Nalates' Things & Stuff

It took me a while to find this file. I just stumbled across it. Like previous versions of Avastar had a free ‘workbench’ file for non-Avastar users there is a similar file now for Fitted Mesh. See: Machinimatrix Fitted Mesh Survival Kit.

This file looks complex if you haven’t seen an Avastar file before. Gaia Clary has a text object in the ‘blend’ file that explains the file’s layout. When you open the blend file load the UI (box in ‘file open’ usually checked by default)  to see a layout like I show in the image above. This will expose the more important parts of the file.

The Tool Shelf section I labeled ‘A’ is an Avastar feature. The Properties Panel on the right that I have labeled ‘B’ is a standard Blender panel that does the same things. ‘A’ is a shortcut for ‘B’ that makes things more intuitive for Avastar users.

Any Blender user without Avastar can do anything an Avastar user can. But, it is going to take way less learning and far fewer clicks with Avastar. So, the text section gives non-Avastar users the information supplied by section ‘A’.

Collada

Avastar does have a modified Collada export that does a number of translations for you to create a SL compatible Collada file. You have to walk that mine field if you do a plain Blender Collada export.

If you grabbed the Fitted Mesh avatar files in the Second Life™ Wiki and tried to use them, you may have had the result I got. No joy. I got no skeleton just a mesh.

There is somewhat a fix. Go over to AutoDesk and get the standalone FBX® 2011.3.1 Converter. Use it to convert the FBX files to Collada DAE files. Those can be imported into Blender. You will get the skeleton and all the extra collision bones, including the new ones. You will need to scale up by a factor of 100.

The skeleton imported is not that great. But, you can see all the parts. I am not sure the resulting file will actually produce a usable model. But, it gets one further along.

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.)

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-2 – Discrepancy/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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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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