From Slink’s official announcement (quoting and paraphrasing):
Thu, Aug 28 2014 11:39:30 AM PDT
Physique 1.4 is now available at the Slink Mainstore. If you own this body, please visit the redelivery terminal to get the new version sent to you. If your purchase is not on the list, please contact Slink Resident for a redelivery!
Slink Free Dress
The new body has a few very nice new features, and resolves some of the issues experienced by users of the previous version.
Fixes:
Resolved a small geometry issue that was causing “ants” (small gap) around the neck seam between the body and either the visage patch or the SL default head, on lower Antialialising settings.
Resolved an issue with the weights on several vertices on the underwear layer that was causing it to clip through the clothing layer on the pelvis region.
Resolved an issue that was causing the Visage neck patch to throw an error when the Neck Fitting buttons were pressed on the Alpha and Clothing Layers HUD.
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
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.
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 – 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
