Of course the day I write AvaStar is not working right Gaia comes out with Breaking news they have it fixed… figures.
So, check out the latest announcement from AvaStar: Breaking news on Avastar-1.1.
The fixes are in test version Avastar-1.1-1022, available for download now.
There is some Second Life™ news regarding AvaSta™, which has been changing almost weekly. Not big changes, but changes. People have also been figuring out Fitted Mesh. Gaia Clary the mover and shaker of AvaStar is in that group of figuring out what works for Fitted Mesh and getting Blender to work with it.
For Fitted Mesh many things are a bit confusing. Whether we use 3DS, Maya, Blender, Blender & AvaStar, or some other modeling tool most people are NOT getting the result they expect. Gaia has tried to clear up some of the confusion with a blog post. See: The state of Avastar-1.1.
Her first point is that contrary to popular belief AvaStar 1.1 has not been released nor is it complete. There are test versions available for those that purchased AvaStar 1.0. The keyword there is ‘TEST.’ Continue reading
There has been a bit of miscommunication… The release is today. Depending on where you live today is different than expected. The release is apparently midnight Friday. Or as many of us would say Saturday morning. :/
I didn’t catch that when researching and reading.
The Slink show room is packed today, Friday. The group is very chatty today also. People are looking forward to the release.
Slink Visage is to release March 7th, this Friday. What is it? Check out the video.
[youtube A0NbgI8GTGg]
Another video…
[youtube SRQTdQiWSgo]
Bits of the announcement started coming out in February 2014. We’ll get the full story tomorrow, Friday. But, it appears to be a mesh head along the lines of Slink hands and feet, but more fun. Continue reading
The idea of Fair Use is something that creates considerable confusion for those trying to figure out what Copyright Law allows. At the Justitia Legal Resource Village there is going to be discussion and I suppose people explaining Copyright and Fair Use.
The meeting will be at 10:00AM PST/SLT Saturday morning. Add it to your calendar.
Thanks to: Insert Funny Name Here.
Obviously I am messing with Fitted Mesh. Since it has been released lots more people are attempting to work with it. The result is things are changing quickly because a larger number of people are attempting to work with it. That increase in interest tends to reveal more problems as more users do more things and find the problems not discovered during development, which is what is happening.
Current Blender Problem (up to 2.69.10-6466454-win64)
Today I found out Gaia has published: Fitted Mesh Kit. The key piece of information is that Blender and Fitted Mesh are only compatible starting with Blender 2.70, which has yet to be released. You will probably be able to get a current build of the planned Blender 2.7 from GraphicsAll.org. But, as of today I don’t see one.
However, the nightly builds are available. Download at Blender.org. Gaia provided the link in the Kit article. But, I don’t see a 2.7 build. The RC builds may not appear until March.
The current plan from Blender.org is to release 2.7 in early March. The RC is to be frozen March 2nd, according to December plans. We may not have a usable plain Blender, meaning without Avastar, until we see that RC release. Continue reading
Gaia Clary has an update of Avastar out: RC 1-1. This version has files dated 2/10/2014.
There is also a test version out: avastar-1-1-973_blender-2-65. The files in this release are dated 2/14/2014. So, the test file is a bit newer than the RC release. There is no information on what has changed.
There is also a preview video out (updated 2 weeks ago) showing the rigging of a quadruped, horse in this case. See:
[youtube wnsZiaD6CPY]
Remember. In regard to Fitted Mesh the Blender Collada export for Second Life is broken. For now only the Avastar Collada export is working for Fitted Mesh. If you are rigging to only the mbones, Blender’s Collada export works.
Listening in the Avastar User Group tonight I found out there is a problem with both Blender and the SL Viewer when working with Collision Bone exports.
[youtube I91MqgrbQyw]
The viewer does not preview the weighted mesh you are uploading correctly. That means you will have to upload the mesh item and try it on to see whether it is working or not. This seems to be a problem in the SL Viewer code and apparently is reported as happening in Singularity too. I expect we’ll hear of the problem in other third party viewers too. Continue reading