Changing the Rigging?

[Subversive Vavoom]

Is it possible for creators of mesh to easily go from a normal size/scale av down to a very small (some say micro size) av in their rigging?

I ask this because while I know that some fashions can't possibly be made to fit my already-mesh-body (i'm a petite avatar by Yabu) there are some "loose" garments, and accessories like hair that could definitely fit if they were just smaller and rigged for the smaller 'skeleton' that goes with it.

So, to be clear, I'm not asking this question in relation to body hugging garments made of mesh, but rather, less body-contoured items like mesh hair.

Secondly, when you purchase a full perm mesh that presumably you can't reupload, are you stuck with the rigging for it permanently?  I wish there was a way to work with creators to offer riggings for the new mini/micro/little/small avs on accessories! :)

[Madeline Blackbart]

yes if you perchase a full perm item unless you purchase one with a dae file (which you could then edit yourself)  you are stuck with the current rigging. I'm not sure how small avies rigging works aren't the just crushed reg avies? or am I wrong...? It would be hard to model for one of them eitehr way because you'd need the original mesh avatar to build around to get it to fit and be in the right place.

[Codewarrior Congrejo]

When creating / Editing riggs and mesh : In general you can downscale a whole armature with the mesh's being rigged to it. (this way you can i.e.. Create tiny avatars).

However: In order for a creator to make accessories for some tiny avatars they would either need the Armature/Skeleton or the exact scale values of it to size down their rigged meshes to fit it. To make things really work together.

But here we run already into several Problems:

- Altered Bonepositions would require reworking the skinning / weighting. Also the all over shape of the custom avatar's mesh plays a role here. (extreme example try to make a rigged hair that was being made for a human shaped head to fit  a furry mesh's head. With prims or sculpties you could just move parts around. But here we would have to move Polygons and vertices, maybe need to redo the UV and texture mapping, add additional faces, retouch the weighting to fit to it and not interfere with its very different shape and behavior)

- The mesh creator would need to decide on for 'what' tiny avatar he exactly would like to create cloth or accessories.

And most of them can't be bothered to make scaled or adjusted versions of their rigged meshes for every possibly sold custom avatar mesh existing in SL.

So most likely  (if even) just create stuff for very common used ones, or decide to go with a few differently scaled versions.

Conclusion:: in most cases you have to rely on accessories that are being made for that exact mesh avatar.

Secondly, when you purchase a full perm mesh that presumably you can't reupload, are you stuck with the rigging for it permanently? 

Yes you are stuck with it unless you can buy the working source files with a license to use / edit  them for builds and commercial usage. (The file would need to be either the original 3D Software file like for blender, Maya or 3DS Max etc. Or an open export format like DAE, which is also used for the upload into SL) 


I wish there was a way to work with creators to offer riggings for the new mini/micro/little/small avs on accessories!

You are always free to contact them and ask for their interest in making smaller versions or cooperative works with creators of custom avatar meshes.  Some may be up for it =)

[Gaia Clary]

About shapes and weighting issues in little more detail:

 

1. When you scale down or up the entire SL default Avatar then you will have no weighting issues.
2. When you work with SL character shapes only, then you also will have no weighting issues. Thats because the SL sliders only make proportional changes on bone lengthes. However you will have issues to get your work back into SL with precision when your used shape uses non default bone lengthes (which is almost ever the case with non default SL shapes).
3. You may (or may not) run into issues with weights when you are working with joint offsets. But imho this is advanced stuff. People who know how to make creature skeletons probably know how to avoid weight painting issues with scaled meshes as well