JackRipper666

That looks awesome medhue! That's kinda what I been doing besides the eyes I parent the eyes to the eye bones. But the upper an lower jaws, tongue I parent to the neck bone. How are you able to create facial animations without jaw bones? Cause I always wondered how it's done with facial rigs. I know it's not exactly needing bones just something to manipulate the eye brows etc. But what about the mouth? Does your uppe ran lower jaws move to? This is actually my first model. I'm more of a 2D artist myself. Or even bones inside the tongue? I have found I can add bones but my biggest issue really is just getting my eyes and jaws to show up in inside my mesh. They go on my shoulders or just don't show up at all! LOL But yea I'd say you're a avatar maker to me if you got it all working! I did take in considerations to try and limit myself. I mean I know it's new and it's going to be difficult. But some of it it's just more than I expected. I also tested with only 10k faces the raw low poly form of my mesh to get eyes and teeth still no go yet. So I'm going to try what Karl said changing my axis. Cause I been working off it by any means to make it work. Just working on the skeleton on it's side LOL! I'm gonna keep at it and I really, really don't want to break up my mesh to parts. I'm just disappointed I'm unable to get this worked out yet LOL! I'll try to be more patient but I been at this for months lol! Ok well I'll work on this soon see if I can make another go of getting it to work. Either way hopefully this is helping others figure out their problems to. One thing I am positive of. I can move joints and bones to fit my mesh. Only rule for sure is. DO NOT, move that skeleton in any of the translate channels. That's where it breaks! I have successfully added two bones to the rig and got skin weights to still load. BUT, don't guarantee it will work. It's so damn touchy it could work once but never again. I have yet to make another attempt at adding bones. But also what I did to keep the skin weights showing up when I upload to SL is named it in the same naming convention as the rest of the skeleton. For example if it was mHead I would put mJawUpper and m JawLower. Anyway that's for those who might be trying this in maya as well. Thanks again guys!

Karl Reisman wrote: Thanks Karl! I'm going to try this blender has some work arounds thanks to Gaia and Masami. But it's extremely touchy as well. Plus my mesh get's really out of wack. This might work better. I noticed the skeleton so far is laying on it's side on the Z axis if I look at it from maya's side view. It's a jumbled up mess so I been changing the radius on the joints to 0.05 instead of moving it. I'm afraid to move it around incase that might mess it up. Is thow you're working off it? Side laying down? Okay This problem is that when you work in Maya specifically for Second Life, you have to set up your maya file to be Z -up. not the Maya default Maya Y-up. go to Window -> Settings and Preferences-> Settings, and then set the environment as Z up, and build with the X axis being forward (rather than the Y axis now). With those settings, the skeleton should be standing up tall on the Z axis and facing positive X axis. Second Life's rules for Mesh are rigid and limiting, but one can still produce good work if one has had previous experience working with bad game engines. Cool, thanks I'm going to try this out soon!

Hm.. seems I go in circles with this to no end. My parented eyes, jaws an tongue never stay parented to bones. And I kinda feel mesh is just flawed a bit to me. The old way everyone is doing most of their avatar in pieces seems much better. It just seems kinda looks better because the avatar holds up. With how flakey mesh is. I do mean extremely tedious no mistakes flakey, you're better off just building an avatar the way it's usually done. Another thing I've seen is I guess being that mesh is primarily one object. IF they ever get rigging working in SL. It could be very useful. High detail meshes don't lag at all with what does show up. So the body shows and that works ok I guess. Weight painting is part of the culprit it's almost like SL mesh it's very tedious time consuming and seems to barely work on high res mesh. I feel I've done all I can to make progress with this. I'm not sure how everyone usually builds an avatar I guess they build parts and attach it to parts of the body while hiding their avatar?. Anyone have tutorials on the way it's usually done before mesh was even part of viewer? I'm kinda tired of painting weights over an over and trying different rigs LOL! Here is the character I created in Maya. I'm a monster movie fan mostly of King Kong. Wanted to try something a bit more high res. The body does work at least lol. Either way I ever get it working I'll post how it works here to help others.

I can confim the maya skeleton works, even added two bones for upper and lower mouth. I have same results though with blender. Can't see my eyes or teeth when it's rigged lol. Still looking into it.

Gaia Clary wrote: JackRipper666 wrote: I'm going to try this blender has some work arounds thanks to Gaia and Masami. But it's extremely touchy as well. Plus my mesh get's really out of wack. Could you describe in which way the blender is touchy ? Maybe we can do something here to make it more robust ? I'm having trouble with parenting objects like eyes, upper jaws, bottom jaws and tongue staying parented to one bone. So as I move the head it stays with it in blender. But in SL it tends to throw my jaws tongue and eyes out behind me or on my shoulder or something lol. Also my ears tend to get ripped off so I need to learn how to paint weights in blender. That looked like it would be very easy but the way bones needed to be setup as a joint almost tends to make it very time consuming to figure out the correct deformations. Even maya though I'm in here painting weights as my avatar is on his side. In fear I'll ruin the skeleteon if I dare rotate it. I think these programs just aren't geared enough towards SL axis or something. Still making it a daunting task to successfully rig and paint weights. I know it's very possible to make all this work cause there is a guy on SL market selling his avatar and it's one piece mesh it looks like. Just not sure how anyone is making this complicated task easy lol! Anyway hope that helps let me know.

Karl Reisman wrote: Well I figured out the problem with my Maya files. I received a bad skeleton. So Maya users, if you do not get a export skin weights button, it's probably because the skeleton file is bad. The legends of the SL skeleton being finicky are indeed true. Once I used a clean skeleton from a source no longer available, the weighting was exportable, and thus began a day long task of painting skin weights. Then I discovered, and fixed a second problem. The initial skin bind looked bad around the knees, I was informed that one could "move" the joints, but never rotate them. So I "corrected: the position of the knee joints by moving to where they were indicated on the mesh. It was true that you could move them and still obtain a valid export of a weighted mesh, but the knees no matter how they were weighted, they would not be fixed. For this to work, you cannot move, rotate, or modify the skeleton in any way to obtain a good skin bind. I ended up using scales, and mesh deformers to push the geometry and push the Mesh so the mesh lined up with the joints. Then I deleted the history and bound the skin, and proceeded as normal. here is that "good" skeleton file, On generated for Maya users from the days of the Mesh Beta. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15354633/skeleton.ma WARNING: This files units are in centimeters, unfortunately, and I hesitate to rescale the skeleton, so in binding you need to export yoru weighted mesh at a scale factor of 100 (100 centimeters = 1 Meter), and because the scale factor only applies to the mesh, It doesn't support bone offsets, so leave that unchecked or your mesh when worn ill looked like a crumpled up tissues, pulsing with a hideous parody of live and movement. Maya Procedure: 1.) Open the above file, and immediately rename it as something else and save it. 2.) Import your mesh into the scene. 3.) Scale the mesh, and deform it to match the bones. Delete History on the mesh. 4.) Select the Mesh and then select the root nose (Pelvis) and choose "Bind Smooth Skin". Leave "removed unused influences" check box unchecked. 5.) You now have a bound skinned mesh, now. 6.) Save your file as a copy, renames it as something else. 7.) This new file is specifically to animate the skeleton to test skin weighting and edit it. Animate the skeleton , including into the porn poses so as to give you an idea of how the mesh will behave once its in the grid. 8.) Using the "Paint skin weights" tool, and the animation slider, scrub the animation to a certain point and then use the brush to modify the shape of the mesh into the proper form in that particular pose.Use low opacity settings on the brush (or a tablet where the stylus us set to control opacity with pressure). 9.) A day Later, once you have made good skin weights, go to "Skin -> Edit Smooth Skin -> Export Skin weights.-> [ ] "(Click on the box). When the dialogue box comes up choose a place to save the weight maps (note this only works on a mesh where the UV Maps are completed) name them. Maya will ask if it's okay to write 26 files to disk? Accept that and sit back. 10.) Go back to your first copy file, the one you made the initial skin weight on, and select the mesh, and go ""Skin -> Edit Smooth Skin ->Import Skin Weights. A dialogue box will pop up and ask you ti find the weight maps. Go to where you saved the export from the above step and there will be a file named "[File name]_weightmap". Click on that and select open. Maya will perform it's magic (rezzing points from 0,0,0, making the mesh look like it's transporting in from Star Trek.). If you do not get the transporter effect, and Maya appears to do nothing, that is because there is a change in the mesh itself (not the binding) between the first copy and the second copy, and you will have to start over from Step 5. 11.) Once Maya completes is magic, click the skin, then click the Skeleton (on the root node), and select Export, and export the file as a Collada DAE File. Import with the above caveats taken into account and you should have a nicely skinned mesh in SL to wear. Hope this Helps. --KARL Thanks Karl! I'm going to try this blender has some work arounds thanks to Gaia and Masami. But it's extremely touchy as well. Plus my mesh get's really out of wack. This might work better. I noticed the skeleton so far is laying on it's side on the Z axis if I look at it from maya's side view. It's a jumbled up mess so I been changing the radius on the joints to 0.05 instead of moving it. I'm afraid to move it around incase that might mess it up. Is thow you're working off it? Side laying down?

Gaia! You're a life saver! LOL Finally that's what my problem was! Thanks again! Your help is much appreciated!

Ok here is a screen shot of all the suggestions made, Sl Collada, Roll set to 0 etc. I have got as far as Skin weights, joints but still can't wear it. With or without alpha mask on. I have tried just skin weights and no joints to see if I got a different result still no go lol! Here is a screen shot of my settings. Larger resolution of screen shot here. http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/7495/twearavatar.jpg

Just going to start adding my findings here lol. I know now why those bones are in the joint position. Here is part of the reason why rigged meshes aren't working in Second Life. Your bones are acting as a joint in in a horizontal position. Here is a post by Masami Kuramoto. Here explains it more in detail. Now he actually got to wear his lol. I can't wear Gaia's mesh but does see her skin weights once I check it joints shows up as well. Either way that's a step forward this this confusion. There is a guy who sells on SL Market that I'm trying to ask how he gets fully rigged meshes to work in SL. He makes some cool avatars. I forget his name though.. Here is the link http://www.secondcitizen.net/Forum/showpost.php?p=410101

Karl Reisman wrote: From what i understand, for it to work the skeleton has to be exactly the skeleton used on SL, No more, No less. and the bones have to have the exact names as the bones in the SL Skeleton. SL does not allow for custom skeletons yet. it requires the same skeleton as is used in SL. --Karl I would say it's still possible. But, I have a used a SL skeleton in Maya and if anyone got it to work not sure what the trick is. So far I have tried the work bench from Gaia and her avatar definitely works but I'm not sure how to use it for my own character. I emailed her hopefully she can enlightment me. Couple things I noticed she does differently is use armature in blender that is not the typical rig I see. It's more like she is using hte bones as joints and also the armature looks different. It's more like sticks for bones intead of a triangle shape to the bones that i am use to seeing in Blender ever since I been introduced to rigging through some tutorials. I am just going to stick to blender currently since it's seems extremely touchy to get anything to work outside of maya. Even though even when I do a basic skeleton with no constraints etc and just simply parent that to my mesh with automatic weights. I still even exported from blender get no skin weights or joints uploading. The boxes are still greyed out. So if SL is going to be this complicated they really need a sure fire example with exact steps on how to rig an avatar. Otherwise for the seasoned pro's you'll do fine figuring it all out. But for anyone who is more of an artist and just learning Crash courses of multiple 3d software programs like, zbrush, maya, 3dsmax, blender etc. It's going to leave most confused and exhausted after a few months of working hard on just one avatar. I won't give up till I figure out how to do this though. I have worked hard on a mesh that came out really good and would like to bring it to life lol.

Hey guys sorry I'm late getting back to this post. Nice to see all the help here. Gaia where can I find your tuts I have your blender SL collada installed. I made a quick rig, no restraints or anything. Just a quick parent to the mesh with automatic skin weights. I decided I'll try blender since I'm having no luck with Maya. I exported it but it's way over 21 bones. So you're saying I can't upload anything under 21 bones or it just needs to be 21 bones or more? Most of my bones are in the fingers. I hope it's not losing the joints, weights just by naming convention. That would annoy me lol. Anyway I'm now gonna look aorund see if I can find one of your tutorials on google.

I'm using Maya 2011, I have attempted to also use FBXconverterUI since the collada export doesn't work for Maya 2012 when you import it into SL. I figured maybe it's the same issue with 2011. Apparently it's only a 2012 issue either way exporting a mesh with a rig as FBX converted to .dae with FBXconverterUi or just straight collada export from maya as a .dae file doesn't work either. I have used over 21 bones so far. Really not sure just how touchy second life. Is it only blender compatible? I don't like blender at all. Feels very cumbersome with the movement and it's one of those things once I get use to software it's where I'd like to stay since I know where everytrhing is that I need. When I upload though I see my mesh and I can upload it. I just have no options for joints or weights. Any other details you might need? Not sure what else I could mention....

Hey guys, I've been trying forever to simply wear a rigged mesh. No matter where I upload it OSgrid or Second LIfe grid the upload on the latest viewer will not show joints or skin weights, the check boxes are always greyed out. I have tried just uploading and wearing it but all it does is attach to my hand. Also tried invisible alpha an wearing it. Other things I tried are using a skeleton I found here on the forums and one from second life wiki. Still won't upload a damn skeleton. Starting to drive me nuts. Anyone else having this problem lol?

Drongle McMahon wrote: "Ok so are you saying you think a high poly count model would work?" No. That most definately is not what I meant to say*! I am saying that meshes should not cause more gpu-stress-related lag than prims or sculpties with the same number of triangles. They will still cause this kind of lag if they have too many triangles. Yes. The internal mesh format deals only with triangles. All other polys are converted into triangles before they are uploaded. * that is to say it would work, but badly. I see, well....for now I'm just gonna finish it and upload to OSgrid, try to wear it once it's rigged just to see how bad it works and than maybe try to rework it some how. Scale it down a lot in polys.

Ok so are you saying you think a high poly count model would work? Because it uploads just find in SL grid. I just have a lot of work to do to tackle a rig. it's gone through changes in the mesh from what I originally had to make it useable in OSgrid but using SL viewer. It is quads though. Just not as neat as it once was. Either way when it gets uploaded I see how in wireframe mode on OSgrid it shows up being converted to triangles. This makes me think it's gonna get converted no matter what you use to triangles and also a format that is more suitable for SL.

Thanks Amethyst! I see what you mean with the viewers though. Some are more taxing than others. SL viewer is really nice but it does pull more resources and only way I use it testing is if I only do two viewers open. If I need 3 or more testing mesh etc. I tend to use phoenix or cool viewer. Plus yes definitely times are still very hard with economy. I tend to be someone who builds my own computers so I have a little more power than most being that I upgrade the parts here and there. It's still very much a midrange system and maybe not even that with the new LGA 2011 socket processors out there now lol. Yea I'll just have to keep trying to make things more low end on polygon count as Chosen has warned me about cause of how taxing mesh is. This does have such big possibilities though. I just wish I could use more end models.

Thanks for help guys! Yea that makes sense Choosen, I figured that's why I really didn't see fur till I rendered it. I just wasn't sure if it's havoc? I think it's called that SL uses would some how render that in world. It really is no big deal there it kinda looks cool as I paint it without fur. I could always try to paint some in. Yea it's definitely up there in polygons around 40k lol. I might be able to decimate it and rework in zbrush. Hopefuly it doesn't become terribly ugly LOL. It's really hard to get the details I'd like though if I make it 6k. Is there advantages to making the body in parts? I'm discovering a lot of people seem to build their models in parts some of the best I seen in world do this but they are very high detailed! I have a decent computer tends to handle high settings well and it's nothing high end maybe midrange. I wanted to try and be a content creator in full avatars but until I get the formula correct on building low lag models I'm thinking I'll just for fun see how laggy or non laggy it is for me? Not sure if that's possible maybe it's just not going to work lol.

Hey guys, me again lol. I'm getting closer to finishing this model and have tested it in OS grid just to see if it uploads and it does. It's high poly count so I'll pay some cash to upload it I don't mind. I ran the upload part again in SL just to see it would take my model and it said I need more funds error. So should work once I add enough lindens. I still need to rig it fully though. But I'm wondering if I try to ad fur descriptions to it will SL be able to see that? Seems as if Mesh in second life doesn't show on many viewers so I feel like I'm trying to take this a step further now with adding fur descriptions which I guess would really be overboard? I tried to add them in OSgrid and it didn't show up on my model so I'm assuming it definitely don't work. Also does anyone know if mesh uploads will be more usable/seen on other viewers soon? I think I might be doing a lot of work that will only appear on SL viewer LOL! Here is some pictures of the model. It's a humanoid type gorilla. I have finished it though. It has eyes, tongue, upper and lower gums, teeth. The body including ears I left as one solid mesh. It does look really nice in OSgrid as a final result. Just need to finish painting it and until I rig it I won't know for sure how well it will interact in world I'm pretty sure only SL viewer will see it also.

Good Idea, I'll ask around see what they think lol. Thanks again for the help!

Sorry replying late, yes I did but had no luck. I am on osgrid with secondlife viewer, is there any problems trying to wear rigged meshes there?

Thanks I'm half way there now. ok so I have alpha mask now and I am invisible. But when I wear the simple bot mesh it does not act like a avatar. It has a rig to it an all so I figured how do I get it so it becomes an avatar I am wearing. All I am able to do is attach it like a body part or center it on me. That's where I'm stuck now lol!

Hey guys, I'm trying to wear the simple bot rigged mesh found here http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/Uploading_and_wearing_a_rigged_mesh I tried to follow the instructions but my Inventory, Library > Body Parts > Alpha Masks folder.doesn't exist for me. When I attached the bot to my avatar, I looked for library folder and all there is since I am using SL viewer latest vesion on OSGrid is a bunch of opensim library folders folders example one is named bodyparts library. I thought maybe that's what the tutorial was talking about so I went htere and still nothing in there and I right click it and no bodyparts>alpha masks folders. I'm in inventory an see nothing that relates to this. Can someone help me out what am I doing wrong? lol

Wow thanks! So far I been trying my best to keep the model as low as possible. I am aware that you need to try to keep the models low in order for it not to suck up performance. But I guess I was thinking maybe I could add some real 3D detail to the face. If this is not a good idea I'll try to maybe change that smooth it down or relax it or something. I have noticed a lot of models give off the illusion of wrinkles with the texture. I guess this is why they do that in order ot make sure it's not to high on polycount. I know about retopology from youtube tutorials and creating 3-4 polycount models of your character. A low, medium and high. Being that I am new to this though I am still trying to understand which one gets used in SL? I seen how the mesh uploaded for SL wants three models of your mesh I think it was. But you can also just auto generate the other two. I have not experimented yet with the weight system in maya. But I think I can understand how it works a bit by what you're saying with giving it influence on how much something moves or doesn't move. I'm gonna have to just get familiar with it once I get to that point. I really don't want to go too crazy with the inside of the mouth. But I would like it so that the mouth can open and close maybe when talking or just know that it's something I can animate. The teeth and gums I just want to make as low as possible. I really am trying to keep it low on how much I add so if I get to high maybe I can just take out details and find away to lower the poly count with a plugin for maya. I'll stick to learning how to rig then with Maya and also do the animations there. I really want to keep it simple not trying to use too many programs or demos of them. So glad to hear that it's a better choice to stick with Maya. There is so much to this program for me at least. It's kinda overwhelming lol. As for texturing I guess it would be a good idea then to try and use this model I am making now as the high poly and make some kind of low poly version of it and bake on my textures that were painted in say for example mudbox with the high poly model in use. Then go back to Maya and bake them into the low poly mesh? The UV mapping I also gotta work on I'm getting familiar with it and messed around with it. But I wonder would it be ok to try the automapping in maya? It looks as if it does a good job. I don't believe I see overlapping UV's and it's pretty flattend out. I could be wrong though being that this will also be my first time doing a correct UV map. lol I brought this up in Maya. I'm not exactly sure what is the total of my polygon count it works differently then other progams.But I haven't worked on the mesh again yet just wanted to make sure I was going about building it correctly first by asking you guys. So what do you think of these numberes? Are they looking too high?

Thanks man! I plan on doing eyes separate and ears. I built the inside of the mouth but it has no teeth or gums yet. So I need to build that and put it in. I have a long road ahead of me cause I do intend to make it with a few of it's own animation overrides. Some facial expressions to. This is really hard though LOL! I have done basic animations with qanimator I think it was called. So I know the T-pose so far lol. I'll probably go with your idea though sounds like that would be much easier to trying rigging my first mesh. What do you prefer to use for rigging and animations? I was thinking I could try it in maya or zbrush. Then make animations in something like MotionBuilder. As for textures I am not sure probably paint the model first with like polypainting or ptex painting and bake them into a UVmap later I think is how it's done. Just another thing I'll have to look for in tutorials lol.

I'll continue to model it then as all one mesh. Cause I do think it looks better as one mesh as if it was a real body or as close to it as possible. What do you mean by weighted? Like adding more polygons or some how using something in maya to keep those area's more weighed down from moving so that it stretches correctly? Here is a picture of what I have so far. It's gonna be a gorilla mesh. Not sure if I'll go the route of bipedal but I might incase I Can't seem to get it as a gorilla should walk on all fours. Plus not sure how complicated to make it more quadrepdal and scripting an AO will be. I'm not gonna go to crazy with making it very realistic I think more on the lines of a combination of human anatomy except the hands and feet. Just whatever I think I can make look half decent lol!