Bakes on Mesh Feedback Thread

[BinBash]

15 hours ago, Pleiades Constantine said:

simple question if i make tattoo's and i make one for right arm then do another for left how will this effect the mesh body since its coming from system to mesh and since the uv for sl is one arm as we all know people wont be able to wear right and left arm tattoo's unless the awesome people have figured a way for this. since we have several bodies that allow for right and left via script that allows people to use different tattoo's on different arms and i wonder will there ever be a fix for hands and feet it would be nice to be able to have different hand tattoos and feet  this would be wonderful to think about 

I put a different material face on my left arm so I could have tattoos.  I did this before I knew about the upcoming baked texture on mesh but I was able to use my mesh avatar yesterday to test things out.  I put two things on the skirt texture, one arm and one foot.  For the foot I rotated it -90.  This was a composite, I hope the attachment came though ok (png file).  In SL (beta grid) I rotated the texture space on the foot that I applied skirt to.  It works great as a test, though it would be nice to have other options instead of this hack but I'm really excited about this new feature.

[Nalates Urriah]

10 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

One way to get around this problem would be for skin makers to give out a system skirt of their upper body.  On the mesh avatar simply set one arm to be textured by say the Baked_Skirt texture.  Then simply wear the system skirt from the skin designer and after that you wear a second system skirt of the tattoo.  So that is another Bakes On Mesh WIN!

I have talked to Vir Linden about adding additional texture slots for system tattoos to include the skirt, eyes and hair.  So using system skirts won't be the only way to go.  It would probably be a good idea to add a skirt slot to system skins.  This would illuminate the need to wear a system skirt for the skin texture.

We are still in early stages of the beta testing for Bakes On Mesh.  I can think of several proposals that would make this work around unnecessary but at least there is a work around for now.

Isn't it likely that designers will design their UV layouts with two arms? 

If they do and paint their diffuse textures with two arms, won't the BoM service simply bake those textures as simple composites that render correctly on the layout?

Isn't the BoM just a compositing service that totally ignores UV's?

The textures and mesh attachments' UV will have to match, be designed for each other. Older skins, tats, etc. designed for the single-arm classic UV if used on a two-arm layout mesh will leave one arm untextured. Thus the need for an additional texture for the 'second' arm?

[Jessicaann Wrigglesworth]

22 hours ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

So, I will say this again. Do. No. Do. This. Bakes on Mesh is for bodies, and only bodies. All other attachments, if you think there's a 1% chance it might be used with something that isn't your brand, just say no.  We have a wonderful Furry Community in SL that does all sorts of creative things. Let's not ruin it by forcing them to stick with a single brand for their looks.

no body is try to force anybody into doing anything. It was merrily a generalization. If there was a button in the appearance editor that allowed you to switch from Default to Custom UV's then no one at all would be forced into any one brand at all !!! in fact if a customer that bought a system shirt from creator A  and wanted to wear it with a Mesh body that used the default SL UVs they could they could ALSO wear the same shirt on a mesh body that does not use the SL UVs by checking of a "box" in the appearance editor that did magic on the back end on LL part ... IF they even like that idea !  - At least in theory I think that could work based on what someone told be able how the alpha's on the layers are used.   Right now I could put any texture with any UV layout on a mesh if I used a system layer (Like the Tat layer) that did not have any transparency on it. Set the corresponding "flag" slider to 100 and the texture will get displayed correctly. They tricky part is the layer and how they stack ... yes you can sort some layers up or down but you can not put a skin on top of a shirt layer... so some thinking as to the amount and types of layers will be needed to ensure it can meet as many needs as possible..... I am not suggesting the limitation of anything !!!!!!!!!!!   In fact I am trying to advocate the most flexibility !   ...... (this next statement is not toward you Chellynne)    Can we please work together to come up with the best solution for all interest involved, instead of insulting or getting mad at someone because they make a suggestion ... even if it may not work ... maybe that suggestion can lead to another idea that will work ... I mean ist'nt that what brain storming is ?? Is that not why we get the chance to talk face to face with the Lindens at these meetings ??  -  Never understand a creative mind .... what you think they will not do or can't do they will ! 

