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1 hour ago, Shnurui Troughton said:

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what terms belong where.
Yes, B.O.M. or, Bakes On Mesh, is a nifty tool.

The PRIMARY PURPOSE is for people with Mesh bodies to use OLD CLOTHING AND SKINS.  That stuff you have floating around in your inventory that may or may not have cost you actual money.

Skins are a set of 3-4 textures, if you include the hair.

Clothing is also 1-4 textures, if you're just using the regular old stuff.

Textures are detailed images giving an area a look, such as clothing, tattoos and cosmetics.

Materials are also known as *Faces, or *Zones.  They define where the above textures mete up with.

Yes, it would be nice if the uploader was fixed so that creators could label and forget in their tool of choice, (lower_body, upper_body, etc.) and have the B.O.M. auto assign the default basic beta version textures to the right zones*.
Yes, it would be extremely wonderful if there were some sort of Data Core that could be placed on an animesh to allow B.O.M. to work on single layer animesh items.

But as someone noted, the heads haven't been replaced or even really taken a vacation to get fresh eyes on the problem.

They're doing great work, don't need to harsh their groove.

That's not the right definition of materials, what you refer to it's faces or ID's/groups.
Materials are the group of different "textures" to get certain effects. In SL case, we refer to materials to the system composed of more than plain diffuse texture adding also normal and specular maps channels among their different use of their different alpha channels.

And the primary purpose is not to use old skins and clothing since you would barely fit them over actual mesh body UVs but it's still a possibility to certain degree on certain bodies I guess. The main purpose is to stop using different layers of mesh bodies to increase performance and visual quality.

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1 hour ago, Shnurui Troughton said:

The PRIMARY PURPOSE is for people with Mesh bodies to use OLD CLOTHING AND SKINS

This is the primary *feature*, not purpose. The feature allows the original baking system to composite all those different textures into a single texture, then placing that single composite texture onto a single layer of a mesh object (in this case: mesh bodies) thereby (and the main purpose) eliminating the need for the additional three layers of the mesh object, which create rendering and resource load, etc.

Following the Linden-Created threads about BoM will make it's features and purpose clearly known. Though people have short memories and many will very quickly project their own theories as fact all the time. So meh.

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1 hour ago, Shnurui Troughton said:

Materials are also known as *Faces, or *Zones.  They define where the above textures mete up with

You sure that the one confused about terminology here isn't you? Materials in a 3d app define the texturable faces in SL, in SL materials are set of textures that define a surface rendering features like normal, glossiness, specular and environment maps. 

Since the replies deliberately skip the inherent core of the implementation i described, which in lesser words basically is "BoM with materials but applicable to every item", I'm not going to follow up on any more illiterate replies from illiterates such those i received above. Those all seem to me like a deliberate provocation and an attempt to make me lose my patience. Enjoy your beloved crippled little feature. 

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On 8/31/2019 at 7:00 PM, Lucierda Solari said:

I'm afraid I am disappointed with how my swimsuits look on it. 😞

 

I am afraid that this is not at all new for layered texture clothing.. I have been around SL for 14 years,  and remember how it was long before mesh, when we had no other choice but system layers for clothing..  and that issue with ragged sort of edges was around then too.  Some of it had to do with poorly made textures and some of it had to do with how it stretched over the body part.  The worst was trying to get short shorts or underwear to not leave stretched blotchy parts on the inner thighs.  I sure hope we don't start running into all that again.

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3 hours ago, Tazzie Tuque said:

I am afraid that this is not at all new for layered texture clothing.. I have been around SL for 14 years,  and remember how it was long before mesh, when we had no other choice but system layers for clothing..  and that issue with ragged sort of edges was around then too.  Some of it had to do with poorly made textures and some of it had to do with how it stretched over the body part.  The worst was trying to get short shorts or underwear to not leave stretched blotchy parts on the inner thighs.  I sure hope we don't start running into all that again.

On a mesh body, a system layer will behave almost exactly like an applier with the same texture. The stretching problem was with how the underlying default body was rigged and not necessarily with the texture itself. Now system layers will use the rigging of the mesh body.

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19 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

You sure that the one confused about terminology here isn't you? Materials in a 3d app define the texturable faces in SL, in SL materials are set of textures that define a surface rendering features like normal, glossiness, specular and environment maps. 

