Mesh Feet w/Deformer On
I was asked to help a person get some bare feet working with their Xcite Feet. The person was about 6 months old. First we had to get past lots of confusion. She had ideas about what Xcite was going to do and what bare feet are. The problems I ran into trying to get things sorted out show several reasons people probably give up on Second Life. Whatever that case is, I learned a lot about bare feet, which is what this article is about.
Qarl posted a new video on his blog to update us on the Mesh Deformer. Qarl says thanks for your support. He points out that he does not have the time to answer everyone’s questions on all the forums he reads. He has noticed several problems with the Deformer being discussed and provided in the feedback.
All the cases he has seen these are problems of having used the wrong beginning avatar. If one designed over size clothes for an over sized avatar, then the deformer will make the clothes twice as big. The same problem happens going the other way toward tiny avatars, but twice as small.
Deformer Complcations
The base avatar to use is the one you get when you create a new default female shape. Domino and Gaia both provide copies of that avatar.
Worrying is generally pointless. However, the concerns that bring the worry can be important to consider. Such concerns have come up in a thread over on SLUniverse. The basic concern is what will the Deformer do to our existing mesh clothes? Since they are mostly expensive it would be good to have an answer.
The Deformer is in the alpha stage. So, we don’t know what the final Deformer will make mesh clothes look like. We have found problems and it seems many feel we will need a flag to tell the deformer whether to deform or not. But, even that is undecided as some of the problems the flag would address can be handled in other ways.
There is also the thought that perhaps a slider setting the amount of deformation may be better. So, we could tell the Deformer to deform by 0% to 100% of its normal deformation.
With so much unknown, all we can do is make intelligent guesses and speculate.
A new release of Exodus is out. This one has lots of new features. Many are for photography and machinima. The viewer may be losing it emphasis on being a gamer’s viewer and being a photographer’s viewer. But, one may as well expose controls to the video pipeline while working to optimize it. So, it may be too soon to say.
Looking Good in Exodus Viewer Beta 6 (12-01-02)
The Exodus Devs have noticed the coverage in the blogs. So, they added some features just for the photographers and machinima peeps. Nice. I hope they keep their gamer focus and avoid trying for a viewer that is all things to all people.
Niran has added Qarl’s Mesh Deformer code to the Niran viewer 1.03. I tried it out and played with mesh. There are some things I learned.
The size of the mesh does matter. The Deformer does not move all mesh to the outside of the avatar. In some cases I found small mesh clothes were inside the avatar. Also, large clothes left a space between the avatar and the mesh.
[youtube gRT0fWacyEY]
An explanation of the video is below in the Video section.
So, I guess the base avatar that one designs mesh from is going to be important. I’ll have to do some experiments to see how using a personal shape avatar works compared to using the base avatar.
On the 31st Qarl Fizz released a video update on the mesh deformer. I have the YouTube link below. This is good news and we get more information on how the Deformer will work. Gianna Borgnine of MetaReality was tweeting about the coming announcement in their podcast. I’ve been involved in the holidays and not paying too much attention to events in SL. So, this is a nice New Year’s surprise for me.
[youtube yoOywmSKG2k]
The video is 16:03 minutes long.
00:00 – Qarl tells us that in this alpha release the heavy ‘heavy lifting’ part is done. The math and integration to the viewer’s render pipeline is done. This does not mean the Deformer Project is complete. It means the foundation has been build and is ready for testing. Qarl is ready for feedback on the Deformer.
Poking Through
I think most of us know about the problem of getting mesh clothes to fit well. Qarl Fizz succinctly described the problem in STORM-1716 when he wrote, “…when wearing mesh clothing in second life – modifying the body shape of the avatar causes the clothing to no longer fit. Making the avatar fatter causes it to protrude beyond clothing; making it thinner causes the clothing to hang in space away from the avatar.”
I caught this image as I was rezzing. The texture on the mesh top had not yet rezzed. The glitch layer did.
The Mesh Deformer Project (MDP) is developing a plan to fix how mesh clothes fit and then write the programming code to implement the fix.
We aren’t sure how long it will take to get the MDP completed and adopted by Linden Lab… or even if they will adopt the MDP. All the users and all the Lindens want a MDP to be adopted. But it has to work with past, present, and future aspects of Second Life. So, adoption is not a certainty.
A bunch of news has trickled out on the Mesh Deformer Project. Check out STORM-1716 – Mesh Deformer for tayloring [SIC] mesh clothing. The JIRA item was filed by Qarl Fizz. He explains the issue very well and goes into some detail about the direction the project is heading. Clothes makers will want to read the item to see what to expect.
Since it is in the JIRA we can expect the more advanced content creators to be involved in the discussion. Also, show some interest. Drop by and click WATCH.
Qarl poses and answers questions. Probably the most important concept in STORM-1716 is the idea of basing all mesh clothes on the Ruth/Roth avatar rather than a custom avatar, as in one based on your shape or different size avatars… think small, medium, and large, I suppose.