Codewarrior Congrejo

okay. that's at least one hint. But i'm starting to run out of ideas too. Without knowing more of the model itself. One last thing i could think of is : not correctly applied modifiers (like arrays, mirrors and similar) which could either get cramped by the DAE exporter or mybe cause a corrupt DAE file. It could be worth trying to make real/ apply every modifier you have in your stacks before you are doing the export. Also if the walls are not extruded from the floor or ceeling and being independend polygons, could maybe also be a troublemaker if it's different in the other 3 LODs. If you want you can also mail me the exported DAE files. Then i'll have a closer look at what could be the issue. And check them here see what i can change and make a testupload. Sometimes it's hard to say without seeing the model itself. I'll send you the mail address in a PM.

Which DAE exporter are you using ? (respective also wich Maya version) PS: Did you ever try to upload LOD 2 alone, to see how it appears inworlds ? Would be interesting to see if it looks just as offset as when the LOD switches, or appears to look normal when being on its own.

who dared hanging christmas lights on other then christmas trees D: just kiddin' - nice picture =)

Yes sorry since you didn't mention which software you are using i assumed it's blender (which is the correct assumption in 90 of 100 cases here, hehe : )) The matching function in Maya is 'freeze transforms' to apply all of the transforms. I'd give it a shot ( just in case they still contain different values from subediting certain parts) PS: when you're on the testgrid you can also try to upload your model again (unless you tried that already). I had weird LOD issues sometimes which just vanished for the next upload. Sometimes while reading / uploading each part of the whole mesh asset things can go wrong and data gets corrupted.

- are both heads exactly on the same position when you do the copy boneweights ? (they can be on different layers, but they should be at the exact same location, for the copying calculates based on the vertices and their positions, what goes where, so to say) the vertexes aren't all being copied only a few, and some vertexes from the arm and legs some how get moved into the 'current' head vertex group. - First of I think you mean the "weights" didn't get copied : ) (The vertices aren't moved or copied anywhere, just the vertex groups and their containing weight information) and some vertexes from the arm and legs some how get moved into the 'current' head vertex group. - actually it should be 26 bones and thus 26 vertex groups being copied when done correctly. You have to copy the empty groups as well. (either by using the copy bone weights or due to parenting it to the armature with empty weights before doing the copying) One possible way to make it work: - remove all vertex groups the new head has (same for the other of your body parts in case you tried to copy weights to any of them already), also delete the armature modifier for now,should you have tried parenting the new parts already. (we'll do that again after joining them in this example) - make sure each of the body parts is on the exact same location as the default avatar's body parts (0,0,0), - move your new avatar parts to an own Layer (M-key), - join the 3 body parts of your custom avatar (shift select all 3 parts and press CTRL+J) - then remove vertex duplicates, in Editmode : mesh > vertex > remove doubles - make both layers visible (shift-click on both layer dots), and parent the new combined body with 'empty weights' to the armature ( select your combined mesh, then with SHIFT the armature, CTRL+P > with empty weights). - now select your new full body mesh and then the default avi head, and do your copy boneweights (Named bones only and empty groups, check both options) hit okay - do the same again with your fully body selected and then the upper body, copy weights. Same for lower body. - Your combined bodymesh should now have 26 vertex groups. If you go now into posemode with the armature you can check by selecting the certain bones if the weights are apparent and okay. And also try to move them to see if things are behaving correct.

Just a few suggestions: Are all parts one joined mesh (walls and floor) , or separate ? If it is the latter, try joining them and the same for all of the LOD versions. If you want to keep them as separate Objects, make sure all of the parts have their Origin at the same point. Additionally you should try (If not done already) to Apply rotation, location and scale. (CTRL+A) to all parts of the model. As well as to all of the LOD versions. That will make there transforms real. Could be that LOD2 has an offset due to not applied transforms.

couldn't answer anymore yersterday, but i see you got plently of good input on those questions. And thereby even more reasons to look into the matter of making your own physics shapes : )

I am very positive they will implement it as soon as everything is in place, Gaia. =) Thanks for the additional pointers and links It's one of the things that keeps me often jump back and forth between programs, which would be nice when i could do those amongst the poly modeling workflow (and for that one i still prefer blender the most), and wouldn't need to switch at that point already. About the modifier stacks, yeah i can imagine that this is a big part of the trouble to go through.

Heya Luxz, i think (regarding the way how your post reads) that you might confuse here 'Sculpties' with 'mesh' (Edit: and seems Madeline got on that thought too - whilst i was typing as usual a half book ; ) ) Sculpties are the ones where you have this colorfull looking image which defines the positions / height etc of the vertices in a polygonal object. With those you could create an actual 'object' from a map. Mesh is a direct translation from the 3D model ( in the case of SL > DAE / Collada is the fileformat being used) into the engine. There is no such thing as Mesh-Maps from which you create an object. What comes with a 'mesh-kit' (if its not a sculpty kit) is mostly either the UV Layout maps - so the customer knows how to 'texture' this object (what to paint where etc), or some Ambient Occlusion Bakes / Maps for the same reason. I think what you got there might be a Sculpty Shoe Kit. To use the Sculpty Maps what you do is : > Create a simple prim cube > in the Editwindow set it in the second Tab in Primtype to : Sculpted > then you will see on the same tab an Imagefield appearing > that is the one where you then pull in your Sculpty Map to actually 'shape' that prim. However if you'd like to edit the models them self you need to export the maps to your computer, and use any plugin that allows your 3D software to read them out and turn them back into actual geometry. And from there on go ahead with tweaking it. But then you also need to consider to turn this into a Mesh, and do all the things as UV unwrapping, Texturing, creating LODs etc, or if you just want to convert this into a good old sculpty again. PS: It might help to post us the link of that 'mesh' kit you got, to check what it actually includes. Then giving tips might be easier =)

Yeah it's a neat addon, and something blender (opposed to maya / 3DS) is still missing. For certain cases one might want to edit the V-Normals directions instead of relying the general way they are being calculated based on the adjacent edges. Eventho there have been a few things to manipulate them by enabling autosmooth and setting angles, or by marking as sharp, as well as the edge split. But nothing compared to i.e. Maya where you can manipulate them one by one. Problem with that addon is still as i have seen (i had it for older blender versions) that it breaks in rendermode and cycles etc. Which is rather a Blender internal issue, and might need to be fixed first hand, and possibly even the reason why they didn't include an own / or usermade plugin of that kind yet. We'll see what the future brings : )

(just to avoid copy pasting the the whole post here ) Have a look at the link i gave you in the last reply : http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Mesh-Blender-Tutorials/m-p/1962565#M20513 on the page bottom i posted a reply with all sorts of blender intro links and tutorials. Those, and the ones Bahkti gave you should help you getting into that whole materia =)

- I found out that when the whole thing is set flat shaded, the problem is not there This would be normally the biggest pointer towards lighting. Because what the *flat shading* or correctly: Full Bright (neutral lighting) , does is to 'ignore' all lighting in the szene and render the material 'shadeless' (as you may know it from blender ). If the pants after rotating them inworld would still have that issue then its something else, if however the back gets bright and the front dark, then you know it's simply the lighting. And might aswell be a settings issue, or some regular praphics problem (or some of the known problems with SLs lighting / and AO) - I made sure that normals are consistent, did you try a recalculate normals for the whole Object ? Aside from that if the normals would be flipped you would just see through and look at the inside of the pants (due to the backface culling in SL) but if the angles are weird that can lead to dark shades. You could also check the Vertice Normals direction. if they have gotten weird angles along the way. And just as a side question, how many polygons or tris does every of these pants have? They look pretty dense / heavy to be honest. Which migth get you into other troubles as for the rigging and similar. Edit: @ Rahkis - "Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ." =)

The mermaid guide is a bit outdated, but the basic principles she explains there still apply. (in terms of how to paint over the UV maps ) and the general Workflow in gimp- She mostly uses mainfunctions which barely did change in GIMP. (There are rather new ones in addition now to make some things easier, but none of the main functionalities has vanished) In addition to the other tutorial that has been posted as reply, i'll add this website here with lots helpfull tricks on how to create pattern, and folds, wrinkles etc.. http://tutorial-index.com/index.php/site/site_category/tut_gimp/C244/ As well as these: PS. maybe you should also have a visit on the CReation Forum - Texture section of this Forum. It's always a good place to go when you have speciffic questions about a certain step or how to achieve something: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Building-and-Texturing-Forum/bd-p/buildingandtexturing Cheers!

It might be a simple issue coming along with our today maintenance time. I had some weird object and inventory issues as well. In addition you might find the answer of what 'could' be wrong or how to fix it in this here: Letting friends edit your objects There are a couple of ways to allow a friend to edit your objects in Second Life. This is often referred to as collaborative building or collaborative creation. It's a useful way to let groups of people collaborate on a building project together. The method you choose depends on whether your co-collaborator is in a group, whether he or she is your friend, etc. The group method Right-click the object and choose Edit to bring up the object editor. Click on the General tab in the editor. (If you can't see the tabs, click on More.) Click on the Tool icon to the right of Group and assign the object to the group your friend is in. Click OK. Select the checkbox next to Share. Click on the People tab and click MY FRIENDS to open your friends list. Mouse over your friend's name and click to view your friend's profile. In the profile page that appears, click the wrench icon and choose Permissions: Under Allow (friend's name) to, select Edit, delete or take my objects. Important: This gives your friend the same rights that you have to edit all of your objects. A few things to note There are a few things you should be aware of: Your collaborative partners can only edit objects you've rezzed. Nobody but you will ever have access to your inventory, so if you want someone else to edit an object that you own, you need to rez it inworld first. Your collaborative partners can't edit the next-owner permissions on an object they've been granted access to. It isn't technically possible to link two prims together if they have different owners, even if the owners have given each other edit permissions. Your collaborative partners cannot edit your objects if they have Select Only My Objects enabled in their Tools menu. iif it still continous and also a cleaning of the cache (me > preferences > advanced) doesn't help. He should submit a support ticket : https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/ As the error must come from his side, with the account not storing or accepting this edit permission setting for you.

.. throwing hands up? never ! : ) Methods to do that: 1 - take the chance and join your house or big parts of it into one mesh and make the physics shape for this bigger part. 2 make a separate object. Which is i.e. Just simple 6 face box of the size of your house (which you will texture transparent) and apply to this one a physics shape that contains all the walls, floors etc. (Edit - as drongle said: But in this case be aware its a separate object so could be scaled indepently.) But generally best is to join as many parts as possible into one mesh (depending on the limitations of 8 faces / material / texture faces each model can have) that is mostly the 'breakpoint' where i decide to start a new separate mesh. And taking into account that you can have several walls and objects on just one texture / face, you can reach pretty far by having 8 texture faces available. It's all a matter of good planning and playing around with it =) You can easily make bigger parts as one object. (not every wall or floor etc needs to be a separate mesh), and then create your collision shape for this combined object (the walls it has and the floors that are in this certain part) Lets say you can make 1 quarter of your house as one joined object, then you can implement the physics forthis quarter into this part of the model. (instead of having a primcube for each containing wall, floor and so on) and you repeat this for the other 3 quarters of your house.

@ drongle: I noticed that too and not only in Secondlife. So I took this chance to dig a bit on the web, what I found is: "...The one item I'll mention in regard to rigid bodies is that they are sensitive to triangle normals... " A quote from an answer regarding havok and terrains. (http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/287347) I am not 100 percent sure how that implies, or in which ways this inflicts it but it might be the cause. And I think as in some other engines it might just use the surface normal as calculation for the collision normal and the directions the forces take effect (bouncing-off angles etc) And since the normal travels into one direction, this might lead to fluctuations / misinterpreting, or the forces being stronger towards this direction. I might be wrong - but that's how I assume it. Here is another good info PDF regarding physics calculation and normal / surface normal directions: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/soar/Classes/494/talks/Lecture%205%20Basic%20Physics.pdf (not in regards to havoc but has a lot interesting content)

It might also be because your account has just been made. And there are limitations within the first 24 hours and then again in the first 30 days of what you can 'use' and transfere. (this is to avoid money laundry in SL) Your current Limits you can see here (when being logged in) : https://secondlife.com/my/lindex/describe-limits.php If you are still not sure about it, contact the billing support team as rolig suggested. But chances are, you just have to be a bit patient and wait for the limits to pass

