New Linden Lab / Second Life Mesh Avatars!!

[Canoro Philipp]

if they are not interested to do it, they should hire mesh creators to make a model to replace the default avatar that works as seamless as possible with the current bone structure, and inherit the texture features of the default avatar, for that to happen, they should give some specifications such as bytes size, number of max triangles, name and extension of the file, format, and everything else to make the new shape compatible with their current system.

[Coby Foden]

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Canoro Philipp wrote:

I understand that the purpose of releasing better shaped avatars is to give new users a better impresion and give them a better image to present themselves.

wouldnt fixing the default avatar accomplish that?

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What they really should do is to implement brand new default avatar shape - male and female.

• professionally created

• detailed and well optimized mesh

• good mesh topology

• realistic human proportions and size

• realistic facial expressions

• in fact the shape should be excellent in all aspects

Then there would be no need for all the present multiple avatar mesh add-ons to hide the bad default shape. No need for complete mesh human avatars to hide the bad default shape.

To make things easier for everybody, a new excellent default shape is the only sensible way to go. The present trend with mesh body add-ons and full human mesh avatars will be chaotic and very bad way to go on.

 

[Marianne Little]

I fully agree with you, but LL does not want to do it for some obscur reason. It is not the first time this topic comes up.

What LL has paid for these new mesh avatars, well I don't know, but I suppose those who did the job called themself "Professionals". There is obvious to me that LL is not interested in avatar appearance or bother to customize their own avatars. The people they hired to make new mesh avatars must never have played SL, or looked at some old content  from 8-10 years ago, and the old starter avatars. Or else they would have come across resident created material that shows that SL can be beautiful and realistic. It annoys me that every article about SL shows some avatars without an AO, with clay skin and some freebie clothes painted on standing in locations built 2006-style.

When the topic of new shapes comes up, some people cry out that this will ruin all that people already have in their inventory. Well, LL could let us choose between the new shapes if we want, and then have to buy new things for them. Or keep the old shapes with all the things that already fit.

[Medhue Simoni]

I finally got a look at the new Mesh Default avatars. I didn't try all of them, actually just the Werewolf and the Vampire, figuring others would go over the human avatars.

Really, I don't know what to say, other than WTF!

First, Let me talk about the modeling. This is the bright spot, and the texturing, kind of. The models, from what I seen, look to be very well made. All of the avatars that I tried were very efficient and had extremely low avatar rendering scores. The only gripe I have with the modeling are the hands and feet. On the Werewolf, they are HUGE and strange. On the Vampire, the feet are HUGE. It's like the artist just chooses a part and decides making them HUGE would be cool. This also bring up that they could have gone further. If they are using materials, then I couldn't tell that much. I didn't see much bump mapping nor very good speculars. These could have set the avatar off and made them look much better.

Beyond the actual modeling, everything else fails, miserably. The rigging is hit or miss. On the Werewolf avatar, there is 1 vertice that keeps poking out of his back. The rigging to the bones, and how those limbs fit on the SL skeleton, are very bad. You can see this in the arm pits and the gap between the legs. There is far too much room in both areas, which means either the rigger didn't spend enough time on those areas, or the modeler modeled those parts in that way. It looks very bad tho.

My feet were under the ground in both the Werewolf and Vampire avatars. This is ridiculous. I did everything to see if it was just me, but no, both avatars were released with their feet swimming thru the ground. The body shapes were also no modifiable, which means you can't just quickly fix it.

No excuse for eyes not working. Obviously, the creator, whom I have no idea who it is, doesn't know that you can just rig your own eyes and move them to fit your avatar. It's simple, and has ALWAYS worked. Again, no excuse for eyes not moving. There is also no excuse from the avatars not to blink. There are a number of easy ways to do it. IMHO, there is also no excuse for not having the jaw move on the werewolf and vampire creatures. I've pointed out that we do have extra bones and how to use them.

