Category Archives: Mesh

More Mesh Deformer News Week 24

by

1

I know this is week 25. But, I’m a bit behind.

The Mesh Deformer has been the subject of lots of debate and discussion. It centers around the Mesh Clothes Sizing and how that will or won’t be handled in the Parametric Deformer Project, aka Mesh Deformer.

From a coming Weight Painting Tutorial

Last week (24) Karl Stiefvater, the Mesh Deformer coder, talked about where development of the Mesh deformer is headed in a MetaReality’s podcast: Come Together. Discussion starts about the 34:20 minute mark.

Standard Sizes Out

It seems sizes are out. Don’t get excited if you are Standard Size supporter. The real issue is how to fit our custom shapes and deal with some of the extreme shapes Second Life® users use. It looks like a better way has been found then using standard sizes or multiple base shapes, which was my favored solution until now.

Continue reading →

More #SL Mesh Clothes Needed

by

3

There is a small collection of mesh clothes in Hippo Hollow for testing the Mesh Deformer, aka Parametric Deformer. You can get a copy of the Mesh Deformer Project Viewer. With that you can see how the clothes from the test set work.

Mesh Deformer Control in LL Project Viewer

Oz Linden says for now the lack of test clothes is not holding things up. But, very soon it will.

The current version of the deformer (0.3 by my count) has some problems that cause flicker and flashing. Once those are fixed, the lack of clothes WILL BE DELAYING the Deformer project. We need to get more sample mesh clothes into the test set. See this post for Oz’s initial request: Examples Request.  It includes instructions for submitting examples.

Continue reading →

Good Article On Mesh

by

0

I came across this in my reading: Mesh clothing and avatars in Second Life. This is a good article covering petites and other aspects of mesh. I think it is worth the read for anyone still confused about mesh, petites, and other aspects of mesh.

Hamet has just run an article on Mesh Avatar Faces: Leverocci’s Upcoming Mesh Heads in Second Life. Iris Ophelia wrote the article. While it would probably seem redundant to many at this point, she does not point out the limitation that mesh faces cannot be animated.

 in her article gets into the limits of mesh clothes, avatars, and such. Plus she adds a section on recovering from problems encountered when wearing mesh avatars. Eventually she gets to the Mesh Deformer too.

Snickers’ article is written for the fashionesta crowd and is easy to understand.

#SL Pyramid Warning Symbols

by

3

Recently a number of us have been seeing a flock of organdy-yellow pyramids appear around us when trying on mesh. They look very much like the script warnings we see when a script fails. However, they are a little different in that they do not have the little piece of paper denoting a script within the icon.

These non-script inspired pyramids are caused by mesh failing to rez. It is unclear whether this is solely a viewer issue or a viewer and server issue. Whatever the case, the quick fix is a relog or teleport to another region.

One can also change the viewer settings to reduce the likelihood of being a roosting perch for a flock of pyramids. The setting can only be founds in the Debug Settings.

This is hard to test so I’m doing some speculation on whether or not the change is worth the effort.

MeshMaxConcurrentRequests – Number of threads to use for loading meshes. Default value 32. It is probably better to reduce this setting if you have a slower connection. Try increasing it if you hang out in places like TRUTH Hair. I know at least one person setting this at 256 and claiming it cured the problem. I’m not convinced.

I suggest leaving it at 32 unless you have a significant and persistent problem. If you do decide to change it, try 16 or 64.

I can’t find any other settings that limit mesh render. I seem to remember there were more. But, they have disappeared from recent viewers. So, there is little we can do to avoid the problem.

Second Life Advanced Modeling Blender 2.6 Tutorial 2012

by

0

This is the second tutorial in a series. The previous tutorial is: Second Life Mesh Clothes Blender 2.6 Setup 2012 Tutorial. The next tutorial is still a work in progress.

The direction I’m going with tutorial is toward making clothes and weight painting. But, this tutorial will provide information for those building both objects and clothes. I am limiting this tutorial to just the modeling and the tools we need for making the model and the lower poly models we need for Second Life.