Also do I understand Drongle to be saying something different when he says cubes are good for collision? I get confused because it seems like there is some difference of opinion in some threads He basically said what i mentioned in one of my former answers too, that it can be good at times to use primboxes, to lower the impact. But as he mentions too, it can sometimes also totally flip into the opposite direction and trhe costs increase. The upside when using them is that for the Havok Physics engine (which i mentioned earlier) a cube is the basic primitive and has a fix weight of 0.1. Whilst other shapes are calculated differently. Another downside is that you have to use with prims a new prim-box for each part you want to make 'physical' and collideable. Since only the transparent 'root' primbox is considered as the physical shape. So if you have a fence that bends around the corners you'd need a new boy for each side, whilst you could easily do that with just a few planes as included physics shape. Of course you could 'cut' the cube and hollow it but that makes its shape more complex and as far as i know it breaks the fix calculation of 0.1 weight. Thus a complete physics shape for a model when being included, could be less 'heavy' as having i.e. 40 prim-cubes all over the place. And as he also said, and it's the same for me: it's more conclusive to have it in one object: - to avoid certain issues (like the scaling he described, and the unexpected increase in impact in certain cases) - In all cases where you can't just use a prim (like wearables), or where an included physic shape gives you advantages a linked one can't serve. - In cases where the structure is more complex and a simple cube wouldn't be a good solution to represent it's physical shape. (like the walls of a house where you'd need a lot separate cubes to define all the doors and walls etc) - to be able to have the 'whole' correct physics shape of i.e. a house with its walls, floors, ceelings etc already all in 'one' object. - you have more control over the whole model and its impact by using selfmade physic shapes. And trying to find the best and lowest for your certain model. As conclusion: always try both ways (prim-cube and also own physics shape) and find whats suits best and gives the best results in terms of LI as well as usability (like for a whole model where a single cube won't be enough etc)

Now could I upload physics shapes made of planes separately from the mesh walls and just stick them inside the walls? The physic shape would be uploaded 'along' with the model. Just as you do it in the first tab of the uploader where you can choose LOD models to upload from file. You have on the second Tab the physics and can also here choose to upload from file and include this into your object. But of course you 'could' upload it as separate Model - But it wouldn't make sense. Because when you upload it alone - then it also would have no physics shape and just be like your fence, just a non-physical model, and you would need to make a 'physics shape > for your physics shape' in order to achieve this, clearly makes no sense What is the advantage of uploading them along with the walls as physics shapes? That's one of the advantages everything is defines within 'one model / one object', no need for separate prims or additional prims anymore. Means less impact and rendercost and download cost (as its one object) (Unless you make a way too heavy / dense physic shape of course ) And do physics shapes have the same requirements as LODs, regarding materials and bounding box? No a physic shape will stay "invisibe" to the renderer. Think of it like an invisible reference that defines where the 'psysical' borders of your object are and the engine knows 'when' something should collide or when being able to 'stand' on something and so on, as soon as something else touches this physical shape. Thus it needs no materials or anything of that kind. Regarding the bounding box. The object will mostly have a similar bounding box size to your model, because you create its simplified shape around / close to your models borders / skin. And you want to think of it as 'very simple' reference of your model's physical shape. Make it as low on polygons and faces as possible. For your fence i.e. a simple 1-face-polygon (quad) would be enough to cover the front of it, the beck of it, and a small long one to cover the top (so one can stand on it , that would make all together 3 polygon quads = 6 Tris. (PS: the side to which the 'normal' points will be the side the engine considers to be 'collideable') To show what i mean: if the left would be your fence; the object with just 3 polygon planes (as one object) on the right side, would be enough to represent your fence. (unless it wouldn't be covered by the pillars on the sides then you'd prolly would want to close it there too, so that people couldn't walk through it from the side) And since mostly noone will walk into your fence from below we also don't need any faces there. Hope that made it again a tiny bit more understandable : )

