Coby Foden

When I cammed inside Mayalily's house I saw something delicious... I just had to go inside and have a taste. :smileyhappy: Yummy! After eating I had to relax a bit before going on my way... Thank you very much Mayalily. I really enjoyed your hospitality. I tried not to mess up anything so that everything will be as you left them. Thanks again. :smileywink:

In Blender 2.59 there is a command "Solidify" which can be used to create thickness to the object. One selects "Solidify", gives thickness and then it's ready. It nicely connects the inner and outer surfaces automatically with additional surfaces as well. Then one just needs to check that all surface normals point to proper direction. Fast and easy.

Sae Luan wrote: Seems that is one thing there is a lot of when you first start out, tweaking. As soon as I get this positioned right, I'm saving the avatar mesh with the skeleton in the correct placement so I don't have to keep wasting money on upload fees. Ah, brings me back to the days of learning to sculpt LOL. When I export rigged mesh to collada file, I select only the rigged item (a skirt for example), and not the skeleton. I use Blender, I select the skirt, and then I click "Export only selected". It works great every time. There is no need to upload the skeleton if you have used the default avatar skeleton for rigging.

Itsmyseventeenth Lastchance wrote: I just tested some & a few of the sites are totally gone but http://sl.nmc.org/create.php still works, just got me a new 2 name noob lol Me too - but we'll probably get kicked out for being at NMC under false pretences?! *chortles* Bring Back Last Names LL !!!! You can vote here in the JIRA: Bring Back Last Name Options! 1631 votes so far. :smileyhappy:

For comparison, the specs of my PC: CPU: Intel® Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz (3411.17 MHz) Memory: 8169 MB OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601) Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 560 Ti/PCI/SSE2 Second Life works like a dream with this setup. High frame rates, hardly ever crash with any viewer. I'm very satisfied with it. As the Asus laptop is very close the same as my PC, I would say that it would give very good SL experience.

What happens is this: The shoes are attached to feet. They are stiff. Avatar ankle is not stiff, it bends with animation. The result is shown in the picture. Therefore the shoes often have ankle lock script which prevents the avatar ankle to bend. Sometimes it might happen that the sript does not work and the ankle is free to bend. One solution to make these shoes to work always without the script is to attach them to lower leg. Then the shoe does not move with the ankle, but with the lower leg instead. As the foot is hidden by alpha layer, one does not see the avatar foot and its movement, only the sculpted shoe foot. So everything looks perfect. If the shoe was made with rigged mesh and it was attached to foot, then the shoe would bend with with avatar ankle. Just like a real shoe would do. No ankle lock script would be needed.

Rigged mesh clothes can be worn at any place. Hand, chest, pelvis, stomach, ear.. where ever. The nice thing is that regardless where it is attached on avatar in SL, it will snap exactly where you put it in your 3D program. Because rigged mesh clothes are rigged to the avatar bones it "knows" where it should be. So it overrides the SL attachment point. You can wear rigged boot on your nose, and yet the shoe stays in the foot. The default location is right hand where rigged mesh will attach in SL. (Note: this applies only to rigged items. Non rigged items behave like prims and sculpties do.) Of course in SL it is reasonable to attach it to some other point, else the hand is soon full of things... :matte-motes-agape: And there is a limitation how many things can be worn on one attach point. In SL just use "Attach to..." and select suitable location when wearing the rigged item. As said, where ever you attach rigged mesh it does not move anywhere, the rigging takes care that it stays in correct place. From then on it will always attach there. Some designers forget to do this and then the customers reach the limit how many items can be worn in one place (in this case the hand) and are mystified what is going on.

Many have been very nice looking from the very beginning. :smileyhappy: It was totally different thing over four years ago when I first logged in. On the left one of my very first newbie looks, what I still have in my inventory (for laughs...). :smileysurprised: :smileysad: :smileytongue: The one what I had on at my first login was yet even worse than the one in the picture. This one was already tweaked a bit in apperance sliders. :matte-motes-big-grin-wink: On the right is my present one. Over the years the hot SL sun seems to have done some work on the skin. :smileyvery-happy:

The hardest thing for me was to find out why almost everybody else looked nice, stood nice, walked nice. I was really scratching my head about it. Why I'm so darn UGLY, what can I do about it? I was thinking that those beautiful ones had some special secret skills what I needed to learn too. :smileytongue: At that time the newbie avies were really horrendous looking. :smileysad:

Cara Ametza wrote: 2. Lack of viewer support. For whatever reason, LL felt the need to shove mesh out, knowing full well that the majority of the grid couldn't see/use/interact with it. That's great, but it also creates a ton of users walking around thinking they look awesome in the latest fashions who look like total dorks with huge spheres around them because they will have to pry phoenix out of my pixel hands. Based on the massive number of people I've seen using phoenix still, seems I'm not alone in this. Lots of people were excited about mesh. They were waiting and waiting when Linden Lab will finally enable mesh in the main grid. Yes, Linden Lab was aware that lots of people were using outdated viewers. Maybe they were also waiting for people to upgrade before releasing mesh? Well, as we know now, lots of people didn't upgrade as they really saw no reason to upgrade. Finally Linden Lab decided that it's the time to release the mesh. Else everybody is just waiting and waiting even more for the other party to act. It was the right move. Mesh is still a baby with it's problems. Surely it will evolve, this is just the first stage. As for viewer support: Linden Lab is committed to V2/V3 viewer. I guess it's in vain to hope that they will go back to V1. Firestorm is an excellent alternative to Linden Lab viewer. It just takes some time to get used to it. It's an initial shock I agree. After using Firestorm since it was first released I feel very comfortable with it. It's like a second nature now, just as Phoenix was earlier. I can do just about everything with it in what I did with Phoenix. Firestorm is not any more difficult to use than Phoenix is. It's just different, takes some time to learn it. (But if one hates it, then one for sure is not even interested to learn it... :matte-motes-evil-invert: ) For those who would not touch V2/V3 or Firestorm even with a long stick, there are some (temporary) good news. Phoenix will have mesh support after all soon. The next release of Phoenix will have two versions: No mesh supported one and mesh supported one. Very old computer users, don't keep your fingers crossed though. It might be that your computer may not be able to run mesh enabled Phoenix. It has more code due to mesh, it needs more resources from the computer. Nothing can be about this fact, it just is so. Look here for the full story: What's this rumor about Phoenix Viewer getting mesh? If somebody still wants to see mesh wearers as "total dorks" it's their choice naturally, it does not bother me at all, I think it bothers more the user who does not see mesh properly. :smileywink:

It's a bit difficult to say what is the minimum requirement. However, one can say the faster the better the experience will be. Avoid any laptop what has integrated Intel video chip, they really are not up to the task for 3D evironments. Upgrading video card helps, again the faster the better. It should have SSE2 support too. More RAM will help too. My advice is: get the fastest laptop what you can possibly afford. Just a bare minimum is not good. It just leads to that you need to upgrade it very soon again. Get "a bit too fast" one if you can afford it. Then you will be happy with it for many years to come. Here are my specs (this is actually a PC): CPU: Intel® Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz (3411.15 MHz) Memory: 8169 MB OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601) Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 560 Ti/PCI/SSE2 With this setup Second Life is really good experience, high frame rates with very high graphics settings. One more advantage of fast computer is that any viewers what I happen to use, crash very seldom. Crashes are almost non existent. When I used my old computer, which is a lot slower one, the crashes were very frequent. My experience suggests that a lot of the crashes what people are having is not the viewer's fault, but the fault of too slow computer, not quite up to the task. When the program uses almost all the resources what the computer has, and even wants still more, crashes will happen often. (I know that a lot of people have old computers what they use to run SL viewers. I know too that many are in a position that they just cannot afford to upgrade yet. It's a pity of course, but nothing can be done so that graphics intensive 3D programs would run perfectly in slow computers. They are resource hogs, and thus need powerful engine to run well.)

SL uses meters, make sure your software uses meters too. I use Blender 2.59 and I put the units to meters there. I have exported my avatar shape from SL and use it in Blender. When I design some clothes for that shape and import to SL the scale is exactly right without any adjusments to the scale.

zaxor wrote: ... I see a problem in that; Most sims I have frequented or built on do not have a building code that works along side the idea of avatars being properly heighted an what-not for the Sim's given settings... Many builders make their designs 1.25 times larger than in RL. Some make their designs even 1.5 larger than in RL. Why is that? One explanation what I have heard is "To compensate for the fact that avatars a so tall". :matte-motes-agape: Then many people make themselves very tall "to compensate because the builds in SL are very big". :smileytongue: If everybody just accepted the fact that one meter is one meter, and if the default camera height in the viewer was put in realistic height (not to a tree top as it is now) everything would be all right. SL uses meters, we should make avatars and builds realistically sized against this meter. Some argue that SL meter is not the same as RL meter. That argument is totally pointless. It has nothing to do with SL scaling problem. I have a quite realistic height avatar and I have lowered my camera height and everything works excellently. Luckily there are places in SL where the builds are made to realistic scale. :smileyhappy: PS. Some light in the matter is SL meter the same as RL meter (for the unbelievers): Let's say I design some mesh object in Blender. I use meters as Blender unit. I make the thing 1 Blender meter high. I import that object into SL. I check its heigth. I can see that it is 1 SL meter high. Ok, then I want RL model from that object. There are 3D printers which can do the job. I feed the object file in the printer. After it has done its job I have the object in RL. I measure it very carefully. The height of the object is exactly 1 RL meter. So we see that one meter actually is one meter everywhere. Even when importing to SL the object has not magically grown on it's own.

