Category Archives: Blender

AvaStar 2.5 to Release 10/27

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It has been in the works awhile. Now there is a planned official release date, October 27, 2018.

The announcement is here: AVASTAR 2.5 RELEASE DATE 27-OCTOBER-2018.

Magicae House

Magicae House

The listed highlights are;

  • Improved support for Male characters
  • Improved Collada export of characters with custom Shapes
  • Improved User interface
  • Rig Converter stability
  • New Weight Copy Panel
  • Complete rework of the Help pages (text only)
  • Many dozens of smaller fixes

Coming behind this update is going to be the Blender update with its heavily reworked User Interface. Ugh… I have no idea how this Blender change will affect AvaStar. I do know I will suddenly be looking for common tools again and relearning Blender. So, I suppose that means AvaStar too.

If you have purchased support, this is a free update. I have and I plan to update my plan when it expires.

Second Life: Updating AvaStar with Slink Dev Kit

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I happen to like Slink, so I build what I can wear. For me that means using the Slink Developer Kit. Finishing some stuff up I decided it is time to update my AvaStar, Blender, and Slink Kit before moving on to new things. Also, I wanted to try out the AvaStar feature that adds Dev Kits.

AvaStar 2.4-1 and Slink v9

My previous updates I have written about here; AvaStar – Add the Slink 2017 Model – (5/2017) and AvaStar Tutorial: Adding the Slink Model to AvaStar – (3/2017).

Blender Update

The highest Blender I have is version 2.79c. This can get a bit confusing. The official release is 2.79b according to the Blender.org site. The main download provides an MSI file for use with Windows. This is a basic Windows install file. Not what I suspect most developers want. We want the ‘Archive’ file, the one that allows us to have multiple versions installed. You get that from the same download page just look in ‘other versions’ and grab the ZIP file. Continue reading →

Blender 2.8 Coming Soon

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A Blender update is coming… soon. The Alpha version and nightly builds are available now, here: Blender Latest. But, I want to know if this is an update I need or want. So, I went looking through what people are saying. The big one for me is… the User Interface is changing. Ugh.

So, here is a video (8/13) that does a decent job of showing us the changes.

The video producer provided these time stamp entry points. I suggest you start at the 2:12 TM. Or if you are only interested in how it affects those of us using it for Second Life™, just read my comments below.

TIME STAMPS
1:22 – Alpha, Beta & Release Candidate
2:12 – UI Redesign
3:24 – EEVEE, the Physical Based Real Time Render Engine
4:43 – New Work Engine: OpenGL
5:19 – Grease Pencil (2D Animation Toolset)
6:38 – Matcaps (Material Capture)
7:48 – Zootopia Hair Shader
8:01 – Pixar Open Subdiv
8:34 – Dependency Graph, Asset Manager, Static Overrides and More
9:16 – Daily Blender Build Download
10:16 – Blender Resources

The new render engine looks to be awesome. But, the User Interface (UI) is going to kill me. They seem to be trying to make Blender easier for new users to learn.  …like 3D modeling and animation can be easy to learn? Still probably a good thing no matter how annoying I find it.
They moved most of the stuff at the bottom of windows to the top… give me a break… That will take a bit to get used to. Continue reading →

Second Life News 2018 w30

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Servers

There is no Server-Scripting UG meeting this week. Seems the SL Summit meeting preempts it. Nor is there a deploys post this week.

However, my in-world monitor says my main channel region was restarted today. That region is running version 18.06.14.516450. This is the same version it ran last week. So, no roll out just a restart.

::Beached::

::Beached::

From last week’s Beta Server UG meeting we know there are no new versions expected to roll out to the RC channels.

Viewers

Second Life Bugsplat Viewer version 5.1.7.518003 – This is a new RC viewer version. The release notes describe the viewer version as;

This viewer should be functionally identical to the current release viewer, save that if it crashes, the crash report is sent to BugSplat rather than to Linden’s crash reporting system. Continue reading →

What is Blender’s Eevee?

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There are a bunch of technical explanations, but those don’t mean a lot to many SL modelers. It is probably more helpful to know what you can do with it and why you would want to use it. So, this video does the best job of explaining that I’ve seen.

This feature is a work-in-progress. It is looking like we will have it in Blender 2.8. But, it won’t be complete. Still it will make adding materials to models MUCH easier, cause you can see what you are doing in real time.

Blender as a Video Editor?

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Need a free video editor? Learn Blender Video Editing in 35-minutes. This is the video that shows you how to set Blender up for video editing.

Even if you are not interested in using Blender for video editing, check this out. I learned a bunch about setting up the user interface.

He is going really fast. The video is loaded with information. Red meat… yum.

One of the better video tutorials I’ve stumbled on.

AvaStar and Slink March 2018

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AvaStar is at version 2.3-1 released 17 January 2018 according to announcements in the Blender-AvaStar group. In the products page where I download the file, it is labeled 2.3-2. The release is called a bug fix. It has 10 bug fixes and 4 improvements. See the changelog here. Notice the Dev Kit manager…

Blender is currently at version 2.79a. The Blender download is here. The Portable version is the version I use so I can have multiple versions installed. I’ll explain why later.

Blender Download March 2018

Today I see Slink released an update to their Dev Kit for AvaStar. I find the email got to me yesterday 3/19. It tells me, “The bodies in these kits have been reworked from the ground up, for better geometry, more accurate weighting and better fit!” (Emphasis is theirs.)

Also, Slink Development now has a Discord Server for developers. The link is in the email. Siddean is available 9 to 5 Eastern Australian Time… Australia has 13 time zones… O.O  so… divide by 13 then 24 and multiply by… and turn the world around once… and that gives us 4pm to 12AM SLT/PT. Technically, they are 17 to 18 hours ahead of California, depending on Daylight Saving Time. If it is Monday here it is likely Tuesday there.

If it weren’t for the International Date Line they would be 5 to 6 hours behind California.  Continue reading →

News Bits III 2018 w09

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Skin Fair 2018

This is always an interesting fair. It runs from March 9 to 25. For a list of participants look here Website. The location of the fair is not yet accessible. Event organizer.

Skin Fair 2018

You can advertise there, on a billboard (PG only), by purchasing board space starting March 1 for L$3,000. Ad Office.

Blogger applications for early access are here.

Fashion Bloggers

I’m not that much into fashion review. My GA.EG Jennifer mesh head article provides the type of information that interests me. That article is like 1,500 words. I don’t see that in most fashion reviews. The amount of information normally provided by the hundreds of fashion sites popping up on iHeartSL is a picture and a list of stuff worn. It is sort of customary to include a link to where an item can be purchased, but not always. Continue reading →