Animate in maya?

[Dakota Svartur]

I'm asking this on behalf of my girlfriend so I want to make clear I have no idea how maya works. This will just be forwarded to her. But she wants to know if it's possible to animate your let's say mesh avatar end export the mesh and the animations to Second Life. Either seperate or together? And if so, how do you do?

[Chosen Few]

Yes, absolutely, to both questions.

For animation, there are a couple of things she will need: a proper rig that matches the in-world avatar rig, and a script to convert Maya's animations to the BVH format that SL can read.  Orion Neville and Alexandria Mechanique were kind enough to create these a few years back, and shared them with the community for free.  I've been hosting the files ever since.  You can find them at http://abbloch.com/slmaya.

To create a customized mesh avatar, she simply needs to create the mesh model, bind it to the avatar skeleton, and export it to a COLLADA file (DAE format).  You'll find the skeleton I use at that same web address.  It was kindly provided by Reed Steamroller.

To upload mesh models, she'll need to be using Viewer 3.  To be able to see mesh models, people need to be using Viewer 2 or above.  Not everyone in SL is using the 2.x-based viewer yet.  Some third party viewers are still using the 1.x codebase.  Nobody using those viewers can see mesh objects, just prims and sculpties.

If she has questions about mesh modeling for SL, tell her to head on over to the mesh forum and ask away.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Chosen Few wrote:

 

To upload mesh models, she'll need to be using Viewer 3.  To be able to see mesh models, people need to be using Viewer 2 or above.  Not everyone in SL is using the 2.x-based viewer yet.  Some third party viewers are still using the 1.x codebase.  Nobody using those viewers can see mesh objects, just prims and sculpties.

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It doesn't happen very often, but you have to be corrected here.

Henri Beauchamp has taken the monumental task upon him to extract all the mesh code from V2 and mold, squish and fold it into his V1 based Coolviewer. He offers the code to others, so Singularity also uses it. The Phoenix people are also working on it, but as far as I know they haven't implemented it yet. There might be some others.

[Ichago Dougall]

the link is oudated or no longer working for the maya avatar rigs.

http://uploading.com/files/185fa4fc/Working%2BSkeleton%2Bfor%2Bmaya.mb/

here is a rig I found in the forums, from this conversation .. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Maya-to-SL-problems-calculate-weights-button-still-dissapearing/td-p/1065443

 

you can also check out the slav rigs from the wizard for maya,blender or 3ds rigs.

http://wiz-bg.blogspot.com/

 

Hope this helps

 

 

btw Chosen, would you happen to have access to the script for exporting sl bvh from maya and what version it works with.

I would be most thankfull.

 

[Dakota Svartur]

Thank you so much for your answers!

[Pussycat Catnap]

If you're searching for an app to do animations in, Maya seems a bit extreme as its a $10,000 application (barring 5-finger discounts)...

Daz3D is free, and I believe will save the right file format, and is easy to work with. If the free version doesn't have that saving feature, it can't be more than a few dollars to get the plugin that has it.

Of course if you already have Maya sure - though only I suppose if you know how to use Maya this way. Daz3D is basically open the app, and turn the dials on the little avatar that's there on the screen, then save.

 

 

[Dakota Svartur]

My friend has it, she's studying 3D at university and that's why I was asking about maya specificly

[alecat Breda]

hi, that link for the scripts doesn't work any more - are they still available and valid for maya 2014?