Blender Retopology – Clothing Update

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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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nVidia Driver Update

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NVIDIA LOGO - Click for Download Page

nVidia has a new driver out today, version 301.42. This is the first WHQL-certified driver in the 300 release series.

This update provides WHQL support for the 600 series nVidia cards.

It provides performance improvements for 500 series cards.

There is a whole load of stuff added. FXAA has been improved to be 60% faster at MSAA 4x levels. Adaptive vertical sync has been added. I doubt the SL viewers can use that. Target FPS is included but games have to support it. Does SL? I don’t think so. But, I don’t know. New multi-screen, 3D Vision, and SLI features.

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Second Life’s Bumpy Roads

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Mesh Road Bumps

It has been noticed that there is a problem with using mesh road sections. At each edge of the mesh cars bump.

Drongle McMahon points out that a bug causes the convex hull to be smaller than the bounding box. That leaves a gap when one butts two mesh obects together. See: VWR-28416 – Mesh: Default convex hull is smaller than it should be.

Image by Brron - Flickr

SVC-7883

SVC-7883 – Discrepancy between actual convex hull physics weights and documented calculation. This is about getting the wiki information updated. If you read the wiki, you’ll likely under estimate the physics weight. Nyx Linden expects the wiki will get updated some time after Pathfinding is released, as Pathfinding will being a change in how Land Impact Costs are calculated.

#SL News Week 21

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Region Idling

This is the server update that is advancing to the main grid today, Tuesday. I’ve been writing about Second Life® Region Idling for a few days now. So, if you don’t know about it see: #SL Region Idling and #SL News Update Week 20.

Open Source Meeting

Threaded Region Crossing

I’ve been writing about the Region Crossing Phase I code for some time, since about February. This is a major refactor of region crossing code. It touches many parts of the Second Life system. Because of its complexity it has been a difficult write. We have seen lots of problems from it. It has been rolled back from the Release Channels a number of times.

It looks like this code will stay on the Le Tigre and Magnum channels this week.

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#SL Lab’s Viewers Update Week 21

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Standard Viewers

Today there is a new release if the Lab’s Development viewer: 3.3.3 (257716). This is a big jump from 3.3.3 (255954).

The Beta viewer version is: 3.3.2 (2557442).

The main viewer is: 3.3.1 (254524).

Mesh Deformer Testing

You can get the latest Mesh Deformer Project Viewer, version: 3.3.1 (255595). There are a number of mesh items to test in Hippo Hollow.

Pathfinding

You can get the latest Pathfinding Project Viewer, version: 3.3.2 (256513). There are Pathfinding test regions in ADITI and AGNI. The server code is cutting edge and updated sometimes several times per day in ADITI. The Main Grid AGNI regions can run several days behind.

#SL Crusade for Good Looks

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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.

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