Since the replies deliberately skip the inherent core of the implementation i described, which in lesser words basically is "BoM with materials but applicable to every item", I'm not going to follow up on any more illiterate replies from illiterates such those i received above. Those all seem to me like a deliberate provocation and an attempt to make me lose my patience. Enjoy your beloved crippled little feature. 

Nope.  They define the physics of an object.  Yes, I'll admit i was wrong from my phone, without access to http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Material .
Enjoy your ignorance.

 

22 hours ago, Alyona Su said:

This is the primary *feature*, not purpose. The feature allows the original baking system to composite all those different textures into a single texture, then placing that single composite texture onto a single layer of a mesh object (in this case: mesh bodies) thereby (and the main purpose) eliminating the need for the additional three layers of the mesh object, which create rendering and resource load, etc.

Following the Linden-Created threads about BoM will make it's features and purpose clearly known. Though people have short memories and many will very quickly project their own theories as fact all the time. So meh.

Ok, so I missed a word.
The PRIMARY purpose is to USE the skin and clothing ATTACHMENT POINTS. This page calls them "Channels."

 

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2 hours ago, Shnurui Troughton said:

Nope.  They define the physics of an object.  Yes, I'll admit i was wrong from my phone, without access to http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Material .
Enjoy your ignorance.

And:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Materials
"This page contains articles about Second Life's specular and normal map features."

It's a pity that Linden Lab uses the same term (Materials) for two different things in Second Life.

So, both you and @OptimoMaximo were (half) correct what the term means. Yay! 😃

 

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On 9/5/2019 at 5:22 PM, Shnurui Troughton said:

Nope.  They define the physics of an object.  Yes, I'll admit i was wrong from my phone, without access to http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Material .
Enjoy your ignorance.

🤣

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Materials

Enjoy yours, 3d illiterate. The context was texturing and not physics, therefore the definition that goes is the one I'm linking. 

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9 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:

🤣

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Materials

Enjoy yours, 3d illiterate. The context was texturing and not physics, therefore the definition that goes is the one I'm linking. 

Except there are actually two things wrong with your statement.

Material, SINGULAR, is for the physics control.  Yes that would let us have bouncy hair and clothing without extra "bones."

Materials, PLURAL, can be done in the channels, giving clothing ridges at the seams and specular spikes.

There's a reason you switch to "alpha blending" mode for worn items.

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Not sure if being serious or just trolling but in my whole life as professional 3D artist neither as game developer I have ever seen using the word material to refer to the physics of an object. You usually use words like "physical", "cloth simulation", "dynamic bones", etc... But never "material". Not on offline renders, not on real time engines like Unity or Unreal, not even on CryEngine. I'd recommend to search for the words material and shader so you will understand the real meaning of them. 

Also, would be great if we keep the subject to BOM. 

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1 hour ago, Kitsune Shan said:

Not sure if being serious or just trolling but in my whole life as professional 3D artist neither as game developer I have ever seen using the word material to refer to the physics of an object. You usually use words like "physical", "cloth simulation", "dynamic bones", etc... But never "material". Not on offline renders, not on real time engines like Unity or Unreal, not even on CryEngine. I'd recommend to search for the words material and shader so you will understand the real meaning of them. 

Also, would be great if we keep the subject to BOM. 

Unfortunately, you forgot to tell that to linden labs, back in the 90s, when they decided "material" would be used as a physics property in their engine.

This includes, glass, rubber, stone, flesh, cloth, and yes, water.

Feel free to look at the singular: material sl wiki page.

This is not implemented in B.O.M. while, as a suggestion to add to B.O.M. keeps it on topic, it is only being considered.

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16 hours ago, OptimoMaximo said:
On 9/5/2019 at 11:22 AM, Shnurui Troughton said:

Nope.  They define the physics of an object.  Yes, I'll admit i was wrong from my phone, without access to http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Material .
Enjoy your ignorance.

🤣

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Category:Materials

Enjoy yours, 3d illiterate. The context was texturing and not physics, therefore the definition that goes is the one I'm linking. 

 

D23F8FF2-FCE7-4089-B532-F3AA83CC8A96.jpeg

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2 hours ago, Kitsune Shan said:

Not sure if being serious or just trolling but in my whole life as professional 3D artist neither as game developer I have ever seen using the word material to refer to the physics of an object. You usually use words like "physical", "cloth simulation", "dynamic bones", etc... But never "material". Not on offline renders, not on real time engines like Unity or Unreal, not even on CryEngine. I'd recommend to search for the words material and shader so you will understand the real meaning of them. 

Also, would be great if we keep the subject to BOM. 

There are physics materials in both unity and ue4, mainly used to set physics interaction as a mean to set collision behaviors and sounds on a instancing based approach. In SL they trigger different collision sounds as main feature. 

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SL it's old and back then there weren't any real material system so, just like with some other stuff, they named that wrongly or weirdly. But to bring that on a threat knowing that we all are referring to the textures based materials it's silly and only shows lack of basic understanding. 

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On 9/4/2019 at 11:22 PM, Tazzie Tuque said:

I am afraid that this is not at all new for layered texture clothing.. I have been around SL for 14 years,  and remember how it was long before mesh, when we had no other choice but system layers for clothing..  and that issue with ragged sort of edges was around then too.  Some of it had to do with poorly made textures and some of it had to do with how it stretched over the body part.  The worst was trying to get short shorts or underwear to not leave stretched blotchy parts on the inner thighs.  I sure hope we don't start running into all that again.

 

I see.  So what can be done to fix it?

Edited by Lucierda Solari
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Well today I loaded a BOM body, Slink and a BOM head Lelutka, and used new Glam Affair skins, and Bolson tattoos.   It all went easy as could be --  https://gyazo.com/60c28d6cffd72c29a7bcbf33f0bb1508.

UNTIL -- I tried to use my clothes.

Almost nothing worked!!   3years of making mesh clothes which rely on Alpha cuts left me with nothing but a huge mess.    I would literally have to open Photoshop and make thousands of alphas, months of WORK not game play.   What I do not personally understand -- is it completely impossible to have an alpha HUD? Is Slink's solution to build thousands of Alphas in Photoshop the only way?   If so I will not be using BOM, I am simply not willing to give up all my mesh clothing (I rough guess is only about 10% of my clothes have alphas) .   I don't think Photoshop should be part of the SL experience for every user.

If BOM becomes the only way -- is there a solution other than trashing many thousands of clothes?

Edited by FaintOutline
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25 minutes ago, FaintOutline said:

Well today I loaded a BOM body, Slink and a BOM head Lelutka, and used new Glam Affair skins, and Bolson tattoos.   It all went easy as could be --  https://gyazo.com/60c28d6cffd72c29a7bcbf33f0bb1508.

UNTIL -- I tried to use my clothes.

Almost nothing worked!!   3years of making mesh clothes which rely on Alpha cuts left me with nothing but a huge mess.    I would literally have to open Photoshop and make thousands of alphas, months of WORK not game play.   What I do not personally understand -- is it completely impossible to have an alpha HUD? Is Slink's solution to build thousands of Alphas in Photoshop the only way?   If so I will not be using BOM, I am simply not willing to give up all my mesh clothing (I rough guess is only about 10% of my clothes have alphas) .   I don't think Photoshop should be part of the SL experience for every user.

If BOM becomes the only way -- is there a solution other than trashing many thousands of clothes?

Bakes on Mesh and alpha HUDs are perfectly compatible if the creator chooses to do so. In my testing of BoM on my RuthTooRC3 mesh body, I have modified my alpha cut mesh body for BoM; the alpha cut HUD/body and BoM both work fine at the same time.

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1 hour ago, FaintOutline said:

Well today I loaded a BOM body, Slink and a BOM head Lelutka, and used new Glam Affair skins, and Bolson tattoos.   It all went easy as could be --  https://gyazo.com/60c28d6cffd72c29a7bcbf33f0bb1508.

UNTIL -- I tried to use my clothes.

Almost nothing worked!!   3years of making mesh clothes which rely on Alpha cuts left me with nothing but a huge mess.    I would literally have to open Photoshop and make thousands of alphas, months of WORK not game play.   What I do not personally understand -- is it completely impossible to have an alpha HUD? Is Slink's solution to build thousands of Alphas in Photoshop the only way?   If so I will not be using BOM, I am simply not willing to give up all my mesh clothing (I rough guess is only about 10% of my clothes have alphas) .   I don't think Photoshop should be part of the SL experience for every user.

