Fitted Mesh Update 2013-48 #2

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-2Discrepancy/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. 

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Second Life Fitted Mesh 2013-48

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.

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Fitted Mesh Update

It seems the FBX file provided in the wiki does not load into Blender. It is something to do with the Blender FBX importer. Avastar has a new test version out that has the new avatar collision bones. It is version: avastar-1-1-905_blender-2-64.zip. If you have purchased Avastar, you can download and install the test version … Read more

Mesh Deformer Changes

Today we got a Second Life™ blog post about the fate of the Mesh Deformer. See: Making Mesh Garments Fit Better. So, what is going on? Well, quoting Linden Lab:

Today, we are launching an experimental Project Fitted Mesh Viewer with additional collision bones needed to support dynamically fitted mesh garments on all of the avatars. When these changes have been finalized, they will enable garment designers to use the superior capabilities of mesh content creation tools to make garments that adapt to a wide range of Second Life avatars.

The point of this change is that this Fitted Mesh viewer and new new Fitted Mesh clothing will allow better fitting mesh clothes for a WIDE RANGE of SL avatars is a big deal. One of the frequent objections to the mesh deformer was that it had problems working with a ‘wide range’ of avatar shapes. Large and tiny avatars didn’t work so well with the Deformer. So, this is a big feature plus… provided it works well. 

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Second Life Mesh Deformer Update 2013-37

There really is no news on the Mesh Deformer. There is some discussion about it on Plurk. I was amazed at the amount of misinformation in the Plurk thread. I probably shouldn’t have been. The Internet provides a means for people to vent their emotions without any requirement for intelligent thought or reason. In the field of Internet communications libel is considered a high form of journalism and seldom incurs any consequence and leads to irresponsible behaviors.

Runatai Linden Mesh Avatar - Way Cute
Runatai Linden Mesh Avatar – Way Cute

Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz) is reported as commenting to Oz that two years is too long and the Lab should get their s##t together. It took a minute or two to find the original comment quoted in Plurk. It seems Karl was trying to start some movement at the Lab by trolling the JIRA report STORM-1716, the Mesh Deformer feature request. 

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