My journey making myself a mesh avatar

[Ags Falconer]

This thread will outline my journey as I dust off some old skills and make myself a mesh avatar and upload into Second Life. 

[Ags Falconer]

For documentary evidence, here's a recent snap of Ags 2.0. The new avatar, if all goes well, will be Ags 3.0.

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

Please tell me you have an account on the Aditi test server. 😄

[Ags Falconer]

1 minute ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

Please tell me you have an account on the Aditi test server. 😄

Yes, that was about step 4 or 5 in the process. 🙂

[Ags Falconer]

So, step 1 was of course, to summon the courage to decide to no-kidding make this journey. Hopefully, the "project" will take only several weeks or likely months. Hopefully less than a year. We'll see.

With that out of the way:

Step 2: Refresher Reading

• Start with google search: "make mesh avatar for second life"
• Refine google search to: "blender avatar mesh second life" and read for a day
• Good source material: 
  • Search on Second Life knowlegebase: https://community.secondlife.com/search/?&q=mesh AND avatar&type=cms_records3&tags=avatar&nodes=30&eitherTermsOrTags=or&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy
  • Uploading a mesh model article: https://community.secondlife.com/knowledgebase/english/uploading-a-mesh-model-r274/
  • Mesh/Uploading and wearing a rigged mesh: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/Uploading_and_wearing_a_rigged_mesh
    • ^^^ This one was from 2013. It might be too old to be useful
  • Info on the preview grid: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Preview_Grid
  • Blender Fundamentals playlist on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1F2ddGya_-UvuAqHAksYnB0qL9yWDO6

[Marigold Devin]

20 minutes ago, Ags Falconer said:

For documentary evidence, here's a recent snap of Ags 2.0. The new avatar, if all goes well, will be Ags 3.0.

I don't know whether to say good luck or don't step into the light! (SL has been feeling a bit like Stepford since everyone ... except me ... went mesh). 

 

[Ags Falconer]

Step 3: Find mesh models and armatures/rigging & download & experiment

Helpful sources (so far):

• secondlife-creator-resources on bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/lindenlab/secondlife-creator-resources/src/master/
• CGTrader page of freely available models for experiementing: https://www.cgtrader.com/items/890325/download-page

Looked at TurboSquid.com for ideas, but saw little in the "freebie" space. So, I'm waiting till I get I some practice under my belt before laying down cash for a starter model.

Links on the Secondlife Wiki page, "Mesh/Uploading and wearing a rigged mesh" were broken. Adding to the thought that it is out of date.

[Ags Falconer]

8 minutes ago, Marigold Devin said:

I don't know whether to say good luck or don't step into the light! (SL has been feeling a bit like Stepford since everyone ... except me ... went mesh). 

 

@Marigold Devin, I appreciate the head's up. You're the best!!

Note to self: Save non-mesh avatars for dances with Marigold.

[Ags Falconer]

Step 4: Go head's down into Blender and fiddle around till the joints and reflexes are no longer stiff.

<sounds of drills, jack hammers, saws, sirens, and squeaky wheels emanate from my workshop>

<for a while...> 

[Ags Falconer]

 < 3 days later>

Step 5: First experimental rigged model is "complete" (no skin textures, just rigging and a free chimpanzee model). Ready to try an upload.

Some baby steps

• Realize I don't see the beta grid/preview grid/Aditi on my log in page on the standard Second Life viewer.
• Find this page to explain where the setting is for seeing the beta grid log in:
  • Preview Grid: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Preview_Grid?_gl=1*1wipn6m*_ga*MTI4MTU5MDg2Ni4xNjY1Nzc2NTE0*_ga_T7G7P6DCEC*MTY2NzMzODIwNy4yNS4xLjE2NjczNDE3NjYuNjAuMC4w*_fplc*bTVXZUVwYkJOUiUyQjRCcVNWSkolMkZFcFE1UVNwZXdrOVRnbzBFaFRYSTF2NDNiZDBYVzlhVWJPcHJOVTdENzY0QURhUSUyQllKUTI4bjlEZ29pZzVLbVdiWnRyZmlaaHJwR21OR0RINmdNUFQ3ZWhKS21LaDRudUxPWkR5QVRYbmhnJTNEJTNE
• I go to Me->Preferences->Advanced menu; enable "Show Advanced Menu", select "Show Grid Selection at login"
• Try to log into Second Life Beta Test Aditi
  • Find out that login to my account does not work. 
    • Submit a ticket to get my Aditi account unlocked.
    • Fairly quickly got an email back from Roran Linden. Very helpful. This was pretty fast. 🙂 Thanks Roran!!
• Go to Build -> Upload -> Model...
  • And get a message that my account is not certified to upload models. https://secondlife.com/my/account/ip/index.php 2 steps are required for that:
  • 1. Update my payment method which I haven't used in a while. No problem.
  • 2. Accept the Intellectual Property terms and conditions.
• Go back to Build -> Upload -> Model...
  • Upload my model and go through steps to Wear the model.
  • My first upload is totally borked. Probably the advanced rigging I generated in Blender. I'll go back to a "non-advanced" rig next....

