AVASTAR

[Loleeta Lennie]

AVASTAR.......

Is it a worthwile Investment for a serious Creator that wants/needs to move in to the Mesh Market?

I do "OK" in Blender, except when it comes to SL rigging. It's always a hit or miss for me. Will AVASTAR fill that gap for me and make me glad I spent the money for it?

I currently use Blender 2.76 and DAZ Studio for various other Mesh Projects.

I'm looking for serious opinions here, not snide remarks.

[Imagin Illyar]

I'm also learning mesh clothing.  I have to say that I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without Avastar.  It absolutely simplifies the whole rigging and weighting and is worth every penny.  The only downside is that because Avastar is constantly in flux the instructions for beginners isn't always up to date.  

[Nalates Urriah]

I use AvaStar. I think it is well  worth the cost.

Anything you can do with AvaStar can be done with plan Blender... but not as quickly and easily. Also, the learning curve for many tasks is much lower with AvaStar. For instance look at this one article: http://blog.nalates.net/2013/04/23/second-life-shape-export/

How long would it take you to figure out this problem if you didn't see my article? If you use AvaStar it is a non-issue as AvaStar just handles it.

Plus, the videos that Gaia provides are a big help. She used to make video for those using just Blender, as I once did. But, it got too time consuming for me and assume Gaia too. Just the AvaStar avatar in Blender rigged for animation makes it worth the money. The rigging tools are a bonus.

With project Bento coming AvaStar and MayaStar will be the top tools for animating. Most of the other animation tools have long since stopped being updated. So, I don't know if they will get new versions once Bento releases.

I recommend getting it. It will eliminate lots of frustration. 

[VanillaSunsets]

The add-on is well worth the money. Documentation however, could be less confusing. Loads of tutorials on You Tube, but mind the difference in versions. There is a l ot of outdated stuff out there. Still, it does make life easier and Gaia is friendly and helpfull whenever she can :-)

Another plus is, you will find more ppl can help you here on the forum. Lots of us are Avarstar/Blender users Here we are specialized in the workflow from Blender/Avastar to SL. You will find less information on this pipeline on the regular Blender fora, those fora are less specific.

[Gaia Clary]

We have removed almost all youtube videos from public search to avoid confusion.
However you find a couple of videos on our new document site at

    http://avastar.online

The documentation is still lacking behind a bit though.
But we slowly catch up and we listen to every user suggestions
to further improve the pages.

 

[VanillaSunsets]

Ah, Gaia, that is great! I know I that will make it  less hard for a starting designer. Thank you :-)

[Loleeta Lennie]

My main concern, was/is the learning curve of AVASTAR. At least compared to performing the same functions in Blender without AVASTAR. I lost count of how many blood vessels I herniated in my brain and of how many mini-strokes I've had; learning Blender for SL. And I still have trouble getting the rigging to work every time. (*POP*, there goes another one just thinking about it).

At this point, easier is the direction I need to go.

[VanillaSunsets]

I so get what you mean, most of us do, lol.

The way I would go is buying Avastar, rigging is easier in Avastar and the documentation is not only updated as Gaia reported, it is also specific to the SL skeleton/avatar. There are alternatives, sure, Maya and it's SL rigging ad-on, but then you need to be able to invest in very expensive software. Or keep struggling to get it to work in Blender without any add-on. This is do-able, but it will take you more time. If only on the time you spend on reading and watching the tutorials that are mostly out-dated and harder, much harder to find. That time you can spend on actually making your product, start earning L$ sooner and you will probably make the money you spend on Avastar back in some time. Another way is to buy some full perm clothing, texture those, study how it is made in wireframe, how maps are made and so on... Sell those and save what you earn to buy Avastar. That  way you have not spend anything you could not spare, got some practice and have a semi steady income while you work on your own projects. 

As to the learning curve compared to Blender itself, it's just another few buttons, but this time the buttons will make it easier instead of more complicated. Reading the info on the page Gaia linked to will get you up to speed quite fast as this will be focused on just that Avastar menu and those buttons. If you follow along with Blender opened and your clothing loaded, you will learn by trail and error. Als,o like most of us, lol. Avastar also has the possibility, on their website, to ask questions. Even on this forum Gaia keeps watch and responds to questions by Avastar users almost always (maybe even always, never kept track). 

I wish you good luck and hope you will create magnificent items :-)

[Gaia Clary]

Well, we try to make things easier. Sometimes that seems to work, in other times we seem to have added complications. It's a bit of a steady evolution which takes place in Blender on one side and in the Addons on the other side. And because of that user feedback is actually very necessary to make things better.

So i am always interested in getting information back from the fresh users who have an unspoiled view on the topic. Especially i'd like to know about where things go wrong and where there is need for more improved documentation.

 

[Loleeta Lennie]

Well I took a chance and bought AVASTAR. I messed around with it for a couple days. And....I feel even DUMBER now than before I had AVASTAR.

Why isn't there BETTER and CLEARER documentation on how to make that dang armature WORK on custom human meshes?

Doesn't matter what human model I use, AVASTAR just breaks, period. It refuses to weight any custom mesh. And the Armature refuses to Parent any custom mesh.

So, I guess there's L$6,500 down the drain for me. Wish I had followed my gut and NOT bought it. That was VERY hard earned money for me to waste.

