Spinell

Right! There was a reason why I left the previous thread about the dolly look I was puting together. That reason was that I simply hate SL's default avatar.There were some horrible shadows I chouldn't get rid of near the nose (even with face lights) and I couldn't get the mouth the way I wanted. I also took a look at the BJD avatars suggested by you guys, but they were either too young-looking or not the right proportions (noses way too big!). So, I made my own mesh avatar. Hey, drastic measure, what I can say? I couldn't find what I wanted in the marketplace so no choice btu to make my own. I'll probably still do some polishing adjustments, but I wanted to post some pics to get some suggestions and feedback from you guys. ^.^ Now, there's something still not right here, but I can't put my finger on it: it's either the face shape (should I have it shorter/rounder?),the eye size (more closed?) or the eyes (should the colour be bigger?) What do you guys think? Oh yes, hair by Lo Momo and eyes from By Snow. ;)

Ok, I actually found out why I ouldn't weight paint it. A very stupid mistake from my part: I must have accidently shiften to the subtract brush (I wanted to remove some red parts) but by mistake turned the weight of the brush to 0. No wonder it wansn't paiting anything. Now I can weight paint it no problem and I'm managing to rig it nicely. As a curiosity, the file came in OBJ when I download it and it does kinda look like a prop. And yeah, most likely it was meant to be used with a normals map. ...Why can't SL acomodate normal maps?! T_T I want a better system to create in, dammit!!!

Hope you can sort of see it:

EDIT: Changes due to... nudity issues? Can I get some tips or weighting? I found this free mesh hair in a 3D model website and did some modifications to it, but unfortunatly this thing is not very well built. Or at least, not for SL. I simply can't weight paint it because of the vertices. So, the only way I could think of rigging it was to go to the vertice rgoups after parenting the mesh to the armature and manuallyy assign weights. I've done this before with clothing, especially skirts with lots of frills where weight painting is a nightmare, but it's not working that well with the hair. Take a look: Any suggestions for hair weighting? I want the curls at the front to stay reletively still while the rest moves with the head and neck bones. Also, the avatar's skull seemes to be peaking out and I'm not sure why; when I move the bones in blender, that never happens.

Any chance we can see an update of the incredibly handy bone weight copy script from Macinimatrix? One that works in Blender 2.66? Preatty please, Gaia? ^.^

I was checking random pics and ran into this dress: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nase_nagy/5420918005/ I forgot how to breathe for a minute or two. It's beautiful! Problem is, it was a gift for the Cupid Heart Hunt 2011. Now, I have seen some shops that release hunt gifts they put out a few years after the hunt, so people can still get their hands on it by paying a price. But I can't find this shop anywhere anymore: Ruru@Tear Any help? Or is this dress gone forever?

Hum, need some help and opinions on the modeling. I'm ending up with strange results, but in blender the model looks fine: SL: Blender: Is it the bones or the weighting? Also, I probably need to scale it better: some body parts seem too big (hands) andsome too small (head).

And LL strikes again!!! *sigh, guess I'll need to upload in main grid?

Having trouble uploading to the grid. I get an uploader error that says "Error while requesting mesh upload permissions".

Yup, it worked peachy in 2.65 Awsome script, btw, saved me a TON of trouble most of the times. Will you show me how to work with the new embebbed tools, Gaia? You know how clumsy I still am with Blender. EDIT: Actuall, I wanted to downgrade back to 2.65 since I don't need that .SMD transfer script anymroe (found a way around that, hurray!!). It was really the only reason why I upgraded in the first place...

Hum, I updated to 2.66, so maybe the boneweight copy script needs updating too? I'll go look for an update tomorow, that might fix it. Thanks!

Wow, quick responses. Thanks for all the info, Code, you totally rock. Also, getting another error here. Using the workbench and wanted to copy the bone weights, but when I use the script, I get this: Never happened before. Any guesses? Could it be that the avatar from the workbench wasn't parented? Or that I deleted some skelleton by mistake?

Well, if you can't find what you're looking for in the marketplace, build it! So I did. I'm in the process of making my own custom mesh avatar, just the way I want her to look. Modeling is preatty much done, now I want to test her in the beta grid to see if she looks good in SL. Now... what do I need? Yes, I imagine I will need to parent the mesh to theSL armature to make sure it moves correctly, but... what else? What do I need to make sure my new custom mesh avatar works properly in SL? Also How detailed should it be? I'm currently using subsurf (not yet applied) in my modeling but I'm concerned about Land Impact and all that stuff. The base mesh I used for modeling was not the standard SL avatar but something a little less vertice-heavy and more friendly for modeling (the SL avi really is cr*p XD). So, some advice? I'm using blender and I don't (yet!) have avastar. Think I'll need to do adcional weight painting?

Thank you so much for the help, Code. Well, the good news is that yes, I could install and enable the pluggin. The bad news is that I still can't import the file I wanted, though I'm starting to suspect the problem may be the file itself. I think I still need to learn better how to work with .smd files... