Working Ruthandroth mesh and skeleton for 3DS MAX

[Elvina Ewing]

Greetings,

I'd like to create some clothing for an avatar based on Ruthandroth's Ruth mesh. The avatar creator suggests to download the opensource files from Ruthandroth's github. I've done so. As the title of my post suggests, i work in 3DS MAX. I don't have Blender and i really don't want to even touch it... So i have to work with .dae files. I'm trying to import Ruth2v4 dae into 3DS MAX and this is what i'm getting:

Luckily, the bone weights are still there, so i'm able to at least save the weights to an .env file. But i am not able to get any geometry out of it that would look like a normal body.

Then, there is a file in there, contribution by "Duck Girl" that is called RuthRC3_BakesOnMesh_Slim2. When i import that one i get this:

Now, this does look like a proper body. However, you can see that the skeleton and the geometry are facing different directions, and so the rigging weights seems to have been lost. I thought i could use this geometry to load up V4 envelopes on it that i saved from the V4 file. Sadly, this geometry is not a single body, but is made up of several meshes:

So that trick won't work either. Any suggestions what else can i try to get a working skeleton with the proper geometry? Also, as a clothing creator i don't care about bento, i would just be happy with a basic 52 (or how many was it again) bone skeleton.

[BinBash]

6 hours ago, Elvina Ewing said:

Any suggestions what else can i try to get a working skeleton with the proper geometry?

You're not alone.  There's plenty of hair on the floor from those that came before you, many have walked away clueless.  I hope you have a better experience.

The discussion about this is a very long one so if you would like more information about what's going on I'd be happy to have that talk with you.  You can contact me in-world, a notecard is best, it's unlikely I'll see your instant message.

[Elvina Ewing]

so, i managed to get skeleton+geometry working in my 3ds Max. But i needed a tiny made out of it, so i scaled down the skeleton and the geometry, and now it comes out all twisted in SL... So, i asked a friend who works with Blender to make a tiny for me, using the .blend file provided in RuthAndRoth's github. It turns out that the blender file doesn't even have any armature in it at all!! You are supposed to add standard SL armature to it yourself, and that sounds as too much trouble to bother my friend with... The ReadMe file in the project folder says: "A version with a custom armature is available as of 2022-05-10, using Blender 3.0.1: Ruth2v4DevWithArmature.blend." But this file is missing. It's just not there at all. Also, all links to info, tutorials, and notes on the blog are dead. Was it really so hard to have a normal working ready to use devkit, like SLink (for example) provided to their clothing designers? I guess there is only so much you can expect of a free opensource project... So i give up.

[Istelathis]

Hi Elvina, I am not very familiar with 3d modelling so can not be of any help there but I do know there is an active group that still works on it.  If you were still interested, they can be found on discord here:

https://discord.gg/UMyaZkc

The link was found on their github page here:

https://github.com/RuthAndRoth/Ruth2

I browsed around their channel and saw recent activity, some stuff on the armature you were looking for was discussed a while back which may be of interest to you, and of course you could ask if anyone knows where the latest file can be used.  I hope this at the very least helps you out if you want to satisfy your own curiosity or continue on with the project.  Best of luck 🙃

[Elvina Ewing]

Istelathis, thank you for trying to help, i appreciate it! Yes i tried to click on it, but since i don't have a discord i can't see/read it. Really can't be bothered to sign up just for that. There are like a hundred mesh bodies out there these days, and many of them seem to have been based on this project. Their creators send you off to R&R github as the source of the devkit, and the files are missing there and the links are dead. You would think that the main source should be working and up to date, since so many bodies depend on it. I guess it was naive of me to expect that of a free project, when ever the most popular and expensive mesh body creators like Reborn don't seem to care to provide a devkit to support the creation of more content for their bodies. 😫 {end of rant}

[arton Rotaru]

I'm sorry, I can't help either, I just wanted to chime in because as a 3ds Max user myself, I feel your pain. I gave up long ago to do anything rigging/skinning related in Max. I know some have managed to get it to work by re-creating the skeleton with helpers instead of bones. But I don't feel like I have the patience to dive into this to make it work somehow.

My money is on the upcoming default mesh avatar Linden Lab is working on currently. Dunno if that will make the situation any better, though.
Until then I just keep making other things.

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Elvina Ewing said:

Their creators send you off to R&R github as the source of the devkit, and the files are missing there and the links are dead.

It won't be the first time a file mysteriously vanishes from a server and I assume that's what happened here. I know a few of the developers and they're really nice people and always eager to help. I've contacted one of them about the missing file. Let's see what happens.

About the 3DS issue, I suppose it means none of the developers have experience with the program. Maybe it can be sorted out if somebody who does volunteers som help and advice...

 

 

[Elvina Ewing]

Arton & ChinRey, thank you guys! Wow, i didn't know that LL have been working on a new default mesh avatar, that's about time!! 😲 Great news (to me)! I hope that will make the situation a little bit better. I've had devkits from Maitreya, SLink and Belleza since forever, and all of those work in 3ds Max. Recently applied for Legacy and got a response within 3 hours (!!), that one seems to be working as well. So i will just stick with these then, for now. I've also bought countless full perm dae's over the years, but never had such problems that i couldn't fix and couldn't get something to work... It's just, people keep asking me can you rig for this-and-that body, and every time i poke this or that body it amazes me how many mesh body creators don't seem to care at all if any content can be made to support their particular body. 🤷‍♀️