Still no Skin Weights:([Solved, more questions]

[DerpWolf]

Hello everyone. I bet this topic was raised hundreds of times, but I failed to found a clear answer in other threads

The story is following: I was trying to get into rigged mesh making. After downloading a Fitted mesh enabled skeleton from this topic: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/Rigging_Fitted_Mesh I opened it in Blender and built simple collar lapels mesh around it. Then I weighted the mesh using Armature modifier and Weight Transfer from included avatar mesh, selected avatar armature first, and the mesh- second, and exported it into *.DAE format. The Apply Modifiers button was disabled, checked Selected only and Export for Second Life (OpenSim). After trying to import it in Second Life, mesh appeared in the importer window, but, as you already guessed, Skin Weights checkbox was grayed out. I tried exporting from both Blender 2.68 and 2.70 with same result.

Maybe I am missing some important step?  (The funny thing is when I am trying to import my Collada files back to Blender, the weights are back in place). Sorry to bother you, any suggestions are appreciated. 

[DerpWolf]

Update: seems I'm getting somewhere. The weights finally appeared (looks like parenting is required besides Armature modifier; never needed it during my previous IMVU experience). But the mesh is still corrupted beyond recognition (white thing in center) and it exploded my avi: http://gyazo.com/552a9c4810411a557bb85900ea2c091d

[Nalates Urriah]

There is no simple way to explain what is needed for rigged mesh in SL.

I suggest you run through the tutorials made by Gaia Clary: YouTube Blender Second Life.

You can do most of what you see in the videos without AVASTAR. It is much easier and faster to use Avastar.

Also, make sure you got the latest file from the WIKI. The file updated this month.

There is also a free file at Machinmatrix.org. I recommend using it. 

For more information see: http://blog.nalates.net/2014/01/14/fitted-mesh-base-avatar-files/

 

[DerpWolf]

Thanks, Nalates Urriah, I'd try to check this information. It just too confusing when you do not know what can be done only with Avastar and what can be done without it. Buying it is not yet an option for me; still not sure if I'll be able to do any business in SL. At least they have some "demo" files (avatar workbench), going to try them soon. 

[Gaia Clary]

Hi.

Here is a comparison between Pure Blender and what Avastar adds on top of it.

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avastar/compare-to-workbench/

Please remind that Avastar is an Addon. And Avastar aims to "make things easier, faster and simpler" compared to pure Blender.

I believe that we have been succesfull in some cases. But i also see that some parts of Avastar are still too complex. Hence We are constantly working on making bad things become nicer and nice things become awesome :matte-motes-sunglasses-1:

[DerpWolf]

Thanks, that explains things. Better representation of in-world shape plus other optimizations... impressive. 

By the way, I got the mesh to work, it seems my vertex groups somehow got flipped when I imported it first time. http://gyazo.com/1daff4effca41a9da2b1e4a377a8b7d9 Wrong meshing workflow perhaps. But few more questions arisen.

1. The mesh had two materials applied on it in Blender, how can I access the second material slot in SL?

2.http://gyazo.com/cb2621fcf5eee2bcf968e5df58d255a5 Is the data usage too high for this kind of object, or it is OK? (From left to right: land impact, loading, physics, server)

3. I was hoping for similar effect with this tail mesh: https://imageshack.com/i/0ilqzuj , so is there any way to darken inner layers of the mesh ("hair roots") without using additional materials on them? Like vertex color import or probably vertex normal editing?