Aquila Kytori

Because we needed a lot more info to be able to help with Disorientz's upload problem I hunted him down inworld and we found that the issues were caused because he was trying to upload a link-set of a couple of hundred or so objects, some of which were very high poly (like individual gravel stones in a plant pot) and it was these high poly objects that were causing the problems. Now he is going through his objects, removing some, joining others where appropriate and finally, optimising them before doing more test uploads to SL.

The more you experiment the more you are going to learn Generally marking seams yourself is the way to go.

Answer : That only applies for models (or parts of models) that are intended, like your arch, to use seamless textures. When laying out uv's for seamless textures the uv islands of "material_1" can overlap one another. Again like in parts of your arch uv layout. They can also extend beyond the UV space. For models that use baked materials then they have to be laid out differently. Uv islands of "material_1" cannot overlap other islands of "material_1" unless they are going to use the exact same part of the texture. For models using baked textures the uv islands of the different materials can overlap one another. Think of it as 1 uv map but up to 8 layers of uv islands, 1 layer per material. For this type of layout then uv's of a material should not extend beyond the UV space. If it helps you can layout the uv's of each material to a different uv space see this earlier post : but usually people just stack/layer the uv's of each material in the same uv space. And of course for seamless uv layouts each material can be layered as well.

As Wulfie has already mentioned the changing colours on your uv's are indicating where the some faces have different scaling to the majority of the model. Slap on a seamless texture similar to one you intend to use on the model when rezzed in world and scale up the uv's to fit the texture. If it looks ok then don't worry to much about scaling issues on a few faces. Note that for models that will use seamless textures it is not a problem to upload the model with the uv's scaled up and extending beyond the 0 to 1 UV space. If you don't like to see the stretching colours then just uncheck that option in the UV's Overlay drop-down.

You are almost there. Just a little more UV editing ........... With vertex snapping enabled in the UV editor, select horizontal edges of the inner arch surface uv's and align/snap them to the corresponding vertices of the front face arch uv's. Repeat for the horizontal edges of the outer surface uv's. : Snapping edges to inner then outer vertices of the arch : and the result : Just to note: You could probably get similar mapping results on such an object as your arch when, in orthographic view, using the Project From View unwrap method and it would need less UV editing .

Taking it one step further : With the UV Sync Selection enabled you can select the faces directly on the mesh model and then move and edit the corresponding UV faces in the UV editor. Note that this only works in face select mode ! In vertex select mode you can seriously mess up your UV's. So make sure when finished to uncheck the UV Sync Selection again.

Another option for separating UV faces is, in the UV Editor, enable the UV Sync Selection option. With this enabled you don't need to use the Y key to separate faces just select and move. Only works in face select mode. Also after separating UV faces you can "Mark Seams" on the mesh model directly from the UV editor using the new UV islands outer edges, (borders). Select the new UV islands > UV > Seams From Islands.

Yes it is the same shortcut key to separate faces from other faces in the UV editor as it is for separating faces from other faces of a mesh in the 3D editor. Its the Y key. Select the faces, hit the Y key (to separate) followed by the G (to move). Usually it is best to mark seams before unwrapping because then it is you who decides how the UV's are laid out etc. in the UV texture space.

When you are dealing with several UV islands like that it can be tedious to get them all aligned correctly in the UV space so that when the seamless brick texture is applied the bricks are all orientated, scaled and aligned correctly with one another. You could try a slightly different approach, where you only have one UV island to deal with. At the moment it looks like your archway is composed of 2 (or 3) separate objects, columns and arch. First you would need to join these together so that they are one object in Blender. They can be separated again at the end of the UV unwrapping process. Preparing the Arch before UV unwrapping : Before joining, in Edit mode delete the top and bottom faces of the columns. Next, in Object mode select the column(s) and arch objects and join them together so that they are a single object. Ctrl J In Edit mode, select All and remove any duplicated vertices (where the top of the columns meet the bottom of the arch) M > Merge by Distance. Select one of the outer edge loops and mark it as a UV seam. See image below. Next Open the Object Data Properties tab (little green triangle icon) and delete any UV maps that are in the UV Map submenu. (See image below). Delete any materials then create a new "brick" material (a seamless image texture in the Shader Editor) and assign it to your archway: Now we are ready to unwrap. Edit mode, select All > U > Unwrap. It should unwrap something like in the image below. You should also now have a single UV map in the list if UV maps. The next step is to Straighten out the Uv's. First we need to straight one of the UV quads, then with that selected we can straighten all the rest with a single click. Choose a quad near the middle of the UV island, then in Edge select mode, select one edge of this quad. Right Mouse Button open the UV Context Menu and choose the Align X (or Align to Y which ever is appropriate) This will align the edge to the X axis. Repeat for the other 3 edges. Now the quad should be nicely squared off. Switch t oface select mode and select the Quad : With the quad still selected hit the A key to select the rest of the UV island. The squared quad is now the active quad. Open the UV Context Menu (RMB) and this time choose the Follow Active Quads option. And now the UV island should be all straighten out : Next is to see how the "brick" material texture looks on the archway. In the 3D viewport switch to Material Preview, and in the UV editor load up the seamless brick texture : If the Brick texture happens to be running along the wrong direction you can select the UV island and rotate it 90°. Now select and scale up the UV island until the scale of the bricks looks approximately OK. You can also move the island around the UV editor to better align the bricks edges to the archway. Note that final scaling and moving can be done when archway has been upload and rezzed inworld. Now that all the UV unwrapping and editing has been done you can, if need be split the archway into smaller parts (objects) again ready for exporting to SL. To separate: in Edit mode select parts of mesh and hit the P key > Selection. I hope I haven't made this seem too complicated because it isn't really. I just a lot of images to try to explain the method . T