Now onto animation! It's just bad. I'm not talking about the actual movements, but the implementation of it all. For the Werewolf, they basically just reused their old AO from the first mesh werewolf they released. It fit the old werewolf better. On the new werewolf, not only does the animation push his feet under the ground, but his hands are basically going thru the body the whole time. The good part is, that the new werewolf mesh avatar fits my Lycan AO perfectly. I suspect that this new werewolf doesn't use a bone deformer, or uses a reduced 1. This is also probably why LL's old animation pushes the feet under the ground, as it was made to fit an avatar with a bone deformer.

The Vampire creature is a total mess. Besides the fact that the avatar is quite strange looking, because of the hunched back and HUGE feet, LL did nothing for his movements. The vampire creature comes with wings on his back. The wings don't move at all, and there is a major glitch in them that makes the back sides of the wings transparent. So, from the front, he has skin between the bones on his wings, but not from the back. His AO is even worse, and just uses the same AO from the werewolf. This doesn't make any sense, beside the images on the HUD being a werewolf. Plus, just like the werewolf, the AO pushes the avatar's HUGE feet under the ground.

To wrap this up, I'll just say that it's another example of the lack of actual testing and knowledge that the Lindens do and have about their own product. The obvious problems with these avatars should have been caught. I mean really, as soon as you wear them, you would know their are problems. So, either they weren't tested at all, or their testers are monkeys.

 

Here is a look at the Werewolf avatar with my Lycan AO on. Notice how his feet are above the ground.

[Medhue Simoni]

This guy, the classic Wolfman avatar, I really do like alot. Again, he fits my Lycan AO very well. The bad part is that he is not fully functional. Eyes moving, and mouth moving would really do alot to make him feel real. This is why these avatars are such a disappointment. LL could have released avatars we could all build on. We could be making clothing, animations, and accessories for these avatars. The problem is that almost all of our own creations are more functional. My avatar has a moving jaw, and moving eyes. Plus, I can animate right on him in my program. What I think LL should do is make them more functional, and then give us the files so that we can make things for them, just like we can with the SL default.

 

[Perrie Juran]

 

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

This guy, the classic Wolfman avatar, I really do like alot. Again, he fits my Lycan AO very well. The bad part is that he is not fully functional. Eyes moving, and mouth moving would really do alot to make him feel real. This is why these avatars are such a disappointment. LL could have released avatars we could all build on. We could be making clothing, animations, and accessories for these avatars. The problem is that almost all of our own creations are more functional. My avatar has a moving jaw, and moving eyes. Plus, I can animate right on him in my program. What I think LL should do is make them more functional, and then give us the files so that we can make things for them, just like we can with the SL default.

 

 

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How in the world LL can even pretend that these new Ava's are any good is really beyond me. 

No you don't want the source files for them.

You do a diservice for everyone by doing anything to promulgate them.

Like all the starter Ava's they get people started.

But I for one want to see as little of them as possible.

I don't think LL should be in competition with people by providing top of the line Ava's.  But they shouldn't make you need eye bleach either.  If that is the best that can be done with a Mesh Avatar's arm pit you can keep them all for all I care.

[Sassy Romano]

Just to provide a *little* balance here.  If these new avatars were wonderful, would people be up in arms about LL competing with inworld merchants?

[Perrie Juran]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Just to provide a *little* balance here.  If these new avatars were wonderful, would people be up in arms about LL competing with inworld merchants?

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Really, I don't know if the general population of SL would care one way or the other if LL was competing with Merchants.  Well, not really competing, but taking away from their business.  Like what happened with Mainland Rentals and The Linden Homes.  (Right now Linden Homes occupy more land than there is abandoned land on the Mainland).

But what I do know is that I don't want to see a bunch of clones running around the grid.

Without the Merchants we wouldn't have a tenth of the customizations available that we do have, so you are all a very important asset to Second Life.

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Just to provide a *little* balance here.  If these new avatars were wonderful, would people be up in arms about LL competing with inworld merchants?

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That's what happened when the older default avatars came out. For a bit of time people were complaining. At the time, they were actually better than a lot of what folks were selling. Thankfully all it really did was push merchants to improve.

I don't think many merchants right now are scared of the new competition...

 

[Pamela Galli]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Just to provide a *little* balance here.  If these new avatars were wonderful, would people be up in arms about LL competing with inworld merchants?

