Category Archives: Animation

Is Second Life getting too complex?

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See: Project Bento and the pose making. Tamara Artis is a Qavimator user. She recognizes the program is not maintained and Bento is likely to kill it, at least for use in Second Life™. She is asking about advice on what to switch to and tips for animating for Bento.

A great complexity pre-collapse

A great complexity pre-collapse

Medhue Simoni, a Second Life animator of some note, provides several answers. So, if you are looking for tips and general information, this would be a good place to start. A notable point Medhue makes is Qavimator is still going to work after Project Bento releases.  Continue reading →

Second Life: Bento Hands – Vista Beta Out

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Most animators attending the Bento UG meeting have been working with animating mesh heads and wings. But, the bones in the hands finalized some time ago. So, it is a little odd that we haven’t seen anyone do something with the hands. Now we have:

Vista Animations has a demo of what they have done with the hands.

They say they are going to release a beta version of the hand-animations ‘soon’. Well, that was a week ago. It’s out now. Link below.

It is then we will see the complications of keeping classic, mesh, pre-Bento, and post-Bento animations straight. Continue reading →

Blender 2.78 Released Today

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A new Blender release is out: 2.78. You can download it here: Blender 2.78 download.

Blender 2.78 Release Sept 30, 2016

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:

  • Viewport Rendering – Improvements in texture display
  • Cloth Physics – New Dynamic Base Mesh and Simulation Speed option
  • Cycles Render Engine – Faster easier
  • Modeling – New tools
  • User Interface – Better snap, new eyedropper, and something about operators

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.

Project Bento Update 2016 w39

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I’ve had problems with the previous two meetings. Changing computers, recording software, and a couple of air-head mistakes resulted in some messes I wasn’t willing to upload or spend the time to fix. This week I got things together and have a recording.

I have sped up parts of the video. So, you won’t have to manually skip through as many pauses in the discussion. But, only by 50%. I slow down to normal speed when people talk.

Following is a summary with time marks. Summaries are always my take on what I heard. Put some salt with what I write.  Continue reading →

Second Life: New Forced Sit Coming

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Yeah… sit down and be quite… probably a sentiment many of us feel in this political season in the USA. However, this new feature will only be a help in Second Life™. It is a new feature in the Linden Scripting Language (LSL), something I haven’t gotten to write about in some time.

A cute little butt to represent a new sit command? I suppose...

A cute little butt to represent a new sit command? I suppose…

Rider Linden was at the Beta Server user group meeting Thursday to let us know what’s in the works. It seems the Lindens are expanding the Advanced Experience Tools feature of Second Life. The idea of Forced Sit seems an odd feature to me, but the oddity comes from the name. Several people have a use for it and I rename it and describe it below. It is about way more than just sitting.

Rider says there will be some new functions that only work within Experience enabled scripts. You can get the full details of what is being envisioned in a Google Doc: Espeon: Forced Sits. (see WARNING below) Overview:

With the advent of Experiences Keys we would like to be able to allow scripts being run as part of an experience to force an avatar to sit in a particular location.  This feature will be useful in an adventure game scenario where an avatar is forced to sit in a trap so that it may sync its animations with the avatar, or in an amphitheater or classroom situation where a presenter wishes for all the other participants to remain seated. This document replaces the previous Scripted Sits document.

We will add at least one new LSL script function that will force an avatar to sit on a particular prim and make adjustments to the existing llUnSit() function to perform the counter action.

I’ll use an example from the game Obduction™, made by the people that made Myst™. They use this type of ‘forced sit’ in every game they have written. In Obduction there is a rail mounted car-type-machine you click on to ride/drive. Once you click a script takes over. It has the avatar open the car, enter, and sit. I believe this is what is being added to SL scripting, LSL – Linden Scripting Language.  Continue reading →

Project Bento Update 2016 w37

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No video this week. I recorded one. But, it is too much of a mess to try and clean up.

Wetcat | The Book of Daniel - Fund-raising event ♥

Wetcat | The Book of Daniel – Fund-raising event ♥

There is a new Bento Viewer out: Second Life Bento Viewer version 5.0.0.319688. This is the one that came out earlier this week. It is in RC stage now. If you login with your ‘old’ Project Viewer, it should automatically update. If you log into the ADITI grid and update you may get a second update when you log into the main grid, AGNI. It will be the same viewer version you already got but, the viewer is confused so it updates again. Some people have seen their viewers update twice.  Continue reading →