The screenshots are from Avastar 2.93 I'm not sure what you mean by "Base add-on" compared to "avastar-2" ? As far as I know all versions of the Avastar add-on are complete. If you need Developer kits for specific bodies then it is up to you to apply for and add them to Avastar yourself. Versions of Avastar are : Avastar-1-legacy was for Blender up to version 2.78 and is pre Bento. You definitely don't want this one. Avastar-2.79 is for Blender 2.79. Avastar- 2.93 is for Blender 2.83 to 3.0 Avastar 3.1 is for Blender 3.0 and newer. If you do decide to get Avastar and you are using Blender 3.0 or newer then this is the version that you should be downloading. Checkout the discord group they really are extremely helpful and will be able to answer any questions concerning Avastar that you have.

Hi If you have any questions about Avastar I strongly recommend you ask on the Avastar Discord chat and also check out the the Avastar Reference manual : https://avalab.org/avastar/300/reference/ In the meantime a couple of screenshots from the Avastar addon in Blender : Blender > Object mode > Add > Avastar > 3-Skeleton : Will add a Bento skeleton : or option 2-Complete will add an avatar mesh along with the skeleton :

Shouldn't do. Have you checked how many UV's you have for your object ? Object Data Properties > UV Maps : For SL, only 1UV map for 1 Mesh object ! If you do have more than one only the selected UV map will be used. And when exporting as Collada use the SL+Open sim static presets.

Its ................... ....... 2 Images, 2 Materials and 1 UV map. A mesh object can have up to 8 materials but only 1 UV map, that's why we use the stacking (layering) of UV's by material. See images above. Up to 8 materials layered onto 1 UV space.

Hi dustty As far as I know, for SL using UDIM tiles (1 materail per tile), or offsetting the UV's by 1 UV space along the X axis (1 material per UV space) or just using the traditional stacking UV's by material (1 material per "layer") in a single UV space all give the same result. Example : 1 mesh object with 3 materials : UV's spread over 3 UDIM tiles, (1 material per tile) : Uv's Offset by 1 along the X axis : Stacked UV's : Result inworld is the same for the three methods : So use which ever method works best for you

Your normal map doesn't look quite right. Perhaps recheck your Normal map options in options in SP. From the SL Wiki : https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Material_Data Normal Map An image whose color data encodes changes to the "normal" for each pixel on the surface. The normal is the direction that the pixel "faces" for the purpose of determining how it is illuminated by and reflects light sources (imagine that each pixel is turned on tiny pivots). The alpha channel of the Normal Map may contain a specular exponent value that is mutilplied by the "Glossiness" parameter. A higher alpha value will result in specular highlights that are brighter and tighter. Keep in mind these are OpenGL style normal maps, where bright green is up and bright red is right. (or to put in Industry terms, the normal maps are X+, Y+, Z+ normal maps) or just try this one which has its Green channel inverted to see if it makes any difference to your "shadowing "problem.

"Early birds ...."

Hi Could it be that you have not applied the Subdivision Modifier before exporting? If you want to keep the modifier and export then you have two options. 1, From the Collada export options panel > Geometry tab enable the Apply Modifiers option. Or 2, use the Collada Second Life export presets (sl+open sim static) from the Operator Presets drop-down which will enable the appropriate export options for you. :

I'm not a Max user either. Perhaps this may help : https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/Exporting_a_mesh_from_3ds_Max#Scale_to_meters

Hi There is a SL imposed maximum limit of 21,844 triangles that can be allocated to a single "texture face". If your chain has more then this then it will be split to have more than 1 texture face. See this earlier post for this and other mesh limits :

Perhaps you have surpassed the Triangles per Material limit ? https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/Technical_Overview https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Limits

HI Sandis If you stil have this problem I think the best thing is if can share the .blend file or an example file with your set up and some example geometry. Also mention which Blender version that you are using.

And I like his presentation, clear and concise. Good choice by LL

To close the Arduino chapter of this thread , the lower LoDs : Using the LoDs above : Board size approx. : 1.5m x 2m = LI 1 2m x 3.2m = LI 2 4m x 6m = LI 6

Another option is to use an Add-on to do the the above operations for you. The UvSqares add-on by Reslav Hollos has this option and the free (older) version which works with Blender 3.1 (and earlier) can be downloaded from Github. https://github.com/Radivarig/UvSquares . Download the .zip file and without unzipping Install as an add-on in Blener. Edit > Preferences > Addons >Install > UvSqares-Master.zip. You will find the add-on added to the left hand tabs in the UV editor. Now you can use the To Grid By Shape option from the UvSquares menu: The shortcut keys for the To Grid By Shape tool are Alt E. So using only shortcut keys ........... Select quad > L > Alt E on each UV island in turn straightening can take less than a minute :

If your goal is to straighten out the UV islands then: Mark seams and use a simple UV unwrap: Next in the UV Editor, Edge Select mode, you need to first straighten out all four edges of one of the quads in one of the UV islands : Then, in Face Select mode with that quad selected use the Follow Active Quads unwrap on that island: And repeat for all the other islands: