We are midyear already…
Chip Midnight, the maker of the clothing templates that many of us use, has put up some interesting posts about Materials over on SLUniverse. Chip is working with materials. The image here is an avatar he made.
Mesh
Matching Skin Color – Second Life
This tutorial is intended for those people using RedPoly kits. But, anyone can learn some basic ideas on how to match skin color. Like starting with changing Windlight to eliminate extraneous color and shadows. (7:40 min)
[youtube L9HRzNfNIQ4]
I usually run my viewers on DEFAULT Windlight or local region settings. So, I haven’t needed to change my Windlight for some time. I had forgotten how few Windlight settings come with the new viewers: 36. The CalWL setting was not in my current viewer.
How to Make Mesh Hair
I came across this tutorial in my YouTube subscriptions. It is done using Maya and Photoshop. But, the technique can be used in any 3D modeling and paint program. It runs 35 minutes. I like the ideas presented.
[youtube 6Wi4-fdeYyM]
If you notice, this is a CG Cookie related video. The CG Cookie version is here: Creating Polygon Hair for Game Characters. CG Cookie is a great site for 3D modeling tutorials.
Second Life News 2013-24
At the Content and Mesh User Group meeting the topic of the Mesh Deformer came up. Oz Linden attended the meeting to field the question posed by Mona Eberhardt : “What’s the current status of the mesh deformer? What features have been requested by content creators? Of these features, which are the most important and which could be omitted or postponed?”
Oz Linden’s response, “The deformer is waiting for LL resources to evaluate how well it works and what its performance impact is. I have not been able to get the required people on it yet. I’m optimistic that will happen, but can’t offer any timeline.
Sorry… I know that’s not a great answer, but consider that it could be worse.”
Mesh Deformer 2013-23
There really isn’t any new news. Oz Linden and Lab are involved in other projects. Oz says he is continuing to pester management for people to work on the avatar and Deformer. But, people, users, are poking around trying to find out what is happening with the Deformer. That is leading to more drama and fussing in the JIRA.
I Won’t Buy Mesh
Yeah, yeah, whatever… I understand the sentiment. I don’t by mesh clothes. I do like some mesh hair and have bought some. But, posting in the JIRA that you won’t buy mesh is of no help to the development process. Duh! Nor do the Lindens care that much about what we do or don’t buy. There is plenty of buying going on from the Linden viewpoint.
I follow some fashion blogs. There is a lot of mesh clothing out there. People seem to be buying it. I have no way to know if the hold outs not buying mesh outnumber those that are buying mesh. Whatever the case, I doubt the Lab is concerned one way or the other.
Best Building Practices in Second Life
With the coming of Materials, being able to use normal and specular maps, how one builds is more important. Knowing or not good building practices is going to determine the experience in Second Life™. Poorly built items, whether clothes or objects, have a detrimental effect on our frame rates.
The SL Wiki has a page about Good Building Practices. There is lots of good information there. But, a significant number of creators ignore the guidelines or don’t know about them. Or… it may be they don’t understand them.
Penny Patton has a new article up titled: Building a Better Second Life – Tips for squeezing both better performance and more detail out of SL through efficiently made content. This article is something that every person building in Second Life should read and learn.
Penny covers using textures and scripts. She gives examples of what efficiently built things look like. Her M&C fantasy build (some sections are NSFW) is an example of efficient building practices. Penny does get to her ubiquitous near mantra ‘build to scale.’
I believe her points are keys to a better SL.