Despite this looking like a lot of work, this Step 5 went pretty quickly. I spent 3 days fiddling around with a free model and rigging in Blender. But Step 5 took only a few minutes of action and a bit of waiting for emails and such.

Edited November 1, 2022 by Ags Falconer

[JeromFranzic]

45 minutes ago, Marigold Devin said:

I don't know whether to say good luck or don't step into the light! (SL has been feeling a bit like Stepford since everyone ... except me ... went mesh). 

 

I occasionally use non-mesh avis on myself and my alts! Especially helpful when I'm in busy spots, and also a good boredom killer for me when I'm tired of spending time trying to look "cool". Can't wait to see what Ags comes up with on his journey to BoMeshworld. 

[Ags Falconer]

Step 6: Second experimental rigged model is attempted

More baby steps ...

• Back to Blender v3.3.1 and the mesh without an armature
  • Thought I had saved a version of the mesh with the default Blender human meta-rig. Alas, no. 
  • Good news, the second time adding a rig/armature/skeleton went much more quickly:
    • With Blender in Object mode and mesh selected
    • Add Armature -> Human (Meta-Rig)
    • Delete unneeded bones such as some face bones
    • Resize the armature to match the mesh
    • Position armature to match mesh position (T pose) (BTW, Blender has very good YouTube vid on this step)
      • https://youtu.be/f2pTkW-1JkE
    • Parent the mesh to the rig
    • Save it
    • Export it as Collada
      • Global Orientation, Forward Axis X (not the default), Up Axis Z
      • Arm, Export to SL/OpenSim, Deform Bones Only
    • Export COLLADA
• Back to SL Aditi
  • Build -> Upload -> Model
    • Select the *.dae file
    • Work through the UPLOAD MODEL dialog 
      • Level of detail, Analyze if suggested, Calculate weights & fee
      • Physics model Low (this is used only for collisions, not display)
      • Rigging, Include skin weight, Include joint positions
      • Upload
  • And this one was totally borked also....
• I then repeated the upload to Aditi step with the sample Collada file, "bento_angel_2017_07_07.dae", from https://bitbucket.org/lindenlab/secondlife-creator-resources/ to verify that upload was not the problem. And that worked fine.
• Next step: figure out what is different between my Collada exports from Blender and the SL examples.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Ags Falconer

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

Is this a "no spoilers" thread where you want to figure out everything on your own, or is advice ok?

[Ags Falconer]

1 hour ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

Is this a "no spoilers" thread where you want to figure out everything on your own, or is advice ok?

@Quarrel Kukulcan, thanks for the question. I am *VERY* happy to take suggestions or questions. Actually any comment is welcomed. My hope is that the thread will be helpful to more than 1 or 2 people. 🙂

[Ags Falconer]

Step 7: Compare my export files to the sample files

A bigger step ...

• So, I'm looking through the exported Collada files. Pretty typical XML stuff in both. But there are a few handfuls of differences. Way too many to put in this post. So just trust me, there were quite a few differences, but nothing structurally different.
• Somewhere in the middle of importing and exporting Collada files to and from Blender and into SL Aditi, it occurred to me that:
  • I have not been using the Blender Collada exports Operator Preset for "sl+open sim rigged"
  • So that pretty well fixed everything.
  • BTW, the Forward axis as Y worked fine. Not sure why some docs say set this to X, but SL did give a warning on that. 
• Import into SL Aditi worked fine.

Next step: refine my monkey mesh using one of the samples as a starting point.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Ags Falconer

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

4 hours ago, Ags Falconer said:

Add Armature -> Human (Meta-Rig)

I am stunned this worked. SL isn't supposed to allow any armatures except its own standard one. You should have gotten errors about unknown joints or bad bone names.

I was going to do a whole write-up about the complexities of Fitted Mesh bones, but the angel_2017 armature doesn't use them. Lucky!

 

Quote

• Physics model Low (this is used only for collisions, not display)

The physics shape only matters for objects rezzed on the ground. SL puts a standard, pre-programmed collision box around all avatars and ignores the physics shapes of everything attached to them (even entire bodies). So any mesh, rigged or unrigged, that's meant to be worn should use as simple a physics shape as possible to maximize transfer speed. That's generally just a cube. You can export a single cube as its own .dae file in some common directory and keep using that, or, for Firestorm, there's even a preset cube option in the physics pulldown.

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Quarrel Kukulcan

[Ags Falconer]

A couple of days of work underway....

Step 8: Refine the mesh

• Starting with the monkey which I found at: 
  • "Monkey- Free" (https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/monkey-free-a7005fad11824d4199b952f45384d226) by animated3d.us. animated3d.us provided the model and textures in Fbx format which works with blender.  
  • Licensed CC Attribution (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), so I am providing this attribution here. BTW, this is for my use and I don't plan to sell this avatar.
• This pic is the rigging in progress. Once the mesh is satisfactory, I'll pose the monkey in the standard T position.
• Then, add the SL Bento rigging
• Export to Collada
• Upload to Aditi grid to check it out, then
• Upload to SL Main Grid (Adni)

Next step either wings or textures ....
 

