Astrid Kaufmat

Try also inspecting the dae file as Text and check the bones if they're properly exported there.Some software expot the rigged mesh but then need manual tweak from text mode in the dae file ( for istance max). Other softwares are just not compatible cause of the way they save the informations.SL needs the informations in the skin rather than into bones. on open collada there is no alternative exporter for modo just checked the open collada site look maybe for a third part plugin they are quite often a good medicine in these cases. look for istance also at some problems that blender has with fbx and somehow solved by some third part projects. Why is all this difference between softwares and nobody wants to uniform the way they work? Easy just the whole world problem it's called marketing. If I make a software I want that it keeps spreading forcing other to buy it even just to keep watching or working on models.

Never used modo, but you can know it doing a quick test. If your software guide shows that it can rig, just be sure that it could export the rigged mesh properly. To do this download one of the sl wiki avatars rigged and use it's dae imported in modo (use the collada dae or the fbx rigged avatar from that zip). Then from modo export its collada using its exporter , try to upload in SL and see if its standard exporter is fitting SL.

Hello,Zly. Yes it is possible.The important factor is that your avatar is symmetric. Say a T pose avatar is what you mostly find around cause ( least for me and others) that kind of pose is easier to build it;It also depends on the project used to bbuild that character. Just adjust your bones to fit the new arms poses. once done the binding that would be your binding pose ( T pose is not a must for binding pose). For istance your character could have arms opened like an upside down V and legs spreading like an upside down V.As long as it's symmetric it's good. Around in many sites, however, you could also find 3d characters modeled with not T pose. That's not a big iussue as long as the two half parts of your character are symmetric to a saggital plane going from the tip of the nose to the back of the head. Why should the two half parts of the body be simmetric? Well that's easy, just for a quicker rigging process, cause after rigging half parts of your avatar you would just mirror your weight. This is not only for maya, but this is a common concept shared with any sofware yo might want to use to rig: it would be the same in blender in max ,in maya and any other software. In case the avatar you got would be not only in T pose but also not symmetric. there is still a fix you could use and that's using the cut plane to get half of it then use the simmetry tool to get a symmetric character.

I would do so, yes that's how the tool works.There is another tool to join all the edges along a loop selection or more edges or vertices together that is bridge tool. Which tool to choose , use, prefer is up to your and your model. This is how I'd fix that premade mesh that you've got from marvelous designer for istance. In case you'd had done your mesh from zero in maya I would also do these things ( keep this handy for future models where you might need to do the same thing, i.e models made starting from zero) Consider after all that while you model you may want to be doing it on low poly and on half model if you can, to apply later simmetry. Don't worry if your initial shape is looking jagged or sloppy compared to the result, you'll apply later the smooth proxy preview and when done convert it into polygons modify --> convert--> smooth mesh preview to polygons inI also remind you some useful shortcuts to keep handy while you see the smooth preview to se if you're happy more and less with it, before you convert it to polygons, here are the keys ( numbers from keyboard or num pad). 3 gives you the preview of your subdivided mesh 1 to go back to not subdivided mesh view 2 is a mix between 3 and 1 showing both ways and useful to do your editing process incase of non mainfold unwanted result , after the merge tool use keep handy the cleanup tool from mesh menu. I think that on youtube I found two classic examples that could help you to see it also from a practice point of view.

of course it does, but if you start with an hig number of messed triangles like marvelous designer leaves your mesh once there it's even more possible that you get much much more triangles than if it was with a good topology. There is also another reason she should use quads there cause working with modeling features would be easier on quads, also easier to rig on a low polygon mesh rather than a high poly mesh. She is going to use extrude to get a double face mesh dress, so the complexity is higher. with complex mesh is also harder to get a proper cut and UV map. Good UV unwrap skinning process helps a lot also to control on how textures will go on her dress later. High poly mesh can be used for tests to rig but now with normal map and stuff you can and you must try to use as much order as possible as lowest number of polygon as possible and if you're doing character rig in sensitive hotspots like where limbs get attached , you might know that a proper topology and cuts there is very important to get your mesh behaving and flexing properly.There a proper triangle shaped cut with point forward for istance elbows or knees can help a lot . See at SL avatar they are full of triangles and full of bad weight and see for how long years we have had to see odd distortions when using poses .

Hi,Antumbra Well you almost gave yourself the answer in your post. Each polygon will be visible according to the directions of normal. .So each quadrangle ( quad ,aka polygon) will have only 1 visible surface) Unless you need to see both sides I'd let that cylindric dress stay as it is for a ratio of saving weight and make it better for dresser and people around.Consider that more polygons a mesh has more a pc must work to render it. In case for some part of a mesh you need both sides visible there is a trick you may use ( not rearly a trick ) just select surface all and extrude.By this way you get a mesh that has double number of polygons and once that all the normals are orientede properly you'd see surface in and out. P.D. see that marvelous designer is a crazy software it doesn0't create rational mesh for gaming to be light but a bunch of triangles (really a bad thing for servers and rendering) sobefore you do the steps I told you above, convert all those tris to quads.

For blender and to start getting esy concepts of building see this post I linked a free book that you can download from blender wiki . it's very intuitive to use and you can just start getting the fist foundmentals concepts that you'll bring anywere. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/How-to-create-things-in-Second-Life/m-p/2506237#M26012 for maya there is youtube, dailymotion you find some tutorials ( tho I still prefer the old way books cause I like to understand it well know why and where to do things and not be just an alchimist learning videotutorials like cooking tutorials) anyway maya has the intro help video at start up that give you a first glance of it and you can always check the online handbook. simplymaya website also has some free tutorials that you can follow and could be helpful. creativecrash is another good site where you find a lot about maya and max too.

Hi. No need to use external scripts unless they make you life easier. This is basic workflow of making clothes also without that tricky way to make clothes with marvelous designer there is the need after you made parts of your garnment to join edges or verteices. To do this 1) be sure that the two parts are really one mesh to allow next tools to work so just from polygons menu( set it left up corner) go to mesh menu then combine 2) now according to complexity of yourmesh you can select edges or vertices and use from edit mesh menu merge vertices or merge edges. keep this concept handy also in blender the name of tools change the workflow of making clothes more and less stays,that's why learning new programs you must approach like to an advanced math just making of what you need general concepts appliable everyehwere. there is also an edge se w script in case you'd need or feel it better see here

a different light settings or set of lights could help you with that. I don't know your scene but when I had this sort of iussue also on diffuse channel the solution or least the workaround I found was tweaking the set of lights and a bit the scene if needed.

I don't know if you're doing something un-natural with the rigging workflow, because I don't know that workflow of that plugin. However few days ago there was a post so similar by another resident who did a dress so far similar to the ones that I started using to check this fitted mesh http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Help-with-Fitted-Mesh-rig-in-3dsmax/td-p/2551656 Check and see if it's similar to your case.

Check this http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Custom-Sliders-for-Fitted-Mesh-a-Solution/td-p/2495979

I don't know if there is a guide for blender sizes.I never messed with its plugins just the free versions of blender and the few times I did I just append or link ( the way it calls importing files into a scene)there my obj files exported from maya ( I am talking of the standard size) I mean this one https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Standard-Sizing-Package-Updated-Male-Female/2894727 if you don't have maya there is a free converter plugin(not sure how theresults would be , hence this is a whole scene file) but you may alwys ask a friend you trust to convert them into obj so you could use in blender or maybe IM its maker to ask for an updated version for all, maybe it's there already Idk, having maya I used the easiest way for me. once that you've those shapes in blender the standard size shapes I mean. just use the scale tool and you'd adapt the mesh around the various body sizes,helping yourself also with its sculpt tools to deform more if it's needed. You can avoid to rig anytime as for maya you could save your weight map, as long as the mesh keeps the topology , the number of size and prims anytime you scale it you just need to import again the weight map on the new model size. I just did a quick search for you and found this it is somehow an example of standard size for blender,another way than what I used but it should get you there as well.

Hi. I am not sure what you wish to build with daz, Culuf. You're talking of objects. well you must consider that daz can make prims (not the best modeling program tho) as it has also libraries. First of all when you use its object you should always check the copyright,cause most of the libraries and characters are not resellable,they could be used there to make your scene photos, videos and so on.Most if not all of the objects you purchased have their copyrights and couldn't be resold in SL. About the animations it's a nice tool but to make animations you need todownload the SL avatar folder from wiki and use SL_female and SL_female .cr2 file same for male if you need to make animations then you can export the bvh. Daz actually could rig but I haven't had the time and the patience to mess with it yet. once I exported tha vavtar as it was with wrong names for bones and I noticed that the mesh was recognized by SL importer also that once in world it was all twisted but still moving beathing, so maybe there is a really thin chance that it could work for rigging.

I am not a big fan of blender still couldn't put my hands off maya however these sites can help you I found them very helpful for blender: http://cgcookie.com/blender/ http://www.blender.org/support/tutorials/

Hi Rayne A) Well about the sizes it was a lot useful with standard size but well it could be still needed even for fitted mesh . An example if you want to make shoes rather than getting your customers messing with liquid feet like melting butter under sunbeams you'd make the top liquid rigged on collision bones and the feet part in 3 or 4 sizes to feet in proportions the different avatar sizes (approximately don't hope to make all happy but the most). For feet in this case you wouldn't need to mess much,m just scaling the shape in 3d even using the standard SL avatar we have to make layer clothes you can get approximately good scaled proportional feet to work with. The mess with sizes comes with other bodies parts. How to get sizes? well there are a few ways you may use You could use those standard sizes avatars also free on market place made by saelua. use maya to make your clothes around them if you don't have maya you could ask a friend to convert them in dae or obj so yo could import in blender to use them in case you don't want to use them or want to make your custom sizes ( which would be more personal less shared and in a way making your products less universal sized), you can make your shapes in world in SL. Then save from advanced menyu the xml avatar shape. This is the first step of the possibilities that you have now. Cause if you have avastar or SLAV plugin ( for blender maya 3ds max) you could import them there. There is a free and more laborious way to get sizes in your 3d program but it's working and legal. you save those xml files of the shapes you made ( your own personal shapes in world) then you use an old viewer like phoenix 1.5 or you could use one of the Inwolrdz viewers to get those shapes there and then export your obj file from there on your disk you can do this also in your open grid simulator. in case that you find complicated working with xml files you can also use the notecard method that I used once and them to save shapes. on a blank note you write down in order all the names that you find in your edit apparence shape and for each shape while you're editing it you paste in the note your numbers there, so you can bring those notes with you and then export your own shapes in your disk to bring them in 3d viewer and have your size,using one of the ways I said above (one of those viewers). There is still another chance to get a resizing sistem more laborious but not that hard at all, more difficult to talk about than to relize. This can be done in blender in maya or in any 3d program, but still would need to get the shapes the way I said above). in blender you'd have to learn to use the shape key editor and have into it two avatar shapes one imported with the maximum values of all the sliders one with the minumum values and start playing there with your stretching schringking avatar. look chapter XIXof this book For maya look for blend shape deformer in your book in tutorial or wherever you like to learn it from here you can get an idea I suggest you to get the standard size shapes from a friend who has maya converted for blender or what software you use, at least you could make clothes with a shared standard with more users rather than introducing your own. B) The other question was about rigging method There isn't yet a final answer thos this new way .Let's say it all Liquid has been around for about more than 1 year of course, then the idea of riggging on collision bones called by some resident/makers liquid design was adopted by LL and called fitted mesh to be the next generation to replace standard size. Even if it's not so young as many might think there is few material you could find around, most of us are still making experiments and tests learning by practice. For sure I can tell you whatever you want to make in fitted mesh try to make as closed garnment is possible and try to avoid to make too complex design around breast or butt. Of course I recently saw some ads on youtube about a fitted mesh breast and its appliers , but if my intuitiin is right about it consider how they were made in not jiggling version they donìt really have a tight cloth covering the breast but the appliers just puts a texture on a big prim that covers the torso from neck almost to the belly.The breast itself is a piece that looks like a closed dress only on front.This would explain why those would work ,when bikinis and tight tube dress would fail. Some books or pro designers call this tecnique that is similar to rig on SL collision bones "rig on deformer bones" but still nothing to do with SL bugginess and the behaviour would still be totally different, errors or misbehaviour are not excluded once uploaded. cause SL is working a way different than just stretching bones as you'd get those deformations in a 3d program of your choice. Maybe in future LL would grace us giving us the cance to use the sliders for bones or least for collision bones as Cathy explained in this thread but till then we have still much to sweat. Conclusions A part this the big problem and the real discrepancy between what you learn on books or from game characters building is that while for 3d game character you make the body and the garnment to be rigged on that body shape then you'd have no iussue, SL pretends to adapt a garnment to all the possible shapes that any resident could do. Take for istance Daz 3d and its characters that come with their own cloths , you click and wear but why? this happens cause they're rigged for that shape and match perfectly without errors. So there are two ways to stop all this pain in the arse that is now representing the rigging cloth marketing : the makers of clothes become also makers of 3d avatars; the second would be that LL gives us one of those two sliders systems,cause even liquid mesh is not free from errors as it was said.

imageshack is good as photo achive too. Free and it allows you to make galleries. There is tinypic ,imgur and many many others

PNG if you need it can be saved also without the alpha. it always depend on how you make it. if you'r e in photoshop don't hit file-->save as png. Do instead file --> save for web and devices From the new window that willopen that window yo can also pick png 24 and yo see there is a box to untick where it'd say you " transparency" just untick it. So you can get also better resolutions textures in png without the alpha iussue.

yes you can use multiple materials without any difficult. just for istance make a cube and assign to each of its 6 faces a different material. once in world you can simple edit it like you'd edit any classic secondlife primitive object, tick the box" selected face" and you can select each of those polygons (group of polygons) that share the same material, changing the color or putting there any texture you want. This for rigged or not rigged mesh:both of them can have multiple materials. Just be cheap with that feature and use it only if needed, for istance if a part of yur mesh would need a stand alone secondary texture for more details . Calculate pro and contra everytime You can add up to 8 different materials for each mesh. once in world with a very short scriptie you can assign them different textures and stuff same was as in the past yo'd have controlled via script diffeent textures for different faces on a prim. in case you want more fun you can also experiment for each face different normal maps,specular maps quickly generated with maya substance plugin ( it's not active by default but in your plugin manager)

This is not only for daz, but also for maya, blender, qavimator, slat, poser,mixamo or any other program you wish to use to make animations. SL doesn't allow you to add finger bones. That would be a nice thing of course to upload custom skeletons.Alloving users to do much more than now. However even if yuo couldn't rig your finger animations there is still some trick you can do. When you upload the animations just choose the hand pose you like. if your animations must have expressions ( hence you can't rig them in any 3d and import) you can use SL standard facial expressions that you see in that preview upload window. However you can alsways add face expressions later in world via script if you are playing oyur animations through hud or a bed engine.

Interesting program.Gonna try the demo .I am curious about it to see if it has more materials than I actually can use in maya plugin substance textures More and less it seems also easy to use same like substance textures.

That happened because you forgot to give peanuts monkeys when you went to the zoo . monkeys are mean if you doon't give them gifties:matte-motes-sunglasses-1: Get greasemonkeys and its utilities or Use any browser that blocks ads. Also run it in a sandbox.There is sandboxie that is free and works pretty well for that bs that would escape from your browsers scripts. You can run SL viewer in paranooid mode cutting off its plugins or even run it within sandboxie.It doesn't help only your browsers but any program you want to run through it.

Hi ,Aurelia No with maya 2014 you can export your mesh as they are as collada_fbx (.dae) That thing you talked about was not even a must for previous versions but it was recomended for complex geometry or models with more materials or textires to avoid errors.

Maya comes with quick start video then you can look at its online guide for each chapter you want to know http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/ also check the learning path There are several books that you could use,not rearly any secret Da Vinci code. In many site now you can also have a quick peek before you buy to see if they're written properly.A good thing is also to choose among those books that have been translated in your main language , so the workflow and learning process would be faster. I could tell you mine in PM rather than making ads for this or that book for maya ( they are not free ). I suggest you to look for those e-strores for book that offer you a quick glance of some chapters so you can realize if it's properly written to teach or not . A good book together with practice and video that you can find in youtube, as cathy said, or on creativecrash for help plugins and some tutorial is a good start. For sculpting maya tools are limited, you might want to consider mudbox or even better zbrush (recomended if you're not using yet a nasa pc with a grid of ram sticks big enough to make a barbecue, cause it's way of sculpting is very very light also for complex models).This of course if for sculpting you mean the sculpting tools like in blender to make normal maps. The sculptie scripts is instead quite easy to use in maya,once that you 've got its fundamentals. I don't get from the message if you already know modeling basics or if you want to start from maya.In case you'd need a quick glance at first fundamentals of 3d here is a free book for blender that would make you quickly get a lot of concepts that then you can share with any software you want. My advice when you learn is not to follow by letters or by frame tutorials but trying to take it like you'd learn advanced math, say like a phylosphy trying to make of anything general concepts that you could use anywhere. After a few this would give you the ability to be flexible among softwares.

Those avatar were recently updated as matter of fact the proof is that the first version of that zip you talk about was lacking of some extension (such as dae).They updated it and added also dae files and some other extensions when they officially launched the liquid mesh (or few week/s before). The problem is that they keept the weight and all as it was before,nothing has changed.Ergo if those are our "how to" examples they're not perfect at all. I have also been angry at LL for the first version of that zip cause it would have left out those who were not getting the ma file properly opening or not able to drag a dae in other programs to see an example of the new bones. Add to this confusion also the one generated by the handle bones: those that were shown in the free avastar first first version of the avastar free avatar were included while LL skeleton was not showing them. LL left all of us in a room without light. If you need Blender 2.7 I saw that it is already out as release candidate downloadable from here. The changes are still under test so it's a RC but you may want to try it.As RC it's just a potentially bugged version,tho working with all the new changes it'd need. The true challenge is not the program we'll use but the way wesolve the puzzle of the new rigging way. About what I also read above @MistahMoose. True very true LL is small and couldn't work good to give us all we need. Well let's say it all they are small office and got an external company tocode their new most complained viewer. The solution to clothes was developed and provided to Linden Lab FREE by Qualr: the only complans against quarls code were not fitting well tiny avatar or giants and some claimed lag iiussue (maybe addicted to shoting games who would count even a loss of 10 fps). in inworldz Quarl's sliders work like a charm. However wanting to ban Qualrs code as it is now ,the solution proposed to add sliders for collision bones is genial as well I bow to that idea.

the new mesh skeletons example on wiki just click here to get the page Secondlife is not hiding the mesh files at least those but all the other things around yeah. 1) the files are not properly rigged so if you get those files you'll have to just use the skepeton for your own example or maybe to rebuild your own one 2)the avatar that is used there is even not well made it seems that they took the classic dae you could have exported with the old phoenix 1,.5 or with the actual inworldz viewer and them combined torso and legs together without properly joining polygons (or maybe that's just a messy rig in that area) 3) when you've done your own avatar skeleton using that example , you could still notice that the new liquid mesh/aka fitted mesh big new is just a new flop.Why is that? Well you can taste this by yourself and see that it would work good on closed clothing or avatars parts but for open dresses like sexy tubes or even for bikini that won't ever work. Click here and you could see properly explained why new fitted mesh couldn't work well for all the clothes,Cathy clarifies it good. This is not the only thing that you will notice, but as they stated on wiki their new fitted mesh would still force you to use alpha to make perfectly wearable clothes and even then, even using mmasks alpha you would still find that some shapes of yor avatar in world would mess your dress. Conclusion there is not a final solution to the rigged mesh clothes with this liquid mesh fitted mesh. no matter what program or magic plugins you use. The only way to really resolve things for makers and shoppers simplifing life both sides is to give us both sliders and collision bones or at least to get sliders for collision bones as Cathy showed after the proposal made by Medhue see this link to get the discussion Add to all this that the workflow for fitted mesh is so far longer than rigging on mbones , who should pay for all the headache to mess with it? customers? Quarl's code for mesh sliders was perfect (new versions not laggy at all either) as I tested it too in Inworldz and with sliders life would have been easier for all. Very very quick rigging and very good fitting process in world except for some small micro avatars and huge say giant size ( as we all would use those avatar ;I see one of them once a year if I am lucky). Collision bones are cool for extra detail for clothes like jiggling butt and breast, like some more realistic wrinkles ( the same way you'd think of using deform bones in maya