For the last few days a debate has rolled along between the Sizers and the Deformers. It has carried on in the JIRA. So, it is essentially invisible except to those following it. I’ve been reading the arguments to see what people think and from those that don’t react but actually think: why.

Another gotcha at the max breast size setting

Single Base Deformer Side

Max Graf probably represents the Deformers best and does it rationally. You may remember he was instrumental in creating funding for the Deformer project. His vision for the Deformer was for it to allow designers to make one size of mesh clothes and have that size fit all sizes and shapes of avatar. While he understands there will be stretching, he believes it will be at an acceptable level. The effort to deal with numerous sizes for such a small benefit in texture quality seems disproportionate in Max’s thinking.

Max considers the standard sizing a promotional effort to sell mesh clothes that don’t fit. I suspect most of us know getting mesh clothes that fit right now is a PITA. Max’s belief is standard sizing should go away and the Deformer will make a one size fit all world, which would be ideal. He believes his experience shows the deformer works perfectly using the Default Shape base size.

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Gianna Borgnine’s Metareality Podcast covers information on the Mesh Deformer. Since Karl Stiefvater (RL) or Qarl Fizz (SL) and formerly Qarl Linden is the maker of the Mesh Defomer, this is some of the best information we are going to get. The discussion on the Deformer is the  first thing up.

As always I am paraphrasing my take on what was said. I try to get it right. But, listen if you are into the nuances.  See… er… hear: Alternate Bases.

Metareality Podcasts

01:30 Mesh Deformer Discussion starts.

Basic discussion and thinking in the community is that mesh clothes will have to be built to the Default Avatar. Some people consider that the Ruth/Roth avatar. But, there are a number of shapes that people consider the Ruth/Roth shape. It gets confusing. See Deconfusing to sort it out.

02:48 Karl explains that the best shape is the Default Shape. The default shape is what one gets when they create a new shape in the Appearance Editor. Creating a new shape makes a shape that is the Default Shape. Provided you make no changes to any of the sliders, this is the shape the Deformer bases its calculations on.

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RL work has kept me away from Second Life®. Lot’s is going on with SL Viewers and the Mesh Deformer. I’m having to catch up today, Sunday. Inara Pey got the basic information out Friday the 4^th in Mesh Deformer update: release from Qarl, request from Oz.

Project Viewer

The Mesh Deformer has its own Linden Lab® project viewer. There have only been two releases of it, AFAIK. The previous one was in January as a version 3.2.6 (247240). The current one is 3.3.1 (255595). I’m not clear on the development trunk; I think it changed to Oz-Porject-2. Whatever, you can get a copy of the viewer here: Second Life Deformer Project Viewer Download. You’ll also find I have added the link to the blog roll on the left.

Mesh Deformer Control in LL Project Viewer

The current stable viewer for Second Life is version: 3.3.1 (254524). So, the versions are close cousins. The current SL Development Viewer is at version: 3.3.3 (255744). Without digging through the repository and figuring out which branches are merged in when, I can’t know which fixes and changes are in which viewer version. But, the 3.3.1’a I’ve been using tend to crash on exit.

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Inara Pey has an article out titled: Parametric Deformer: Qarl updates (2). Qarl Fizz, the former Linden writing the Mesh Deformer code, participates in the Metareality Podcasts. In the Apirl 20 broadcast. Smoke and Mirrors, Qarl talks about progress on the Mesh Deformer, known to some as AKA Parametric Deformer.

Mesh Feet with Deformer 0.1

The audio recording is over an hour long – 1:23:00.

The audio starts out talking about the coming SL9B celebration. Geez, Drax and I see the reaction to the SL9B announcement similarly. This and the coming Myrylyn Shinn interview I’ll be publishing have me reconsidering my mental state. But… Yay, Tateru Nino. Whatever, if you are considering doing something for SL9B, listening to the section is worthwhile. It runs from about 01:00 to 26:00 minute marks.

Botgirl’s SL9B parody song is at 25:20.

27:20 Discussion on Max Grafs standard sizing for mesh clothes starts.

The part where Qarl talks about the Deformer is at 28:00 and runs to 28:54. It’s just a few words. Basically Qarl has been busy and hasn’t worked on it for a time. He put some time in on it 4/16 and is moving on it. He reiterates that Linden Lab is committed to getting it working. He would be seriously surprised if the Deformer was rejected. In his opinion that just is not going to happen. To get the sense of things you have to hear this section it’s less than a minute.

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No meeting last week because of Presidents Day in the USA. This week’s meeting was short but had a good turnout.

Land Impact Costs

Vincent Nacon is trying to produce a info status for 3D Max users so they can see a mesh model’s weight while it is in 3D Max. There currently seems to be a disparity between the equation on the wiki and the one used by the viewer’s uploader. The Lindens are looking into it.

If anyone else has models that do not match with what you think they should be, get a copy to Charlar or Nyx. That of course assumes you know what you are doing and understand what the uploader is supposed to be doing well enough to recognize a problem…

Convex Hull Link Sets

I didn’t know what they were talking about… It is about changing a prim link set to use a convex hull for the set’s physics shape. In many cases the change will reduce Land Impact costs. When attempting to do this with a prim torus or sculpties it can drive the land impact up.

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