Avatar 2.0

[Romaq Rosher]

Can we make a hybrid of the avatar mesh we would have if we had access to face and hand morph targets? Could the hands and neck of such a mesh be shaped to blend with the old avatar and have all except hands and face transparant? If the hands and face of the desired mesh were shrunk and flattened, would that necessarily affect the UV map? Or if done properly, could we use a hybrid UV map and mesh for clothing and skins today, then when we have the desired morph targets, simply release a mesh with the hands and head, but clothing and skins based on the hybrid UV will still work the same? Does the skin baking of the old mesh cause a clash on the avatar mesh skin so we can't make a suitable blend between the old and new avatar mesh? Has anyone tried?

[Naiman Broome]

All the body have morph targets u can increase inflate deflate stretch etc any part of the mesh for customization purpouses so any overriding mesh over the original avatar will just look fixed and unchangeable ... apart following the skeleton rig ...

[Romaq Rosher]

Sure! But would the benefit of a mesh that doesn't suck and options to have several 'pre-morphed' freebie meshes to choose from override that problem?

You would use morph targets to make it easier to alter a 'standard male body' to that of a child avatar or an overweight male to a weightlifter. I would see having several versions of the mesh 'pre-morphed' that maintain the same UV map.

This may suck as a solution, but which sucks worse: the creation of something better despite drawbacks or having and doing nothing but wishing Linden made it easy to reach the goal?

Supposing we had "morphed meshes" I'm not so clear we can have 'old man, young man, male child, obese dude' (nevermind the female versions of these) without using something like http://MakeHuman.org to create a base morph of the target age and body style, then converting that mesh to meet SL mesh requirements anyway. So even if we HAD better morph support on the mesh, I don't know how much it would help in the more extreme cases without the morph controls being complex beyond LL's ability to manage it.

I may be wrong, but as I understand it the basic problem is the basic mesh and the sub-optimal UV map. So can we create a better basic mesh and UV map along with the process to 'pre-morph' that basic to desired morph targets? How would the creation of a suite of 'better bodies, better morphs, better UV maps' that can share the same clothing and skins be different from the many bodies up for sale on SL Marketplace that can only be worn and not adjusted? Do those sell? They can't be 'adjusted'. The advantage of an open commercial license product is that someone *could* 'adjust' them, they just have to use the original suite of tools such as Blender to make those adjustments. And as long as each mesh is using the same UV map, clothing and skin textures should be interchangable, correct?

Am I close on any of this? I freely admit I really don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just shooting in the dark from what little knowledge I have. These are all issues I'm going to have to deal with on my project, and I have no hope of morph targets just for animal meshes from LL at any point in the future. I'll have to make do with what I can.

 

[Naiman Broome]

Premade morphs woudlln't work , it's impossible to preview what people may like in their shape and mostly would be a ton of work that actually for free is not worth it ... the only solution is a LL support...

As I see it the mesh avatar 2 should be something looking like this :

 



[Romaq Rosher]

So let's bounce this back to Nyx Linden... given what Naiman is saying on behalf of the communiity...

1) that the community appears to want professional grade human meshes strictly through morphs on a level seen by a top tier game... one has no end-user supplied avatar content issues...

2) the community appears unable to make any forward progress towards supplying a technical definition of what a best current practice mesh would be, outside of videos of a top tier game that does not use user supplied avatar content...

3) that the community is willing to patiently wait until Linden Labs is able to invest in an avatar mesh with the low level of control shown in a top tier video game that does not use user supplied avatar content...

... is it safe enough to say that human avatars are simply going nowhere, and will do nothing until Linden Labs makes the total investment in 'Avatar 2.0' morph controls? Is it really reasonable to say there is absolutely nothing whatsoever the community can do towards a better human avatar mesh? Are we really ready to simply lock this thread up as there is nothing further to be said of a constructive nature towards community effort on a human avatar 2.0 mesh? Are we really done with this, yet?

[Naiman Broome]

I have to correct myself on one point , the morph targets shoudl be implemented for mesh too and for all other normal builders , may be not for face morphs but for body moprhs are a necessity becouse of the upcoming ton of clothes that will be made with mesh , without proper morph target on body that allow to follow the body stretches of the client there will be lots of issues in the clothes with custom avatar shapes...

[Romaq Rosher]

Well, speaking just from what little I know (which is damned little) the avatar face really isn't that good either. If you are going to do an overhaul, you really need to do an overhaul. And if Linden Labs has to do all the work, they may as well do *ALL* the work. And as long as they are destroying all the old avatar clothing, skins, bodies and business of SL, they may as well destroy *ALL* the old avatar business within SL. Why stop at the face? That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, it would seem to be better to have all the mesh clothing put on hold too until Linden gets around to putting out Avatar 2.0 in the next 10 to 20 years. Or, well... you can do mesh clothing for Avatar 1.0 so that when Avatar 2.0 DOES roll out, the current mesh builders for Avatar 1.0 clothing can better appreciate the destruction of the existing work done by current artists that does not use mesh. We'll have plenty of time to get Avatar 1.0 art in mesh built up and entrenched to make irrelevant when Avatar 2.0 finally rolls out some years hence. If it ever does.

I am *SO GLAD* my plans don't rely on how human avatars look at all, or the tech base used. My current plans have to rely on 'micro avatar + prim attachment' tech for now so my avatar can remain 'grid agnostic', as well as to help me learn what I need to make a mesh-based micro. I'd rather the human avatars had better tools I can exploit for my own ends, but it is very happy for me I do not have to *RELY* on those tools. And watching the whole up-ending of an economy is mildly entertaining also. Especially knowing the ones doing the upending will be upended in their turn. But this is an amusement best enjoyed while not being a participant.

[Brynn Ametza]

         Hi everyone,

     I just have a few questions and insights from a purely customer/resident point of view. Let me preface this by saying that I am somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to my avatar and am always looking for tweaks to get exactly the look that I want. So, the thoughts of an improved avatar intrigues me. I do see some issues though.

     1 - There is the issue of existing clothing content being compatible with the new avatar. Obviously all pants/jeans, all shirts/tops and the vast majority of jackets will be rendered useless. Also, skins and anything that relies on the avatar mesh will be included. So, there is the consideration that residents will have to basically replace their entire inventory, which in my case would amount to many tens of thousands of Lindens.

     2 - Next, comes animation compatibility. Would existing animations from beds, vehicles, AO's and the like be compatible with the new avatar? Would I be able to ride my motorcycle, drive my boat? Would my dances, stands and sit still work properly? If not, then we must add many more tens of thousands of Lindens to the tab.

     3 - Flexibility. Given my limited knowledge, what would be involved, once I had my new avatar, in giving her say a nose job? Tummy-tuck or any other cosmetic sugery which currently is only a few clicks away and affects none of my clothing?

     4 - Finally, would this avatar be properly viewable across viewers? Would Phoenix, Kirsten's and the LL viewer all see the avatar the same given the same graphics settings? Or, would a certain viewer see it one way while another see's it quite differently?

     5 - Furure creation. It would be my guess that designers would have to create seperate lines for avatar 1.0 and avatar 2.0. That or choose to only design for one. How would that affect content availability? Would the designers also have to adjust each item to allow for size/shape differences between two different avatar 2.0's?

     As I said at the start, I'm all in favor of improvement. I do however think that there are many questions that would need to be answered before I could honestly support any given change. I am but one voice, but I'm quite sure that many more would echo my feelings.

          Brynn

[Minenoshin Kamachi]

What happened to the Avatar 2.0 ideas now that mesh is out for a while and SSA is up and running?