Several things are coming together and I think we are at the beginning of user driven change to Avatar 2.0. I just updated my tutorial for getting started making mesh clothes: Second Life Mesh Clothes Blender 2.6 Setup 2012 Tutorial. So, we need to be considering what it is that makes our avatar look nice, which inspired this article.
Penny Patton's Proportioned Shapes
Crusade
Some time ago I saw an article by Penny Patton on adjusting camera position for a better Second Life®. See the SL Forum and her article: A Matter of Perspective. It makes an amazing difference in how one sees Second Life. That inspired my article: Second Life Camera Position Tips.
There are tradeoffs between how one sets the camera for walking and sitting. The Second Life default camera position is a compromise between good settings for walking and sitting. Neither is ideal. It would be great if the camera would just change location when we sit or stand.
All that camera position stuff is nice, but what we have to look at is more of a problem than how we look at it. Penny’s current two articles are about making a better looking Second Life. Check out the article: Beautiful Second Life. This article focuses on what is and what can be. It is an excellent comparison.
Update: 11/2013 – Fitted Mesh, previously the Alternate method or Liquid Mesh, is now the approved method for making mesh clothes that conform to the avatar’s shape. See: Fitted Mesh.
UPDATE: 6-25-2012 – Things may drastically change. See:Alternative to the Deformer. 4/2013 – Several designers are using the alternative methods now. Linden Lab is recommending avoiding use of those non-supported features. The Lab may make changes that break the feature some day.
UPDATE:Rewritten 5/24/2012 for the Bone Weights problem.
My previous article on setting up Blender for making mesh clothes (Second Life Mesh Clothing Tutorial) was written in September 2011, eight months ago. I’ve updated it several times, but it is still out of date and awkward in some places. Blender is now at 2.63+ and has BMesh. Photoshop is up to CS6. The Mesh Deformer is close to being completed. We have a self correcting Bone Weight Copy add-on and more. So, lots of stuff has changed as of May 20, 2012. So, it’s time for a new version of the tutorial.
#1 The Default Avatar Shapes (Kinda funny)
A few days after I wrote this tutorial I found a problem with the file. The Paint and Weight Paint Brushes were messed up. How we create the files has to change. So, I’ve rewritten this tutorial again. This is the revised version. It replaces the previous one.
In this tutorial I’ll assume you are new to making mesh clothes. I’ll also assume you have some knowledge of Blender and Photoshop. I’ll be using only Blender 2.63a in this tutorial. I will also omit the import to Second Life as this Tutorial is already over 9,000 words. Plus, there are lots of tutorials on the Second Life mesh import.
Since my last update on Land Impact Costs changing there has been a decision on how the Lindens will handle sculpties. In the recent Pathfinding (PF) User Group (PFUG) meeting Falcon Linden reminded us of the new equation for figuring Land Impact Cost.
As Falcon put it, “…sculpts will be capped at 2.0 streaming cost, not 1.0. (Note, that’s a CAP, so if they were less than 2.0 in new accounting before, they’ll still be less than 2.0).”
Ardy Lay asked, “What was jacking up the streaming cost?”
Falcon’s response, “It wasn’t a bug, it was just a formula that, upon further consideration, we decided was not appropriate, i.e., when it was first implemented, it was actually calculating a triangle-based render weight, which for meshes is a good measure of streaming cost, but not for prims.”
Yuzuru Jewell asked, “Is the new cost applied to all the objects?”
If you don’t know the Mesh Deformer or the Parametric Deformer is the missing part of the mesh project that was never completed. The Deformer will allow mesh clothes to change with avatar shape controls. It causes mesh clothes to follow the Enhanced Avatar Physics, the clothes bounce with the boobies. The Lindens are considering dropping the project. We need to demonstrate support for the project for it to continue. This article is about getting the support into a visible place for the Lindens to see.
I found Oz’s comments in the JIRA STORM-1716 item.
RL work has kept me away from Second Life®. Lot’s is going on with SL Viewers and the Mesh Deformer. I’m having to catch up today, Sunday. Inara Pey got the basic information out Friday the 4th in Mesh Deformer update: release from Qarl, request from Oz.
Project Viewer
The Mesh Deformer has its own Linden Lab® project viewer. There have only been two releases of it, AFAIK. The previous one was in January as a version 3.2.6 (247240). The current one is 3.3.1 (255595). I’m not clear on the development trunk; I think it changed to Oz-Porject-2. Whatever, you can get a copy of the viewer here: Second Life Deformer Project Viewer Download. You’ll also find I have added the link to the blog roll on the left.
Mesh Deformer Control in LL Project Viewer
The current stable viewer for Second Life is version: 3.3.1 (254524). So, the versions are close cousins. The current SL Development Viewer is at version: 3.3.3 (255744). Without digging through the repository and figuring out which branches are merged in when, I can’t know which fixes and changes are in which viewer version. But, the 3.3.1’a I’ve been using tend to crash on exit.
