We got a new Bento RC viewer this week. I was using it to video this meeting. In the first part of the meeting Vir Linden updates us on fixes to the viewer and its remaining problems.
00:00 – The first 40 seconds have no sound because no one was talking. So, I sped up the video and shrunk 3+ minutes down to 40 seconds. Later in the video you’ll see silent parts of the video speed up. Continue reading
There is a video that shows how to use a Blender feature for unwrapping models to UV maps in real time.
Pretty neat…
Some of us have been wondering what all is going on with AvaStar. We know they are adding support for the new Bento avatar. I had heard people ask for Developer Kit support. So, if you have wanted to make things that fit Slink, Belleza, Maitreya, and other mesh bodies you had to figure out how to integrated the kit to the AvaStar system. Looks like that is a problem that will go away.
Gaia Clary, Machinimatrix, has a promotional video out:
devkits from The Machinimatrix on Vimeo.
Gaia keeps doing this, restricting where the video can be embedded. For a promotional video it is silly. It sucks. But, you can click and jump to the video.
The current alpha, beta, whatever version of AvaStar is: avastar-2.0-23_blender-2-77. The main production version is: avastar-1.7-2_blender-2-77.
Have you seen AvaStar.online?
There is an interesting tutorial out for Blender 2.78 showing how to make a 360 VR image.
A new Blender release is out: 2.78. You can download it here: Blender 2.78 download.
Blender 2.78 Release Sept 30, 2016
There are new features that will help Second Life users. The full list of features is here: Blender 2.78 Release Logs. Interesting ones for SL users are:
There are more changes. For instance, Animation & Rigging improvements that may or may not help us. It is hard to say clearly because we are limited in what aspects SL actually supports. But, a number of improvements will provide better work flow and make some tasks easier. So, depending on how you work these may help you, probably.
I have not yet tried AvaStar 2 with Blender 2.78. No one in the Blender-AvaStar group spoke up when I asked. So, I’ll just have to try it.
There is a video, included here, and a written overview with a collection of videos showing new features in more detail.
The announcement is here: Blender 2.78 RC2. Earlier this month I wrote Blender 2.78 Release Candidate is now available. It gives you a bit on what is in this release. We are nearing release of the final 2.78 version.
Current AvaStar Releases
Archived Versions of AvaStar
AvaStar is now on alpha release 2.0-23 for Blender 2.77… If you are confused by the version numbering, so am I. The last version I downloaded was 2.0 Alpha-10. Asking in the AvaStar-Blender group I’m told Matrice said drop the alpha… and that Gaia does the numbering… and that they are just generally inconsistent… I took that as nobody knew.
What they were sure of is: AvaStar 2,0 is still in Alpha. I’m not sure that is so. What I do think is the case is 2.0-23 is not the final release but a beta or RC version. We may find out Thursday at the Bento UG meeting.
The main channels are getting a roll today, Tuesday. This update is described as a security update. The release notes describe the update a minor changes, logging changes.
![[ kunst ] - Cinema lightbox](https://i0.wp.com/c2.staticflickr.com/9/8417/29567524481_8246635d32.jpg?resize=500%2C272&ssl=1)
[ kunst ] – Cinema lightbox
The main viewer remains 4.0.7.318301, as of this morning. The same as last week. Continue reading