If BOM becomes the only way -- is there a solution other than trashing many thousands of clothes?

A lot of clothing doesn't need alphas; others can use generic alphas or alphas from other similar pieces of clothing (including demos; I've never seen mesh clothing makers that bothered to neuter the alphas in their demos.)

Edited by Theresa Tennyson
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1 hour ago, FaintOutline said:

 Is Slink's solution to build thousands of Alphas in Photoshop the only way?   If so I will not be using BOM, I am simply not willing to give up all my mesh clothing (I rough guess is only about 10% of my clothes have alphas) .   I don't think Photoshop should be part of the SL experience for every user.

The solution isn't intended to be that everyone makes their own alphas, but that the market will provide them. The Slink Redux body comes with a base set, no doubt more such sets will be released by others. You can combine alphas as well by wearing multiple, so thousands is way, way overstated.

What wearable alphas allow for is that those who can and want to use photoshop can make more precise ones, which gives an advantage over preset alpha cuts.

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5 hours ago, FaintOutline said:

Well today I loaded a BOM body, Slink and a BOM head Lelutka, and used new Glam Affair skins, and Bolson tattoos.   It all went easy as could be --  https://gyazo.com/60c28d6cffd72c29a7bcbf33f0bb1508.

UNTIL -- I tried to use my clothes.

Almost nothing worked!!   3years of making mesh clothes which rely on Alpha cuts left me with nothing but a huge mess.    I would literally have to open Photoshop and make thousands of alphas, months of WORK not game play.   What I do not personally understand -- is it completely impossible to have an alpha HUD? Is Slink's solution to build thousands of Alphas in Photoshop the only way?   If so I will not be using BOM, I am simply not willing to give up all my mesh clothing (I rough guess is only about 10% of my clothes have alphas) .   I don't think Photoshop should be part of the SL experience for every user.

If BOM becomes the only way -- is there a solution other than trashing many thousands of clothes?

Not going to be "the only option" any time soon.  Bom has to be third party released, first.

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6 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

A lot of clothing doesn't need alphas; others can use generic alphas or alphas from other similar pieces of clothing (including demos; I've never seen mesh clothing makers that bothered to neuter the alphas in their demos.)

I tried about 50 mainline clothes from Erratic and Addams mostly, and a few pants worked,  but not one top!   A number of users on forums tell me they have no need for alpha cuts for the clothes they own, and I don't doubt them. They most likely try clothes on and if they clip don't buy them.  But if like me, and buy a lot of clothes more for style than fit, it is not so easy.

"Sean Heavy" I have been told now by several other creators of bodies that in fact you are correct --- BOM is fully compatible with Alpha cuts -- at a price in complexity.   I ended up trying the Maitreya BOM hud and it works well.  And was assured that alpha cuts will  be available in the next update while clothes are updated.

Slink is super-efficient, but depends on sellers providing thousands of alphas which they might do in time.    And finally it is indeed a long way off from being the only option, as "Shnurui Troughton" points out.    Slink will most likely be the final solution.  Buyers will simply not buy clothes without proper alphas.   Alphas mean however, that every piece of clothing is in fact two pieces, which must be removed.    

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.

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5 hours ago, Shnurui Troughton said:

Well today I loaded a BOM body, Slink and a BOM head Lelutka, and used new Glam Affair skins, and Bolson tattoos.   It all went easy as could be --  https://gyazo.com/60c28d6cffd72c29a7bcbf33f0bb1508.

UNTIL -- I tried to use my clothes.

Almost nothing worked!!   3years of making mesh clothes which rely on Alpha cuts left me with nothing but a huge mess.    I would literally have to open Photoshop and make thousands of alphas, months of WORK not game play.   What I do not personally understand -- is it completely impossible to have an alpha HUD? Is Slink's solution to build thousands of Alphas in Photoshop the only way?   If so I will not be using BOM, I am simply not willing to give up all my mesh clothing (I rough guess is only about 10% of my clothes have alphas) .   I don't think Photoshop should be part of the SL experience for every user.