Edited April 10, 2018 by Jessicaann Wrigglesworth

[Nalates Urriah]

Strawberry Singh has a good video showing BoM in action as it is now.

 

[Chellynne Bailey]

10 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

Read my previous pose to see how a single extra slot or Baked_Auxiliary slot could be made to work on many worn meshes and faces with only a minuscule chance of conflict.

 

Did you remove it? I coulda sworn I read your idea about adding a integer to a auxiliary bake before bed, was going to respond to it this morning, but now I can't find it! x.x (I actually thought it was a really good idea! )

 

1 hour ago, Jessicaann Wrigglesworth said:

no body is try to force anybody into doing anything. It was merrily a generalization. If there was a button in the appearance editor that allowed you to switch from Default to Custom UV's then no one at all would be forced into any one brand at all !!! in fact if a customer that bought a system shirt from creator A  and wanted to wear it with a Mesh body that used the default SL UVs they could they could ALSO wear the same shirt on a mesh body that does not use the SL UVs by checking of a "box" in the appearance editor that did magic on the back end on LL part ... IF they even like that idea !  - At least in theory I think that could work based on what someone told be able how the alpha's on the layers are used.   Right now I could put any texture with any UV layout on a mesh if I used a system layer (Like the Tat layer) that did not have any transparency on it. Set the corresponding "flag" slider to 100 and the texture will get displayed correctly. They tricky part is the layer and how they stack ... yes you can sort some layers up or down but you can not put a skin on top of a shirt layer... so some thinking as to the amount and types of layers will be needed to ensure it can meet as many needs as possible..... I am not suggesting the limitation of anything !!!!!!!!!!!   In fact I am trying to advocate the most flexibility !  

9

Yeah, I'm still not sure what you're suggesting, but you need to remember, there's only a small handful of bakes, 6, that are shared by everything you wear. That really isn't alot.  It means that anyone wanting to use bakes on something other than a body,  has to directly compete with everyone else doing that exact same thing for that same space. Skirt and Hair seem like likely targets for non-body mishief, but what happens when both your mesh tail and a mesh shirt you wanna wear are using the same Skirt bake? You won't be able to wear both.  This is why I say, unless they do something different than currently advertised, do not use this on anything but a body. 

[Vir Linden]

3 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Isn't the BoM just a compositing service that totally ignores UV's?

Essentially, yes. The baking service (which has been around for several years) layers images on top of each other without knowing or caring what UV space they are in. The only requirement to get good BOM support is that all the visible textures in the same body region have to be in the same UV space. There are some possible complications if you're depending on system avatar textures behind the scenes, though - for example, a shirt has a sleeve length adjustment that's based on picking a threshold in a built-in alpha texture, so a shirt that isn't in the system UV space won't work with the sleeve length control.

[Cathy Foil]

1 hour ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

Did you remove it? I coulda sworn I read your idea about adding a integer to a auxiliary bake before bed, was going to respond to it this morning, but now I can't find it! x.x (I actually thought it was a really good idea! )

I can't seem to find it either.  Perhaps it was taken down by a moderator for other reasons.

Anyway if it has I restate the idea here.  If we add a Baked_Aux slot and a text field where content creators could enter any number between 1 and 1 million in the diffuse Pick: Texture window and then in all system clothes add a new Baked_Aux texture slot that also has a text field where content creators could enter any number between 1 and 1 million.  This would solve the problem of wearing two meshes using the same Baked_Aux slot.  See only textures from system clothes that have the same Baked_Aux number or as you say integer would be applied.

So if the content creator wants other people to be able to make textures for their mesh all they have to do is release in a note card or in the objects description what faces are using Baked_Aux and what are their number or integer.  If a content creator doesn't want other people to make textures for their mesh they simply don't release that information.  

The chances of any other meshes using the same number of integer is very remote.

[Chellynne Bailey]

1 hour ago, Cathy Foil said:

Anyway if it has I restate the idea here.  If we add a Baked_Aux slot and a text field where content creators could enter any number between 1 and 1 million in the diffuse Pick: Texture window and then in all system clothes add a new Baked_Aux texture slot that also has a text field where content creators could enter any number between 1 and 1 million.  This would solve the problem of wearing two meshes using the same Baked_Aux slot.  See only textures from system clothes that have the same Baked_Aux number or as you say integer would be applied.

