Indigo Mertel has a Plurk on an article on Blender Nation: 5 Texturing Tips for Technical Artists. Tis is well worth you time to check out.
The tips are for rendering in Blender. For us in Second Life™ this means they are good for baking textures.
Tag Archives: Tutorials
On Various Subjects
Blender-AvaStar Animation IK/FK Tip
I am getting deeper into making animations I’ll use in Second Life™. I am a novice animator/modeler, so I probably don’t know the best way to accomplish any given task nor do I understand Blender cooncepts all that well. But, I wasn’t seeing any tutorials and I haven’t been in any classes that helped me with using both IK (Inverse Kinematics) and FK (Forward Kinematics) in a single animation. (See What is IK/FK for more information on IK/FK.)
Animating w/AvaStar
Since I’ve had to figure out how to do this, I thought I’d make a short tutorial.
I used Blender 2.71 and AvaStar 1.1 RC3 while experimenting and writing this. Continue reading
3DConnextion SpaceNavigator v10 for Second Life
I have an update of this article: SpaceNavigator, Windows 10, and Second Life (9/2016). The information here has useful content. If you just want to get your SpaceNavigator working, jump to the newer article.
I found a deal on eBay for a SpaceNavigator, I bid and got it. It arrived. Yay! It works with everything BUT Second Life™. What a downer. Then I find out that 3D Connexion no longer supports Second Life. Eek!
But, people are using Spacenavigator (SN) with SL, so what is the deal and how does one get it to work? Torley has videos on how to use it… people are posting about using it in various places…
The SN Help Manual is of no use. It barely covers the basics.
Fortunately there is a page in the wiki that mostly explains how to get it working with SL and the latest SN software (3DxWare64_v10-1-4_r1818). It is not easy and there are gotchas in the wiki page. The page is titled: Flycam. Yeah, I would have thought of that for a title first thing…
SpaceNavigator NOT working (v10)
As you have probably Google’d for help before getting here you have likely seen posts about how to create a SN profile for Second Life. Those are pre-2013 as best I can tell and the software changed some time in 2013. I can’t find any way to create a profile via the 3DConnexion software v10. But, there are posts in the 3DConnexion site that help. I’ve used those to figure out how to get my SN working the way I want it to. Continue reading
Second Life News 2014-23 – Group Ban
We have some actual news today!
Group Ban
This new feature is now running in the main grid in RC channel: Le Tigre. Many people have been looking forward to this feature coming out. If all goes well we could see it move to the entire grid next week.
Any group owner or manager with proper permissions can use the feature. You need to visit a region in the Le Tigre channel to use the feature. Also you need to be using the Group Ban Project Viewer. Unfortunately the viewer is not showing on the RC/Project Viewers page. But, you can get the viewer here: Download: Windows, Mac, Linux.
You can find details on using the project feature here: Group Ban FAQ.
Be warned, the bans made in Le Tigre may not stick, meaning a banned person may be able to re-join from regions outside the Le Tigre channel. So, while the ban is server side older regions don’t know to check for a ban before allowing a join. But, the person will be in the ban list.
Once the project goes grid wide you may have to re-ban or eject the banned people one last time.
The server side code is at RC level, meaning it is working as planned and is expected to be the finished product. The viewer is just reaching ‘project viewer’ status, which we might consider the old beta version status.
Expect some changes to the viewer before it rolls out as the main viewer. When the server side code goes grid wide one can then use the Group Ban Viewer and ban people. Since the ban is enforced server-side and all the servers will then be running it, it won’t matter which viewer a banned person uses, they won’t be able to get in the group.
This should make life in group chat much better.
Servers
There was no roll to the main channel this morning. There was maintenance to the servers and logins were down for a time this morning. Continue reading
Windows XP to 7 Updating
Update: 4/30/2014 – ICH/AHCI Information Added
As I move friends and clients off Windows XP I have run into some problems. Most are easy to solve, if you understand the problem. Others are impossible to solve because there is no workable solution. I decided to provide the information I’ve had to learn over the last few weeks So, if you are wondering if you can update your computer running Windows XP to Windows 7 or 8/8.1 this is something for you to read.
Hidden RT7 Lite Error Message
I doubt I know all there is to know about this upgrade path. But, I have successfully done a number of updates from Xp to 7. I probably haven’t found all the problems or the best software. But, I do have software that works. I’ve also run into some knotty problems that it took a lot of research to solve. So, hopefully this will save some of some time. Continue reading
AvaStar Update 2014-17
AvaStar is on RC version avastar-1-1-1052_blender-2-65.
Changes:
- wip: cleaned up the mesh_morph functions for better readability
- Alter to rest Pose now also works for automatic weight from mBones
- Removed obsolete print() call from previous commit
Blender: Using Brush Textures in Blender – This is a good texture painting with brushes based on textures.
If you are thinking of using Creative Commons textures as the video shows be sure to read: Linden Lab TOS and Creative Commons.
Second Life Money Exchange
In August of 2009 I wrote an article on the Linden Currency Exchange for Second Life™. See: XStreetSL Currency Exchange Tutorial and Second Life Currency Exchange Extended. Back then things were a bit different. There was competition in the Second Life money market. The US government has ended that. Now, Linden Lab is the keeper of L$ and the only company officially converting L$ to RL currencies. There are black markets in Lindens and there is a reason they are called black markets.
Buy Sell Orders 2014-15
What has not changed is people not understanding currency or currency markets. Someone in the Answers section of the SL Forum was asking why their Sell L$1/US$1 order had not been completed when other similar orders had been. Continue reading
The Problem: Fitted Mesh an Alpha Tutorial
I suspect anyone that has worn mesh clothes is very aware of skin-poke-through and ‘holes’ from the Alpha Layers making parts of the avatar invisible. I am particularly annoyed by both. But, is there anything we can do? That is the question asked at Fabulously Free in SL. Here I’ll provide the techy answer and information. I’ll also link to good tutorials.
Fab’s three advisors answer the question. Their answers are straight forward and provide the advice most of us know. But, there is a more complete techy answer. First I’ll summarize their answers then get into the tech. Continue reading