Yes I can see where this is a huge issue...  no one wants to have to make a load of alphas.  In my humble opinion.. the perfect solution would be to still have some sort of Body hud that allows for alpha sections as it is now, only with a BOM mesh body.  I would not want to be having to switch bodies every time I want to use a mesh piece of clothing.  Ideally lol.. yes I said ideally,  one mesh body that would work for both BOM and mesh clothing without the need for separate alphas but with a hud for alpha sections as it is now.

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1 hour ago, Tazzie Tuque said:

Yes I can see where this is a huge issue...  no one wants to have to make a load of alphas.  In my humble opinion.. the perfect solution would be to still have some sort of Body hud that allows for alpha sections as it is now, only with a BOM mesh body.  I would not want to be having to switch bodies every time I want to use a mesh piece of clothing.  Ideally lol.. yes I said ideally,  one mesh body that would work for both BOM and mesh clothing without the need for separate alphas but with a hud for alpha sections as it is now.

I spent a lot of time with Slink Redux (BOM) tonight -- using a combination their ready-made alphas, and some that came with clothes I had, and the results were pretty good.

However many times I could not fix a tiny clip that I could have easily caught with a hud.   I am so good with Alpha cut huds I can change clothes on a dance floor.   But the process of dressing with alphas is glacial, I had to search for alphas try them etc.   Now of course this would speed up, but frankly it took all the fun out of fashion.  I know programmers who would love the puzzle of it, but not be able to describe the clothes they made fit.  

Some clothing from designers fit without alphas.  But it is a  crapshoot.  And honestly I know from being on the group help chats I am pretty good at this.   As I gather up more alphas, and sort them, and make a few, more and more clothes would fit.  Making an alpha using Slink's instructions is easy, but take 10 minutes and is not  something I would suggest for someone who is new to Photoshop (medium skill).   And having Photoshop adds $20 a month, but there are free alternatives.

A newbie could simply only  buy clothes with matching alphas, and demo them carefully for clipping - to avoid most of the above.  But they would miss out on a lot of clothes.   Or they can do what many have always done -- clip a lot.  

On the other hand the skins and tattoos are a breeze.  I was using some new Glam Affair BOM skins -- and it was so much fun to see a skin go on head and body without a neck line.  Tattoos went everywhere, body, hands, neck, and head.   But bottom line this is still work. but maybe fun work for some.  For me it is a busman's holiday.  

Matching skins, or even just explaining it to new users has always been difficult but BOM makes skin trivial.  So it is what it is.

Edited by FaintOutline
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I've been using a BOM viewer ever since it went live on the Grid and I use both the Slink Redux body and the free RuthTooRC3. RuthTooRC3 sort of fits both Standard clothes and Maitreya clothes. I was worried I'd need to either find clothes that came with an Alpha Layer included because the clothes included Standard sizes as well as mesh body sizes or create a lot of new Alpha layers myself.

What I've actually found is that a lot of the Alpha Layers for Standard sizes don't actually work too well with mesh bodies, often showing the transparent area outside the clothes. However, to counter that, I've found that in almost all cases the Alpha Layer textures DON'T need to be anywhere near as carefully made as before. Pants & jeans, for instance, often need only a portion of the legs and around the groin area to be hidden.

The free textures & Alpha Layers supplied by Slink with Redux go a long way to providing what's needed though I have had to create a few carefully made Alpha Layer textures myself especially for the RuthTooRC3. So what I'm saying is that, yes clothes creators will need to create Alpha Layers for clothes (customers are, in time, going to demand that) but the textures aren't going to be anywhere near as time consuming a job as before. It might well be that, eventually, community minded people will place sets of Alpha Layers & textures on MarketPlace either for free or very cheaply like this set of Alpha Layers & textures for feet & other parts from a few years ago - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Avatar-Alpha-Overlays-101311-update/2312783 .

I'm actually very pleased to get away from having to use a HUD & alpha cuts to hide parts of my body. The cuts often didn't fit the clothes properly and had to be set up again each time you changed clothes unless you used special scripts. With Alpha Layers it's so easy as it's a one time creation and that's it. Plus, the texture created for one item of clothing can often be used time and again on other clothes where the same part of the body needs to be hidden.

For those wanting to create Alpha Layer textures who don't want the expense of Photoshop try the free Gimp software or the very easy to use Paint.Net - https://www.getpaint.net/  .

Edited by LucyHerne
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