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Exactly.  If LL is going to go into business competing with creators by giving stuff away, any stuff, I would prefer it be be kind of crappy. I ran around with a 100% system avatar for quite a while and thought I looked quite fine, until I realized I was missing a few things.  It did not hurt me a bit not to arrive with decent skin and hair, much less an entire decent avatar.

[Pierre Ceriano]

As a promoter of a fitted mesh avatar creator (I won't name as this thread is not for advertizing) and as a mesh maker myself, I am convinced that it is very important the new comers and existing community have a perfect and beutiful starting avatars library, especially for humanoid avis. Independant creators and the Linden team are not competing.

- What would say the new comer about Second Life, rezzing first time : "The starting characters are uggly AND if I want to look like something nice I have to buy.... nah nah nah I'll be back in the future... maybe"

- What are actually thinking most of residents : "I will keep wearing my "old" avatar because anyway I don't understand anything of fitted mesh."

We all have to be the mentors of the fitted mesh technology. Linden lab mesh makers have to take care of starting avatars because they are the media window of Second life. Independant mesh creators will always find something to improve and do best. By analogy, Linden must provide a cumfortable "starting car", and independant creators will always provide the up-sell opportunities.

[Coby Foden]

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Pierre Ceriano wrote:

 

Linden must provide a cumfortable "starting car", and independant creators will always provide the up-sell opportunities.

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That "starting car" would be an excellent, even awesome, new default avatar shape - male and female. It should be highly customizeable as we love to make our avatars individual looking.

New default avatar shape from Linden Lab, content creators would take care of the rest of the awesomeness.

[Phil Deakins]

This isn't a reply to you, Coby. It's just that your Reply button was the most convenient. It's a post for everyone.

I am pretty clueless when it comes to mesh, and even more clueless when it come to mesh avatars, so can someone answer some questions for me please.

What is the reason why LL introduced a range of mesh avatars? What are they aiming at with them? Are they looking to a future where only mesh avatars exist in SL, and the originals will eventually disappear from the Library?

Although I tried most of the avatars, and declared them to be too ugly to bother with, I didn't examine them in detail. I didn't notice the ridiculous armpits that Perrie posted a pic of, and I didn't notice another similar flaw that someone mentioned. I didn't even notice that the eyes didn't move. So, since the initial crop are so very very bad, why have they done it? I don't mean why have they produced such bad ones. I mean why are they doing mesh avatars at all?

[Sassy Romano]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

 

What is the reason why LL introduced a range of mesh avatars? What are they aiming at with them? Are they looking to a future where only mesh avatars exist in SL, and the originals will eventually disappear from the Library?

 

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I think it's because it's a new shiny but for me the big fail is that many of the shape adjustment controls don't work, clothing options won't work and it's just and odd new experience that I expect to confuse new users.

If they wanted to do this, they should have done it in such a way that ALL the shape controls worked and that existing clothing could work, i.e. use the SL UV map and allow textures to be applied to it.

Oh well.  Definitely an odd new user experience in my view.

[Perrie Juran]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

..... I mean why are they doing mesh avatars at all?

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They're creating a market for armpit hair?  

 

But really what I think is the answer is what I said earlier.  This is the future for the Avatar as far as they see it.  But using such poorly done creations is a terrible way to promote it.

[Phil Deakins]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

..... I mean why are they doing mesh avatars at all?

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They're creating a market for armpit hair?

  

 

But really what I think is the answer is what I said earlier.  This is the future for the Avatar as far as they see it.  But using such poorly done creations is a terrible way to promote it.

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That made literally laugh out loud lol

Well, I hope their act together if they are looking to only have mesh avs in the future.

[Medhue Simoni]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

..... I mean why are they doing mesh avatars at all?

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They're creating a market for armpit hair?  

 

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YaY! Not!

I don't see anything LL puts out there as competition. The SL default isn't competition. It's not much different. What LL could be in the business of doing, is setting standards, not that I want them to do that in their current form. Standards would be beneficial, but only if the people setting them are well informed, which LL is not, at least about mesh avatars. I seriously hope LL was involved with all of this and the creator so that they can better understand the hurdles. That said, it's obvious that they don't fully understand when the mesh avatars don't have working eyes.

