Rigging and the Nightmare that follows!

[Relapse Gauntley]

 Hello, SL Community. I don't visit these boards very much -- which is a shame, because after reading some of the posts here in the Mesh section, you guys seem very helpful and kind. Definitely very cool.

 

  Well, let's start with the problem:

 

 "Oh awesome! Mesh!" I decided to try it out, i've had models and made some from the past and thought, "What an awesome oppurtunity!" Little did I know this was going to be the roller coaster to hell and back from 9:00 AM yesterday 'til now.

 

  Well, i've managed to upload static meshes perfectly. Not a single problem there. But... then I decided, "You know, i'd like this scare-crow guy as an avatar." So I opened up avatar.blend in Jass and followed the tutorial at http://blog.machinimatrix.org/3d-creation/blender-meshes-trail/.

 

 Alas everything was going quite well, the model fit perfectly onto the skeleton(rig), I provided it a parent and did the whole create from bone heat. Everything was fine. Then came to exporting the model... yup, all fine so far. Last but not least -- I finally get to uploading it and I get the lovely red light that says:

 

"Missing Required Level of Detail" -- i'm not sure HOW this is possible. I uploaded the exact mesh as a static mesh. However when I try to rig the darn thing, it gives me this error.

 

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I'll go ahead and post screenshots of what I am doing EXACTLY, so you guys can see, step by step and then maybe you could see something that is wrong. Thanks.

 

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http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/9462/78068767.jpg (1)

 

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/7512/82240109.jpg (2)

 

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/552/73852391.jpg (3)

 

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1039/35571308.jpg (4)

 

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1382/87909657.jpg (5)

 

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/892/52163643.jpg (6)

 

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/5821/34168596.jpg (7)

 

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 I cannot for the life of me, figure out what the heck is wrong here. I tested it out in Blender's pose mode, it poses exactly where I want it too. It just will not get past that Level of Detail error.

 

 Second Life 3.0.2 (238735) Aug 17 2011 13:20:50 (Project Viewer - Mesh) < --- My viewer.

 

 

 I've noticed some other people having a similar issue; i've contacted others. I've sent them my .dae file... I just can't seem to rig it, but as a static mesh it'll work just fine.

 

 If you noticed a mistake here, please let me know. Thanks, I appreciate it.

 

 

 

[Chelsea Malibu]

As far as I know, you cannot replace the avatar rigging in place.

[Relapse Gauntley]

What does that mean exactly? If you noticed by the pictures, i've followed the tutorial quite accurate. But I also ask for full detail for not only myself, but for others that will more then likely run into the same issue. Thank you.

[Chelsea Malibu]

Perhaps this may help.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Mesh-rigging/m-p/981555/highlight/true#M3385

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Rigged-mesh-avatars-not-attaching-as-rigged/m-p/1010141/highlight/true#M4412

 

 

[Gaia Clary]

From the images i can not see an abvious error. Although the images are a bit small to read your screen...

Do others have the same problem with importing your rigged mesh ? Or is that a problem entirely unique to your installation ? Maybe you have one of these .slm files laying around and confusing the importer ?

I am interested in taking a look at your blend file. If that issue is caused by blender or the collada exporter, i want to know about that ;-)

[Relapse Gauntley]

 Thanks for the quick responses; if anybody else has any idea's please feel free to share them. Or if you're suffering from the same problem.

 

 Anyways, if you wish to get ahold of this .blend file -- please IM me in game or through a private message, we can exchange v.i.a e-mail. Thanks.

[Gaia Clary]

The problem seems to be a wrong error message.
Actually i could reproduce the message you reported
when the mesh had not all vertices weighted.

In that case the message should then be something like:

"Missing weight data" instead of "missing level of detail"

So after i ensured that all vertices had been weighted, I could see the rigged mesh in the previewer. Apart from the wrong error message in the importer everything seems to work as expected. (if a mesh has not all vertices weighted, it will not be imported). Here is what would happen, if a partially weighted mesh would be imported:

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/spikes-after-mesh-upload-to-sl/

So you should ensure that your verts are all weighted and then try the upload again. BTW the article i mentioned also contains a link to an improved Collada exporter.

 

[Relapse Gauntley]

Great thanks for the help! Too add onto this however to make sure not only myself but others that may experience this -- is there a check function? Or anyway to tell that all the verts are weighted properly? Or is it just trial and error? Thanks very much.



Because I followed the steps and downloaded what I needed -- it allows me to export it still with no errors... yet i'm getting the same problem.

 

However I did notice a few verticies that were not alligned or selected properly. Now the trick is to figure out the hot-key you used to hide the verticies, .

 

 

**UPDATE!**

 

It definitely is a weighting issue. But I figured it out for the most part. It is a weighting issue. My last question is... when I find a group of verticies that aren't assigned, is there a way I can mass select a specific area of them? For instance the right hand then assign all of those to the proper place?

[Gaia Clary]

the article i mentioned in my previous post contains a link to an improved Collada exporter. In that exporter i have included a check function which tells you if your mesh has unweighted vertices.

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/spikes-after-mesh-upload-to-sl/

There is another check tool built into the jass add on scripts (distributed with jass-Pro and jass-Magic). This tool allows you to check on the fly during weight painting if you still have unweighted vertices.This function is supposed to select all unweighted vertices in a mesh.

However i noticed that for your mesh the tool counted all unweighted vertices but did not select all of them, so i have to check what is going on there.

For blender 2.5 i have no such check tool. maybe it is time to create one ;-)

[guY Ralior]

It seems like you have figured out your problem but I just wanted to add this in case it helps, that I have had the same error on upload and it has always been related to the fact that there are no UVs on a portion of my model. In other words I have manually deleted them. They can be scattered all over the place as long as they are all there, but if for some reason you delete some of them or all and not re-project a new UV set this will cause the uploader to say you have a missing level of detail. Hope this helps

[Linda McAllister]

Heya Relapse!

I have the exact same problem! I pulled ALL my hair out...grrr

And I have no idea what im doing wrong.  Did also followed Gaia her wonderfull tutorials!

Now I'm at a point to forget a mesh shirt....and go back to primmies LOL

 

[Relapse Gauntley]

 I knew other people might encounter this problem. The best way to fix it is to make sure every single verticy is assigned to a particular bone on the skeleton. Yup, this means EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!

 

 As Gaia mentioned earlier, SL recognizes this as a LOD error... when really it is a weighting problem. Perhaps if I get around to working on a mesh viewer, I will be able to create a proper GUI that recognizes the difference -- or hopefully LL will be able to do so.

 

 Remember though, every verticy must be weighted properly.