Bongo Steampunk

When you say skin weighting.. do you mean you have added bones/armature an parented them to the mesh you made? Did you use the skeleton from SL... it's available as a blender file called 'avatar.blend'? If you are rigging the mesh in blender, which version are you using? I am also stuck in a similar area, i can use blender 2.49b to copy the skeleton bone weights from avatar.blend, pose the model etc, then I hit the 'Make it real' button before exporting as Collada.dea. When I uploaded one from blender 2.59, using the 'bone copy weights' script which must be added [plugin] i got a mangled mess, simple figure was like a car accident. When I upload My simple man rigged mesh from Blender 2.49b, he appears ok in preview window, and when i hit the [skin weights] button, his arms drop and he is no longer in T-pose but looks ok, and seems to be trying to move very slowly, but i cannot get to the final point of the avatar mimicking my own as in this tutorial here...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JHWDdrIeD0.. makes it look easy lol. I feel so close but yet so far, so I understand your frustrations. I don't have the answers for you.. why is the hand missin? ... no idea, but maybe if you tell us how you are making your mesh and rigging/bone weighting it.. maybe someone with more knowledge will spot something.

Thanks to everyone for suggestions and help. OK, so I'm gathering that whether I use Blender or Maya, to create my own skeleton/armature (instead of trying to use the SL skeleton from avatar.blend, I should be OK. I managed to get the Bone weights copy script to stop dissapearing off my toolshelf in Blender, it was because there were no objects or vertex groups selected ... lol simple i know. So i can get my 'Bella' character, which is a simple model to fit the SL skeleton, lined up perfectly, select her, then select [with shift] the skeleton and hit ctrl P.... I get the options up, do that and i can pose Bella as normal. but if i export her at that point she hasn't been 'made real' as things used to be for blender 2.49b... i have it, but cannot get python to work with it, so i got the Bone Weight copy script for 2.59 as soon as I copy the bone weights, [thinking I am there finally!] blender ceases to function. I dont know if it is because Bella is a bunch of seperate objects which are merged into one [in which case I need to make a different test mesh model] or something else... I am beginning to think that all my frustrations are because of me wanting to stick to that avatar.blend skeleton i've been using. Making an armature in maya or blender is simple enough for a simple character, so I will try rigging a new charater with my own armature instead of using the SL skeleton. Again thanks for all the help and advice, I'm sure if i keep plugging away, i'll have a dancing sheep soon enough in SL lol. By the way, if anyone would like to see one of the characters i'm trying to bring into SL then look here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Nk5Rmuyec

well... maya, max, Zbrush or blender are all good for making meshes, but only blender or Zbrush export mesh in collada format... if maya did so [plugin i tried doesn't seem to help] i would use only it... i'm still not sure that even if i rigged my models in maya, that if i could export rigged mesh from maya, would it behave like the sl skeleton does, and work with inworld animation over rides etc.....

I can make a character, basically, even if its just a bunch of basic shapes in maya/zbrush and save it as OBJ. I can go into blender [various versions] and bring in the standard avatar skeleton for SL I can get to the point where i have both lined up and selected... [mesh avi and skeleton].... press ctrl+p and in version 2.59 i cannot see a way to get the thing to rig correctly... I am a noob i know. I have been on for days just trying to get a basic character to dance on the beta grid.. it's driving me nuts. I got the script for copy bone weights which recently cropped up for blender 2.59, installed the add on, checked it as operative and sure enough on my tool shelf i see the bone wieghts thing, until i delete the cube at startup, or open a file [like sl avatar.blend].. then it vanishes... How can someone like me, who can make a character in mesh, make it dance!!!! please help!

Wonder if anyone can help me.... I think I'm missing something simple. I have blender 2.59, made a mesh {simple character} in maya/zbrush. Installed the bone wieghts copy add on, which appeared nicely on my tool shelf. opened the sl avatar blender file to remove all but skeleton. Positioned my mesh avi shape over the bones, but how do i attatch the two... been frustrated for days?? the thing is, the bone copy options dissapear from my shelf when i open the file with my avi and skeleton waiting to be combined.... HELP PLEASE I@M LOSING IT!! smiles bildreth