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Maeve Balfour

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Everything posted by Maeve Balfour

  1. Are you only painting to the EDGES of the relevant areas of the AV template? Sounds like UV-map bleeding. (If your texture "islands" are surrounded by white, then this is what is showing when you zoom out I think - a tiny bit of that white exterior is bleeding into your main texture). Try extending your texture outward around the edges a few pixels. Just a base colour to match your texture, or just a bit of cloning of the edges - anything to extend out your texture a few pixels. In theory this should solve the problem. :matte-motes-smile:
  2. If a mesh shoe is worn as an ATTACHMENT, it is fully capable of supporting virtually unlimited resizing. (RIGGED meshes are NOT resizable, as already mentioned). If a mesh shoe has a resizer, then I would automatically assume it IS an attachment, and hence fully editable. Mesh objects BY FAR have a vastly improved scope for resizing manually (unlike old style footwear made from linksets of dozens of sculpties etc, a single mesh object isn't subject to the sizing constraints normally encountered (due to the smallest sculpt in a linkset hitting its minimum possible size etc)). Mesh footware attachments as such can range in size from gigantic (64m) right down to practically invisible (a virtual "speck of dust"). The only logical reason I can think of for using a resizer would be to assist with sizing for those customers not comfortable with doing it manually. My personal view on the matter: That the creator doesn't want buyers to be able to customise the shoes (via texturing etc). I am making the assumption that the shoes are fully NO-MOD here. In other words, not letting customers change the colours - and as so, artificially forcing them to pay full price for other colours. There may be other reasons - but that's my own strong suspicion for the resizers. (For the record, I work with mesh in SL on a personal basis, so I am speaking from my own experience as to how sizing works).
  3. Tenly said: I dont want to learn everything there is to know. I JUST want to know, how do I bring the avi in, how do I use that to make clothes? and can I do it by pushing and pulling the mesh? ________________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm sorry to say this, but if you want to get into creating mesh clothing from scratch, you really need to learn about proper mesh creation - from the basics up. If you don't, you are just setting yourself up for a world of pain, frustration and disappointment. Now with that said, I must also say that mesh IS a skill which can be learned by people willing to make the effort to grasp the procedures involved. Which means going through all those boring "stacking blocks" tutorials etc - these are ESSENTIAL steps in learning the functions of mesh creation. If you don't learn the fundamentals, you have no hope of tackling the complicated tasks involved in modeling mesh clothing, rigging to fit the AV, UV-mapping for textures etc. I'm not trying to frighten you (or anyone) off of mesh clothing creation - but I feel it prudent to make sure you know that mesh creation isn't something you just instantly pick up and start making clothing with. There is no magic "make clothing" button - any products/programs which claim to do so will still require a level of mesh skills to make use of what they supposedly produce. Blender is a good program to start learning mesh with. There are plenty of Blender users who are regulars on the mesh forum here, so you have the benefit of others probably knowing how to fix/solve problems you might face. But definitely learn the basics of mesh creation via various Blender tutorials before you even attempt to start out with clothing. You would be doing yourself a serious disservice if you don't. ....................... If you don't wish to go the learning route, you have the alternative of using full-perm prefab mesh clothing out there on the Marketplace. These are generally pre-made mesh clothing items, already rigged to fit the SL AV - and people use the supplied templates to create their own textures. A pretty large percentage of the mesh clothing you are seeing on the Marketplace are exactly this - prefab meshes with customised texturing. Not all, but from what I have seen, this would account for the majority. If you look closely, the same meshes crop up again and again. This is something you could consider - however the downside is that dozens of other merchants will be selling the exact same mesh... the only difference are the textures applied. So in essence, those are your viable choices... either be prepared to put in the serious homework involved to learn the art of mesh creation properly, or purchase pre-fab mesh clothing from the Marketplace and work from there. :matte-motes-smile:
  4. I brought this same topic up over on the mesh forum a couple of months ago. (For the record, I'm NOT a merchant, I just create purely for personal usage). It's appalling, but not much can be done unless the actual IP owner takes action themselves. The only thing we honest residents can do is notify the rightful IP owners and let them take the matter from there. Sometimes they take action, sometimes not. I know some content creators (DAZ3D.com especially) will quickly stomp on illegal content. Overall, it's pretty shameful. As a mesh creator myself, I am appalled by the situation - knowing how MUCH WORK is involved in creating mesh content from scratch, it disgusts me that idiots willingly steal and SELL other people's hard work with blatant disregard for the original creators AND the customers they are ripping off. If a mesh product is based on some kind of recognisable IP (game characters especially), you can pretty much be guaranteed that it's stolen mesh ripped straight out of game files. Customers are halfway to blame if they buy this stuff (anyone with a halfway decent grasp of commonsense would surely suspect the product is dodgy). If the customer buys content that they KNOW is infringing someone else's copyright IP, they only have themselves to blame for being burned if the said content is later removed from their inventory. Still, there is no excuse at all. Theft is theft. SELLING stolen items is even worse.
  5. The DAZ Studio program you are referring to is "scene rendering" software - as in, designed to IMPORT pre-made content which you arrange into a setpiece and create a rendered image or animation from. The figures, clothing, props and sets are all "ready-made" content which is loaded up into the scene, arranged, lit and so on. As far as I am aware (I've been out of the DAZ loop for a while), DAZ Studio is NOT designed for creating meshes from scratch. However, it DOES have rigging capabilities with purchased add-ons - but I can't vouch whether these are suitable for rigging SL AV specific clothing or not. Personally, I would recommend using Blender if you wish to get into mesh clothing creation. There is a steep learning curve for sure (but this is the same for ANY mesh creation software if you are totally unfamiliar with mesh creation - you will need to learn the essential general steps involved, in addition to learning the software interface as well). In this regard, Blender is no more difficult than any of the other software packages out there - just keep in mind you will be learning the software AND general 3D mesh creation procedures at the same time. Please note I'm NOT trying to put you off of mesh at all (to the contrary, actually!). You just need to be aware that mesh creation - especially for clothing - is a LOT more involved than many people realise. :matte-motes-smile:
  6. The LOD calculations are based around how detailed the mesh is at each LOD swap distance. So a larger mesh with a lot of detail will be penalised unless its details are signficantly reduced at the critical LODs. (Drongle will answer this far better than I can, in regards to which LODs are most important for given mesh sizes etc). In a nutshell, its all a balancing act between visual detail/quality and Land Impact costs. Breaking up your facade into smaller meshes will probably reduce the Land Impact, however the LOD swaps for each will happen at different times due to camera distance from each piece, as well as the actual volume/size of each piece as well. Personally, I'd probably make the entire facade (and the whole exterior if it will fit within the maximum 64m3 volume) as a single mesh object, and then decide which parts to reduce detail on at each LOD stage. Keep in mind that at longer ranges, the minor details will be very hard to discern, so you can probably get away with much lower levels of detail (especially if your textures have baked in details which can help compensate for lack of geometry). NOTE: I strongly recommend keeping any internal rooms as totally separate mesh objects. Since their details will be largely (if not totally) obscured from outside view, you don't want to be penalised by their geometry in regards to long range LODs. Treat the exterior as an independent mesh shell which you can later link to the interior rooms via the inworld build menu; and the interior rooms you can be severely savage on in regards to their own LODs, since much of the time their LOD changes will not be visible at all. Your larger bounding box idea probably won't gain much... it will just force the full detail to remain visible over longer ranges, and hence push up the associated Land Impact accordingly. If you are efficient with your mesh modeling, the overall rezzing up time shouldnt be too bad - generally the textures should take longer to load than the actual mesh shape does. To give yourself a clearer idea of when the relevant LOD swaps will occur, I'd suggest modeling a very basic shape in the same dimensions... with easy to spot details that will change for each LOD swap. That way, you will get a good idea of the distances involved for each LOD changeover, and you can work out what detail will actually be visible at those ranges. (Use the Aditi test grid for this to avoid paying upload costs for experiments like this). I'll pass this over to Drongle for a more technical explanation of LODs :matte-motes-wink:
  7. (Coming into this thread a bit late LOL) - Glad you got the LODs working Pamela! I know, it can take a bit of frustration getting one's head around all the concepts involved (I went through the same process, don't worry!) but the level of fine control you attain via customised LODs is definitely worth the headaches. Every project is different in how you approach your LOD methods, but the extra work is compensated by the better end results, as you have now discovered. Nice work! :matte-motes-smile:
  8. This is just me speaking purely from my own personal preference... I've been making mesh footwear (only for my own usage currently) and have found that mesh boots are perfectly fine if worn as ATTACHMENTS only. Of course the feet won't bend as such, but from my own preference, that is perfectly fine. Reason? The totally unknown way that AOs will cause the ankle join area to deform. For boots with only simple geometry in those areas it isn't much of a problem, but as soon as you have any kind of detail in the ankle zones, any amount of foot movement (bending and twisting) will cause hideous geometry deformation (something I personally HATE - it just instantly ruins the look of a boot). NOTE: This deformation effect is not unique to SL - it's a universal issue (especially with Poser and DAZ figure footwear). As such, I prefer static attachments. A side benefit from footwear being non-rigged is that it's easily resized to fit pretty much any size of AV. To get footwear to attach properly to your AV's feet (as worn attachments), you will probably need to create an invisible root prim as a linkset (set around the ankle/foot area of the AV when worn). This is so the footwear will attach properly. Again, this is PURELY my own personal preference point of view. No doubt others will disagree with me and prefer rigging. Just depends on if you can live with the ankle deformation effects. :matte-motes-smile:
  9. With your mesh inworld, apply the problem baked textures, and THEN via the inworld build menu (in the texture section), try rotating the texture by 90-degrees, 180-degrees, 270-degrees etc. It MIGHT be that your UV maps are rotated differently to how SL interprets them by default. (I've had this issue myself with some of my mesh UVs - my modeling program Hexagon does some obscure things with the UV maps sometimes). By doing a quick rotation of the texture inworld by 90-degrees via the build menu, I am often able to fix this issue. Be worth a try, for sure :matte-motes-smile:
  10. NO. I can't emphasise that clearly enough. Don't even consider it. If you attempt bringing any licensed content such as DAZ figures and related clothing items, props etc into SL, you are immediately breaking the licence terms you agreed to when you first purchased them. READ the licence terms ALWAYS. Being familiar with the DAZ and Poser related community over a number of years, I can pretty much guarantee that any attempt to bring any of that content into SL or similar is an instant violation of the user licences. You risk being stomped on HARD - I know that DAZ are stringent about protecting their IP, which is fully understandable - and if you bring any content like that into SL, you can be pretty much guaranteed that a DAZ/Poser user will instantly recognise them and report accordingly. JUST DON'T DO IT. Not to mention the fact that content designed for Poser and DAZ Studio is intended for heavy-duty RENDERING of images and rendered animations. The meshes are FAR too heavily detailed for SL's realtime environment. It would be easier to model something from scratch than it would be to decimate highly detailed models such as these, especially considering you would need to re-rig and redo the UV maps from scratch as well. Sorry if I am dashing any of your hopes here, but I feel it my duty as a responsible mesh creator to state this clearly. The trouble you potentially face by doing this isn't worth the risk, not to mention being totally against TOS and the actual mesh licence conditions. DAZ would come down on you like a ton of bricks if you violate their user agreements in this manner - you are guaranteed of that. It's far safer (and far more satisfying) to create your OWN content from scratch, with your own hands.
