Bongo Steampunk

OK, i'm in - instructions worked great, thanks guys!

Hi Folks, Just wondering, if it is still possble to get onto the aditi test grid for mesh testing? I'm spending way too many L$ just uploading things whilst trying to solve issues. I have no idea how to find it anymore, it's been too long! Thanks, Bongo

Hi Folks, Just wondering, if it is still possble to get onto the aditi test grid for mesh testing? I have no idea how to find it anymore, it's been too long! Thanks, Bongo

Hi folks Just wondering about the use of the new bones in the face. One thing which has been putting me off making mesh heads for ladies and gents is the lack of jaw/mouth functionality. I'm not an expert - but i believe when the new mesh heads blink or pout, it's all a flickbook style of thing, requiring extra meshes to flick between. The standard avi has the ability to move it's mouth, driven by mic/audio as we all know. Whilst not being brilliant i like it - made interesting machinima with being able to lip synch to whatever soundtrack, just feed in some ineteresting banter via audio - the mic / mouth picks up on it - and hey presto - your avatar can be captured lip syching to whomever one chooses. - there must therefore be a way for anyone to make thier mesh head do the same - and be driven by audio inputs like this. Scenario: One makes a head - and makes sure the relevant parts of it are rigged to the right mouth / jaw bones and when uploaded, it talks and moves mouth with the audio driving it just as the old heads did. This would bring new life to botox ridden faces of stony stillness! Now I'm not sure as to how the SL avatar moves it's mouth to the mic - is it just shapekeys or another deformation sequence, with so many assigned to move when voice is enabled? Can it be possible to make it so that a new mesh head can be rigged to respond to mic like this with the new bones? Or is it just that they can be given preset animations only ? [smile, 3 seconds - blank 3 seconds - scowl etc.] I dream of making mesh heads because I can make them, but I don't script and have no idea about many things pertaining to the mechanics of SL. I can get the eye holes lined up with my mesh heads - so that the old SL eyes are still visible and move, but being able to drive expression and/or jaw movement through mic would be truly amazing I think. any links to help this one better understand facial animation with SL and blender would be hugely appreciated. Bongo.

I have an issue also - processed credit 1st Nov 2015 .. still waiting.. not a large amount. Frustrating.

same here ... processed on 1st Nov 2015 .. still waiting

Thanks for the reply Hmm .. I can imagine that if I sort my head into polygroups which are as close as i can get to the SL seams and unwrap the head, I can then move the flat UV parts around manually until they fit over the SL uv's. I wonder if the vertices have to line up at all - because I work in quads and my mesh is more dense than the SL standard. This means many vertices would not be lined up to the standard uv layout... Thanks again - I'll play around with your suggestions

Hi folks :) To give you an idea of where i'm at - i've been toying with various aspects of creating things in SL for a long time, albeit only in fits and starts as hobbyist. i usually use Zbrush, Blender, Topogun, Photoshop and have stuggled up to the point where i can comfortably create and rig a textured mesh attachment or item of clothing. Have learned slowly and in small steps, and my brain isn't super heh. i have created my own male mesh head from sctratch to play around with - the idea being that i can learn the art of mesh headmaking, do some nice variants/ethnicities and have fun learning. Going to subdivide up from here, add details - bake out maps and bring it into SL. head basemesh is about 2k .. which is arguably high i know. My first ever retopology, used Topogun. i have lined up the eyeholes to match position of standard SL avis eyeholes - the head is roughly same size as standard avi and located in same part of virtual space. This means my moving [inworld] eyes should be in the right place, so at least they move visibly behind my new mesh mask if i don't alpha them out. Questions!! Is it possible to rig the eyelids somehow with the standard SL avi so that it can blink like standard avi does ? [have seen other mesh heads which blink - is it just animation, like random flickbook?] I have heard about people making bodies and heads, but somehow using the same UV maps as standard avi so popular skins can fit. My next question is how can the SL uv's ever be made to suit a totally original different mesh? is it that simply that head/body makers always use the standard avi head / body mesh and rework the mesh yet maintain the uvs? Much Puzzlement. Any help on these questions would be brilliant. [grinz] Bongo.

Hmm, I followed the instructions here : http://blog.machinimatrix.org/bone-weight-copy-in-blender-2-52-6/ it seems that the problem I'm having is that all my options are greyed out in addons. Anyone know how to fix this ? A friend checked and could select/deselect all options for addons in there !

Hi folks, I'm a bit frustrated, I can no longer see the options to copy wieghts since uploading 2.74. I do the usual, bring in model, add materials to groups, join it up, smooth it and parent it to SL skeleton [with empty groups] I have always worked this way, normally when I have it parented to the skeleton, I just need to select it, and then with SHIFT bring in say the small avi to copy weights from. I select my boot - then the Avi with Shift right click - but there's no iterpolation options - and no way to copy the weights. I recall perhaps having to upload an addon script - maybe thats my problem, I did find one called space_view3d_copy_bone_weights_enhanced Problem is, I cannot seem to upload it into the preferences/addons without it overwriting everything. Also, all the addons apart from just a few are deselected and cannot be selected.. greyed out. Does anyone know how to help ? Bongo.

Hello Folks :) After struggling to amass decent non-copywright fabric images for the making of mesh clothing from the web, have decided it might be best to start paying for them. I cannot find a decent rescource however, I find that many are misleading or substandard/too pricey etc. Does anyone know of any professional standard payed fabric rescources which would be suitable yet not cost the earth [like shutterstock] ? Even considered getting my camera and making a tent to do my own, but getting real fabric and doing all that work is another hobby altogether. Would be massively appreciative if anyone has any links to share. I'd rather put my hand in my pocket than run a wild goose chase in the hope of some free gem somewhere, takes hours and hours. Cheers, Bongo.

Thankyou kindly once more for your reply - Since I have watched all I can find on the matter so far, I did infact use a method previously which did not require an alpha channel but just transparency on layers in image layer stack - it works, but it's not really an alpha channel proper. Having followed your links and watched some other bits and bobs, I'm feeling a great deal better about it all so thanks again Bongo.

Thanks for the swift and most excellent response. I didn't realise that black would create invisible in sl in this way, always thought it had to be actually transparent for it to work. Also now very tickled with the idea of trying various shades fo grey to vary texture transparency. I use PS 3 [i know, but i never needed better yet] - should maybe grab gimp also. Been doing PNG's as JPGs save out as white where transparent should be. I'm gathering from what you say that in whichever image editing program, one must draw black areas over the relevant SL avatar UV space in order to make invisible parts, grey [eg, 0.5] would show a semi transparent area of the texture on the model and white would reveal it completely. One thing is confusing me though, when the texture is uploaded into SL as you say - where does one locate the alpha blending/alpha masking options you mention ? Please forgive this nooby question, but the more i squeeze in new knowledge about making mesh stuff, the more i forget how to navigate SL ! Once again, thankyou i look forward to experimenting ! Bongo.

Hey folks :) I'm toying with the idea of making some hair - All the slulpting/rigging and weighting bit's I can think through fine.. It's just the effect of see through bits i notice when i scrutinise the classier products on the market. i'm imagining it must be one of two things or a bit of both. It might be that the bangs [or major forms of hair] have slightly larger replica's which envelope the smaller bang of the same shape, but with the normals reversed on the larger so that the effect is of seeing through it, but seeing glimpses of it from certain angles. The smaller bang being always visible. This gives that liveliness to the hair perhaps. Or is it some sort of alpha cleverness i wonder...? i see sections of hair whick look clear, but the painted lines of the hair texture are still about 50% or so transparent on those forms - thus creating the effect of liveliness to the hair .. I understand how to do the first, but not so much the second, alpha method - i know how to make alphas for SL avatar at basic level, but cannot translate that to clear bangs of mesh hair with 50% transparency with regards to texture/opacity. I hope someone can understand my meaning and perhaps point me in right direction before i begin experimenting with mesh hair :)) Bongo.

Thanks for the info guys. Yes I have a collection of images of my work, which as you kind ones are suggesting I am about to put together on flickr - something ive not used yet. Also this weekend going to get myself established with an MarketPlace [hope its not a big headache] and begin to get myself in a position to be able to fire links about which will clearly demonstrate my style/quality. Thanks for the seraphim links and so on - i'll check that out, by shows i mean events really, gacha events or anything similar where merchants get a place to sell to an audience. All of the info you guys have provided is greatly appreciated Bongo.

Hello Folks. Just putting feelers out, been teaching myself how to create mesh assets for about 2 years - Got to the point of being able to produce rigged mesh clothing with a quality feel and now would like to get to know some fashion bloggers and hopefully make connections with fashion show/events organisers. I will supply blogger packs to any bloggers who contact me, each time i create a new item i'll send out promo packs. If anyone can help me with regards to contacts about fashion shows/events I'd be delighted Bongo.

Thanks for that, and swift! ... I'm completely flexible on creation of things and styles, wouldn't want to be thought of as being mainly steampunk but I certainly appreciate your feedback... [smiles] Bongo.

Hello Folks. Thought it might be an idea to put some feelers out, been creating mesh items / clothing for some years as a hobby, which has grown steadily over time. It's been a long learning process and i've only a small selection of new work in my portfolio to show, but i'm confident that the items i have made are of a high quality. My feeling is that it might be time to seriously consider making contacts at this point, I'm confident of the quality of my workmanship, but have no real contacts as far as shows, bloggers and other ways of making my stuff known to the SL universe. I work full time RL, but have been pretty dedicated in my available time to progress my skills, mainly zbursh/blender/photoshop/topogun. My rigged meshes so far have been optimised to have very low draw weight or land impact yet are nicely textured and well made. Can anyone provide useful links or information that would help me make in-roads into promoting/selling my work? Obviously the marketplace is fine a starting point, but any bloggers - shows/events would be fantastic and really appreciated.. Bongo.

This one has been missing from SL a wee while... I need just a quick reminder about regions in aditi grid.... :) I logged onto aditi test grid other day, found myself moved to an area where rezzing up items is a nono.. can nyone remind me of how to get to the proper area please??

I have been using the same workflow. zbrush 4 to blender 2.49. I do not use simplebot though. There is a file ... avatar.blend. google that and get it. its a blender file, you can strip the parts of the avatar away until you are left with just the skeleton, and rig to it in the same way mentioned above and save it as 'stripped back to the bones' or something anyway, when i was getting the parsing issue error, it was something i couldnt work out, but after going round insane for a while i somehow got round it. May have been polycount related, may have been UV unwrapping related i'm not sure but i don't get the error anymore, bearing in mind i try to keep polycounts lower now. I wouldn't go over 14 - 15k faces now for anything i wanted to rig. It's still high that, but for noobs like me who don't know thier way around maya yet zbrush is handy, although intended for super high poly sculpts, working at lowest subdivisions after zshere stage is already high poly for an ingame or inworld character. so here's a workflow which seems to work every time now.... build desired forms/subtools in zbrush, keeping polys as low as possible. scale each down to a quarter/fifth of its size [visually], so that it comes into blender smaller than the skeleton. Unwrap UV's at lowest level of detail. export as obj. import to blender 2.49b open the stripped back avatar skeleton file ... [saved as 'avatar skeleton.blend' earlier after stripping the mesh from it]. import obj into blender. size it move it, etc and then with shift held also select skeleton. right click mesh to make real. export as collada.dea 1.4. import into SL making sure to check 'generate normals' and 'skin wieghts' and also 'include skin wieghts' under upload options in preview window. hope this helps.

