The New Improved Avatar Mesh

[Perrie Juran]

Last night someone passed me a note card with the following information.  I have not tried this yet myself but am passing it on.  I am encouraged to see that there is a JIRA for this with a Linden assigned to it.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-2761?

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Text of the note card:

 

There's a new JIRA which has some downloadable files you can use to replace the vertex weight rigging files for the default Second Life avatar mesh.

The files on the web page listed below will do the following:

- Eliminate most of the solar plexus glitch on your chest
- Eliminate the pointy ass you get when you sit.
- Eliminate most of the 2 big ugly gashes in your undercrotch
- Reduce the impacted shoulder issues, squaring up your shoulders and creating more spacing between the upper arm and body on the underside of the arm
- Increase the curviness of the female hip
- Smooth out the knee and elbow joints considerably

Overall your avatar will be much better.  It's more noticeable on curvier gals and large muscular guys than on Mr. and Ms. 50.  But you will definitely notice a difference.

A couple of observations... first, if your hip width value is greater than your butt value, the flattening of your bum pooch and squashing of your ass top to bottom will be very, very noticeable.  It doesnt seem to effect people who have a higher butt value than hip width nearly as much.

To get my rounded poochie bum back, I changed my butt value from 50 to 60, and it looks the same again.

The other issue is the hip displacement doesnt just move the hips out to the sides.. it also moves them up a little so in certain laying on side poses, you'll see some fairly exaggerated hip dysplasia.  But considering what you get in exchange, this patch is a no brainer.  It's awesome.

You don't need to be using a mesh viewer for this.  And it will make EVERYONE look better, not just you, because it's a post-process... the files are for rendering on your end, not for sending info to SL.

ANd it takes all of 30 seconds to do if you don't need a clean install.  Took me 30 seconds from download to unzip to install.  It's that simple.


OK SO HERE'S WHAT YOU DO....


https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SH-2761?

There are several different downloads here.  If you work with a 3d program and want to rig to these adjusted and improved riggings, grab them all.  

If you don't work with a 3d program but want the avatar fix files, then download these two files...

avatar_llm.zip

and

avatar_upper_body.zip

Unzip the first one, avatar_llm.zip, and it will create a new folder named "Character".  

Now unzip the 2nd one, avatar_upper_body.zip.

Cut and paste the 5 upper body files you just unzipped into the new Character folder to replace the older files with the new Dec 15 versions.

Now go to your SL client program...

c://programs/Second Life
c://programjs/Firestorm
c://programs/Phoenix

...and you'll see a folder named "Character".  Make a backup.to wherever you want, in case this patch gives your computer problems.  

The Jira says you need to do a clean install, but most of the people I've told about this who've installed it haven't bothered to do a clean install, and it worked fine.  I didn't bother doing it either.


If this patch makes SL crash on you, and you want to try and clean install, this is how you do it...

http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=fs_clean_reinstall

OK.. so at this point you've got a backup of your original "Character folder", and a new folder named "Character which you got from the Jira website.

Copy all the files in the new "Character" folder into the original Second Life/Firestorm/Phoenix "Character" folder.

And you're done. That's it. Go log in.

Peace

[Ellyn Elan]

Interesting! Thanks for the post and links.

I'm glad to read you got your rounded poochie bum back.

 

Does this only work for Phoenix? And if you do the changes in Phoenix do other viewers see it? I see where it says you'll see the changes on everyone, does it work in reverse or only for those with the patch installed?

[Perrie Juran]

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Ellyn Elan wrote:

Interesting! Thanks for the post and links.

I'm glad to read you got your rounded poochie bum back.

 

Does this only work for Phoenix? And if you do the changes in Phoenix do other viewers see it? I see where it says you'll see the changes on everyone, does it work in reverse or only for those with the patch installed?

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My apologies if I was not clear.  The text was all quoted from the note card.  I have not tried this yet.  But as I understand it, this should work with all viewer versions. 

[Ellyn Elan]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

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Ellyn Elan wrote:

Interesting! Thanks for the post and links.

I'm glad to read you got your rounded poochie bum back.

 

Does this only work for Phoenix? And if you do the changes in Phoenix do other viewers see it? I see where it says you'll see the changes on everyone, does it work in reverse or only for those with the patch installed?

---

My apologies if I was not clear.  The text was all quoted from the note card.  I have not tried this yet.  But as I understand it, this should work with all viewer versions. 

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So does this mean you don't have your rounded poochie bum back?

[Venus Petrov]

Thanks for pointing out this, Perrie.  It sounds like it worked only on the client side (?) so you'd look better to yourself but not to others.  I am asking, not stating.

Anyway, I would like to see a viewer released that manages these things without the extra downloaded files and stuff.  Make my life in SL simple, please!

[Cerise Sorbet]

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Venus Petrov wrote:

Thanks for pointing out this, Perrie.  It sounds like it worked only on the client side (?) so you'd look better to yourself but not to others.  I am asking, not stating.

Anyway, I would like to see a viewer released that manages these things without the extra downloaded files and stuff.  Make my life in SL simple, please!

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That is right, all avatars will look a little different to you, but the same old same old to everyone else. It is taking the same old shape numbers and rendering them a little differently.

These changes do a nice job to eliminate some nasty creases, but there are still some poses that retain the "where did all the body mass go to?" factor. Some of the animations circulating in SL do things to the joints that would break a real body, and we can't expect miracles on those ones.

[Perrie Juran]

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Cerise Sorbet wrote:

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Venus Petrov wrote:

Thanks for pointing out this, Perrie.  It sounds like it worked only on the client side (?) so you'd look better to yourself but not to others.  I am asking, not stating.

Anyway, I would like to see a viewer released that manages these things without the extra downloaded files and stuff.  Make my life in SL simple, please!

---

That is right, all avatars will look a little different to you, but the same old same old to everyone else. It is taking the same old shape numbers and rendering them a little differently.

These changes do a nice job to eliminate some nasty creases, but there are still some poses that retain the "where did all the body mass go to?" factor. Some of the animations circulating in SL do things to the joints that would break a real body, and we can't expect miracles on those ones.

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I would think that even if it only effects your client it would be of great interest to photographers in SL.

I think I will cross link this in the Art, Music And Photog Forum.

Thanks for the replies!

[Ceka Cianci]

hopefully they will do something like this server side..=)

[Charolotte Caxton]

It does sound promising for photography. I will give it a try. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[Innula Zenovka]

Animations are all rendered client-side, I thought.   What we should be hoping for, to my mind, is that LL adopt these improvements as part of the standard viewer.

[TKAELA]

Have anyone tried this? If so, please share it here.  Im curious to know the results.:matte-motes-smile:

[Kascha Matova]

So then...the pointy ass remains? And once again, between myself and those who see me, "to flaunt ArrowAss or not to flaunt ArrowAss" is the question?

Awww. :matte-motes-impatient:

[Dora Gustafson]

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TKAELA wrote:

Have anyone tried this? If so, please share it here.  Im curious to know the results.:matte-motes-smile:

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Yes I did and I found improvements in two areas: Solar plexus and butt.

This pose shows both clearly:

In the solar plexus region no ribs are sticking out or at least much less

The butt is nicely rounded and not pointed.

I am using viewer 3 but as someone mentioned it doesn't matter.

The change is easily done by overwriting the files in the character folder.

I followed the instructions in the OP and didn't even make back up or restart:smileysurprised:

[MissNessy]

 

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

Animations are all rendered client-side, I thought.   What we should be hoping for, to my mind, is that LL adopt these improvements as part of the standard viewer.

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In our dreams. These avatars have never been improved upon at all since the beginning? Time for a serious update. It appears that these animation makers don't keep that in mind either, so the sits and such look dreadful. =(