ShyBirdShy wrote: so that's all it is, is a face light??? Thank goodness. Oh no! To walk around face light shining on ones avatar is like yelling: "Hey, look at me!". :smileytongue: One will look exactly the same day or night no change at all. It totally kills the environmental lighting variation. Lighting varies in RL, so it does in SL. In RL we don't walk around a light source shining at our face. Why should we do so in SL? Variation is natural, to look like a perfect cartoon picture at all times is not. :smileywink: One can turn off the rendering wearable lights in the viewer. So, if you wear a facelight you could see its effect yourself. But those who have turned wearable lights off in their viewers will not see the effect of your face light at all. So facelights are a kind of self deception after all. :smileyindifferent: The saying: "What you see, is not necessarily the same what I see" is very true in Second Life.

I'm not at all brand loyal per se. What draws my attention is quality and out of the ordinary looks. If I find those I will often visit the place again, but that's not because of the brand. As a side note: What I find really surprising in SL is that people mostly wear very ordinary and similar clothes. I really would like to see a lot more variety on what avatars wear.

The least Linden Lab could do is to add a warning in the account creation page. Something like: "Please pay attention in trying to select a nice User Name. It will be your real identity forever. You can create Display Name when you have logged in. But many people have opted so that they will see only your User Name and you cannot do anything about it. :matte-motes-agape: We know that we fouled up when we disabled the creation of last names in User Names :matte-motes-confused: All good single word User Names most likely are taken now. But anyway, try to invent a good User Name, even if it takes one hour. Second Life will wait for you, it's not going to run away..." "Oh, one more thing, if you would like to have last names back, you can go and vote for it here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7125 Maybe we will look into it someday... :matte-motes-yawn:. We hope that you enjoy your Second Life. Welcome!" :smileywink:

As of now, rigged mesh adjusts only with the avatar bones. So the apperance sliders which affect the bones, will affect the imported rigged mesh too. However the sliders which affect avatar morphs have no effect at all to the imported rigged mesh. Therefore all the tutorials tell to remove the shape morph groups as they indeed have no effect at all on the imported mesh.

Monti Messmer wrote:And as a sidenote, rigging a mesh skirt is a biiiig pain in the ..... :smileysurprised: or maybe i just want it toooo perfect. Last but not least, no way i´m going to adjust my shape (that counts for hide parts too) to fit into clothes. Can´t wait for Lindens to allow rigged meshes to be resized!!! Monti Hi. If you know to do your own mesh clothes then just export your exact avatar shape from SL. Then import it to your 3D program and make exact fitting clothes for your shape. For miniskirts this is great because alpha layer is not so good for miniskirt (we do not want to show a void there, possible peepers will get shocked... :smileysurprised:). When making exact fitting clothes to your own shape, and when it's rigged well, there is no need for alpha layer, just normal underwear works great. At least Phoenix viewer has the possibility to export your own shape just the way how it looks in SL. If I remember correctly, the SL shape must be created by you to be able to export it, so it might not work with bought shapes. I made a miniskirt to my exact SL shape and it works excellently with panties. Great! :smileyhappy:

Hi Mayalily, glad to hear that you liked the simple miniskirt. Mesh suits best for tight garments, tight miniskirt is one example. Long pants, shorts, tops, jackets, shoes, boots, bikinis, etc. For the fluffy flowing gowns, skirts. etc mesh is not suitable, flexi prims work best for those. In all, mesh has many uses in clothing. The top I was wearing on the photo is not mesh, it's just ordinary textured top. However it would be perfectly possible to make that kind top in mesh and texture it just like the one in the picture. In fact the mesh top would be more realistic one when well made. It is possible to export ones own avatar mesh, the exact shape what you have in SL. Then one can import that shape to design program (Blender for example) and then make exactly fitting mesh clothes for that avatar shape. That's how I made the skirt, fitting exactly to my own shape. The great advantage is that I can wear normal panties under the skirt, no alpha is needed under it to hide any body parts. One can export ones own avatar shape with Phoenix viewer. So if you want something custom made and have some photos of the thing what you want, a skilled designer can make it in mesh for you. (I cannot do it yet as I'm a newbie in learning Blender... :smileywink:) About seams: Yes indeed, seems can be made to mesh clothes. One can make textured seams. One can even create the seams by actually modeling them in the mesh. Create a zipper in mesh and texture it realistically. It can be done. Mesh can be simple, it can be very detailed too. The texturing can be simple, and it can be very detailed. It's just up to the designer. Mesh itself has no limitation for detail.