So if the content creator wants other people to be able to make textures for their mesh all they have to do is release in a note card or in the objects description what faces are using Baked_Aux and what are their number or integer.  If a content creator doesn't want other people to make textures for their mesh they simply don't release that information.  

The chances of any other meshes using the same number of integer is very remote.

5

There it is! Yeah, I actually really like this idea. I'm torn on if they should make a new object that is essentially a Texture + Integer, but I suppose adding integers to existing items would work.

What is particularly brilliant, and potentially job-ending for me, is that if they did this, we could assign channels 1-6 to be the current baked textures. then 7-12 to be spec and normal map textures.   Spec and Normal map creators would have to change how they build their maps, but there's no reason why the baked textures couldn't be used for them.  The big thing will be retraining people not to do normals that are full texture and instead only have them affect a certain area.

Actually, we could do this:

• 1-6 Current Baked Textures
• 7,8 Left and Right Arms
• 9,10 Left and Right Feet
• 11: Lashes
• 12: Neckblender
• 13-24 Repeat above for Normal Maps
• 25-36 Repeat above for Spec Maps
• 36,37,38: Top Diffuse, Normal, Spec
• 39,40,41: Pants Diffuse, Normal, Spec
• 42,43,44: Bra Diffuse, Normal, Spec
• 45,45,46: Undies Diffuse, Normal Spec
• 47+ Everything else.

With your numbering system, we could actually keep the onion layers and be able to bake multiple textures into them AND support Materials. 

We still need to be able to insert textures into the stack though. llInsertBakeTexture(Integer Bake_Slot, integer Bake_ID, Integer Position)?  Just so we're not making creators update a bunch of their old stuff alllll over again. They've been through this once already going from system layers to appliers. >.>

As for possible conflicts, you're right, the chance is slim, but we could also cut down the chance of conflicts by releasing a "suggested" list of "channels" for people to use.

Wings 100k-199k
Tails 200k-299k
Ears 300-399k
Mesh Pants.. x-x
Mesh Shirts..  x-x
etc etc etc.x-x

It wouldn't cut down on the absolute possibility of two mesh makers picking the same thing, but it'll cut down on the possibility of you wanting to wear both at the same time.

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by Chellynne Bailey

[Nalates Urriah]

Cathy has made a good video that covers the tech issues more completely than Strawberry's. For an overview go with Strawberry's. For the tech and what can and cannot be done watch Cathy's.

 

[Chellynne Bailey]

28 minutes ago, Nalates Urriah said:

Cathy has made a good video that covers the tech issues more completely than Strawberry's. For an overview go with Strawberry's. For the tech and what can and cannot be done watch Cathy's.

 

2

Er... Cathy.. Be careful how you describe things. You're listing a bunch of things you want, but then not being clear that it's just hopeful thinking until > 25mins into the video. We're going to have a bunch of people running around thinking your ideas are ALREADY in the system when they are not.    

[Cathy Foil]

1 hour ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

Er... Cathy.. Be careful how you describe things. You're listing a bunch of things you want, but then not being clear that it's just hopeful thinking until > 25mins into the video. We're going to have a bunch of people running around thinking your ideas are ALREADY in the system when they are not.    

I will watch the video and edit notations on the video to help clarify things.  Can you give me a time stamp or stamps on things you think where I was not being clear?  That would help me a lot because I might miss things.

[Chellynne Bailey]

50 minutes ago, Cathy Foil said:

I will watch the video and edit notations on the video to help clarify things.  Can you give me a time stamp or stamps on things you think where I was not being clear?  That would help me a lot because I might miss things.

The biggest offender "This can be used on mesh clothing".  You CANNOT claim this right now. They haven't done anything to enable this without a bunch of conflicts.

The other offender "This works with Materials". It simply doesn't. Yeah, you can apply materials to the mesh still, but which one are you going to apply? The Skin Materials or the Clothing Materials? Neither will look right on the other. It doesn't even look right in the example you give.