Heya hidden, that's a lot of questions and shows you are obviously also completely new to modeling itself To cover all your questions in one answer would prolly be too much. So let me get into a few of them: Where can I learn to make a full body mesh that will fit a persons body? There are many threads on this forum. And on youtube are also video tutorials about rigging, weighting and working with the secondlife skeleton. To create a Mesh avatar there is much more needed then just the modeling of the body itself. You also need to weight it / and rigg it to the SL armature so it will move along with the ingame avatar. So maybe its best you start with learning how to model, then going into the subject of how weighting and rigging is done. (I'll post some links at the end) So I have an idea (if the above is true or to some degree) to make an object that fits to the person body (but slightly larger) It does not need to be larger, we have Alpha layers to render the underlying avatar transparent, thus you can create a mesh avatar of any shape, i.e. like this: It can be smaller, bigger, and you can even size the whole armature down and create real minis or giants. In addition to that fact and with the use of the Alpha layers there are no limits to 'what' bodyshape a selfmade avatar can have. (aslong as it of course fits to the skeleton and can be weighted towards this armature etc) The next question is: Once created how do I texture the body object I have just created? This is a completely different subject again. The texturing of everything when it comes to 3D models is done by creating so called UV maps, unwrapping the object to a 2D space and then assigning materials and textures to it, possibly even bake certain maps as Ambient occlusion, lights and material bakes in addtion to simply painting the textures based on the UV maps you have created. So you might want to add UV mapping / unwrapping, and texturing also to your 'learning' list =) If you go on this page : http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Mesh-Blender-Tutorials/m-p/1962565#M20513 I have posted there a full list of all helpfull Blender tutorials and tutorial ressources to start from. ( those links are valid should you decide to use Blender as 3D program to create your Mesh models) Once you got a bit familar with modeling itself and understand certain principles and terms and want to start on a certain project it's best to return to here with screenshots of the project and direct questions about a certain problem or a question that popped up

Just now I uploaded it by itself, same upload settings, it was 4 LI. yeah unfortunately with the presettings for LODs and other things the results can jump up and down. Sometimes i have that too with the exact same model, and in some cases even with my own LODs. I don't get physics shapes. I have never understood the point of them. I just make everything "none" and put invisible cubes in the walls. The Point of them if for example for Meshavatars having a correct Physic shape (think if i make a big monster and would just use the physics shape of the default avatar, then people could walk through half of my body, because there would be no colision) Another point is that a selfmade Physicsshape can be very very simple and contain very little geometry, and makes the object way 'lighter' so to say in its impact. (plus : less prims to have landimpact) For primboxes each box has 6 sides, and as you maybe already heard the default primitives have a quite heavy geometry (lots faces) because they need to be able to be cut/sliced etc. So when you use a primbox it's not wrong, but it adds up in landimpact as of the amount of prims, and also in rendercosts etc. i.e. for your left fence you could just have a 3 faces / polygons mesh (the front, back, and the top) to build its physic shape. If you use a full primbox to cover it it has unneded sides and the bottom and also way more faces. Makes sense? Additionally they are usefull for moving objects to fit the exact shape, same es for scripted events with collision (think of weapons and bullets being able to 'hit' a target at a shape that represents its actual physic shape or at least very close to it) and many more reasons. Sometimes its a good trick to use a primbox as linked physic shape when the actual object would have a very complex shape and if you don't want to make a complex physics shape to cover it, and to drop landimpact a bit that way. I hope that made it a bit more 'understandable' =) PS: Secondlife uses the HAVOK physics engine. If it interests you how that works here is an overview to havok and collision shapes: http://graphics.ethz.ch/Downloads/Seminar_Arbeiten/2002_03/Havok_Overview.pdf

in addition as you said you didn't make LODs for them, and as i assume you have chosen from the available settings in the uploader the outcome in LI can quite vary, depending on how SL calculates your object and its settings for LOD. (Same with physics)

About your second question there can be differences between Objects that are: a) in separate mesh items and in a Linkset b) a joined / combined mesh c) also when a mesh object is linked to prims This can lead to differences in the 'download' cost, etc. (which is also part of the calculated LI) (separate objects or one single object behave differently in some of the values) The LI does not only depend on the size of your object or its bounding box size / scale. It also depends on the amount of faces and how low the LOD levels go (the more decreasing they are, from high to low, the better) Then there is also the physics shape. If you took one of the high settings from the algorythms secondlife offers or if you actually build a very lowpoly physics shape yourself can also make quite a difference.

If you have already tried everything including clearing your viewers cache (which does not automatically dissapear with reinstalling) You might want to try a clean install and along this the manual removing of the cache files. See a full discription here: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/doku.php?id=fs_clean_reinstall But since you said this problem appears across several computers and viewers, the possibly best is to write a support ticket: https://support.secondlife.com/create-case/

like the DOF effect in the back, and the rest is also nicely done : )