  11. Pamela: I am assuming that are you talking about breaking up your actual HOUSE INTERIOR WALLS into segments due to material shortages. If so, just simply reshape your physics hull mesh to suit each individual segment. If the walls themselves are very basic plane meshes, you could even use those as the basis of your physics - personally, I would remove any tiny surface areas and leave it as purely large surfaces only (areas smaller than an AV can fit through, I would remove entirely). Doesn't have to be all joined up either (at least from my own experience with physics), and it doesn't need to look pretty at all LOL, just functional. If the physics mesh only consists of flat planes (as per your walls), just ensure all the normals are pointing in the desired direction of interaction - if you are duplicating and disassembling an original wall for this, the normals should already be facing in the correct direction. The MAIN consideration is that your bounding box volume matches that of the target mesh wall segment (so that they match up correctly). If your physics mesh hull is already optimised as such, you simply point the uploader to it in the physics section - no analysis is needed. Piece of cake overall though, especially once you have done it a couple of times. If you ensure your triangles in the physics have all the tiny triangles removed, the physics shouldn't have an bearing on your final LI count - the display cost etc will be higher. Definitely better than using separate shapes for the physics (less hassles) - trust me, I explored that route a while back, and doesn't save prim count at all (just matches it if anything). Less pieces for customers to lose too if they are pulling things apart! (You CAN use the physics mesh hull as a separate object inworld to achieve the physics (via invisibility) in a worst case scenario, but I don't recommend it for these reasons). So yah, physics mesh hull WITH the main mesh component object is the best way to go, I think. :matte-motes-smile:
  12. It definitely doesn't sound right to me (unless I'm missing something too). Am I correct in assuming this is a worn attachment-only mesh? (Non-rigged)? I would think this is worthy of a JIRA. Mod means Mod in my eyes... transfer perms shouldn't even enter the equation. Well spotted! :matte-motes-smile: EDIT TO REPLY BELOW: Still.. definitely worthy of a mention, Bouttime. If it's just a one-off glitch in your viewer, I guess it's not an issue, but definitely worth keeping an eye out for potential repeat occurrences. :matte-motes-smile:
  13. I'm not a Blender user myself (at least, not yet), so another forum regular will probably jump in here to instruct how to do this. The actual concept of material zones is generic in the 3D workflow (not just SL, but pretty much anything related to 3D modeling). It's a pretty simple thing to achieve - usually you just create the materials you need for a project (usually in a menu or sidebar list), and then select groups of polygons/triangles to add to specific materials (hence creating material zones on your mesh). A very simple process, it's just a matter of knowing how to do it via your chosen program. Most likely, if you do a quick google on Blender 2.62 and materials, you will probably find a video tutorial showing what's involved. I am pretty sure the procedure will be an easy one once you know how it's done. :matte-motes-smile:
  14. No, I'm not saying that at all... I am saying that people who SELL stolen meshes to unsuspecting customers like yourself are the ones who are engaging in criminal activity. It's a classic case of buyer beware. As a customer, you should always do the responsible thing and check as much as possible that what you are buying is legitimate. Of course this isn't always possible (or easy for that matter) here on the SL Marketplace - but exercising a strong sense of caution when shopping will go a long way to helping. If someone is SELLING an AV replacement based on someone else's intellectual property (like a game or movie character), it's probably dodgy at the very best, and more likely a ripped mesh stolen straight out of a game. Case in point: Your forum AV picture. If I am correct, it appears to be a mesh AV of an alien character from the Aliens movie/game franchise (I'm not totally familiar with the series, but it definitely looks recognisable to me). If you bought this from a seller on the MP, I would strongly suspect that this wasn't MADE by the seller other than doing a quickie rigging job (I could be wrong). Even so, if this seller made this AV mesh from scratch, he/she would still be infringing the copyright of the studio owning it (and I would doubt the studio is the actual merchant selling this content). Either way, the seller is doing the wrong thing and not abiding by their mesh uploader responsibilities. If a mesh AV being sold looks like it's stolen property, most times it probably is. Just don't buy if that's the case. Sorry to say that, but if you are buying suspicious products, we can't really help here to fix issues they might have. That's all I have to say on this subject.
