Cathy Foil sent me a note explaining the Project Bento updates to MayaStar. I copied, modified, and paraphrased what she sent.
Brunella
The MayaStar 4.5, I’ll call it BETA version, addition runs on PC and Mac. It works with Maya 8.0 through 2016. While most of MayaStar works with Maya LT, but Maya LT is lacking some abilities and that limits what can be done with MayaStar. Cathy asks you contact her for more information if you are working with Maya LT. Continue reading
The Project is months old. But, it has a history already. Cathy Foil was one of the developers aske into the project and under NDA. Now the NDA has been lifted and she has made a 52 minute video relating her experience in the project. I have an index of the video below.
0-11:00 – Mostly audio talking about the people involved in the project. Cathy talks about her MayaStar and cooperating with the Machinimatrix AvaStar people to solve various problems. Continue reading
Cathy Foil sent me a note about a new tool, well updated one, for Second Life designers: MayaStar. This is the equivalent of AvaStar for Maya users. Awesome… not so much for me, I’m a Blender user. But, I suspect Maya users will be thrilled.
Cathy wrote me that she wanted to create something like AvaStar for Maya users. She’s apparently talked to Gaia about the use of the name MayaStar. My take from Cathy is that Gaia is somewhat flattered. Whatever, Mayastar is similar to Avastar in more than just name.
Kathy says she has figured out All the technical issues with collision bones. That may be reaching a bit, but she has made videos explaining what she learned.
Kathy is planning to remake her videos, because they’re out of date with her current Mayastar. Gaia had the same problems keeping her videos up-to-date with Avastar’s fast updates. Continue reading
We have some actual news today!
This new feature is now running in the main grid in RC channel: Le Tigre. Many people have been looking forward to this feature coming out. If all goes well we could see it move to the entire grid next week.
Any group owner or manager with proper permissions can use the feature. You need to visit a region in the Le Tigre channel to use the feature. Also you need to be using the Group Ban Project Viewer. Unfortunately the viewer is not showing on the RC/Project Viewers page. But, you can get the viewer here: Download: Windows, Mac, Linux.
You can find details on using the project feature here: Group Ban FAQ.
Be warned, the bans made in Le Tigre may not stick, meaning a banned person may be able to re-join from regions outside the Le Tigre channel. So, while the ban is server side older regions don’t know to check for a ban before allowing a join. But, the person will be in the ban list.
Once the project goes grid wide you may have to re-ban or eject the banned people one last time.
The server side code is at RC level, meaning it is working as planned and is expected to be the finished product. The viewer is just reaching ‘project viewer’ status, which we might consider the old beta version status.
Expect some changes to the viewer before it rolls out as the main viewer. When the server side code goes grid wide one can then use the Group Ban Viewer and ban people. Since the ban is enforced server-side and all the servers will then be running it, it won’t matter which viewer a banned person uses, they won’t be able to get in the group.
This should make life in group chat much better.
There was no roll to the main channel this morning. There was maintenance to the servers and logins were down for a time this morning. Continue reading
AvaStar users have Gaia Clary’s survival kit for Fitted Mesh. Now Astrid Kaufmat has put a survival kit for Maya users up in the SL Forum. See: Maya Survival Kit (for fitted mesh).
Maya Logo
Neither Gaia not Astrid are claiming these kits are the end-all-be-all solution for working with Fitted Mesh. But, they will help you survive the current state of affairs.
Astrid recommends getting the plugin ngskintools, which you can download from here. She links to guides and tutorials for using the plugin in her post, link at top.
Astrid’s basic work flow is to weight to the mBones as Maya users have prior to Fitted Mesh. Then copy the weights to the collision bones we have now. She uses a script named abweightlift, which can be downloaded from the creativecrash site. Her post explains how to use it. Continue reading
