Tag Archives: Avastar

New AvaStar Training Course – Second Life

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Gaia Clary has announced the release of a new course about using AvaStar with the Second Life™ skeleton (armature). The class is on sale for US$12. Find the announcement here.

The announcement is confusing. There is a course you can buy now, but it is incomplete. Huh? You can buy the course (text only $6 – to be completed by end of November) and the course video separately (video only $6)? What!?! Why? We know from the previous course that the meat of the class is in the written material. Both are needed.

The announcement is short:

This course guides you through all aspects of the Second Life Skeleton. This knowledge will help you to create your own SL compatible characters, attachments and animations.:

  • SL Appearance Sliders & Anatomy of the SL Avatar
  • The SL Avatar and rigged Mesh
  • Bone Sliders and Morph Sliders
  • Sliders and Weight maps
  • Weightmaps and Animation
  • Rest Pose and SL Default Avatar
  • Working with non default Shapes

The course video contains a brief self contained introduction into all topics which are covered in much greater detail within the course lessons.

AvaStar Tutorials and Second Life

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Gaia Clary of Machinimatrix, the AvaStar makers, has been providing the Second Life™ community free tutorial videos showing how to use Blender/AvaStar for making animations and mesh clothing. The challenge is in having the time to make them and keep them updated. Blender changes quickly and such videos go out of date a Blender moves forward.

Gaia's Free YouTube Videos

Gaia’s Free YouTube Videos

AvaStar itself has needed to change as Second Life has changed. Plus this past year AvaStar has changed as it developed and improved its tools to provide a better user interface and more efficient work flow. Also, the design community and Linden Lab changing to fitted mesh avatar bodies is changing how we make fitted mesh clothes.

Second Life being 11+ years old now also requires designers learn how to deal with the peculiarities of 3D modeling for a 3D world that, with amazing success, has maintained legacy compatibility.  Continue reading →

Second Life Bits 2014-45

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Flickr

I am finding lots of people that make amazing images using Second Life. Blanche Foxclaw is one of the people that is posting images I like.

Silver (Close-Up)

Nebraska Oddfish has posted an image of her ‘average experience… a small number of people are complaining about this problem.

My average SL experience these days...

Fab Free Help Wanted

Fabulously Free is looking to add bloggers to their family of writers to help with their blog. See: Want To Join Our Blogging Team? The requirements, guide lines, and applications questions are all on the page.

Jingweidu Technology Co., Ltd

Jingweidu Technology Co., Ltd is taking pre orders for their Oculus Rift knock-off. Hypergrid Business has an article on it. See: Chinese Oculus alternative hits the market. (US$327± depending on the day’s exchange rate.)

Blender AvaStar Tutorials for Second Life

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Gaia Clary has released a new PREVIEW tutorial on making non-human avatars: Non Human Character Rigging. I tried to embed the video. I couldn’t.

Don't Panic 2014

Don’t Panic 2014

It appears Gaia is moving toward paid for lessons and limiting where the video tutorials can appear. So, you’ll have to watch the video on Gaia’s site. There is more information on Gaia’s web page than is in the video.

Notice at the top of the of the page is a colored section with a link to purchase the full tutorial set for this course (US$25). I’m deciding if I’ll spring for the class.  Continue reading →

AvaStar Transfer Registration Ending

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If you have not yet registered your purchase on the Machinimatrix.org web site, it is time to do so. You need to register to be able to keep a permanent download link and to get your updates. At some point the transfer from the old download to the new registration process will stop working. Gaia is telling that ‘end’ will be SOON.

Also, Gaia has announced a support section of the site where users can provide assistance. See: Just Ask. You need to be registered to use this feature.

Second Life Bits 2014-41

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AvaStar

AvaStar 1.2 is out and now Gaia has published an article on what they will be doing now. See: Remarks from the Creators. The interesting take away is that the tutorial videos will be getting updated now that the product has stabilized.

Remembering - Lost Eden - 2014

Remembering – Lost Eden – 2014

Images from Second Life

This week has seen some articles on creating great images using Second Life. New World notes has: Top Four Tips for Flawless, Photoshop-Free SL Snapshots, Family Portraits: This Second Life Photographer Has a Knack for Taking Snapshots of Domestic Bliss, and How to Turn SL-Based Images Into Visual Art. There are others that have commented on the aspects of what makes great images and art.

The Internet has a ton of image composition tutorials. Google Image Composition.  Continue reading →