[Scripting sculpted hands.....?]

Hey thanks guys! What I meant to be more clear since yea I sometimes forget when I say sculpt I sound like I am saying sculpty lol. Anyway though I meant to say If I sculpted some different states of hands with mesh, example one open and one closed. I am looking to do just that Qie maybe alpha channel out the mesh pieces or texture as it plays through giving off that illusion it's using an animation. One state only being visible at a time though but if you were to right click it you'd see there are two pieces linked together. So I suppose alphaing out the mesh would be the right idea. Cause I'd want the texture to show along with the mesh object when it gets turned on from the script.  

 

But if I am trying to do that what would be some of the ll fucntions to look into? An I guess how hard would this be? I'm still one who kinda looks at code and pieces together my idea's modifying it to do different functions lol. I can understand it if use it in world watch what it visuallly does and pick it apart tha way. I am kinda thinking on the lines of non human hands right now. Just all linked together the different states, example say 5 states to make it look as if it's animated. I think that will do using gradual changes. An I am assuming I would attach the parent/primary state to the wrist on a mesh avatar. But I think last time I tried that I knew I would have to tell it with code as it moves where these other states are suppose to be. Hard for me to explain lol. I think I might be able to get away with not having to do that though using the alpha channel idea if they are just attached in one spot when worn.

 

I'll review the comments more and also look into llSetLinkAlpha innula mentioned. I think that might be how to start it out. Thanks again!

[Scripting sculpted hands.....?]

Hello, I have an idea to script a hand where it appears as if it's animating. My idea is making two states of a hand turn off an on like a light switch using textures.

So the way it would work is state one is at first visable then when the script runs say after first 10 seconds of being worn it will play through. The code would start out hiding state 1 mesh hand for 1-2 seconds then quickly show state two some how like alpha channeling out the first state to pull this off. Second state would then be visable coming out of a alpha channel/transparent texture state to now be the visble state. Both these states would be linked together and mesh pieces both really there but only one visable at a time thanks to the script. I just want it to be like an illusion again as if it's animating. Just moving quickly enough going forward messing with the textures on visiable off alpha jumping to state two on then off and backwards to the original state. So again two mesh hands I am thinking one scuplted hand that is simply adjusted to a different position to pull off the animation illusion. 

 

Sorry to ramble hard to make myself clear lol. Anyway I'm not sure how hard that is if someone could point me in the right trach I suppose to getting control over textures using mesh sculpts with code? If that makes sense lol. Anyway thanks for reading I appreciate it!

[Second Life Facial Expressions?]

Thanks guys! I'm starting to understand it a bit. 

 

Medhue if you're using movable prims though wouldn't that show noticable seams around the mouth? I'm going to experiment with this either way just to see how noticable a mesh head cut around the lower jaw would look. I know a 90 percent mesh avatar you could say wouldn't be most desirable idea for mesh. But most seem to want those extra's and don't care about seams. Either way it's technically still with seams 100 percent mesh I think being more based on geometry it's built with. My understanding of mesh is really just polygon geometry vs nurbs geometry, exported to a sculpt map, then imported to SL and placed inside a sculpty prim object.

From what I can see though it looks almost like weighted morphs tied into default animations. Or appears that way. I can't see to well if there is seams or not if it's prims. Maybe I'll look into quarl's deformer I have seen before just for idea's. I use SL beta viewer I'll see if that works with it. I'm not sure what a map for facial morphs are. Is that like some kind of UV map for animations? lol.

[Second Life Facial Expressions?]

Hello guys, I'm curious since I'm still fairly new to how the old way of avatars are built in second life. I'm building only mesh avatars and wondering how facial expressions work in second life. I know there is a bunch of animations built into second life but how are the vertices of the default avatars being moved? Is this done by something called blend shapes or is it skin weights? I never looked into it much but I'm trying to discover work around to create facial expressions on mesh characters I build. Blend Shapes looks pretty cool and I'm guessing these shapes create a gradual animation as it moves from one shape to another. Or it's just jumping to a second shape quickly giving off the illusion?

Either way if someone could enlighten me how Linden Labs does their facial expressions I'd like to see what maybe I could come up with for mesh. I see a good werewolf avatar that DreamCrawler made and it's really cool how he got default animations of sl to work with the head. first I've seen that uses second lifes default facial aimations. But I don't know how that information is being applied to a mesh head. My only guess is skin weights or having to cut the head from the neck of a mesh avi and sticking in a second skeleton but this one completely rigged to the face.  I notice he has quite a bit of seams to his waist, wrists. There is fur around his neck so I suppose he might be hiding a head seam if he uses more skeletons for each mesh piece that is cut from the body. I guess it's to make hands and face move that might have something to do with it. Or he was just putting his UV seams there.

I am looking for same idea though. I suppose if linden labs doesn't release a second skeleton any time soon with more bones. I could just use work arounds. I'd have to learn how to use those bones and create facial features anyway. Something that deform parts of the face like a smile and skin of the face creasing the way it should. Still though I'm interested in how Linden labs does theirs on the default avatar. So that I wouldn't be building almost a prim avatar with different geometry polygons instead of nurbs. I'd like if possible to deform the face and I think that's blend shapes that create that in outside programs like Zbrush and Maya. 

I'd appreciate any help thank you for reading!

[Beta Grid Lindens]

Yea I didn't mention I'm going to attempt uploading and seeing if my objects rez where I can take them into my inventory. If not I'll send back the lindens I don't use and then reset. lol

[Beta Grid Lindens]

Hey thanks man! Really appreciate that. I'm gonna try another password reset then, hopefully I think of something good and don't forget it lol.:matte-motes-grin:

[Beta Grid Lindens]

Well my uploads are showing now but yet again if I rez an upload then take it into inventory it fails to rez the object. So I can't build or put mesh objects together and then link them all together and take a copy of it that will rez or be wearable. I'm gonna have to waste lindens eventually I guess in regular grid. This isn't working or is too flawed for me lately on beta grid.

[Beta Grid Lindens]

Thanks Drongle! Seems to be working for me now. I'll have to try more uploads when Oskar gives me some lindens lol!

[Beta Grid Lindens]

Ok well, what happens if you upload, have your character in and don't do a password reset. Logout and log in to find the inventory item you just uploaded disappeared? The beta grid is just working weird for me ever since I did one password reset awhile ago just to update my inventory which I knew would make my inventory items on beta grid get deleted in order to update it. But my problem recently is I haven't done any password resets lately and someone helped me out and gave me 2k lindens. Still though after I upload and log out to log back in my inventory keeps getting deleted of the latest uploads is it suppose to do this? What would be the point of uploading with beta lindens if you log out and find it's gone next log in. Seems like something is wrong lol. 

[Beta Grid Lindens]

I got my character in only problem I'm having now is when I log out my inventory of that character get's deleted. Should I do a password reset for this? Not sure why but beta grid is much different on these past viewer updates. I always log into different locations plus my inventory issue. 

[Beta Grid Lindens]

Thanks guys! I'll try oskar and if he is busy maybe just reset my password again.

[Beta Grid Lindens]

Hey guys, I don't know where to ask this question maybe I miss where beta grid forum is but I'm on aditi and my lindens went from like 50-60k to around 5k when I did a password reset to try and update my inventory. I already went through that as I am working on an AVI trying to get aditi to correctly load my skin weights. So far I'm unsuccessful but I need more lindens. Do you have to purchase this or can I some how get more free lindens? Also my preview of skinweights keeps crashing usually I just upload to see what it gives me, not sure why it's crashing though. My other issues are once mesh objects are uploaded and I log out. I can't rez them. They always fail to rez..?

[Z Offset and Maya]

Yea keep at it, I usually stare at sometimes for hours and finally get an answer LOL! Sorry I couldn't help. =/

[Maya 2012 to upload glitches]

Yea wow, can be a headache at times that's for sure. I'm using SL Beta viewer and SL Viewer myself just to help with any mesh/bug issues I might have. Firestorm is really impressive though with what they have achieved staying what seems very current to the SL Viewer even thoughI know everyone hates it lol. I use to hate it to but then I got a Nvidia video card and that solved my extreme lag issues. So lesson learned there no more AMD radeon cards for SL LOL. 

But yea best bet is to contact them I'd agree with ya there. I'm also not much of a programmer just some scripting that I have been learn for more control over characters I create. My progress there though is thanks to these forms lol.

[Maya 2012 to upload glitches]

Yea hope it helps, my understaind is finding usually the least buggy approach that works for SL. The workflow seems to be very important for best results. I tend to be stubborn myself and really like Maya even though Blender is probably better option from my own testing and numerous posts/video tutorials suggesting to use it lol. Not to discourage Maya users though it can be done once you kinda tackle what versions an plugins work best etc. 

 

About the mapping though yea I recommend how you're doing it this way you'll find what works and doesn't before you maybe do high polygon count mapping only to find something isn't working for SL. lol

[Z Offset and Maya]

It's possible there is some type of extra step or workaround. I can't say since I haven't attempted what you're doing but Maya's export data doesn't work as well as blenders. Maya 2011 though with open collada plugin export data should work as good as blender being that as far as I know they are using open collada from the programmers who created that format. Autodesk has FBX converters for collada as well but I don't believe it's the same collada we all know and use most of the time because it says right on their site only up to Maya 2011 is supported by them. So when I use my exports with the collada plugin in Maya 2011 I usually get faster and better uploads and correct results. Maybe that will help if you haven't tried that I'm not sure what version of Maya you're using or what ways you export to eventually end up with a .dae file for SL. Either way again it's more complicated to get SL and Maya to work together then Blender and SL from what I have found.

[Z Offset and Maya]

Not sure if you tried this Betty but I always adjust my z offset in the upload options of SL viewer when exporting my rigged characters out of maya. picture below but not sure if it will help what you're trying.

[Maya 2012 to upload glitches]

I would like to suggest using your mesh in Maya 2011 if you have that version, download the open collada plugin since the last version of Maya it supports is 2011. The FBX converter from Autodesk does not work very well for SL. Version 2011 Converter works when going from Maya FBX to Maya .dae. But I believe this just tries to mimic the open collada you find in google. It's much slower waiting for the files to load in SL and tends to be a larger file size for some reason. I have reverted back to 2011 for this reason and it has solved many of my problems. Also using Maya I'd switch it from centimeters to meters being that SL works in Meters and makes your work a little less getting correct proportions in world from the start of an upload. It's hard to work in Meters in Maya at first but if you play with your camera's and go to view>look at selection this tends to get your perspective cam to correct some of it's awkwardness when working in maya. Also the F hotkey helps as well. But I'd suggest trying Maya 2011, download open collada from google and trying that see if it clears up anything. If you don't want to do this it should work under FBX converter 2011. The other versions 2012-13 I can't get to work. 2011 though is no guarantee either my best results are the actual plugin.

 

For your UV mapping if you have Zbrush and want to do some testing you could use UV Master plugin which does a really good job to unwrap your mesh quickly for you. This way you can test out what might be the problem. Then you can go back and lay out the map how you want or just adjust the results UV Master gives you. Anyway hope something helps.

[Maya Rigging - Inverted skeleton?]

What version of Maya are you using? And how do you export it for SL? Are you using FBX converter to dae from Autodesk? I have only gotten correct results using FBX converter UI 2011. What I used was Maya 2012 for painting the weights then exported out as FBX then went to FBX converter ap and had that turn it into a .dae file. It's not as good though as Maya 2011 since collada dae is supported for Maya 2011. So if you're using Maya 2011 and the collada export plugin I'd assume it should work but I have not tested this yet. I'm working on a model myself and have to see if it does. But I can say from some testing the .dae file created from open collada plugin in maya 2011 works much faster when reading it with SL viewer and so far correctly reads the data in the file to get correct orientation. I want to suggest deleting history but at times that can break the rig binded to the skeleton. So if you try it make sure your rig is still binded with weights correctly deforming your model. Also I see part of it might of been created in Zbrush since your mesh has zbrush in the title. You could try changing the name of your mesh since sometimes my uploads fail because of the long title and word zbrush in the title. Doubt that will correct your weights but every little bit helps making sure SL takes your character and doesn't fail to upload. So example just naming it Mesh for starters in outliner will help with the upload bug I get myself.

 

It's really touchy getting good results though. Usually quite a bit of work using Maya. It's worth it though I find maya interface easier then blender even though you can switch the controls over to maya preset in blender.

From what I can see your SL file does look to be correct orientation though. Possibly loss of data in the .dae file is my assumption so far. Let me know how your exporting though that might be the issue.

[rotation code]

Thanks guys! I really appreciate it! code is my biggest weakness I think lol.

[rotation code]

Hello guys, I found some code that could be useful to me on what I'd like to do. Simply just move a tail up or down by using rotation degrees. My only problem is I want to script it in a way where I don't put this code here below just in the tail its self and click the tail so that it moves up. Plus it's only able to move up since it's an example on lslwiki. So I wanted to make it more simple since I don't understand much on putting all the fuctions together to have it all in one script.

Example of what I think would be cool is if I could drop this code into the tail call this tail_script_Move_Up, then make same script and call it tail_script_Move_Down just change the value in the code to negative to make it move down. But I'd like to control the two scripts some how from a small button HUD. So just simply two cube objects that I click on screen. One of the buttons on the HUD would trigger the code to move tail up. Other button would again trigger the tail to move down. Does anyone know how to do that? I know there is multiple ways of doing this but something more simple I can understand I'd appreciate help on lol. Right now I just can't find a example that I understand that give me control over this code below. 

 

rotation rot_xyzq;

default
{
state_entry()
{
vector xyz_angles = <0,1.0,0>; // This is to define a 1 degree change
vector angles_in_radians = xyz_angles*DEG_TO_RAD; // Change to Radians
rot_xyzq = llEuler2Rot(angles_in_radians); // Change to a Rotation
}

touch_start(integer s)
{
llSetLocalRot(llGetLocalRot()*rot_xyzq); //Do the Rotation...

}
}

 

 

[Mesh Limitation, script idea.]

Hello guys, I am working on a AVI and want to add a little more life you could say to it. Do to the fact Mesh rigs don't have lower jaw bones I'm wondering what would be a good way to make some lower jaw movement. But I think I need some help on understanding how to do that.

 

Basically I was thinking cut out the lower jaw on my AVI, build out a joint to the back of the lower jaw similar to how I suppose prim AVI's are done I think. Then just rigging the eyes, body, head to the skeleton. Once uploaded into SL. Upload the lower jaw separate. Then rez my mesh AVI, place the lower jaw under the upper jaw with the build tools make it look as seemless as I can with the joint I create at the back of it. Then maybe add a script to the lower jaw that I can define how far the lower jaw opens and how far up it closes? Take a copy of my AVI back to my inventory and either make a hud that can trigger the jaw to open and close or just touch it to make it open or close. Would this be possible?

 

Or would I have to wear the mesh first then attach the lower jaw to a body part of SL defaul AVI and adjust it so it lines up in the right spot but again some how get control over it so I can define how far it opens and closes? 

I know it kinda defeats the purpose of mesh but I don't see a way around this without bones and I'd like to make the mouth capable of opening and closing if possible.

[Quadrupedal Skeleton]

Sorry late on reply, Thanks Chosen, I see ok well just wasn't sure if it needed something done at all to the skeleton from LL. I'll have to give this a try to see if it works out of Maya, thanks again!

[Quadrupedal Skeleton]

Hello guys, not that I'm looking to build anything yet with quadrupedal skeletons but I am curious does a skeleton exist for this now? I see quite a few models already done in mesh with quadrupedal characters. 

[llAttachToAvatar Question]

Thanks! =)