If you want the Lindens to actually fix these things, don't start rumors that they are already fixed. You're gunna fuddle things up. Frankly, you should just take that whole video down.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Chellynne Bailey

[Cathy Foil]

19 minutes ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

The biggest offender "This can be used on mesh clothing".  You CANNOT claim this right now. They haven't done anything to enable this without a bunch of conflicts.

While yes Bakes On Mesh was originally thought of to help with custom avatars to reduce the amount of lag they produce and to make them easier to use if you don't think content creators are not going to use Bakes On Mesh for other things other than avatar bodies you are quite mistaken.

Part of the job of beta testing is to try and come up with different ways residents will be using Bakes On Mesh or what ever the project is.  This helps to anticipate problems.

There will be plenty of people who don't use custom mesh avatars and so mesh clothing using Bakes On Mesh will work perfectly fine as it is now with no additional changes.

There will be plenty of people who like their onion skinned avatar as they are and plan to keep using them as they are without Bakes On Mesh and mesh clothing using Bakes On Mesh will work perfectly fine for them too as it is now.

You don't have the right to dictate that mesh clothing designers can not use Bakes On Mesh.  There is no way to stop them if they wish too. 

The conflict problem is something that needs to be addressed even if it was only ever used for the custom mesh avatar bodies.  Last I heard hands, feet and hair are all apart of a mesh body.  If we solve the conflict issues for those we automatically make it possible for mesh clothing to not conflict as well.

34 minutes ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

The other offender "This works with Materials". It simply doesn't. Yeah, you can apply materials to the mesh still, but which one are you going to apply? The Skin Materials or the Clothing Materials? Neither will look right on the other. It doesn't even look right in the example you give.

What rumor I heard going around was that if a mesh was using Bakes On Mesh to apply the diffuse map that this somehow made it impossible to apply normal maps and specular maps.  This was not true and I demonstrate it in my video.  I also made it clear that right now Bakes On Mesh does not apply these maps automatically.  Could this be added to Bakes On Mesh?  Maybe we don't know yet.  I am sure it could be but LL may not have the resources to write the code for it or modify the existing code.  

You might not have like the normal maps and specular maps I was using in the video but they look identical to how they look on a mesh that wasn't using Bakes On Mesh.  I have made a new video "Bakes On Mesh How To Use With Mesh Clothing" yesterday and go over some of the problems I was having with one of my normal maps that didn't look that good in the previous video because I made the map very quickly to get the first video out as fast as I could but it wasn't an issue with Bakes On Mesh it was just a sloppy normal map I made quickly. 

48 minutes ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

If you want the Lindens to actually fix these things, don't start rumors that they are already fixed. You're gunna fuddle things up. Frankly, you should just take that whole video down.

I am not starting any rumors that LL has fixed anything.

I appreciate your enthusiasm I really do but don't you think that releasing and selling your Bakes On Mesh applier on the Marketplace is jumping the gun and that it could be fuddling things up right now?  I haven't tried your applier but from what I understand it doesn't allow converted onion skinned avatars the ability to use system alphas to hide body parts for clothing?  From what I understand using your applier means the current custom onion skin avatars still have to wear full body alphas to make them invisible?  If so you are giving people the miss impression that Bakes On Mesh is less capable than it is currently.  You also take away those mesh body designers ability to decide for themselves if they want their old onion skinned avatars to work with Bakes On Mesh or not.

If your applier doesn't give the same performance and ability as I demonstrate in my video and if you haven't gotten permission from every mesh body it can currently work on then I think you should take it down and stop selling it.

[Chellynne Bailey]

35 minutes ago, Cathy Foil said:

I appreciate your enthusiasm I really do but don't you think that releasing and selling your Bakes On Mesh applier on the Marketplace is jumping the gun and that it could be fuddling things up right now? 

1

Say what now?   First, the one on the MP isn't mine. It was released without my consent using my applier dev kit and I've asked them repeatedly to pull it down.
It is against my TOS to use my Applier scripts to make appliers for items and textures that you don't have the rights to.    Frankly, the baked applier fundamental breaks our design philosophy we've had since Maitreya of being "opt-in" only.  But frankly, there is no way to easily stop it at this point. Any body with an applier dev kit can be switched to baking with a simple applier.  The only way for a Mesh to stop it is to Filter their appliers and have me update their kit to filter mine. It's a whole lot of wasted dev time just to say "no" to something.  Rather then doing that, I just put one out on the counter so people at least aren't spending their money on unauthorized products. Any Mesh Maker who WOULD like to filter it out is welcome to let me know and I will get them new scripts that will do so. I don't think I'll have any takers.

