Need some friendly assistance diagnosing a problem with my mesh. (Blender)

[Chriss Daysleeper]

Hey guys, thank you for taking your time to read this thread :)

I've recently been following Candybytes rigged clothing series on Youtube since I'm a complete beginner to Blender.  Unfortunately though, her guides are very outdated and require a lot of side tutorials to help me move forward. Having said that though, I believe I've taken in the basic knowledge and feel rather confident in what I'm doing. At least that's what I thought. 

I'm going to show you a few images of some problems I've encountered after uploading the mesh onto Second Life and hope that some of you will share your thoughts on the matter.

Problems:

The first image you can see a small avatar appearing from the neck area of the mesh top. I originally changed the top, legs, and head mesh to a male model using the shape keys.

The second image is, well.. it's just insanely deformed. I'm guessing this is also partly because of the first problem. I had just decided to go ahead and upload the mesh to check the rigging.

Anyway... If anyone would like to share their ideas, please feel free :) I don't plan on giving up that easily, and will be trying to find the problem by myself in the meantime. This is all very intimidating to me though, there's so much information to take in, I'd very much appreciate anyones help. Thank you for your time!

 

[Gaia Clary]

Here some quick tips:

 

• Always apply scale and rotation before you export. that avoids the large differences in scale between the mesh avatar and the shirt.
• Ensure that the mesh avatar always looks into positive X direction (and scale and rotation is applied) before you export.
• Always use the "Second Life Rigged" Preset in the Collada exporter and do not mess with the export options. There is absolutely no reason to change the preset values here. really!
• Never touch the skeleton of your rig unless you know exactly what you do.

 

[Chriss Daysleeper]

Hey Gaia, thanks for the tips, they've helped me out a lot right now. I managed to get rid of the small avatar that was poking through the neck hole and the deformed and stretched mesh by ticking "Selection only" and unticking "include shape keys". I also ticked "Export for Second Life" as well. Honestly, I didn't even know about this panel until now lol!

The only problem I'm now facing is that my mesh attatches to my hand when I wear it. I'm guessing it's a rigging problem, so I'll have to try and figure something out for that now. On the upload model interface on Second Life, is there any specific options I should change that could fix this? I was sure I rigged it properly.

 

[Gaia Clary]

good to hear that you are on the right path. But please please please ... please...

Use the preset named "Second Life Rigged" from the selection box on top of the Collada export panel. This preset just does it all right for second life export. If you do not use that preset you will fail almost for sure!

What you report right now sounds like you have not enabled "Include Armatures". You need that so that the collada exporter also exports the Mesh weight groups...

 

[Chriss Daysleeper]

Victory!! I've successfully managed to upload the mesh, and it's now sitting perfectly on my avatar. Sorry for not reading your reply's properly, I selected the Second Life Rigged preset and of course, everything worked accordingly. Thank you for your time Gaia, you've really made my day

[Sassy Romano]

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Chriss Daysleeper wrote:

The only problem I'm now facing is that my mesh attatches to my hand when I wear it. I'm guessing it's a rigging problem, so I'll have to try and figure something out for that now.

 

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Hi Chriss, that's the default attachment point for any prim so just right click and "attach to" when you come to wear it and choose something logical.  When it's rigged it doesn't really matter since it will wear properly anyway but something other than right hand is good and as I found, don't use HUD Center.  Unless things have changed, that appears ok on your own viewer but you are in fact naked to everyone else.

Oh and buy Avastar, the plug-in for Blender.  It will transform your life as it's a full toybox of toys for working with SL avatars.

[Chriss Daysleeper]

Hey Sassy.

Thanks for the info, I was only really getting this problem because I wasn't exporting on the correct preset. It no longer sits on my hand, and is now attatching as it should do.

As for Avastar, I'm still not quite sure what it does.. I'll have to look into it more. I heard it makes the whole process a lot easier though

[Sassy Romano]

ok well even if you "attach" the item when it's correctly rigged, the default attachment point is still right hand so it's still a good idea to choose a more logical one even though the rigged worn item will appear correctly.

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avastar/

Significant highlights for anyone making clothes include:-

SL shape import, weighting tools, ready to use rig, a collada exporter that just works properly, weight check tools and much more.