Category Archives: Mesh

Strawberry Meme & Liquid Mesh

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I read the memes that Strawberry comes up with each Monday. I’ve never taken the time to do one. The post Strawberry wrote to start this week’s meme is one of the better articles on Liquid Mesh. Her position is intelligent and rational. I decided to provide more of the background on my thinking about Liquid Mesh. Rereading my articles I think I the last one was overly negative. See: Inventory Meme & Liquid Mesh.

[youtube ePIdSw10tHE]

And consider.

Liquid Mesh items are being sold across the grid. Not all are labeled Liquid Mesh, but the advertising term is gaining popularity. As word of the possible destruction of Liquid Mesh spreads we may see more items sold under other promotional names. All will convey the idea that a mesh item can be changed to fit your shape. There is no official Linden supported way to do that that supports a change when the Leg Muscles setting in the Appearance editor is changed. Continue reading →

Second Life Avatar UVMaps Quirks

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When the current avatar was made the Lindens were optimizing for performance. This meant they took some crafty shortcuts to save download and CPU time. One of those crafty design features creates some strange behavior with the Second Life™ avatar’s UVMap and how the viewer handles it.

Gaia Clary of Machinimatrix.org has figured out what is going on and how to compensate for it.

To understand the problem and how to work around it check out the video that Gaia made.

[youtube GRFkK6vcOEs]

The problem is complex. Solving it allows one to make better looking skins and system clothes. Understanding what is happening allows one to make better mesh clothes.

Drop by the SL Forum and thank Gaia for this video and figuring out how the UVMap is being maniplulated. Improve UVs for SL compatible meshes.

Obviously making mesh clothes is complex. As time has passed we have learned how complex it is. That makes for a very steep learning curve. Perhaps while the Lindens are talking about Liquid Mesh they could say a word or two about how to make things easier for new clothes makers.

 

Second Life Liquid Mesh Early Warning

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UPDATE: 2014/1 –  A newer version of Liquid Mesh called Fitted Mesh is now the standard for mesh clothes. Fitted Mesh is still in beta development in January 2014. Liquid Mesh clothes made pre-Fitted Mesh seem to be usable and are apparently not broken by the implementation of Fitted Mesh. So, Liquid Mesh is now a sort of support way to make mesh clothes.

Liquid Mesh is very very much not supported by the Lab. We hear this at the user group meetings. The Lindens are telling us repeatedly. In some ways the Lindens are getting a bit arrogant about the issue. Like if you didn’t pay attention, tough. We told you. That attitude will walk them into a wall.

Leg Muscle Test

Leg Muscle Test

The problem is the developers and residents don’t attend the user group meetings.

The image shows jeans made of Liquid Mesh. I was changing the leg muscle settings in Appearance. You can see the jeans changed per the Appearance settings.

Continue reading →

Mesh Deformer and the State of Mesh

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The Deformer project remains pretty much on hold. The JIRA thread STORM-1716 has turned  in to a massive discussion where the uninformed and technically illiterate rant about what should be done. It is now a useless JIRA report too long to read with good technical information buried in thousands of words of useless rhetoric. The purpose that report best serves is to demonstrate why the JIRA was closed.

Mesh Shape Changing

Mesh Shape Changing

So… until Oz Linden can convince Linden management to assign people to the Deformer/Avatar project I see it remaining on hold and the JIRA item having devolved into a waste of time.

With In-Worldz deciding to adopt the Deformer, we are likely to see it added to viewers that support non-Second Life grids. But, for those viewers to be used in SL, they have to be classed as experimental viewers. That likely means little use by residents and lagging support. But, it might increase the Lab’s priority for the Deformer… might…

But, there is a need now and an annoying problem with Mesh Clothes. Continue reading →

Avastar 1.0 Released

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Gaia Clary has a new release of Avastar out. This trailer promoting it was released Saturday July 20th. The 1.0 release number should not be the significant problem it is with most other software. I’ve been using the release candidate builds and think the software even in pre1.0 releases is has been pretty solid.

[youtube MtwRAxZZbWA]

You can get more details about Avastar 1.0 on Gaia’s site: Machinimatrix.org. There is a list of improvements (14) and highlights (13). There is a known bug that has to do with animating the aSpine bone… I’m going to have to look for this problem, as I haven’t noticed it. But, I don’t recall attempting to animate the aSpine bone.

I will have to wait until I’m home sometime Monday to get my copy of Avastar 1.0. I’m looking forward to checking it out.

I’ll also be downloading Blender 2.68, which was released Thursday July 18th. This is the version Gaia used for testing Avastar 1.0. Less testing has been done with other Blender versions. Gaia believes Avastar 1.0 should work well with Blender versions 2.64 to 2.68.

Note: This is NOT a paid promo. I purchased my own copy of Avastar (US$22).

Blender Measurements for Second Life

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There is a good thread in the SL Forum for those that are interested in making to-scale objects with Blender. See: Getting a good measurement for SL within Blender.

Blender Units - by Aquila Kytori

Blender Units – by Aquila Kytori

Codewarrior Congrejo makes a suggestion in the thread that I use in my modeling. Put an avatar in the scene. I strongly urge furniture makers to go to the trouble to do that. I literally do not have ANY furniture that fits my avatar. Couches are ridiculous. The distance from the face of the back rest cushion to the front edge of the seat can be a couple of meters. WTH?

There are bits in the forum thread that may surprise even experienced Blender users.

Continue reading →

Mesh Deformer Update 2013-28

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Well, it has finally happened. Another grid, In-Worldz, is going ahead with the Mesh Deformer. They contacted Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz) and paid him to make changes to improve the Deformer’s performance.

Karl is estimating that the new version is 21 times faster. I don’t know that anything else has changed in the Deformer. Is it faster because the process of deforming changed? I don’t know. I doubt it. But, may be.

Henri Beauchamp posted in STORM-1716, the Deformer JIRA, that speed really hasn’t been the problem some think it is. But, there is a problem with how the viewer is handling the item’s LoD. That problem delays the deformer kicking in. So, this change may not resolve the ‘time’ problem in SL Viewers.

Henri says he will support this new Deformer code in Cool VL Viewer in his three branches of the viewer. The code is already in his viewers. BUT… only when connected to OpenSim grids. Only his experimental viewer will support the Deformer in the SL Grid. Linden Lab’s Viewer Policy requires any viewer that changes the ‘shared’ experience to be an experimental viewer until the feature is officially released by the Lab.

Continue reading →

Second Life Quick Standard Size Modeling

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I came across Sidden Munro’s video on her work flow for making the various standard sizes. Her process save slots of work. This is a 9 minute video that will save you huge amounts of time making standard sized clothes.

[youtube Nuubb5C64Ck]

Starting at the 07:00 minute mark she starts showing how to export the different sizes.

She did the 5 sizes in the video in under ten minutes. I expect people can get the process down to 5 minutes or less.