Second Life Modeling

#1 – Modeling in Second Life

This is not your standard tutorial. There are loads of modeling tutorials. Making avatar clothes is a special type of 3D modeling. There are a number of tricks to be learned, especially for making Second Life® clothes. I’m going to focus on the things I had a hard time figuring out how to do.

I’ll lay this tutorial out with indexing so you can quickly find the various tricks. I need that because I tend forget a step here and there and need to look it up.

Index

Page 1 – First Decision – Which shape to use.
Page 1 – Deformer – What it does.
Page 2 – Modeling – Start the modeling tools.
Page 2 – C-Select – A better select tool.
Page 2 – Redoing Topology Trick – Snap with a good video.
Page 2 – Snap – Details on using snap.
Page 3 – Scaling – How to use Alt-S scaling.
Page 3 – Shrinkwrap – How to use shrinkwrap.
Page 4 – Triangles vs Ngons – Getting into Ngons and Bsurface.
Page 4 – Bsurface – How to use Bsurface.
Page 4 – Grease Pencil – Needed for Bsurface.
Page 5 – Reducing Poly Count – Needed for LoD’s.
Page 5 – Dissolve – Tools for reducing poly count.
Page 5 – Using Images – How to use pictures and images to guide your modeling.
Page 5 – How to Model – Some of the Second Life requirements.
Page 6 – How to Model – The outline.
Page 6 – Summary

I hate slow paced, rambling video tutorials. I’ve found some that are pretty good. I’ll include those where appropriate. After them I’ll add explanations. Sometimes they leave out the most basic but necessary steps. Even after a couple years of using Blender I’m going: how did they do that?

Continue reading →

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Mesh Deformer News Week 24

by

3

There is not much new going on here but there are some tidbits of news.

In the Content and Mesh Creators’ group we got the question: “Mesh Deformer: What is the current status of deformer testing and what is its priority level? I’ve heard that redoing the shape keys for the fat and muscle sliders is being considered as a fix for the distortions on more extreme shapes. Is this accurate? If so, is LL set on doing this themselves or would they accept a donation on that task? The timeline is fairly important to the design community, and we can’t imagine the workload you must be dealing with. Is there anything we can do to help this particular project along? Elie Spot 11:27, 11 June 2012 (PDT)”

Nyx Linden: “As for the deformer, Oz is the one working most closely with Qarl on that project, he would know best what the current status and holdups are.”

Elie Spot: “…as Qarl is pretty much done w/ the current version, it is only awaiting fixes to make it work for more extreme shapes. The deformer is pretty much sitting in LL’s camp right now.”

Continue reading →

MetaReality’s Make Your Own Stuff!

by

0

I’m always interested in hearing anything about the Mesh Deformer especially when when Karl Stiefvater (aka Qarl Fizz aka Qarl Linden)  is talking. So, running through the MetaReality outline on Friday is a regular thing for me. Not much new on the Deformer, but Gianna touches on some of the Avatar 2 stuff I’ve been reporting on.

Metareality Podcasts

I used the Outline form with time marks.

  • ? – Answering questions from last week
  • 01:20 – What would a new Second Life look/function like?
    • Qarl thinks the current problems are with the Lab more than they are with Second Life. So, whatever they made for Third Life would still have ‘Lab Problems.’
    • Gianna’s take is whatever Second Life became it is a matter of the
    • 04:15 Mainit Hellman’s opinion is if they fix some things Second Life would be better. He would check out a new SL.
  • Would users really switch?

Continue reading →

Do #SL Mesh Clothes Fit

by

55

If you have not read: #SL Mesh Deformer Debate Update now would be a good time.

We have an estimate for the cost of getting the computer code written for a Multiple Base Shape Deformer. We have some of the money pledges and only need to raise less than US$1,000. Our problem is convincing the Lindens it is needed and wanted.

KV8RC2-C_001

Mesh Sandbox 20

There is some discussion ongoing in several places. But, check out SLUniverse where I wrote:

Continue reading →