Rigged mesh failing to upload

[Nacy Nightfire]

I'm stumped!  I haven't skinned a piece of clothing in a while, but I never really had much trouble before.  Now I've got a simple skirt that I've made 4 lods fors and a simple 8 vert box as a physics shape.  All lights are green when I upload the various files, but as soon as I click on Skin Weights the option to upload disappears.  No warning or error message is given.

I've spent hours trying different things including uploading with both the armature attached to each mesh when exporting as a collada file and not attached.  Its odd that the uploader recognizes that the mesh is a rigged mesh by including the Skin Weight option, but when I click it I can't upload.

Anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[Danial Guisse]

im having the same problem! and i didn't even include the LOD's or the physical box. What program are you using?

[Nacy Nightfire]

I made the mesh and rigged it right in Blender 2.49b ...so frustrating!

 

[Gaia Clary]

Due to LL the problem is fixed. But apparently this is not true. Here is the Jira:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/CTS-608

In the Jira you will find the list of bones you need to provide in your skin weights.

edit: I remember that i could upload a mesh with only a subset of all needed bones a few days ago. And i think that i used the viewer from this page: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Alternate_Viewers

 

[Ashasekayi Ra]

Did you include the 21 crucial bones? The uploader goes back and forth when it comes to recognizing a partial list. I just play it safe and include the list below:

-- crucial list (21)--

mNeck

mHead

mChest

mTorso

mPelvis

mCollarRight

mCollarLeft

mShoulderLeft

mShoulderRight

mElbowRight

mElbowLeft

mWristLeft

mWristRight

mHipRight

mHipLeft

mKneeRight

mKneeLeft

mAnkleRight

mAnkleLeft

mFootRight

mFootLeft

[Nacy Nightfire]

Thanks for responding Gaia and Ashasekayi,

I carefully went over the complete list of bones.  They are all there.  And I selected the entire armature when uploading. 

I have a material set, I've made it "real", I've made uvs....I've lost fistfuls of hair.  I've rechecked everything.  When I played around and set the physic shape to one of the higher lods I finally got a message, which I should have written down.  But it referred to a log.  I'm not sure where the log is.  Any clue?

[Rage Riptide]

I'm with ya. I can't get past that "Missing required LOD levels" thing. Have no idea what it means. Red light stays on. I got an av in but can't remember how because I tried so many times. I'm a huge failure I should just give up and watch TV.

[Nacy Nightfire]

I have all these bones and more!  I noticed when parenting with bone heat just now in the .dae file I also have "skull".  Right now that particular method of parenting with bone heat isn't even being recognized in the uploader.  It just gets worse.  I'm probably in need of a serious break.   I've been at this for hours.

[Rage Riptide]

but there's 26 bones on the wiki:

That is, your skeleton should include the following bones:

Torso and Head

• mPelvis (root)
• mTorso (child of mPelvis)
• mChest (child of mTorso)
• mNeck (child of mChest)
• mHead (child of mNeck)
• mSkull (child of mHead)
• mEyeRight (child of mHead)
• mEyeLeft (child of mHead)

Arms

• mCollarLeft (child of mChest)
• mShoulderLeft (child of mCollarLeft)
• mElbowLeft (child of mShoulderLeft)
• mWristLeft (child of mElbowLeft)
• mCollarRight (child of mChest)
• mShoulderRight (child of mCollarRight)
• mElbowRight (child of mShoulderRight)
• mWristRight (child of mElbowRight)

Legs

• mHipLeft (child of mPelvis)
• mKneeLeft (child of mHipLeft)
• mAnkleLeft (child of mKneeLeft)
• mFootLeft (child of mAnkleLeft)
• mToeLeft (child of mFootLeft)
• mHipRight (child of mPelvis)
• mKneeRight (child of mHipRight)
• mAnkleRight (child of mKneeRight)
• mFootRight (child of mAnkleRight)
• mToeRight (child of mFootRight)



[Nacy Nightfire]

Well I finally got a version of it uploaded.  The sad part is I'm not fully clear what actually made the difference, but in the end I parented the mesh to the armature and and used the "create from envelopes" option  instead of copying the vertex groups from the avatar or from "bone heat".

I did it twice and both times it went thru successfully.

Thanks everyone for all the help and good luck to everyone who's still trying.

