Mesh

AvaStar News Week 39

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Gaia Clary is working to release an improved AvaStar 1.6 in October of this year. (Reference) An ‘Alpha’ version has been available since June. (Ref) But, it is not recommended for production or new users. The change is Gaia trying to get a better work flow for fitted mesh creation.

"Surrounded by an embrace"
“Surrounded by an embrace”

People are becoming more interested in working with the various mesh bodies. I’m doubting Gaia can do much that is specific to any private brand of mesh body or would want to. I don’t see a necessity to try. We are building better polygon layouts than the classic avatar’s. So, our weighting will be better and likely unique. Plus we will have polygon layouts that vary from the various mesh bodies as the bodies use different layouts.  But, if we have good layout and weights, our stuff is going to work well with most bodies mesh or classic. 

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Comparison: Mesh Bodies

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The site MeshBodyAddicts.com has new reviews and comparison charts of the mesh bodies available in Second Life. So, if you are shopping, this is a good source of information. See: Reviews: Isteni, Tonic & Dude SLink!

Visage Head Becky
Visage Head Becky

As of now there is no Render Complexity Information in the reviews. With the Complexity Feature on the way (See Quick Graphics viewer in Alternates) I think this is a huge oversight.

If you have wondered about the Omega Applier, see: Omega Solutions.

AvaStar 1.6-59 Alpha

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Gaia Clary has a new version of AvaStar out. How binding works has changed. Seems lots of people didn’t get that an item had to be rotated and scaled before attempting to bind the item to the armature. Release Notes So, Gaia has adapted AvaStar to provide more help.

There are 5 new videos out. AvaStar Tutorials Play List. These provide tutorials for fitted mesh.

If you install the alpha version and find problems or want changes, file a ticket.

Rigged Mesh Tutorial Sans AvaStar

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I don’t see many tutorials about rigging mesh for OpenSim. But, Hypergrid Business has a new one. See: Quick mesh rigging how-to. Of course the procedure will work for Second Life too. But, this is for ‘rigged’ mesh only, not fitted mesh.

-. InnocEnce .-
-. InnocEnce .- by Perhaps Twine, on Flickr

While they use the Machinimatrix base avatar, you do not need AvaStar. However, not having AvaStar means using the parts of the model included for working with fitted mesh is awkward and not at all intuitive.

I haven’t played in OpenSim since OSGrid crashed. So, I am not sure whether or not we can use fitted mesh in OpenSim. So, this tutorial is more than adequate for most of those making clothes in OpenSim.

Second Life: Firestorm a Designer’s Problem?

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We still have a debate ongoing in Second Life™ over on SLUniverse in the discussion started by Adeon Writer, Dear Mesh Content Creators: Please stop making your content on Firestorm, continues. I provided my thoughts in Second Life LoD Problems – Is Firestorm to Blame. In that article you’ll see I think designer and consumer ignorance are to blame. I also see plenty of fascist rule makers out proposing their solutions.

I prefer freedom and free market solutions over rules.

SlackGirl - Sue
SlackGirl – Sue by Rehana Seljan, on Flickr

One of the solutions proposed in:

BUG-6243 – Provide an informative warning when creating sculpts or mesh that may render improperly for others.

That places everything on the designer and provides no incentive for the designer to comply. I prefer something to provide information to everyone about what everything is doing to our render efficiency. That is why I filed: 

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Second Life: Fitted Misconceptions

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Second Life™ is technically complicated. Fortunately, most users generally don’t have to deal with the technical issues. We can just cruse around enjoying SL. However, if we make clothes, we are going to suffer from what we don’t know.

Foxes - Fleece Jacket - Grey
Foxes – Fleece Jacket – Grey by claudagger, on Flickr

DE Design has a new post up that appeared in Fab Free. See: Fitted Mesh. There is some good stuff and some tings I take exception to. 

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