I'll give an example of how this could go, as far as standards. Imagine they put out a decent Werewolf, which the new 1 is not bad. Then people like myself might make AOs, or accessories to fit him. As the assets for this character builds, more merchants create avatars to match, so they can also use the accessories. The end result are tons of products around every LL character, and clones of that avatar in different forms. Heck, if I had the files, I could get that werewolf's jaw and eyes moving. We could even give him different teeth options. New hands would be good too. Did I mention they are HUGE?

[Qie Niangao]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

What is the reason why LL introduced a range of mesh avatars? What are they aiming at with them? Are they looking to a future where only mesh avatars exist in SL, and the originals will eventually disappear from the Library?

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I do not think they plan to remove the ability to use the old system avatars and replace them completely with attached Mesh. I think, frankly, they (and a bunch of creators) have been sold a bill of goods, that folks really, really want Mesh avatars, and so if they offer them at startup, maybe it will help fix retention, making SL look more up-to-date and on a par with video games.

If that's the intent, they really needed better ones.

The "bill of goods" thing is that attached Mesh is just not good enough. I mean, it's great for "replacement parts" (like feet), but full-body avatars?  No facial expressions? No real customization of a bunch of slider features that aren't linked to "fitted" Mesh? Hand positions through insanely laggy alpha kludging, unlinked to existing animations? No practical means of mixing and matching surface textures and alphas?

These new avatars unintentionally demonstrate that there's no point wasting time on this intermediate stage, and it's "Avatar 2.0" or nothing.

(But I'm still fine with the zombie. I mean, my alt is. I mean, on the rare occasions that alt is in-world, he can be a zombie. Until now, he was a plywood box, so zombie is a big step up. And, incidentally, a plywood box turns out to be a really confusing avatar for an alt who often needs to rez large numbers of plywood boxes.)

[Medhue Simoni]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

I mean why are they doing mesh avatars at all?

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Well, there is the issue of lag. The new mesh avatars are a fraction of the rendering cost of the old avatars. It's actually quite drastic.

The bad part, and the part that LL doesn't seem do understand, is that we are going backwards with avatars that look like statues. Without facial expressions, and finger bones, a mesh avatar is never going to be as good as the default. Why arn't they working on making mesh avatars functional? That is the big question, if you ask me.

[Pamela Galli]

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Pierre Ceriano wrote:

As a promoter of a fitted mesh avatar creator (I won't name as this thread is not for advertizing) and as a mesh maker myself, I am convinced that it is very important the new comers and existing community have a perfect and beutiful starting avatars library, especially for humanoid avis.

Independant creators and the Linden team are not competing

.

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I just have never bought into the idea that the quality of starting avatars made much difference to retention. Many of us here started with system skin and hair and clothes and shoes. We fiddled around and customized all our customizable features, made system clothese, etc., and that was fun. Then we picked up some free stuff and upgraded, and that was fun. Then we bought stuff and that was fun too. 

 

Now at THIS point in my SL, I would glad for someone to hand me a state of the art fully clothed avi that I would never have to mess with -- but back when I liked dressing up and playing with my dolly, a gift like that would have dreprived me of many hours of fun.

[Canoro Philipp]

in order to make mesh avatars work as good as system avatars they need to grant mesh permission to use the features like alpha, clothing layers, sliders, only then they can get rid of the original avatar.

if they grant those permissions they would not only be winning in getting rid of the old avatar, it will also help creators eliminating the need to use appliers.

if they intent to keep the old avatar because it takes advantage of all those features, but is not presentable enough to keep retention, then they should make it presentable, it is proven that it can be done, it works with the bone structure, it may have more triangles and by consequence cause more lag, but that doesnt seem to be of concern by Linden Lab, since this is the welcome experience that they decide to give to new users, if that is not a concern, then it shouldn't be a problem to add more triangles to the old avatar. what they would win is a presentable avatar that would take advantage of all the features.