[Danial Guisse]

Maybe there's sime kind of problem with Maya, I should try importing my scene into blender and hooking it up in there.

[Eryn Curie]

I've been wrestling with this EXACT THING for the past couple days. Nothing I did, no advice from so many people, seemed to work. I followed that "Rigg your avatar" tutorial and just have been flummoxed and close to giving up. Anytime I'd click "include skin weights", that darn calculate button would just disappear no matter what I tried. SO FRUSTRATING. But then I got an idea...

I ended up trying out an older test client just to see if the thing would let me upload a weighted avatar mesh that was otherwise failing on the current test client -- AND IT WORKED. It uploaded just fine! I reloaded the current test client to see if I could see and wear the avatar properly -- AND I COULD!

So what the heck is going on here?? It's been so aggravating to not know what I was doing wrong (and not knowing even how to figure out what was going wrong!) when now it really seems that it was just a bug giving me grief. Here's crossing my fingers that this'll be fixed! Otherwise -- I'M THRILLED that I could make it work, even in a kludgy sort of way. ^.^

[Danial Guisse]

really? have you been using Maya? 

I'll have to try an older mesh viewer, I'm not quite sure how old I should go.

[Tommi Waydelich]

I had the same problem too Eryn, I will try it with older version of mesh-viewer too :-)

[Danial Guisse]

Where do you get older viewers from??

And does anyone happen to have a Maya file setup, or a .dae file setup with the correct, er Skeleton or one that definently works. since I've like 3 versions.

[Gaia Clary]

An experiment:

The goal:

Take the default avatar and try to upload its 3 pieces to Second Life using:

 

• Blender version 2.49b
• avatar.blend from domino designs

 

Preparation:

 

• open avatar.blend
• select head
• make the armature real
• File -> Export -> Collada-1.4
• Do the same for upper_body and lower_body

 

Testing: official alternate viewer Second_Life_3-0-1-238085_Development :

I used the version for Windows (link is somewhere in the middle of the page)

 

test	result
upload head	fail
upload upper body	fail
upload lower_body	fail
upload all 3 parts in one dae	fail
merge all 3 parts to one mesh	fail
merge all 3 parts to one mesh and add missing vertex groups: mFootRight and mFootLeft vertex groups	success

Testing: newest beta viewer Second_Life_3-0-1-238249_ProjectViewer-Mesh :

I used the version for windows. The link is named install: CYGWIN

 

test	result
upload head	success
upload upper body	success
upload lower_body	success
upload all 3 parts in one dae	success
merge all 3 parts to one mesh	success

 

[Eryn Curie]

A little info: I was not using Maya, but (Jass) Blender 2.49.  I believe the .blend file I am using is the Domino one and that calculate button disappeared each time I checked 'include skin weights'. 

I will have to try that experiment if I can figure out how to add missing vertex groups (no clue how to do that yet)!

[Nacy Nightfire]

Thanks so much for all the work you did experimenting with this and posting, Gaia. 

I've downloaded the latest mesh viewer and after I get caught up a bit with everything in RL I set aside yesterday , I'll tackle it again.

[Nacy Nightfire]

Eryn, I didin't find I had any missing bones using the avatar.blend file I downloaded from the Domino website.  I had a complete set of 26 and I saw all of them in cooresponding vertex groups in the outliner associated with the mesh after I copied over the vertex groups via the script from the avatar mesh itself, and when I tried the same using bone heat transfer.

The only thing that seemed to work is parenting the mesh to the armature and then selecting the option to use the envelope weighting.  You might give that a go and report back here if it also helped in your situation, but I'm being grossly unscientific here, since I don't really even know what would be different about envelope weighting then the other options.  I just tried it as a last resort and it seemed to work.

[Gaia Clary]

---

Eryn Curie wrote:if I can figure out how to add missing vertex groups (no clue how to do that yet)!

---

• in edit mode, locate the list of vertex groups ( in the edit button section F9 )
• below the list you find a button [new] jut click on it and name the vertex group as needed (mFootLeft, mFootRight)

That is all you ned to do.

 

[Gaia Clary]

---

Nacy Nightfire wrote:

Eryn, I didin't find I had any missing bones using the avatar.blend file I downloaded from the Domino website.  I had a complete set of 26 and I saw all of them in cooresponding vertex groups in the outliner associated with the mesh after I copied over the vertex groups via the script from the avatar mesh itself, and when I tried the same using bone heat transfer.

