guY Ralior

Great to hear can't wait to see what some of mine are

Although starting out I don't think that is their direct intention, I do think it is serving the purpose you describe. My thoughts are that people are not using the proper work flow to achieve a mesh that is close to wear it needs to be such that optimization actually gets it to wear it will be workable. I am speaking of the non-enthusiasts or the people that have a basic understanding of mesh but are not on this forum reading about all the things the hardcore testers are finding out to work for them. (in other words the info on how to get good results is scattered and not all in one place to be found, as Ele puts it "layman's terms" much like how it is for sulpties. With programs such as Zbrush where people are making million plus poly models, such as a 64K triangle gun that was decimated to achieve 64K, cannot be decimated down to were they will work and have proper topology. They have to be re-topologized to achieve that but I do not believe that most people will be doing that or understand the complete flow to get it done. I am in the process of working on video tuts similar to how you do but for Maya and the other programs I use to get models that are acceptable for upload. I was thinking hard on the $150L charge and at first it seems like way high when you compare to the upload of your sculpt image but its just that regardless of tri or quads or anything it just one image. On the other had with mesh if you indeed do not use anything auto generated and indeed use all your texture faces you would be uploading bascially 13 different things, 5 meshes and 8 textures so if that was related to the prims are uploaded now it would be $130Ls so really its only $20Ls to high IF you are using all the upload options. [edited] the only problem left is 5 of the uploads are actually one thing inWorld so they could be combined into one, similar to how sculpties are now you upload one image all LOD is handled by server. that would make max upload $90Ls and the creator would pay up to that if the want features more color or whatever but it could be $20Ls now that sounds nice So I agree with breaking it into $10Ls with each part, this would make it straight forward and IMHO very fare. That only leaves it up to the creator to optimize to get a product that is acceptable PE such that they are able to sell it or to wear it and not bring sims to standstills. But as many have said that is the case now with sculptie shoes and hair and such.

TY arton very informative thread.

Wow that is a lot of geometry for something sooo small My whole avatar mesh is 2,654 quads or 5,236 tirs at high LOD. Here is a pic of base mesh, with AO, and with a normal map wish we could have those normal maps I think it still looks ok, I will admit if I go up to about 7,000 quads it looks a lot better but I am first working on the lowest possible then I will see how going with more geometry works in comparison with lag and such.

I don't use Max but one thing you can do is to make sure your output collada file has the complete bone set. Weather you use them all or not they all have to be in the .dae for the skin weight to work. If you scan the file you will find the bone list and they all should be listed, if they are all there then I am not sure what it is

lol

That can be done you would just make an object live just about anything done in Blender can be done in Maya, Alias, Rhino or Max it is just done differently. Most functions are called the same but some are different such as armature for Blender and rigging for just about any other program able to do character animation through kinematics. I am sure you would have the same learning curve that I had taking on Blender just so I could get some of the functionality within Primstar. And no it wasn't fun but I understand blender much better now and use it for sculpties which now with all this PE seems like I will be doing more of than I thought once mesh is released on main grid.

Any translation type tool within Maya has the ability to set offset or rotational point, you just have to go into the properties of it. Esprit or Mastercam has no 3D cursor either, that is normal at least with what I am used to, Blender is majorly different in the way it handles functions, not that it doesn't do them it is just nothing like what I would call a traditional 3D application.

I use blender mostly for sculpties cause of the awesome features that Primstar gives you for those, but as for using it for mesh, Maya is so much more intuitive that way (doesn't have the 3D cursor ) and works seamlessly with Mudbox, another program I use a lot of. Any changes made in Maya or Mudbox is transferred to the other automatically via update which is a huge help when it comes to adding geometry if needed. One feature I haven't found in Maya that Blender does have is lock view to cursor, that is one thing the 3D cursor is good for, and is very valuable in certain situations. That in itself is not enough for me to change my workflow though

Dang had I known that two years ago I wasn't on SL at the time yet but that could have possible saved me 100k.

I can't speak on any software but as far as any Autodesk product, it is illegal to resale it to another party. What they sell you is a license to use it for a certain period of time depending on what type of seat you buy. At my company I own several licenses for some very high priced pieces of software including Esprit, Mastercam, and Maya with Maya by far being the cheapest, and next to my Thermwood 3 and 5 axis machines the software I own is the most expensive part of my business. Maya unlike Esprit and Mastercam uses no dongle. I really think they should it would reduce so many problems and probably make the software in the end cheaper to people who actually buy licenses. There are many different options on the seat you buy if you speak with a representative of the company, but ultimately whatever seat you buy only allows you to use it for the time allotted and not to transfer it. And it goes a little further in that on my seat we have a special plug-in made by Autodesk for me to export .stl files as that is what I use in Esprit and Mastercam, I am not allowed to output .stl files as lets say a service to people that dont have .stl export, as my seat is the only one to be able to use that feature. How they would catch you I'm not sure unless you were like that guy selling on ebay, but none the less that is restrictions they have in place. I cannot comment on weather the seller on ebay is actually an authorized reseller, i kind of find that hard to believe in that it's at minimum 3500$ less than actual price he should have had to pay to Autodesk. Could be trying to offer student pricing to non-students not sure but a call to Autodesk to find out if the person is authorized will revel the truth for sure and I would not purchase a product like that without that phone call. [edited] sorry to be off topic some

I dont believe they will be releasing another one either unless they come up with like a standard male and female mesh avatar but that wouldn't be really any different than using the one from the avatar.blend file.

Ah, I have seen someone wearing that avatar before that it was something they made Cool I am glad to know there is one for people to try!!

There is a avatar character in the wiki that you can download and are supposed to be able to wear, I believe it's in the uploading a rigged avatar section. From what I understand it doesn't work anymore I haven't tried it myself but I don't think it has the proper bone set that now is needed by the server so in short there is no free avatar to upload and test that is all done for you. With that said there is a free way for you to get a rigged avatar for you to work with, it will just require you to export from the avatar.blend file. Hope this helps with your problem

YAY!! /me waits very anxiously

Your most welcome good luck!

This would be for how to make a wall hope it helps -make a cube -transform it into the wall shape you are looking for and add loops to it in attributes -delete faces you want to have be the opening -use append to polygon tool to face the opening where you deleted the faces

When modeling you want to stick to quads instead of n-gons. The main reason is an n-gon deforms unpredictably when it is in an area that is going to flex or be animated and when triangulated does not split as predictable either, also programs such as Zbrush will not import if you have n-gons. So in Maya one of your easy ways to take care of this is either to just triangulate which is not the best way but does not require anything more than a click. Or you can use clean up mesh and have it show you your n-gons and manually fix them which is better but does take time. One thing I have found by cleaning up though is, it teaches you good topology so you have less problems in the beginning. But if your re-topoing after your sculpt layer topology isn't so important in the beginning anyway hope this helps with your problem

I was going by the fact he said all surfaces named correctly and thinking that is what SL is using to name things. My mesh or object and would be same as root prim is named in Maya avatarbase_mesh and is named by the uploader unless I change it usually to polymesh with a number after it. LOL on the purple bowling pin

I waited for a while to start working with mesh in SL as for me it is something I work with everyday at work. I was thinking that they would get all the bugs out then I would give it a go. On my first time logging on mesh grid to test my pipeline I uploaded a simple cylinder, it came in micro in size and was 2 prim already. Then knowing that mesh does not have a 10' x 10' limitation of course the next thing is lets make it big, I stopped making it bigger when it reached 26 prims I am not sure of the size of it at that point but def not 64m, and for me test over there is on reason to build with mesh. With the same sculpted piece I can make it 10 x 10 and it's only 1, I can stack them or make them part of a radius for a much larger diameter cylinder so in just basic terms mesh doesn't make sense that way. Sculpties still take the cake there in the present accounting system regardless of the demand on the system, that isn't affecting me other than lag at certain times, the Ls being drained from the wallet is affecting me more and something I am much more likely to do something about. To much lag I just log off, but the prims or PEs don't stop having to be paid for when I log off. BUT for me mesh is awesome and I think it will be for anybody looking at it this way in that now I can create anything I want not just avatars but characters and all the stuff that they will have on them, that now if done are so many pieces and look funny with all the seams but I and a lot still use them cause they want the look. If we ever get to change the skeleton and use normal maps its over, SL as far as the avatar side is gonna take a huge leap and I can't wait and hope desperately that happens. You gotta start somewhere and hopefully this is the start. This does not take into account lag or server demand or anything just purely looking at the numbers I already do to make sure I don't go over prim budget and can still build if needed.

<library_materials> <material id="avatar1SG1" name="avatar1SG1"> <surface type="2D"> <init_from>avatar1SG1F</init_from> </surface> </newparam> <newparam sid="avatar1SG1F-sampler"> That is from about 1/4 of the way down on my .dae file, my material name in Maya is avatar1, I am not sure what SG1 is about I think that is something possibly for Maya to use? [edited] congratulations on your A

I am assuming you mean export the Maya scene to be uploaded, I have not done any scene exports only selection so I can't say anything about multiple objects but I get the same thing when I export to collada with single objects that are named but names do not transfer. I have double checked the .dae file to make sure they are correct and they are so I am not sure why they uploader does not recognize them. I use 2012 with FBX-DAE export or 2011 with OpenCollada export

Your very welcome Just to follow up, the default avatar or one that you would extract from your present inventory is triangulated when you get it open in max. I am sure max has quadrangulate but that does a horrible job on topology and your are going to spend a lot of time re-topoing. Your best to just get a skeleton which is very easy to come by and model your own around the skeleton not to mention upon upload that there is no disputing that the content is yours! Also an easy free way to get and avatar to work with is to get the free version of blender if you dont already have it, download the avatar.blend file from machinimatrix, export the whole scene to collada, now import into max and your good. I think the only thing you have to do is make max Z up, but to be honest I dont think that matters anymore cause I have used different orientations of the skeleton and exported to mesh grid fine. You just can't rescale the skeleton, yet anyway and I hope that is something that changes along with normal maps hope this helps I tried to attach a collada file for you but you cant attach .zips anymore good luck

I have not been working the whole beta cause I was waiting till closer to the release date thinking all bugs would be worked out Its been fun seeing some of the final developments as they unfold o.0 I first determined a workflow to make sure textures and uploads were working and then have been mostly just working on stuff for my avatar and his gear! testing them along the way as I complete parts. As far as filing JiRAs, any problems I have encountered as others have said, were either my fault, already filed as a problem and being worked on or something with connection to the grid, once connected with model upload available all uploads worked fine I haven't been uploading oodles of stuff though mostly just avatar mesh and attachments

There is some information in this thread that may be helpful to you along with a skeleton for Maya which should import no problem for you, and the avatar is pretty easy to find by just searching google. If for some reason you do have an issue, you can always just export the the avatar and rig from the avatar.blend file that is what I did and it works fine, I use Maya but all programs work very similar as long as you can import/ export collada. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Mesh-Best-Practices-Maya/td-p/182772 [edited] o and in that thread you will see a lot of people talk about the skeleton looks all messed up?? just change your bone scale in max before you import and you will be fine hope this helps