:smileymad:

[Gaia Clary]

I am sorry to hear that you failed with Avastar.

But please do not get angry with us, your money is not wasted. We always refund anybody who is not satisfied for whichever reason. And we always offer help to get things fixed. And especially in cases where obviously the tool fails we are even more interested to know what went wrong.

So actually i am very  interested to see why this has become such a huge damage in your case.

Now you can see it positive and just tell us what went wrong and we take a look at this. Or you can say, no, enough is enough, then we just refund you. Also you can choose if we talk about this here in the forum, or you can open a ticket in our support system at http://blog.machinimatrix.org/tickets

In any case we would need to inspect the mesh that you try to rig. And last thing: We will never ever do anything with your meshes beyond inspecting and possibly even fixing issues.

[Loleeta Lennie]

No matter whether I use my custom human meshes or a primitive stick person, I get the same results. When it DOES decide to rig, I get errors saying "No Vertices are weighted", or something to that effect. The only problem, is the meshes ARE properly weight painted.

Another issue, is Avastar just won't copy bone weights from the "from Avastar" setting. Nothing happens. Period.

I took an awful chance making a large purchase like this. (To me, this was expensive. L$ doesn't come easy for me these days).  I pondered on it for over 2 weeks before I even posted about it here. Maybe others have no issues with Avastar. Great for them. It was just a wasteful purchase for me. Lesson learned on my part.

I'll just stick with what I do best...HUDs.

[Gaia Clary]

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Loleeta Lennie wrote:

No matter whether I use my custom human meshes or a primitive stick person, I get the same results. When it DOES decide to rig, I get errors saying "No Vertices are weighted", or something to that effect. The only problem, is the meshes ARE properly weight painted.

Another issue, is Avastar just won't copy bone weights from the "from Avastar" setting. Nothing happens. Period.

I took an awful chance making a large purchase like this. (To me, this was expensive. L$ doesn't come easy for me these days).  I pondered on it for over 2 weeks before I even posted about it here. Maybe others have no issues with Avastar. Great for them. It was just a wasteful purchase for me. Lesson learned on my part.

I'll just stick with what I do best...HUDs.

---

I am very sure that the cases you report can be handled by Avastar. Period. So you can either ask me for a full refund and i will pay you back right away. Or you proceed and help me to help you. For now here is an attempt to help you blindly:

The following answers are fully based on assumptions. Your issues could happen for totally different reasons. I only can tell you what's going on when i can take a look into the blend files (see below).

No Vertices are weighted

• This can happen when your meshes are weighted to Fitted Mesh Bones but the collision Volumes have not been enabled as Deform bones.
• Or when you try to use the function "alter to restpose" on a mesh where not all vertices have been weighted.
• Should you have used Avastar-2 for your experiments then you might have fallen into something related to the new bento bones.

Copy of Bone weights

• This function works only between meshes which are rigged to the same skeleton.
• It also only works reliably when you have applied rotation and scale to your meshes.
• Also the function can fail for meshes which contain more than one layer of faces, for example when an object was solidified or has intersecting submeshes.
• There is a bone weight copy function in Blender. But i must admit that function is a bit odd to use especially when you are not used to the "blender way".

Mirror Copy of bone weights

• This function only works (in standard Blender) when your mesh is strictly symmetric

My proposal for you

Since at this moment i only can guess, what about this:

You send me your Blend files which do not work by using one of the methods below:

 

• post the blend files here in the forum
• post the blend files to http://pasteall.org/blend (and secure them with password) and send me the download link
• open a new ticket at http://blog.machinimatrix.org/tickets
• send the blend file(s) to me at gaia.clary@machinimatrix.org
• deposit the blend files wherever is convenient for you, then send me an IM with the download link (Gaia Clary)

Then i proceed as follows:

1. I inspect what is going on.
2. I tell you why it does not work.
3. I fix the documentation as needed
4. I fix the tools if needed.

If we fail to fix our software (should it have bugs after all) then i fully refund you and and you can keep the software as if you bought it regular. But please note that i am mostly occupied with other things until next Monday, so possibly i can not respond in a snap. However i will try to do my best to get your issues solved as soon as i can.

[Loleeta Lennie]

I submitted a ticket on your website for a Refund Request. I give up. Obviously Avastar just isn't for me. I've already deleted and Uninstalled it from Blender.

Much respect to those who can grasp it and have success with it. I'm not saying it's a bad product. It's just not for the occasional dabbler in Blender.

[Pamela Galli]

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Loleeta Lennie wrote:

I submitted a ticket on your website for a Refund Request. I give up. Obviously Avastar just isn't for me. I've already deleted and Uninstalled it from Blender.

Much respect to those who can grasp it and have success with it. I'm not saying it's a bad product. It's just not for the occasional dabbler in Blender.

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Not surprised she turned down Gaia's offer to personally diagnose the problem and instead wants a refund.

[Gaia Clary]

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Loleeta Lennie wrote:

I submitted a ticket on your website for a Refund Request. I give up. Obviously Avastar just isn't for me. I've already deleted and Uninstalled it from Blender.

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I will refund you on monday. Please apologize for the delay.

[Loleeta Lennie]

Not a problem. Thank you.