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, the creator of a mesh avatar could make textures with alpha'd parts of it, to hide things also. We can also rig their avatars to the collision bones and be able to use all of the body sliders, which is probably the best functionality that those collision bones offer. Rigging eyes has always been possible. The big issues are not having finger bones, and facial expressions/talking, which either requires a mess of bones or a morphing system.

Don't ask me why LL's new mesh avatar don't utilize even the basics. I'd really love to know why. I'm dying to know why the eyes aren't rigged to the actual eye bones. It's eating me up not knowing. Seriously!

I've said what I think LL should do with avatars before, but I will summarize it here. We need 2 things. More bones, or a custom bone importer, and we need morph imports/blend shapes/shape keys. That's really it. LL could implement a bone system for static meshes, and then allow those to attach to the avatar. That would give us all the bones we would ever need. Cloud Party actually did this also, and it was very cool. If we get both these features, we can easily blow away the default SL avatar in every way possible. To me, clothing layers aren't really a big deal. Any way you do it, it's just textures. You actually cause more lag by allowing some1 to associate that many textures to 1 avatar.

[Qie Niangao]

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

Well, the creator of a mesh avatar could make textures with alpha'd parts of it, to hide things also. We can also rig their avatars to the collision bones and be able to use all of the body sliders, [...]

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Testing my understanding of the situation: It's specifically the body sliders that control collision bones, right? And not the face sliders? Which maybe constrain the facial morphs?

Although come to think of it, I bet the head can be controlled a lot more than on these new defaults.

This must be written down somewhere, not merely embedded in the system avatar model.

God I hate all this stuff now.

[Medhue Simoni]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

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Medhue Simoni wrote:

Well, the creator of a mesh avatar could make textures with alpha'd parts of it, to hide things also. We can also rig their avatars to the collision bones and be able to use all of the body sliders, [...]

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Testing my understanding of the situation: It's specifically the body sliders that control collision bones, right? And not the face sliders? Which maybe constrain the facial morphs?

Although come to think of it, I bet the head can be controlled a lot more than on these new defaults.

This must be written down somewhere, not merely embedded in the system avatar model.

God I hate all this stuff now.

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Well, that is the way LL did it. There are no face collission bones, at least in the files we were given. There is just the head bone, which the whole head is weighted to. Of course, I have no idea how LL's system works, but collision bones are not what generally morphs anything. Morphs are simply a retopology of the mesh connected to a slider. I think it just so happens that SL's collision bones follow the morphs of the avatar's body to detect collision, and we are using them as a hack. So, yes, the facial morphing is constrained on mesh avatar because there are no bones to rig to.

Morphs are not difficult in anyway. Every 3D program has them, and there is even a file format called MMO. I believe both DAE files and FBX files can contain morphing data. If LL simply implemented the ability, morphing would make fitted mesh obsolete, as we'd just create morphs to fit the avatar sliders. A totally custom mesh avatar could morph in any way possible. Heck, if LL implemented morphs, we would not even need a new skeleton, as we could just move parts of the mesh with morph sliders. For instance, we would not need ear bones, as we could just morph the ear and play that as an animation, just like we do with facial expressions. Even wings could be morphed to flap, and look as realistic as using bones to do it. We could even have moving fingers with morphs. That's all LL did with their facial morphs and hand morphs.

So, I was wrong. We don't really need 2 things, those being more bones and morphs. We just need morphs. I'll take that. Literally, importing meshes with morphs would fix all issues related to mesh and avatars. A creator would have the ability to make any creature possible, with just the implementation of morphs. Yes, bones might be better in some cases, but morphs will make everything and anything possible. I'm actually working on a contract, right now, where they want me to create a default male and female character, each with morphs to customize the bodies, exactly like our SL default avatar. We are using the Genesis2 figure from Daz as our base. Unity implemented morph imports at the beginning of the year, and I convince this company that we should use them. The coder is currently working on a system to lip sync the avatar's mouth with the morphs I created.

[Aiku Yokosuka]

The only way you can alter the looks of the mesh ava, is to either...buy another avatar to your taste, or, as i have done, remove the body parts, and you are left with the basic avatar that has always been used. I hate to say, but except for a few mesh suppliers and the introduction of rigged mesh, which fits the body better, mesh for clothing and avatars is pretty dismal.