I’ve compressed parts of the video without voice to reduce the run time.
These are the tops discussed during the meeting. They are in the order they appear in the video. Because I was time compressing the video, I didn’t collect the time marks. Continue reading
This week I actually got everything working and captured the meeting on video. Next week there is no CCUG meeting.
I sped up the video to cut the run time from an hour and a half to about an hour. About the only noticeable change is people’s voice pitch goes up.
The additional assets via HTTP viewer is in the pipeline. The server changes are running on ADITI (preview grid) now. As well as the new server OS versions. We can expect both of these to show up ‘soon’. Continue reading
While I am happy with my new Slink Dynamic Hands and the add-on Stiletto Nails, Strawberry Singh is pointing out that not all add-ons work with all mesh body parts. See her article: Cutie Loot March 2017 Unboxing Video. She is working to keep people honestly informed about the products she reviews.
That all this new Bento stuff doesn’t work together is no surprise to me. I was expecting problems, especially for facial animations. Strawberry ran into the problems with Catya’s Bento Bubblegum. Catya, to their credit, tells you the gum is designed to work with a specific Catwa head, not all Catwa heads.
Bento Heads are going to be a problem. Trying a demo before buying any Bento product or add-on is very important, especially animations.
The Bento heads have a load of new bones. Each of those ‘head’ bones is rigged and weighted to some part of the head’s skin. So, it isn’t surprising that each developer will do things differently… even the same developer trying to make their products as similar as possible will likely not be able to achieve full compatibility.
This means add-on and animations for different heads, even in the same brand, will likely have to be tweaked. A great looking smile animation for one head is likely to look odd when run while wearing another head. So, I expect to see a lot of …for specific brand and model only… notes on Bento products.
There are some conversations in the user groups about how to minimize these problems. But, it may be awhile before things get ironed out, if they do.
So, be careful. Try a demo before you buy.
Hopefully, we will see some people using Advanced Experience Tools (AET) to make some nicer demo tools. I really don’t want to see more animation demos that work like dance demos… the ones where they put 10 to 50 animations in a pose stand and you click through them. Tedious.
And wow… it is an update… no additional cost… WOW!
To get yours visit the slink main store and find a REDELEVERY terminal. Have the system redeliver the hands you previously purchased. Take them home and figure them out… J
If you purchased the multi-pack hands you get all the new Bento stuff. If you purchased a smaller pack or a single hand pose… you get less stuff. See the Slink Dynamic Hands (aka Project Bento comes to Slink) article in the Slink web site for more precise details. Or just get your update and open it. Continue reading
I get everything working, then something breaks… So, I have some video from the first part of the meeting. The viewer never connected to voice. Took me a bit to realize it. Multi-tasking tends to promote oversights.
Re-logging broke OBS… and while I thought it was recording, it wasn’t… Continue reading
The Bento Project User Group has changed to the Bento Developers User Group. Discussion is about Bento problems being encountered.
Nimoe *Rain of red petals*
I’m still a bit loopy recovering from pneumonia. I messed up the video of this meeting. Oops.
One of the problems is the BVH animation files. The SL viewer-server upload of BVH runs an animation optimization process. Movements smaller than a certain amount are removed. This is creating a problem for those animating the new facial bones. Small movements are needed for subtle facial expressions. The BVH process filters them out. Continue reading
Gaia has a new post up on Machinimatrix.org. According to the announcement they have reached the end of design and are going into a user-testing phase. Those that have filed trouble tickets on the Machinimatrix bug reporter will get their copies of 2.0-24 first. The rest of us, later.
There is a load of documentation in this announcement. So, check it out.
There are people using a 2.0 version for their main production tool. However, others are having problems. I think many of the problems are from a lack of documentation. It is hard to keep the docs up to date with an in-development product. Much less make the video tutorials.
If AvaStar 2.0 finalizes we will start to see more tutorials arriving.
I thought we would be in the no change window all this week. But, the Lindens have decided to roll last week’s RC update to the main channel… or they automated the forum posting like they did the status reports… naw.
♥ Believe in the Magic of Christmas ♥
The package rolling to the main channel is listed as having ‘improved internal server logging’. So, it makes sense to me that there is little likelihood of new bugs being introduced by adding and changing logging features. The week in testing probably revealed no performance change problems for this package. So, why not roll it out? Continue reading