The Great #SL Deformer Debate

For the last few days a debate has rolled along between the Sizers and the Deformers. It has carried on in the JIRA. So, it is essentially invisible except to those following it. I’ve been reading the arguments to see what people think and from those that don’t react but actually think: why.

Another gotcha at the max breast size setting

Single Base Deformer Side

Max Graf probably represents the Deformers best and does it rationally. You may remember he was instrumental in creating funding for the Deformer project. His vision for the Deformer was for it to allow designers to make one size of mesh clothes and have that size fit all sizes and shapes of avatar. While he understands there will be stretching, he believes it will be at an acceptable level. The effort to deal with numerous sizes for such a small benefit in texture quality seems disproportionate in Max’s thinking.

Max considers the standard sizing a promotional effort to sell mesh clothes that don’t fit. I suspect most of us know getting mesh clothes that fit right now is a PITA. Max’s belief is standard sizing should go away and the Deformer will make a one size fit all world, which would be ideal. He believes his experience shows the deformer works perfectly using the Default Shape base size.

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Mesh Deformer Update from MetaReality

Gianna Borgnine’s Metareality Podcast covers information on the Mesh Deformer. Since Karl Stiefvater (RL) or Qarl Fizz (SL) and formerly Qarl Linden is the maker of the Mesh Defomer, this is some of the best information we are going to get. The discussion on the Deformer is the  first thing up.

As always I am paraphrasing my take on what was said. I try to get it right. But, listen if you are into the nuances.  See… er… hear: Alternate Bases.

Metareality Podcasts

01:30 Mesh Deformer Discussion starts.

Basic discussion and thinking in the community is that mesh clothes will have to be built to the Default Avatar. Some people consider that the Ruth/Roth avatar. But, there are a number of shapes that people consider the Ruth/Roth shape. It gets confusing. See Deconfusing to sort it out.

02:48 Karl explains that the best shape is the Default Shape. The default shape is what one gets when they create a new shape in the Appearance Editor. Creating a new shape makes a shape that is the Default Shape. Provided you make no changes to any of the sliders, this is the shape the Deformer bases its calculations on.

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#SL Viewer Update Week 21

Today I saw that we have a new Development Viewer out. It is version 3.3.3 (257716).

UPDATE: 2012-05-27 – Version 3.3.3 (258100) is out.

I’ve had some interesting experiences with it. The previous version had horrendous memory leaks. In a couple of hours I would be down to 6 to 8 FPS and memory consumption would be approaching 1.5 gigabytes.

This version took an unusually long time to initialize the texture cache when I first started it. That seems to have been a one time thing. But, I haven’t had much time to play with this version. I’ve been too busy redoing my clothing tutorial.

Once I started the viewer and in 5 minutes it crashed. I have no clue what happened. The next time I ran the viewer for over two hours with no problems.

I also find my Core2 Quad w/GTX560Ti is running at 15 FPS at times when it used to be running at 6-8 FPS.

Not for Everyone

If you are not into problems and cutting edge tech, avoid trying the Development Viewer. The viewer is not intended for every day use. It is a pre-Beta version.

However, if you want to help the Lindens with crash and bug reports then jump right in.

Google Chrome: Your Profile could not be opened correctly

If you are seeing this problem, it is annoying. The fix that Google Chrome Support recommends is a disaster. One loses all their browser data, bookmarks, passwords, etc. For someone that researches online that would be a disaster.

Google Chrome Error: Your Profile Could not be opened correctly

Fortunately, there is a fix that may get you going and save your data.

The Google Support fix is here: Create a new browser user profile. I don’t recommend it except as a last resort.

Google Support has a troubleshooting guide: Whoa! Google Chrome has crashed. These are good steps to try, but don’t wipe out files or your profile.

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Blender Retopology – Clothing Update

In April I posted an article on retopologizing (like that is a word – redoing the topology of) mesh objects in Blender. See: #SL Blender Clothes Retopology. In Blender 2.62 I kept having problems getting the method to work. I think it was more me than Blender that was the problem. Whatever… today a decided to figure it out.

#1 Getting Surface Snap to Work - Click to Enlarge

I plan to do more tutorials. One of the things I want to do is work with weight painting to see if I can make skirts that work better than what we have. The current mesh mini-skirts show it all when one sits down. I don’t think it has to be that way. Now I need a well made skirt to work with. So, I’m studying 3D modeling. One of the things modelers deal with is redoing the topology of high polygon into low polygon models. Using the tools built into blender can make changing the topology much easier.

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