Tag Archives: Avastar

AvaStar News 2017 w48

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Loki Elliot has been running a series of articles titled AvaStar Unleashed (now part 7). The articles appear when Loki gets to it, meaning not a regularly published thing.

In this one, he has found a problem…

For sometime, Loki has been frustrated with AvaStar as it wasn’t doing what he wanted… or it maybe he just wasn’t doing things as AvaStar was designed to do them. I haven’t dug deeply enough into his workflow to know. But, I have been in the same place a number of times finding it was more me than AvaStar.

Frozen in time

Frozen in time

Often how we work and how AvaStar is designed to work conflict. The best way to resolve such issues is in the Blender AvatStar in-world group. Filing trouble tickets on the AvaStar site is great for reporting bugs. But, not that great for getting feedback. Feedback comes best from the in-world group.

In the current article, Loki has found the math precision problems that creep into Blender work from repeated operations on a model. He has a GIF image that shows the progression and eventual distortion. Continue reading →

AvaStar 2.1 Released 10/1

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Yay! We have a final release version, 2.1. The official announcement is here: AvaStar 2.1.

The price for 2.1 is:

  • Upgrade from AvaStar-1 for just 3500 Linden$ (or 14 US$)
  • Get a new license for just 6500 Linden$ (or 27 US$)

Lindens are going for L$265/US$1 as I write this. $L6,500/265=US$24.53 or is that L$265 x 27 for L$7,155? Whether $24 or $27, it is worth it.

If you are undecided about purchasing, I recommend you do. AvaStar saves one work on a number of tedious tasks required to get mesh working in SL as it does in Blender …or maybe turn that around… and handles some hidden gotchas in the SL design process. Save time and reduce your learning curve, buy it.

I use it… maybe that is a good thing… For animation and modeling of things going to SL, I think it is great.

AvaStar 2 RC-14 is Out

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When I saw the announcement for the final release of AvaStar 2.0, I hadn’t noticed the RC-14 version is out, which was me being a bit slow considering the video I posted. Check your AvaStar Products Page for the download.

I won’t get to play with it today. But… soon.

The release notes are here. The big change is in BVH import and export. Bone translations now work. The IK controls for the hands change.

There are other minor improvements and some fixes.

Word is Sparkles will update with or just after AvaStar 2.0 releases.

AvaStar 2.0 – Sept 30?

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AvaStar is thinking they will release AvaStar 2.0 around the end of September… yes, 2017.

I like the AvaStar developers and support people. But, I’ve decided they are way too susceptible to feature creep. Fortunately, they release RC versions that keep us going.

If you are using Blender, there is nothing equal to AvaStar for Second Life developers. If you are new to SL development, AvaStar is the one tool that can reduce your learning curve significantly. Well worth the cost.

With Bento out, animation for SL became way more feature rich. I expect we will start to see animations labeled in ways similar to how we label clothes; Maitreya, Belleza, Slink, and etc. compatible.

Facial animations are likely to be the most problematic, as we are sensitive to even the smallest imperfections in facial expressions.

Blender 2.79 RC1

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I see this morning that Blender has a Release Candidate 1 out. Get some more details here and download a copy.

See Blender 2.79 Release Candidate 1

One small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day

One small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day

For those of us in Second Life(TM) doing production work, we’ll want to wait for the main release. This version has new rendering engine stuff, which while improving baking of textures does little else for us.

If you use the archive install process for Blender it is easy to have multiple copies of Blender and AvaStar installed and working. The Archive Install is simply a matter of getting the ZIP version and unzipping a to a folder. Run from the folder. It is a separate and completely functional copy of Blender. You can add AvaStar and other modules without affecting other versions of Blender. WAY handy. Continue reading →

Testing the AvaStar Model vs LL Avatar Model

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About 5 years ago I was testing the various models available for use in Blender and comparing them to the SL default avatar. Now Gaia of AvaStar has done that for you. Check it out.

I think it is really nice to have this information. But, there isn’t much use for it. Mesh clothes built based on the default avatar are simply never going to fit well. The sliders will always change the classic avatar and mesh clothes at different rates.

The classic avatar use morphing. Mesh clothes use rigging. Those two things respond differently.

However, the AvaStar model will get you as close to a match as is possible.