Category Archives: Mesh

Deformer Mesh Clothes

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What happens to Deformer Mesh Clothes now? I was curious about that, so I asked Oz. Nothing happens to them. They will remain in your inventory and you can still wear them. But, they are not going to deform as intended. They will behave just as any rigged mesh clothing does. They will still move with the avatar. But, they will not follow your size changes. Like standard size clothes they will be a single unchanging size.

The asset servers saved these Deformer targeted items with special information in the asset’s header. Only the Deformer Project Viewers would act on that header information and use the Deformer code. Normal versions of viewers ignored the information and treated the mesh as if it were just another rigged mesh attachment.  Continue reading →

Second Life Materials – Fur

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Hamlet has an article about Damien Fate’s latest project, a fuzzy tail on pajamas. Damein also has a free friendship bear that uses the technique too. You have to see this to understand what Damein has accomplished. It is pretty awesome. This is going to be great for fur collars and similar stuff.

The Pajama’s tail is awesome. See New World Notes: Fluff Piece: Here’s How An SL Designer Is Using Materials To Tackle One of The Biggest Challenges In 3D Modeling. Check out the images on Hamlet’s site. Damien explained how he does it; layered normal maps.

Second Life News 2013-49 #3

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Next week (50) we will likely have a rollout to the main grid and another to the RC channels. Then we enter a no change window. We won’t see any new rollouts until probably January 7th.

The packages in the tube right now are minor packages with only a small number of problem fixes.

Viewers have the same no change window. We might see RC and Project viewers updating. But, the main release viewer is unlikely to change after next week (50).

Fitted Mesh Viewer

A new version of this project viewer is out: 3.6.12.284458.

This version lists JIRA item STORM-1985 – Mesh garments don’t adapt to changes in avatar shape.  One of the things mentioned in the JIRA item is FITMESH-6 and how enabling and disabling the Advanced Lighting Model changes the behavior of the viewer’s ability to render shape changed clothing items in wireframe mode. For those of us looking to see how well demo clothes are made before purchasing, this is a definite problem.

Presumably this is fixed in this version.

MAINT-3311 – Skinning to some collision volumes is broken. I can’t read details on MAINT items. But, presumably this too is fixed.

Download here: Alternate Viewer Page.

Fitted Mesh Update 2013-49

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Machinimatrix has released a new test version of AVASTAR: avastar-1-1-910_blender-2-64. You can get it from your personal Avastar download link.

[youtube rKcyUSfUFk8]

(Forum discussion of video – 2012)

This update adds 7 Collision Bones:

  • RIGHT_HANDLE
  • LEFT_HANDLE
  • BUTT
  • LOWER_BACK
  • UPPER_BACK
  • LEFT_PECK
  • RIGHT_PEC

Along with the bones a tool for copying weights from ‘deformation’ bones to ‘collision’ bones has been added. Instructions for using the tool can be found here: Avastar new testversion for “Fitted Mesh”. Gaia says this tool does not so much copy the information as rename the weight groups. This is something you can do with just Blender and something I was experimenting with.  Continue reading →

Free Avastar Avatar File

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It took me a while to find this file. I just stumbled across it. Like previous versions of Avastar had a free ‘workbench’ file for non-Avastar users there is a similar file now for Fitted Mesh. See: Machinimatrix Fitted Mesh Survival Kit.

Free Avastar Collision Bones Blender File

Free Avastar Collision Bones Blender File

This file looks complex if you haven’t seen an Avastar file before. Gaia Clary has a text object in the ‘blend’ file that explains the file’s layout. When you open the blend file load the UI (box in ‘file open’ usually checked by default)  to see a layout like I show in the image above. This will expose the more important parts of the file.

The Tool Shelf section I labeled ‘A’ is an Avastar feature. The Properties Panel on the right that I have labeled ‘B’ is a standard Blender panel that does the same things. ‘A’ is a shortcut for ‘B’ that makes things more intuitive for Avastar users.

Any Blender user without Avastar can do anything an Avastar user can. But, it is going to take way less learning and far fewer clicks with Avastar. So, the text section gives non-Avastar users the information supplied by section ‘A’.

Collada

Avastar does have a modified Collada export that does a number of translations for you to create a SL compatible Collada file. You have to walk that mine field if you do a plain Blender Collada export.

Second Life Fitted Mesh Files

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If you grabbed the Fitted Mesh avatar files in the Second Life™ Wiki and tried to use them, you may have had the result I got. No joy. I got no skeleton just a mesh.

There is somewhat a fix. Go over to AutoDesk and get the standalone FBX® 2011.3.1 Converter. Use it to convert the FBX files to Collada DAE files. Those can be imported into Blender. You will get the skeleton and all the extra collision bones, including the new ones. You will need to scale up by a factor of 100.

The skeleton imported is not that great. But, you can see all the parts. I am not sure the resulting file will actually produce a usable model. But, it gets one further along.

Fitted Mesh Update 2013-48 #2

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Gaia Clary posted yesterday that there is a new test version of Avastar for Fitted Mesh. This is the second release of a test version of Avastar for Fitted Mesh. (Don’t be surprised, the appearance of the Machinimatrix.com site has changed.)

Imafe Uploaded with FITMESH-4

Image Uploaded with FITMESH-4

I’ve been playing with avastar-1-1-905_blender-2-64. The new release is: avastar-1-1-907_blender-2-64.

This release handles reported problems in the Second Life™ JIRA. I understand these JIRA items are readable by everyone.

FITMESH-2 – Discrepancy/Typo between Existing Avatar_Skeleton.XML and new Avatar_Skeleton.XML

This JIRA item has corrected files that can be used with the Fitted Mesh Viewer 3.6.11.283899. You will find the avatar_skeleton.xml file in folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\SecondLifeProjectFittedMesh\character

The file avatar_lad.xml is in the same folder. Both of these files can be replaced to update the viewer. These changes will likely appear in the next Fitted Mesh Viewer release.  Continue reading →

Second Life Fitted Mesh 2013-48

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Discussion of Fitted Mesh is all the rage in the Second Life blogosphere and forums. Everyone has an opinion. Ciaran Laval has an article out: Qarl – The Simplest Solution Is The Best One – And Collision Bones Are Indeed MUCH Simpler Than The Mesh Deformer. The title pretty much says it. You can read Karl’s words in the SL JIRA STORM-1716 here. He also comments in this week’s Metareality podcast, which I haven’t gotten to yet.

Quoting Karl from the JIRA:

Qarl Fizz added a comment – 20/Nov/13 1:00 PM

several people have asked me – this seems like the best place to answer.

LL’s assessment here is mostly good. in almost all situations, the simplest solution is the best one – and collision bones are indeed MUCH simpler than the mesh deformer. as i see it, collision bones have two downsides: 1) they are substantially harder to use for the person creating the garment and 2) probably don’t track as well to the avatar shape.

in the end, the evaluation must be made by the content creators who use the tool.

i will reiterate that the two year delay and refusal to communicate are unacceptable.

There are a number of opinions out that I believe reveal a high degree of ignorance and a significant degree of malevolence toward the Lab. I am certain they have no proof/evidence to support their opinions. So, take those opinions as self revealing expressions of transference and keep a distance from people assigning evil motivations to the Lab. Continue reading →