As for mine (or any bakes applier) not doing what normal baking is doing... it is normal baking. All it does is switch the Mesh to baking. Everything Baking does, will be done with the Applier. All they did was tie the baking system to some specific UUIDs. Those UUIDs are what is in the applier.  There's nothing you can do with manually turning it on that doesn't work exactly the same with appliers.  If you don't believe me, go grab it and try it out. It's functionally the same.

You also seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding the issue with Materials. No one is saying you can't put materials on a mesh with bakes on it. That is silly.  The problem is how to generate a material's texture that is useful.  If you put clothing over a skin with materials, those materials are going to peek through even though they make no sense. If you put a T-shirt materials on there instead, you're covering up the lovely skin materials that comes with most Mesh Bodies.

 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Chellynne Bailey

[Nalates Urriah]

After all the confusion and ridiculous rhetoric in this thread Cathy is admonished to 'be careful'... 

 

[Chellynne Bailey]

2 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

After all the confusion and ridiculous rhetoric in this thread Cathy is admonished to 'be careful'... 

 

Better in this thread then out in the world where the Facebooks morph it into who knows what!  

[Theresa Tennyson]

9 hours ago, Cathy Foil said:

I appreciate your enthusiasm I really do but don't you think that releasing and selling your Bakes On Mesh applier on the Marketplace is jumping the gun and that it could be fuddling things up right now?  I haven't tried your applier but from what I understand it doesn't allow converted onion skinned avatars the ability to use system alphas to hide body parts for clothing?

No mesh avatar will be able to use system alphas effectively unless it's set to alpha masking with an alpha cutoff that isn't 0%, (0% is the default setting) - as the popular mesh bodies are no-mod and not set to use alpha masking that way, it's not possible to use the alphas on them. This is something that needs to be changed either in the viewer or by the makers of the bodies. https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-216057

 From what I understand using your applier means the current custom onion skin avatars still have to wear full body alphas to make them invisible? 

You understand incorrectly (I have used it) - it works exactly the same way as if the bakes-on-mesh texture was set manually.

If so you are giving people the miss impression that Bakes On Mesh is less capable than it is currently.  You also take away those mesh body designers ability to decide for themselves if they want their old onion skinned avatars to work with Bakes On Mesh or not.

The mesh body makers chose to allow third-party textures to be used on their bodies. That's what appliers are for, and that's all this applier does.

If your applier doesn't give the same performance and ability as I demonstrate in my video and if you haven't gotten permission from every mesh body it can currently work on then I think you should take it down and stop selling it.

 

[Vir Linden]

I see some discussion here about selling things in the marketplace based on bakes on mesh. To agree and expand on some of the discussion above: it's great that the project is working well enough at this stage that some people want to base products on it, but It's also important to realize that currently this is just a first-pass project viewer. That means that it is new and experimental code at an early stage of development. Like any project at this stage, it's possible that it will change substantially before release, and it's even possible that it could be canceled entirely. This would leave any products based on this stage of the feature in a tough spot, either working in an incomplete or incorrect way, or not working at all. For this reason we would strongly recommend waiting until the project is released before selling products based on it.

[Love Zhaoying]

Thanks, Vir! Like, what if the special UUID changes? Then those “purchased” appliers won’t work. 

Agree in general, it doesn’t make sense to “sell” anything associated with a “project viewer”.

[Cathy Foil]

Theresa Tennyson SAID:

No mesh avatar will be able to use system alphas effectively unless it's set to alpha masking with an alpha cutoff that isn't 0%, (0% is the default setting) - as the popular mesh bodies are no-mod and not set to use alpha masking that way, it's not possible to use the alphas on them. This is something that needs to be changed either in the viewer or by the makers of the bodies. https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-216057


My response:

So you just told me the applier being sold is limited and all the popular mesh bodies being textured by it can't use worn system alphas.  So you just made my original point that it is giving people the who are using the applier a miss impression that Bakes On Mesh isn't capable of using worn system alphas.  It doesn't matter if it is because the applier is incapable of setting alpha masking or if it is wasn't set by the original mesh designer.  It is still causing a miss impression.

