem with importing animations and weight painting rigged mesh data. He explains over on SLUniverse.

A limitation of the attachment points in the LL character is that many of them have names with spaces, like “Left Pec”. Collada 1.4 doesn’t handle bone names with spaces as space is used to delimit bone names. So the idea is to replace the spaces with an underscore for the collada file so you get “Left_Pec”, which of course SL doesn’t recognize. The patch just translates “Left_Pec” back to “Left Pec” at import time.

Links to the patch and instructions for testing the patch are included in the post.

Darien Caldwell compiled a test viewer for Magus. To which Magus responded:

With Darien’s help in compiling a patched viewer we’ve been able to confirm that the patch works

This means all bones including all attachment points can be weighted to mesh and animated.

The viewer can be downloaded here: Patch Test Viewer. There is no install program. So, if you are not into manual installs in Windows this is not for you.

If you want to be brave and try it, use the link in my left column to get a copy of the Developer viewer. Install that. Download the Test viewer. It comes in a ZIP file. Use whatever to unzip the file into its own folder. It does not automatically create a folder on being unzipped. I had to specify one.

To run the viewer, look in the folder you specified for the unzip. You will find a file named LindenDeveloper.exe. Double click it to start the viewer. The viewer will open and you are good to go.

If you find a bug or have a problem with imports because of bone names, let Magus know. He will want specific information, so provide the details. Use the thread at SLUniverse.

3 thoughts on “New #SL Mesh Import Information

  1. Pingback: Mesh upload patch enhancement for creators | Living in the Modem World

  2. Seems that for now thats only viable for Blender right? Does the animations are included in the COLLADA file or BVH? Is a bit “abstract” to think in animating attachment points. It may be usefull for sure, but still is a bit odd to think on it. Anyway every feature is always welcome 🙂

    Thanks for keeping us all informed always!♥

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