  15. Hmmm... Just wondering if this is by a particular merchant on the MP, who is selling a line of anime style "drawn" AV meshes taken directly from a game (based on an anime series, I think). Terms of service won't allow me to name the merchant or product, but IF it's what I am thinking of, you could be out of luck there. IF (and IF) this is a dodgy merchant, they probably have no idea (and wouldn't care most likely) that their products don't work properly in SL - if they are stealing and selling meshes, I would seriously doubt they would have the skills required to get it to render properly. These "hand drawn" style meshes (which have that black outline effect) are in effect double the triangle count of standard meshes. Reason is that to achieve this outlining effect, the entire mesh needs to be duplicated, enlarged slightly, and have reversed normals (facing inward) - these inward facing normals will result in the black outlines, while allowing the underlying mesh and texture to show through. My guess, IF this is a dodgy product on the MP, is that the seller has no idea on how to set up the mesh for this effect in SL. Again, without knowing the actual product you are having issues with, I can have no way of providing a specific answer. And TOS will prevent you from naming and shaming the creator. Best solution would be to ask the creator directly, and see if it can be rectified. However, IF this is a dodgy product, I doubt you will get any help there. I hope I am wrong in this assumption, but seeing the flood of illegal stolen AV meshes on the MP lately, I am pretty suspicious of anything even remotely similar to existing intellectual property franchises. If it looks infringing of copyright and is mesh, it's probably stolen. Sorry for my cynicism.
  16. If you want to use more than one single texture on a single mesh object, that is achieved simply by separating your mesh into MATERIAL ZONES in your modeling program. Materials work in the same way as faces do on standard SL prims - being able to accept totally independent textures and related settings (like when you drag textures onto the faces of a cube, change colouring, glow etc). Each of these material zones on your mesh will be able to have its own independent UV-map and related texture. So in the case of your AV mesh, simply define one material zone for the head section, and another for the rest of the body. Your mesh AV will now be able to accept both the textures (with associated UV-mapping per texture). Keep in mind that each material can also accept the exact same UV maps as well - they don't HAVE to be different. This can be very useful for mixing up appearances via different textures. Pretty versatile (keeping texture load in mind). SL mesh objects can support UP TO EIGHT material zones - plenty enough for most requirements. So, just separate out your AV mesh into relevant material zones in Blender, and you should be good to go. :matte-motes-smile:
  17. An HOUR to render? That isn't what I assumed you meant - I was thinking more like under a minute for textures to load up. If things are taking an hour, that sounds like a serious underlying issue - probably more like a viewer problem than meshes. That's assuming these AV meshes even HAVE textures to start with. Is it possible these meshes don't have textures in the first place? (even IF they were meant to be sold WITH textures as advertised?). That's about the only reason I can think of.... Mayhaps someone else can offer an idea to the issue....?
  18. Currently you will have to mirror your shoe meshes etc in your modeling program, and upload each as separate mesh objects. I asked this same question during the mesh beta last year, and the answer is still the same - the uploader is NOT able to mirror meshes, nor can they be mirrored inworld at this point. However, the upload cost of an efficient mesh shoe object is fairly small, so in the scheme of things the additional cost of uploading left and right shoe objects is negligible. Still, I agree, it would be nice if one day mesh objects could be mirrored inworld via the build menu. One day... one day it might happen (one can always live in hope!) :matte-motes-smile:
  19. It's difficult to give a definitive answer without being able to examine specific examples. I am assuming you are referring to purchased AVs? My own guess in regards to the texture lag would be inefficient texture usage - quite probably consisting of several 1024x1024 textures (or more, depending on how the mesh AV is made). An EFFICIENTLY made AV should only need one good quality texture UV image at that size, or several smaller textures if necesary. Obviously, sim lag in general can contribute to texture lag as well, depending on the location. Also possible is that the "simple" mesh AVs might be very badly modeled in the first place, with far too many vertices. A seriously overweight mesh model in regards to vertices will take a lot longer to rez than an efficient one. A good rule of thumb for identifying efficient mesh models is that their mesh SHAPE should be visible well BEFORE their textures get a chance to rez up. (I have tried demos of mesh clothing, where in some instances a simple shoe will take nearly 30 seconds for the shape to appear - when rezzed on the ground, the land impact is often in the hundreds! Small wonder meshes like these cause lag). Some of the illegal game character rips I have seen being sold on the MP (grrr!) I would suspect would render up quite fast - PURELY because these stolen meshes were designed in the first place for a realtime render environment (game optimised). Still, that's no excuse for stolen content being bought and sold (end rant). Hopefully this gives an insight to the possible causes of laggy meshes and related textures. :matte-motes-smile:
  20. My guess would be that the downsizing of the mesh makes the physics hull TRIANGLES more condensed, and hence an increased LI (due to the smaller triangles being penalised in relation to physics calculations). I've had similar experiences with stairs of my own - even with an optimised physics hull, the overall LI increased when i shrunk down the stairs - and I am pretty sure it was due to the physics triangle compression. My guess is that your model is experiencing the same effect here (although difficult to tell without seeing the physics hull mesh). :matte-motes-smile:
  21. A quick question which I feel is vital to ask first off: Have you worked with / created mesh before? The reason I ask is that if you are totally new to mesh creation, you really MUST learn the overall workflow involved with mesh creation in general before you even consider creating mesh clothing. You would be doing yourself a huge disservice if you don't, and setting yourself up for a world of frustration. Mesh is a BIG topic. I'm definitely NOT saying this to scare you off at all - it's just important to make that clear from the outset. Mesh creation is something that requires certain skillsets before contemplating advanced things like mesh clothing for SL avatars. If you don't learn the basics beforehand, you will just be banging your head against a brick wall. However - once you learn the essential workflows of mesh creation, it WILL open up vast opportunities for creativity... not only for SL, but for many, many other areas. The general mesh skills you will learn are universal across the field of 3D, so it will open up wide avenues to explore in the long term. Definitely worth persevering with the initial learning curve. Blender is definitely a good program to start out with. There are many forum regulars here who use it, so any SL related Blender questions posted here will be quickly answered. Also, there is a vast number of Blender tutorials out there covering pretty much any topic possible - it's just a matter of finding them. Plus Blender will pretty much do anything you need in regards to creating mesh for SL. (I must point out that personally, I am NOT a Blender user as of yet (although I plan on converting to it in the near future, having reached the practical limits of my current modeling program)). Off the top of my head, a couple of good beginner Blender tutorial sites you could begin with are: The Gryllus Blender Course and Canned Mushrooms. There are plenty of clothing tutorials out there as well, which other forum regulars here can point you towards - although as I said, you need to know the mesh essential basics before attempting advanced projects like that. A general list of the workflow steps you will need to learn to be proficient in mesh creation: 1: Creating mesh shapes - Working with primitives, polygons, vertices etc to create your shapes. 2: UV-mapping your meshes - Creating maps so that your 3D shapes can accept 2D images for texturing. 3: Material mapping - Defining separate areas on your mesh (similar concept to how faces on a standard SL prim work). 4: Rigging (for clothing) - Defining a "skeleton" for your mesh, so that it can attach to the SL avatar. Please, don't let yourself be put off or daunted by this - it's NOT as scary as it looks. But it IS critical to learn these basic skillsets. The learning curve can be steep at first, but it is definitely worth sticking with it and coming to grips with everything - the creative potential that will be unlocked is vast once you do so. And by all means, ask any questions you need to here on the forums. There are plenty of regulars here who are happy to offer advice. :matte-motes-smile:
  22. Centre of Mass: I would ignore that altogether. I have never used it myself (I am unsure of it's exact function LOL, but probably won't be usable for SL anims). Body: Just refers to the figure as a whole entity. Best not to use this either, as values here won't translate into the final BVH export. The most important body part of the AV is the HIP JOINT. The hip is used as the reference point for the AV's location in 3D space. So if you plan on physically moving your AV around, perform the movement translations on the hip joint (the rest of the body will move with it accordingly) - this applies for body rotations, X/Y/Z movement etc. If you move the AV around simply by selecting the whole body and moving it, these changes WON'T TRANSLATE in the final BVH file exported to SL. So ALWAYS do physical movement in 3D space via the hip joint parameters. All other body parts you animate as per normal (body part dials are easier to work with, in my opinion). :matte-motes-smile: Random tip which comes to mind: You can actually save frames out as individual POSES to the Poser library. These can be handy to build animations with - you just move to a frame on the timeline, and load the poses as needed. If you have the spline curve applied (the green blocks), Poser will perform the animation "tweening" for you - generating the animation frames required to get the movement between each static pose loaded up.
  23. Assuming I'm reading your question correctly..... So, you want your pants UV to look like the SECOND image (straight legs parallel to each other)? If that's the case, you will be condemning yourself to hideous texture distortion between the legs, as you have already said. The FIRST image you linked to (legs spread out in a V-shape) is actually the better one to texture on, in regards to minimal / reduced texture distortion. The polys look to be far more evenly flattened, and hence will be far less stretched when textures are applied. Sure, the straight leg UV you are trying to achieve (referring to your second linked image) will probably be easier to texture visually in 2D, but the areas between the legs near the top will never be capable of having textures applied without serious distortion issues. I think you have modeled in some creases and wrinkles into the mesh geometry? If so, you will probably never get a perfectly flat UV - it's something you will have to work around with the texturing (this is a fact of life in UV-mapping - it's always a matter of compromises in one way or another). A general tip for setting UV seams with clothing... make the cuts so they would look logical for clothing seams in RL - it makes it a lot easier to reduce the obviousness of the UV island edges. The gain from this, is that you will have neat seamwork and textures that shouldn't be heavily distorted. UV-mapping is as much an artform in mesh as the actual model making process. Good quality UV mapping for SL meshes is I think just as important as the model making process itself, since the texturing can help make up for the reduced detail of (responsible) low-poly modeling. :matte-motes-smile:
  24. I use Poser-7, so my interface is the older style, but the newer versions I assume will work on the same principles with animation. Open up the animation palette, so the keyframes tab is open (the one which shows the frames with coloured blocks). I assume your imported animations have all the frames as the green blocks by default? The GREEN blocks are the equivalent of spline tweening (giving smoother, more organic animations in general). You can change their behaviour by selecting the relevant body parts and frames and converting them via the different buttons (probably still in the upper right side of the animation palette window). The linear keyframe setting is the orange, "hard line squiggle" button (the default spline setting is the green, "smooth curvy squiggle" one). You can also BREAK individual frames (halt the animation until the next keyframe) via the break spline button (green with "split spline" button). Finally, you can totally remove any keyframe/spline etc animation frames via the grey "flatline" button - just select the relevant frames and click this button - the associated bodypart will not move until the next keyframe occurs in the timeline. Keep in mind you can swap around between spline and linear curves however you like during an animation, AND mix them up between individual body parts and their associated sub-settings (bending, twisting etc). Seriously powerful. DEFINITELY explore the Layers tab as well, for added flexibility when tweaking animations - it's kind of like Photoshop non-destructive editing via layer effects. You add new animation layers above the Base Layer (the original animation), and make edits in the timeline via these. I generally prefer the "Add" style setting for new layers - these just override the underlying base anim without destroying it. I would strongly suggest reading up the manual, and looking for tutorials on how to do this properly - hard to explain adequately in text form here. Definitely worth the learning time invested, if you want to create serious animations. I hope this helps. Poser can be confusing at first, but it is seriously powerful for animating once you figure it out. :matte-motes-smile:
  25. Meshes are subject to this kind of alpha glitching in SL, so you will have to work around that. (I know the type of hair you are referring to (DAZ and Poser hair for example), where the hair is built up with many layers of polygon mesh, with textures using alpha channels applied to each layer, This style of hair (NON-SL) generally uses thousands of polygons and many layers of hair for this kind of effect. However, this is just not feasible (and irresponsible) to do in SL due to the associated render cost). This kind of glitching can be reduced via the usage of material mapping to ISOLATE sections of the mesh which utilise textures with alpha channels. Also, keep in mind that this glitching effect might also be due to the mesh normals pointing outward in one direction, so with transparency in usage, you are also probably seeing parts of this same mesh from behind, hence the sudden invisible aspects. Flexi prim hair has the advantage of standard prims having faces in all directions, which mesh does not (unless you create backfaces to each hair texture face, which will instantly double your triangle count - not good if you are trying to keep your render cost responsible). I would suggest dividing up your mesh into sections, using a combination of linked meshes and material mapping. You will probably require a base mesh hair shape with NO alpha channel textures used for its associated material zones, to give the hair a solid look, and have a couple/few other mesh layers above this with alpha channel textures. The glitching will still be there though, so it is just something you have to allow for and work around. :matte-motes-smile:
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