Clothes Skins Etc

Second Life Mesh Clothes – Direction

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We are seeing a new direction or more realistically several directions designers are taking in making mesh clothes. I’ll cover where we have been and where we are along with where I think we are most likely going. For those with little time, jump to the Summary.

The well dressed Sovereign Engineer - 2014-35
The well dressed Sovereign Engineer – 2014-35

History

Rigged mesh clothes started a revolution. In my estimation rigged mesh received only a mediocre reception. Because of the issues with shape and fit many simply would not purchase rigged mesh clothing. Designers decided to create the 5 Standard Shapes …sizes if you will… to make a better attempt at fitting the shapes people prefer. The Five Standard Sizes subject saw its share of discussion and drama.

Rigged mesh is the type of clothing that follows the avatars movements, like an arm or leg bending. The rigged mesh item will also bend. But, changing the avatars shape, like adjusting body fat, has no effect on rigged mesh. Changes like height and other adjustments that change bone shape do affect rigged mesh.

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Second Life Xcite!

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I think Xcite! genitals are considered the Cadillac of genitals… there are so many ways to think of that… When asked today of they were changing over to fitted mesh Javier Puff answered, “We generally don’t talk about products we haven’t shipped yet, but you will notice that we’ve been moving everything in our store to mesh over time. :)” So, I suppose that is a hint in the direction of a yes answer.

Sarawak_016
Sarawak – 2014

It should be interesting to see what they do to make nipples and butts work with the new mesh avatar bodies. The new mesh bodies do respond to Avatar Physics when made properly. This means Fitted Mesh nipples could bounce with the breast, something they currently don’t do. I take off the Avatar Physics layer when I add my Xcite! parts. 

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New Second Life Tool for Blender

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Machinimatrix.org is releasing a new tool for use by Second Life™ creators. This one is called Sparkles Tool Box. The promotional video comes as a tutorial for merging UVMaps and shows people how to perform the task manually. Then goes on to show how much time can be saved by using the new tool.

[youtube HBU6f-AIXdI]

If you already have AvaStar, you may not need the new tool, depending on your workflow. I have Blender 2.71 and avastar-1.1-beta-4_blender-2-70 installed. When I copy the AvaStar model’s lower, upper, and head and combine them I get the UVMap result that Sparkles provides as shown in the video.

But, if you are working with anything other than the AvaStar model, Sparkles is going to be a time saver.

Second Life’s Mesh Bodies and Clothes

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When the new mesh avatars for new users were first released (5/15) many were concerned about what would happen when someone using one of those bought ‘system’ (e.g., shirt, pants…) clothes and tried to wear them. As was expected we are starting to hear from people about that problem in the SL Forum.

Second Life 2014
Second Life 2014

If new people find the forum they have a chance. But, the Knowledge Base is out of date (example: Controlling your avatar’s appearance), the SL Wiki is out of date (example:  Appearance), and almost any place you look the information fails to make any mention of the difference between ‘Classic’ avatars and ‘People’ or Vampire avatars. If you don’t know, those are the selections new users are going to see when signing up now.

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Gaia Asking for Help

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Gaia Clary of Machinimatrix.org is making a new video tutorial on weight painting for Second Life™. A new post is up on her blog asking for input. See: Weighting with Blender.

The actual tutorial part being worked on is here: Course: Weight Painting (Blender&Avastar).

AvaStar is not required. Plain Blender (2.70+) can be used for the tutorial.

One handy thing is the free ‘blend’ file with example clothes. There is also a free OBJ file with the same models. The models are licensed via Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 with accommodation for the current Linden Lab TOS. The models are not yet weighted, that is for a class activity.

New Blender 2.71 Weight Painting Video

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Medhue, of Medhue Animations, has a tutorial video up on weight painting for Second Life using Blender 2.71. The information in general works for any modeling system. But, is specifically for Second Life and Blender w/AvaStar users. While the ideas are transferable to any system, the button presses are specific to AvaStar users. He does not get into Fitted mesh, but for a button press or two it is the same.

[youtube h4-h-cVCPP0]

There is a commercial in the middle if you watch on YouTube. Its short but it is a surprising burst of sound.

This tutorial is based on Medhue’s work flow, which is very much like the workflow pattern I use. The basic idea is to make one master weight garment or body and then use that for all future weighting. Medhue shows how to do that.

You can discuss the video with Medhue in the SL Forum here: Tutorial – Rigging & Weighting in Blender  2.71 with Avastar for Second Life. (I modified the title a bit…)