I keep getting logged out of the one place i have found on the aditi grid i can TP to... I forgotten the name, but somewhere in the forums i read a post which gave the names of two places active for mesh testing ... can anyone remember the names? cheers Bongo :)

OK, thanks guys. Well I didn't make it clear, but not using blender at all with texturing, the head is a seperate [collada - decimated down] object worn on skull... you see, only the body is rigged, and yes it has too many poly's, [i think] this is because of using zsphere's to build the body, then making it into a polymesh 3d. subdividing from there, adds many more polys than perhaps needed because of the spheres. I realise that zbrush is probably not the most SL friendly way of constructing a mesh to be rigged. I am still trying to figure out how to model well in blender or max, and Then i think i'll be making better, more efficient and less weighty objects. at this point we have only tried to apply textures [with zbrush poypaint] to a straightforward collada object so far... [the head]... so its a case of using polypaint on an OBJ file of the head, making the texture map after painting, exporting the head as collada, then exporting texture as bitmap. import one, then the other into sl, and slap the texture on it. still haven't figured it out. BUT once using the GUVTiles button in zbrush i made the texture a different way, it looked all broken up with automatic seams.... like this one... I got it to work this way, but only once, as you see i'm struggling to get the same result here with a mousehead.... followed the same steps for both... at least i think i did....[definately could have made mistake lol] [head spins a bit] weeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I got through the treacle... after having the same issues as everyone else with twisted forms uploading as rigged mesh into SL I managed to finally manage it. Using Zbrush 4 to create meshes.. Blender 2.49b to rig the meshes to the avatar.blend skeleton. ctrl P - parent - armature - bone heat.. make real.... export as collada. 1.4 upload, check the 'include skin weights' box in upload options.... and hey presto! so here's Acid Cat, but he needs textures... well, I can polypaint them in Zbrush, create and export the textures, following tutorials on youtube.... I have a friend working with me on this and he's managed to get closest so far, flipping this and that, rotating .. flipping .. flipping OUT MAN.... FLIP! flipping inside Zbrush before export... Flipping in SL in edit mode... going round the flipping bend!! here's the best yet... it still has seams visible, but it's not too bad, we are begginers after all... Thing is... we can't do it again... we have tried all sorts of flipping permutatations.... different designs... sometimes just a red head with a white stripe to test... or a very basic eyes and nose on an orange head we just get stuff like this.... or this..... texture map coming out of Zbrush looks like this.... the one that has the eyes in the right place, my friend managed at 5 am, knackered going mad.. but he did it... almost [weee black seams spoil it] anyway, his map, looks just like the one above but the face is bottom left and right way up... we flipped the fek out of it since, and can get anything but that again... rotate it, flip it, U or V or Both or whatever... try all the same stuff in SL.... exausting stuff.. anyone here laughing at our noobness and knowing why we cannot line our textures up inworld out there ? anyone needs any help understanding the workflow to get a rigged mesh into SL as we have with acid cat, then fire away, I'd be glad to share my experiences in more detail if it helps... happy trails Bongo Steampunk :)

OK... I managed once, and once only after weeks of headbanging, to make a mesh avi and having dancing in SL, he was basic, no fingers or toes, like a stick man. I made him with Zbrush and exported him as OBJ. I had subdivided him 4 or so times, so he was very high poly, therefore i decimated him [with decimation master] to be much smaller, around 16k polys. imported him into Blender 4.9b, lined him up with the standard SL skeleton/armature, selected first the mesh, then the bones... ctrl+p to parent to armature, then by bone weight. Exported successfully as collada 1.41 Imported him into Aditi test grid, and all went well... i was wearing my first mesh avi.. YAY! now i cannot do it again. I make a similar mesh model and when i rig it in blender and try to export the collada i get an error in python console attributerror: 'nonetype' object has no attribute 'name' anyone know why this is? I must have tried every permutation of export from Zbrush.. UV's unwrapped or not... decimated or not... lowest poly count... etc etc... but always the export collada in blender fails at same point with above error. HELP! PLEASE!! [pulls at remaining hair]

OK, like you i have managaed to get a simple man form, very basic, working in Aditi... Once that was done, i went and tried some dance anims and all was good.. glorious. although when shiny is selected, one can see all the facets of the polygons in the light reflected. So i thought i'd make another model, this time less basic, give it fingers and feet etc... I used a simple low poly human OBJ file, which was very small poly count, rigged it in 2.49 by.. exported it as collada, and now i get the error... Error: Dea parsing issue - see log for details. This is happening with everything I try... I go into Max/Maya/Zbrush etc and make low poly model, export fine, but get this DEA parsing error all the time anyone help ?