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
Slink released the new mesh heads as promised this past Saturday. I didn’t get to check them out until Monday night. They are interesting. But, they are not for me. I do think they are really nice. They show what our avatars could be.
Comparison
There is some interesting slight-of-hand tech used in making animated mesh. Any animation or change of a mesh shape is done by making each mesh shape somewhat like drawing each frame of an animation. Then making the shape one wants to see now visible and all the other shapes invisible. When ready for another shape the currently visible one is made invisible and the newly desired shape made visible. This technique makes for really high polygon count items. I can’t tell if that is what is being done with Slink’s heads. But, it is the only way I know to change the shape of a mesh item.
The weights of the two heads are shown in image #1. Don’t pay much attention to the Land Impact or Physics. I did not bother to make a physics layer for my import of the SL Avatar head. So, those numbers are distorted. Continue reading
There is currently some discussion about aspects of the new avatar bones being used in odd ways. The third party viewers in some cases have adjusted some things in the upload code to allow use of bones and joints in ways not completely support by the Lab.
New Outfit – 2014-09
As the discussion goes, those aspects may be blocked at the server soon. That would mean things like weighting mesh to the attachment points would no longer be allowed. We do not know whether the Lab will or won’t decide to block such use. So, don’t panic. But, if you have a good use case for your uses, get it into a Feature Request as soon at the JIRA’s new Feature Request channel opens up.
I am not done with my testing of the new avatar yet. But, so far there is no model avatar I can find that is in use in Blender that can be imported to SL and behave as the SL avatar does. The supposed exact same avatar is not an exact copy nor do the sliders affect it in the same ways. It is close, but not the same. Continue reading
This is an old subject people keep asking about. Drongle McMahon just answered the question, again. I consider it a rather succinct answer and wanted to add the information to my content on mesh. (Reference) I’ve added to it and changed wording in a place or two, but most of it is Drongle’s words.
Mesh Equivalents
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