[Cali Souther]

This is very cool and quite interesting.   I'm still trying to learn how to make a donut in Blender.

Can't wait to see the final product!!!

[Ags Falconer]

13 minutes ago, Cali Souther said:

This is very cool and quite interesting.   I'm still trying to learn how to make a donut in Blender.

Can't wait to see the final product!!!

Thanks @Cali Souther!! I hoped it would be interesting to some.

I am trying to balance my eagerness (YES!! I want to see it too!) with doing the task well enough that I will be proud enough to show it to my kids. 🤣

[Ags Falconer]

As expected, the editing of the mesh is taking some time. Lots and lots of little tweaks.

I like the way it is shaping up and I'm getting some ideas of how to do the fur with transparent textures instead of particles. We'll see what I finally decide on that.

If anyone has suggestions on creating fur with lower impact to the sim, I would love to hear ideas or get pointers.

[Ags Falconer]

Step 8 (continued ...)

Still refining the mesh and I've started looking at textures. Still rough. I uploaded a rough version to the beta grid (Aditi) to have a look.

Definitely need to simplify the mesh in some keys spots where it is too complex. Especially the mouth interior (not sure I actually need anything for a mouth interior--not sure what SL supports yet. I'll save the mouth interior for later just in case.). Also, I'm planning to simplify the extra layers where I'm trying to create fur with transparencies--it might not be the better way.

Found several YouTubes that helped my thinking on refining the mesh and starting the textures and UV mapping. Here are 3 of the the most helpful for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa_1LjeWsJg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9FTp8vTwfw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHLT5Xh_tzQ

 

 

[Ags Falconer]

6 minutes ago, Ags Falconer said:

Definitely need to simplify the mesh in some keys spots where it is too complex. Especially the mouth interior (not sure I actually need anything for a mouth interior--not sure what SL supports yet. 

Reading the Your Avatar forum, I see that most avatars use texture or tattoos for lips and teeth. No need for modeling the interior of the mouth. Thanks SL Community!!

 

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

How you build the face depends on how you want to rig it, which depends on how you want to animate it.

The eyeballs are easiest. If you want your eyeballs to move, make them separate perfect spheres and mold the sockets around them. Put the heads of your eye bones in the exact center and weight each eyeball entirely to its own bone and not at all to anything else. Use mEyeLeft and mEyeRight if you want SL to animate your eyeballs for you (IIRC these bones are special and can't be overridden with manual animations). Use mFaceEyeAltLeft and mFaceEyeAltRight if you want full manual control (but you'll have to do all the animation yourself). If you don't want moveable eyeballs at all, just paint them into the face.

The rest of the face can get real messy real fast depending on how much speech and expression capability you want. Look through the list of Bento face bones and make a plan. Realize you'll probably have to make all your face animations yourself -- face animations tend to not be compatible between different rigs.

If you want the mouth to open at all, though, you do want an internal mouth cavity so things don't look weird.

Something that's true in general about SL's animation system but particularly impactful for face rigging: SL animations should use only rotations whenever possible to avoid interfering with shape sliders. That means if you want a face that has eyebrows, cheeks or lips that move up and down, you don't want to use a tiny bone that slides up and down on the Z axis, but rather use the default-length Bento bones with the head set deeper into the face so it can tilt up and down a few degrees to produce a similar movement at the skin-level tail.

[Ags Falconer]

30 minutes ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

How you build the face depends on how you want to rig it, which depends on how you want to animate it.

The eyeballs are easiest. If you want your eyeballs to move, make them separate perfect spheres and mold the sockets around them. Put the heads of your eye bones in the exact center and weight each eyeball entirely to its own bone and not at all to anything else. Use mEyeLeft and mEyeRight if you want SL to animate your eyeballs for you (IIRC these bones are special and can't be overridden with manual animations). Use mFaceEyeAltLeft and mFaceEyeAltRight if you want full manual control (but you'll have to do all the animation yourself). If you don't want moveable eyeballs at all, just paint them into the face.

The rest of the face can get real messy real fast depending on how much speech and expression capability you want. Look through the list of Bento face bones and make a plan. Realize you'll probably have to make all your face animations yourself -- face animations tend to not be compatible between different rigs.

If you want the mouth to open at all, though, you do want an internal mouth cavity so things don't look weird.

Something that's true in general about SL's animation system but particularly impactful for face rigging: SL animations should use only rotations whenever possible to avoid interfering with shape sliders. That means if you want a face that has eyebrows, cheeks or lips that move up and down, you don't want to use a tiny bone that slides up and down on the Z axis, but rather use the default-length Bento bones with the head set deeper into the face so it can tilt up and down a few degrees to produce a similar movement at the skin-level tail.

@Quarrel Kukulcan, thanks a ton!! Very helpful.

[OptimoMaximo]

4 hours ago, Quarrel Kukulcan said:

Use mEyeLeft and mEyeRight if you want SL to animate your eyeballs for you (IIRC these bones are special and can't be overridden with manual animations)

This is incorrect. Every single joint in the skeleton can be animated over the base animation layer.