You know I was happy to keep my opinion to myself as to whether or not I thought selling such an applier at this early stage of beta testing was a good idea.  They have a perfect right to sell it.  I was even happy to go back and change or edit my video if it had any incorrect information and asked politely for their help in case I miss anything after watching it again for errors.

After reviewing the video I found that I didn't give any incorrect information.  Came back to the forum and happily started to read the response to my request identifying anything wrong I might as said in the video I might have missed.  What I got back was rude demand that I can not say in my video the Bakes On Mesh can work with mesh clothing or show that materials actually work on mesh using Bakes On Mesh because there isn't a perfect solutions for them right now.  Then I was accused of starting rumors and told I should take down my video.

They gave me their unvarnished opinion so I gave them mine.

This forum has become an unproductive waste of my time to read and respond to.  I am just going to attend the content creators meetings to hear about problems and bugs there and do my best to offer potential solutions and fixes.  

[Chellynne Bailey]

6 hours ago, Vir Linden said:

I see some discussion here about selling things in the marketplace based on bakes on mesh. To agree and expand on some of the discussion above: it's great that the project is working well enough at this stage that some people want to base products on it, but It's also important to realize that currently this is just a first-pass project viewer. That means that it is new and experimental code at an early stage of development. Like any project at this stage, it's possible that it will change substantially before release, and it's even possible that it could be canceled entirely. This would leave any products based on this stage of the feature in a tough spot, either working in an incomplete or incorrect way, or not working at all. For this reason we would strongly recommend waiting until the project is released before selling products based on it.

Yeah, I was hoping to put off releasing anything at this point. Who knows what the API will look like by release, but someone went and did it with my Dev kit, so had to put out something free so people aren't flinging money at something that may not work in a month.

[Chellynne Bailey]

6 minutes ago, Cathy Foil said:

Theresa Tennyson SAID:

No mesh avatar will be able to use system alphas effectively unless it's set to alpha masking with an alpha cutoff that isn't 0%, (0% is the default setting) - as the popular mesh bodies are no-mod and not set to use alpha masking that way, it's not possible to use the alphas on them. This is something that needs to be changed either in the viewer or by the makers of the bodies. https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-216057


My response:

So you just told me the applier being sold is limited and all the popular mesh bodies being textured by it can't use worn system alphas.  So you just made my original point that it is giving people the who are using the applier a miss impression that Bakes On Mesh isn't capable of using worn system alphas.  It doesn't matter if it is because the applier is incapable of setting alpha masking or if it is wasn't set by the original mesh designer.  It is still causing a miss impression.

You know I was happy to keep my opinion to myself as to whether or not I thought selling such an applier at this early stage of beta testing was a good idea.  They have a perfect right to sell it.  I was even happy to go back and change or edit my video if it had any incorrect information and asked politely for their help in case I miss anything after watching it again for errors.

After reviewing the video I found that I didn't give any incorrect information.  Came back to the forum and happily started to read the response to my request identifying anything wrong I might as said in the video I might have missed.  What I got back was rude demand that I can not say in my video the Bakes On Mesh can work with mesh clothing or show that materials actually work on mesh using Bakes On Mesh because there isn't a perfect solutions for them right now.  Then I was accused of starting rumors and told I should take down my video.

They gave me their unvarnished opinion so I gave them mine.

This forum has become an unproductive waste of my time to read and respond to.  I am just going to attend the content creators meetings to hear about problems and bugs there and do my best to offer potential solutions and fixes.  

I'm sorry I came off as rude. I tried to phrase it as nicely as I could. But clearly, you and I disagree a great deal about what the current state of things is.   It's a pity, because you did have a really good idea about adding an integer for filtering.
 

