Avastar – Page 11 – Nalates’ Things & Stuff

Second Life Blender AvaStar

2015/05/24 by Nalates Urriah

Part 2 of Journey to Fitted Mesh for Second Life is out. This video shows more of how to work with Fitted Mesh in AvaStar.

Gaia Clary Explains Second Life Fitted Mesh

2015/05/18 by Nalates Urriah

I am finding there is a wide variation in how well fitted mesh fits. Some brands work very well. Others only look good if you stand still. Others have noticed this too. I just saw someone on Fab Free comment that when trying demos you needed to walk around, sit down, and jump to test … Read more

AvaStar 1.5 Released

2015/05/13 by Nalates Urriah

Gaia has a post out today (5/13 – Wednesday) announcing a new release of AvaStar 1.5.6. See: Avastar-1.5 is Out. There is an update tool in AvaStar Blender. I was thinking it is in the release I have, 1.4.5. But, I don’t see it. Seems it only arrived with version 1.4.8. If you have 1.4.8 … Read more

Second Life: How To Use AvaStar Shape Keys – Tutorials

2015/04/132015/04/12 by Nalates Urriah

Figuring out how to use the new shape keys isn’t too hard. Gaia Clary has provided free help, which I link to below. Figuring out what you will do with them is another challenge. It looks to me like using shape keys will be most useful to those making clothes for Standard Sizes and custom sizes.

I don’t see the shape keys being particularly helpful for those making fitted mesh clothes. But, I’m not making clothes right now, so I haven’t worked with the shape keys.

Second Life: Machinimatrix AvaStar 1.4-5 Released

2015/04/10 by Nalates Urriah

April 9 – Machinimatrix updated AvaStar. The announcement is here: Avastar 1.4-5.

AvaStar now has the ability to use custom shape keys. This doesn’t mean the shape keys can be loaded into Second Life™. It does mean you can use them to speed your design while working in Blender.

As the video shows, (if you clicked through) you need both AvaStar and Sparkels installed to use the shape keys feature.

Gaia doesn’t really explain the work flow one would use with Shape keys. I expect there will eventually be a video explaining that process. However, training videos from Machinimatrix now tend to be in the form of retail training courses. The basic overall-this-what-this-does-videos are still free. But, the detailed how-to-videos are sold as training courses.

How To Easily Update to Blender 2.74

2015/04/01 by Nalates Urriah

Blender released a new version 3/31. The short list of improvements is:

Cycles got several precision, noise, speed, memory improvements, new Pointiness attribute.
Viewport has new cool compositing features, outliner now manages orphan data-blocks better.
Modeling now allows custom normals, and transferring data layers between meshes!
Massive improvements to hair dynamics and editing tools: a big step forward with more to come…
A new tool “Cavity Mask” was added to sculpting/painting, along with other improvements.
Great memory consumption optimization in Freestyle NPR stroke rendering.
Grease pencil and Game engine improvements, and more…

Download: Blender 2.74 – Blender 2.74 Features List