---

Yes avatar.blend has 26 bones, but not all boens are weighted in the default avatar.

hmm, i was able to import the avatar mesh after adding mFootLeft and mFootRight to the vertex groups (i only have 19 vertex groups when i join head, upper_body and lower_body)

So you say you have 26 vertex groups all named like the corresponding bones after you have pressed the make real button in the armature ? Then when you export the Collada-1.4.0 the resulting dae file still has the reported problem ?

Can you see that the dae file actually contains the vertex groups as you expect ? (you can open dae files with a normal text editor)

[Nacy Nightfire]

Yes. I looked into the .dae file with a text editor last night and saw 26 bones listed.  I'm going to retry and I'll post the text here. I may have deleted the file, but no doubt I can reproduce the error.

[Rusalka Writer]

I stumbled across one tricky error with an avatar I had assembled from separate pieces using the append/link/make local route in Blender 2.49. What I didn't notice at first was that somehow I had ended up with duplicate armatures overlying each other so perfectly that I couldn't see that I had two of everything. Finally noticed the discrepancy in the outliner window. So in some cases it isn't that you're missing anything; it's that you have a surplus.

[Ashasekayi Ra]

You can just add the empty vertex group without weights assigned, and it will work.

And also, you have never needed the complete list of 26 bones for skin weights or joint position.

[Nacy Nightfire]

Ok I downloaded the newest beta version so I'm probably not getting exactly what I did last night..not sure.  I have some thoughts about what I did wrong which I'll comment on below.  I tested copying the vertex groups from the avie using the script.  I tested parenting and selecting "bone weights", I tested parenting and selecting "envelop weights".  Then I uploaded each both with and without the armature selected. 

Everything worked fine, except the selecting "bone weights"  neither the version with or without the armature selected for collada conversion worked.  Here's a bit of detail from one of those failed files which I think does show all 26 bones:

<controller id="Skirt_lod2_003">
   <skin source="#SkirtLOD4_002">
    <bind_shape_matrix>
     0.09956 0.0 0.0 0.02125
     0.0 0.14498 0.0 0.0
     0.0 0.0 0.17116 1.17866
     0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0
    </bind_shape_matrix>
    <source id="Skirt_lod2_003-joints">
     <IDREF_array count="26" id="Skirt_lod2_003-joints-array">mPelvis mTorso mChest mNeck mHead mSkull mEyeRight mEyeLeft mCollarLeft mShoulderLeft mElbowLeft mWristLeft mCollarRight mShoulderRight mElbowRight mWristRight mHipRight mKneeRight mAnkleRight mFootRight mToeRight mHipLeft mKneeLeft mAnkleLeft mFootLeft mToeLeft</IDREF_array>
     <technique_common>
      <accessor count="26" source="#Skirt_lod2_003-joints-array" stride="1">
       <param type="IDREF" name="JOINT"></param>
      </accessor>
     </technique_common>
    </source>
    <source id="Skirt_lod2_003-weights">

 

 

Now my theory of what I did wrong happened when I initially copied the vert groups from the avatar last night.  I was wrongly assuming that since the avatar was in 3 parts, I needed to first copy the bottom where most of the skirt sits, and then select it and copy the vert groups from the top.  I was unsuccessful and kept getting an error that both items had vert groups. I thought I cleared them and tried again, but kept getting the message.  So I went into pose mode, selected the mTorso bone and painted in my weights, BUT I forgot to make a vertex group for this bone  and I'm guessing the weights were there, but the vertex group wasn't automatically created by my painting.

This time I went against my intuition and selected the mesh then successively selected the top and bottom then processed the script.  All bones were transferred.  So that is  one more of the very many annoyances that are easy for beginners like myself stumble over, including non-manifold geometry and forgetting to push "make real" in the modifier tab., etc. etc.  The more frustrated one becomes, the worse it can get, because there are so many steps, its hard to get organized with testing these things.

Well, it can't be helped.  And thanks so much for all the help Gaia and everyone else who chipped in.  Maybe this mistake will help others..as for me,   I'm writing up a new checklist of the "trip up"  things to watch out for to keep next to me at all times!