[Skell Dagger]

I had a go this evening with the project viewer and Chellynne's Omega applier. It was interesting to see which old skins did and didn't work too well on the different brands of mesh head that I tried them on (mainly Catwa and Lelutka, since I only had an hour or so free to test things). Some 'fuzzing' issues with body tattoos as seen below (I presume those might become sharper once the avatars go from 512 to 1024?) but overall I'm pleased that I can wear at least a handful of my favourite old skins like this Tableau Vivant one (which still looks fantastic on my mesh head), as well as tattoo layer makeup that I thought would never see the light of day again.

Skin, all makeup, and the tattoo are all system layers. Head is Catwa Skell and body is Slink Physique:

 

[Jessicaann Wrigglesworth]

4 hours ago, Chellynne Bailey said:

I'm sorry I came off as rude. I tried to phrase it as nicely as I could. But clearly, you and I disagree a great deal about what the current state of things is.   It's a pity, because you did have a really good idea about adding an integer for filtering.
 

It is simply a misunderstanding !!! Chellynne is talking about what is RIGHT now .. and Cathy is talking about what needs to CHANGE to make somethings work. 

Chellynne I had hoped for your input on this because of the knowledge you have about mesh body / parts etc... 

I know that you know there are some popular bodies that do not conform to the SL UV Map. And instead of having someone make an onion skin and make it conform to the SL UVs (which CAN be done but a HUGE pain in the ass it would be)  this would be an easier way to go and would make alot of people happy. 

The normal maps and the skin normal COULD work just fine IF someone bothered to take the time to alpha out the area of the clothing that was not needed to let the skin normal show through.... Seriously I don't think a lot of mesh clothing creators would do much of this .... Creating mesh clothing is getting to be do much work for the return. 

[Chellynne Bailey]

4 hours ago, Jessicaann Wrigglesworth said:

It is simply a misunderstanding !!! Chellynne is talking about what is RIGHT now .. and Cathy is talking about what needs to CHANGE to make somethings work. 

Chellynne I had hoped for your input on this because of the knowledge you have about mesh body / parts etc... 

I know that you know there are some popular bodies that do not conform to the SL UV Map. And instead of having someone make an onion skin and make it conform to the SL UVs (which CAN be done but a HUGE pain in the ass it would be)  this would be an easier way to go and would make alot of people happy. 

The normal maps and the skin normal COULD work just fine IF someone bothered to take the time to alpha out the area of the clothing that was not needed to let the skin normal show through.... Seriously I don't think a lot of mesh clothing creators would do much of this .... Creating mesh clothing is getting to be do much work for the return. 

Well I don't think this is going to have any affect on UV issues. Textures will still need to be tailored to meshes and meshes to textures for them to all be happy.  SLUV is a convenient UV, simply because dispite it's flaws, it's freely available with no one to yell DMCA! at creators using it.

As for the normal and skin maps, it's an issue with texture clothing, not Fitmesh Clothing. I know people like fitmesh, but there are literally hundreds of Bodies on the market atm (maybe more, my spreadsheet was at 500+ before I quit counting a year ago), and there's only about a dozen getting any support from Fitmesh Clothing creators.  So I'm heavily invested in making sure those creators aren't any more disadvantaged then they currently are.  So the better this bakes thing works for meshes stuck with just applier support, the better.

So, right now, without changes to the system, the only way to keep the materials on the body after clothing is added, and to still look right, would be if whom-ever made the skin-materials, usually the skin or body maker, made a version of the spec and normal maps tailored to that specific clothing/skin combo.   This... if you can't tell already is not a viable solution, since 99% of the time your skin creator and your clothing creators are two different people.  Without baking, the spec set ups needed would be.. infinite..

There's alot of ways this could be addressed. One would be adding spec and normal maps to the system layers.  Spec/normal makers WOULD need to alpha their textures correctly, but it'd bake together just like defuse textures I'm sure. 

Another would be Cathy's idea of adding an Integer value to system layers, so we can filter them. I could see it being a tad confusing, but it'd allow us to hijack the system a bit and bake some spec/norms together and slap them in the spec/norms slot instead of the bakes spot. (not sure if it's possible via edit atm, but should be possible via scripting).  It'd also let us expand the system as needed to include asymmetrical appliers and other fun things like wings, tails, mesh clothing. Really the sky would be the limit in that scenario.





 

Edited April 12, 2018 by Chellynne Bailey