1. In the beginning there was a prim. A prim is mesh all right. But it is a special kind of mesh with many limitations. You can tweak prim only to certain shapes. The viewer has a code by which it can translate how to render the prim mesh on the screen. 2. Then there was a sculpted prim. It is also a special kind of limited mesh. (Well, it is a bit more complicated, but in SL it looks like a mesh...) It can be tweaked more freely than prim to make nice shapes. The original code which knew how to render prim on the screen had no information how to render this new kind of mesh on the screen. So additional code was added to the viewer so that it could render also this new type of mesh. 3. Finally there was this thing called "mesh". One could call this a "free form" mesh as it hasn't got those limitations what prims and sculpted prims have. One can create any shape what the 3D program is capable of doing and then import it to SL. And naturally enough the viewer code which knows how to render the prim mesh and sculpted prim mesh on the screen had no information how to render this "free form" mesh on the screen. So new code was added again to the viewer which informs it how to render this new mesh. That's about how it goes, me thinks...

Mayalily wrote: No, I think the new mesh clothing is horrid. It looks like someone rumpled a piece of tissue paper to give it a rumpled fabric effect and stuck a bow on it as belt and some sleeves, and then tinted it a color. The construction of what is available free, I wouldn't even want for free. Mesh, sculpties, prims: all can be horrid. All of them can be very beautiful too. It's just what designer is capable and willing to do. Mesh itself as just does not set any limitations how detailed and good looking it can be. In fact it gives more possibilities for the designer. Texturing one's design is a real art. It takes a long time to master it well. Painting mesh with a single color is not art, it's just a quick hack. There are already great looking mesh items and clothes in the grid. Some are even free. Maybe you have not seen them; only the not so well made ones perhaps? I made a simple rigged miniskirt in Blender. I'm just learning Blender but the miniskirt was fairly easy to make anyway. To my eyes this looks a lot better and realistic miniskirt than those horrid miniskirts where one has to wear the terrible prim or sculpty between ones legs. What do you think?

Alpha sorting glitch is opengl thing. Thus there is nothing a viewer can do about it. It should be corrected in the opengl itself, if at all possible. As this thing has been in opengl for ages I wouldn't keep my hopes high. The best thing to do is avoid any alphas in meshes. Why do you need alphas there anyway? Can't you just model the thing what you're doing?

Siss Criss wrote: About mesh.. the potential is fantastic but I put my voice behind the peeps who's raised the shape issue. My gender puts the vast majority of mesh clothing un-wearable for me and I simply refuse to morph. Linden Lab are well avare of the present problem with rigged clothes and they are looking into it. There is JIRA about this matter here: Request for Rigged Mesh Parametric Deformer So, we do have hopes to get better mesh deformer for clothing. There is a great potential for mesh clothing market when rigged mesh conforms to all shape changes. I'm sure that Linden Lab will not ignore such potential and will do something about it. :matte-motes-smile:

Happened to see this in the Marketplace: "Your SLAVTracker queries the Second Life grid, recording the login status of avatars in your SLAVTracker avatar list. This list is administared by you from a website and can include ANY second life avatar, even avatars that are not on your friends list or appear hidden. The login information is stored in our database allowing you view the dates, times and duration of an avatars presence in Second Life." https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/SLAVTracker-The-simple-web-enabled-avatar-monitoring-system/1881885?ple=h What do you think, is this against TOS?

Charlar Linden wrote: if only to show that I don't do only mesh enablement workaround forum posts, I'll reply to this with some details: We show mesh objects as a Prim placeholder for non-mesh enabled viewers. The type of prim is based on the number of textures used, because we need faces to hold each texture. We had a fancy solution, but in the end actual features and bug fixes trumped them in priority. Not showing them at all is problematic for a reasons including naked avatars and invisible collision. I am planning to make a rigged mesh bikini. I suppose that I may wear it even on General region beaches? How about if somebody complains that they see me covered with couple of strange looking prims attached to wrong places leaving my "naughty bits" :matte-motes-agape: in plain view? Can I just say "it's your own fault, it's about time to upgrade your ancient viewer too" and go on happily with my own business? Or do I have to dress so that the poor person can look at me without getting overly shocked and embarrassed? How about disabling all non-mesh compliant viewers from the grid? Yeah I know, there would be a war again if this was done... I'm afraid even to mention it here... :matte-motes-dont-cry: