Tag Archives: Deformer

#SL LIQUID MESH is it a Real Solution?

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JD Lewellyn tipped me about an announcement by RicoRacer Flux about a new release of mesh clothes named: LIQUID MESH. The release is timed for today, December 1, 2012. The basic take away is: Good but over hyped.

Redgrave Store

According to the announcement:

Really simple! Our new LIQUID MESH products automatically adjust to your body shape! That means no more changes to your shape needed!

But we went even further. The mesh also follows certain body shape sliders. That means you can even kind of resize our products along with your shape which is not possible with any other mesh till now.

…

…with LIQUID MESH you can adjust your mesh now also with sliders for:

Body Fat

Legs:
– Leg Muscles
– Butt Size
– Saddle Bags
– Knee Angle
– Foot Size (to change pants cuffs width)

Oddly they did not include a link to their store. I forget links too, so I won’t complain too much. I’ll just be more determined to try and remember to put my links in my articles.

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#SL Mesh Deformer New Twist

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Take-Away – It is possible to animate the face of a mesh avatar using the Deformer. The details follow:

White Rabbit

Yesterday after the Server Beta meeting White Rabbit showed me a full body avatar. It’s eyes blinked. I mean blinked like the SL Avatar blinks. The eyelids moved. Now that is novel.

Now that may not seem like much, but if you have made avatars with mesh heads, you know that the face cannot be animated to show expressions as the SL Avatar can. What White Rabbit is discovering is that the Mesh Deformer in the current Project Viewer is handling the facial morphs used for expression.

I didn’t get to see all that White Rabbit has discovered as the region we were in on ADITI kept crashing and restarting. But, I did find what I saw impressive.

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#SL Mesh Deformer Status II Week 48

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There is an issue for some with the Mesh Deformer and the time it needs to calculate the mesh for offsetting. Kitsune Shan has been working with the Deformer and voicing concern about the time needed for the Deformer to kick in.

Kitsune Shan

Kitsune is proposing that we do something like what is done with avatar baking. The viewer does the bake and sends a composite image to the servers for everyone else to use. Of course that is being changed to a server side process now, where a new service in servers at the Lab will do the bake and send out the composite image. Kitsune would like to see something similar to that for the Mesh Deformer.

White Rabbit points outthe difficulties with attempting to cache the deformation calculations. White Rabbit has done some testing and finds the CPU time for the Deformer calculation is consistently small. She speculates that the long calc times come from the thread being a low priority process.

White Rabbit

The chances that Deformer calc’s will be cached server side is, in my opinion, slim to none. We do not have any statistics on the type of hardware being used with Second Life™. We know there is new stuff, way old hardware, and everything in between. But, AFAIK, we have no information on how much of each.

We have been told that number of users staying with SL Viewer 1.23.x is only 2 or 3%. Third Party Viewers that do not use SSE2 CPU commands is small. Read the SSE2 thing as meaning viewers that support really old computers. Their user bases are so small they fit within the 2-3% too. So, I’ll speculate that the Lab is not going to put much effort into something as complex as caching deformation data. Continue reading →

#SL Mesh Deformer Update Week 48

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In my #SL News on the 15th I reported I think the Mesh Deformer Project is setting off to the side. I mention that from Oz Linden’s perspective interest in the Deformer has died out. That drew some reaction in several places. Since a couple of days after the article things have picked up. I doubt I did all that. But, people are getting the word out.

Blender 2.64a – Transform/Rotation

I’ve also gotten several questions that surprised me. Some are pointing out they are new to this issue… which while that surprises me it shouldn’t. This project started a year ago and we have had a lot of people come in and leave during that period. So, I’m going to try to update things get people together.

If you find people confused on what testing is in progress and what needs to be done, please refer them here.

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#SL News 1 week 46

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Viewer

There is a new Development Viewer out: Second Life 3.4.3 (267007) Nov 14 2012. This viewer has the Large Group Editing and the new HTTP Protocol code. I’ve been playing with it. No crashes so far. Things rez fast. Seems pretty good. I get 15 to 17 FPS in my home with Lighting & Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, and Sun/Moon shadows on.

First Server Beta w/o Oskar 11/8/2012

Loki’s The Well

This is a fun Halloween build by Loki. It costs L$25 to get the HUD to play. It is worth the L$25. Try it you’ll like it. It will scare you at least once. With a little exploring you get a neat shoulder pet.

SLURL: The Well

Update: See Loki’s analysis of the popularity of The Well: T H E W E L L – Aftermath

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#SL Mesh Deformer Update

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Whirly Fizzle has been doing some poking at the Deformer. She He sees it as working very well with avatar physics. She He has made some new Collada files and uploaded them to test with the Deformer.

We still need more clothes to test with. The lack of test items is slowing the QA process for the Deformer. Apparently the testing clothes in the closet were uploaded with a previous version of the Deformer Project Viewer. So, they don’t deform. Oz Linden is going to clean the closet out. So, there will be just about nothing in it.

For weeks we have been trying to get people to provide test clothes. This is an old problem in Second Life. People like to complain about the Lab not getting things right, but when people are asked to help, they don’t. They will however be quick to rave and rant about what the Lab SHOULD have done.

The best we can do is send notices to our favorite mesh designers and ask them to help and more responsibly provide something ourselves.

#SL News 2 Week 43

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I’ve been distracted on weekends, so I’m just getting to writing up the last of the news from last week (43). There is no great news, but there are some interesting things.

Large Group Edit

The code for this change rolled out Wednesday. It had problems and was rolled back the same day. It is however currently running on the Snack Release Candidate Channel. You can get the details of that in: Second Life Large Groups Edit Week 43.

Server Scripting Meeting Oct. 2012

Part of the reason for getting this change up and running is to get it where Third Party Viewer Developers can test their viewers against the new server code. To use the new Group Editing code on the server viewers need to change the viewer code. Getting the code on a release channels allows TPV Dev’s to get their QA people and Beta testers involved.

The Problem

The package with the Large Group Edit code had a problem with the llSenor() function. It stopped returning a sorted list of objects. The sort is on distance. Not being able to figure out what is close or far meant breedables were not able to find food or each other… you know… to breed… The lack of loving was tragic.

The problem has been fixed. So, this week (44) we should see it move into one of the main release candidate channels.

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Mesh Deformer Update Week 42

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Darien Caldwell is working on what I call the second phase of the Mesh Deformer. A bug in the Deformer has come up in that process. I suppose this is a minor bug… it is easy enough to work around. But, one does have to work around it and know about it. I talked with Darien in the Open Source user group meeting, which Oz Linden rescheduled then didn’t make it to. 😛

Thin shape – Height 53 Torso 50 – Click Enlarge

Darien has posted an explanation of the bug in STORM-1716, which anyone can see and most can post to. This is the comment: Continue reading →