Black Dragon Poser Get an Update

Black Dragon Poser – NiranV is changing the Poser feature. Again… still… making this version 3.1.8. I think by anyone’s standard it is getting better. In NiranV’s latest post mention is made of working with Nat Linden to make feature changes as they import the tool into the Linden viewer.

Black Dragon 3.1.8 Poser – Showing bone displacement capability

There are permission and usability issues. The Lab has to minimize how handy the feature will be for stealing poses and animations. Plus, noob users need to have a chance to understand how to use it. While it may seem obvious to you, just think back on some of the things you have helped the new to understand.

If you haven’t noticed, NiranV has a Discord Channel.

On Windows 10, you’ll get a warning message when you install the viewer. That is Microsoft being overly cautious with any software they don’t know.

Second Life – Beta Animesh is HERE

This week the awaited project viewer for Animesh was released. See Second Life Project Animesh Viewer version 5.0.9.329458 here.

2017 Oct Animesh Test

Release Notes:

This is the first build of the Animesh Project Viewer. Animesh is a new feature under development that allows non-avatar objects to play animations like avatars do today. Animesh is still under development, so the new features will only work in supported test regions on Aditi. See the wiki page for details on how to get started with animesh. You can report problems with animesh in our JIRA and discuss it with other interested residents at the Animesh Forum .

For more information, see our blog posting.

This viewer ONLY works on the ADITI – Preview/Beta Grid.

Lindens are answering questions in the SL Forum. Please read the thread before asking your question.

The announcement for Animesh is here: Join the Project Animesh Beta – New Support for Animating Mesh Objects.

The details are in the SL Wiki here: Animesh User Guide.

ADITI

The only place Animesh works is in the Preview Grid (click for info). If you have never logged into ADITI, you will need to try and likely fail. Then contact support and tell them you tried to get into ADITI for the first time and cannot get in. They’ll fix you up. Then you’ll be able to log in.

Tutorials

Medhue has some Bento tutorials that should help with animesh.

Otherwise, it is too early for tutorials. There are problems with animesh. The basic mechanics are working. But, amimesh’s right and left click behavior, various alignment issues, attachment issues, and Pathfinding integration have some issues.

Second Life: Content Creation 2017 w20

RL is complicating my being at the Content Creation meetings. Fortunately for me, Medhue is live-streaming and recording the meetings. The video is here: Medhue @ Content Creation. My summary follows.

Chess Wonderland

Chess Wonderland

Vir Linden had nothing new on viewers. He often tells us about what he is doing with a specific viewer.

This week Vir has been working on the Animated Objects. Currently the work is in the nature of proof of concept. Next week he will start to look at server side changes that will be needed.

A total trivia bit is: Vir uses a SL Birthday Bear for his animation test subject.  Continue reading

AvaStar-Blender: Switching from IK to FK and Back

Medhue streamed a tutorial this weekend. He was showing how to switch between IK and FK animating. In September 2014 I was facing that problem and posted a tutorial titled: Blender-AvaStar Animation IK/FK Tip because I couldn’t find any tutorials saying how to change between the two animating styles.

I think the video is a way better tutorial on switching between the two styles than my old ‘text’ tutorial.

 

Second Life Animation: BVH vs ANIM

There are two formats of animation file used in Second Life™. Which one to use? Medhue gives us his take on the two formats.

Basically, ANIM avoids the SL Import Program’s gotchas.

Medhue talks about animation priorities, for the overall animation and/or for each individual bone.

Bone translation has additional options in ANIM. If you aren’t familiar with the idea of bone translation, think bone placement.

 

Second Life: New Forced Sit Coming

Yeah… sit down and be quite… probably a sentiment many of us feel in this political season in the USA. However, this new feature will only be a help in Second Life™. It is a new feature in the Linden Scripting Language (LSL), something I haven’t gotten to write about in some time.

A cute little butt to represent a new sit command? I suppose...

A cute little butt to represent a new sit command? I suppose…

Rider Linden was at the Beta Server user group meeting Thursday to let us know what’s in the works. It seems the Lindens are expanding the Advanced Experience Tools feature of Second Life. The idea of Forced Sit seems an odd feature to me, but the oddity comes from the name. Several people have a use for it and I rename it and describe it below. It is about way more than just sitting.

Rider says there will be some new functions that only work within Experience enabled scripts. You can get the full details of what is being envisioned in a Google Doc: Espeon: Forced Sits. (see WARNING below) Overview:

With the advent of Experiences Keys we would like to be able to allow scripts being run as part of an experience to force an avatar to sit in a particular location.  This feature will be useful in an adventure game scenario where an avatar is forced to sit in a trap so that it may sync its animations with the avatar, or in an amphitheater or classroom situation where a presenter wishes for all the other participants to remain seated. This document replaces the previous Scripted Sits document.

We will add at least one new LSL script function that will force an avatar to sit on a particular prim and make adjustments to the existing llUnSit() function to perform the counter action.

I’ll use an example from the game Obduction™, made by the people that made Myst™. They use this type of ‘forced sit’ in every game they have written. In Obduction there is a rail mounted car-type-machine you click on to ride/drive. Once you click a script takes over. It has the avatar open the car, enter, and sit. I believe this is what is being added to SL scripting, LSL – Linden Scripting Language.  Continue reading

Second Life: Animation Tool – Free

Tapple Gao is providing a free tool for those doing movement animations, e.g., walking. You’ll find a copy in the marketplace here: Walking and Turning Test Treadmill. It is free.

Animation Tool

Animation Tool

The idea for the tool was to provide a way to eliminate skate from animations you create. With some walking and running animations my avatar appears to skate across the floor/ground.

With this tool you can play the animation, as opposed to wearing and having to ‘move’ to play it, stand in place, start the treadmill, and see if your feet and the treadmill are in sync. If not you’ll need to adjust the time scale of your animation.

Handy.

I’m  into math. So, I think it would be nice to have a control that would let me speed up or slow down the treadmill by a known percentage. While there aren’t any buttons for that. Apparently I could do that via the chat interface.

By knowing how much to speed up or slow down my animation I would be able to eliminate a lot of trial and error testing.

Project Bento Update w22

They surprised me! Project Bento, server side, arrived at the main grid Tuesday. Torley Linden has posted about the Lab enabling the project on the main grid. See: Project Bento Testing Is Now Live on the Main Grid!

This is a testing release. You will need the Project Bento Viewer to upload animations and meshes, and to view them without distortion. Bento mesh weighted to the new bones looks horribly distorted in non-Bento viewers. Expect to see lots of questions in the forum about how to fix the problem.

Just send them to the Linden announcement… or here.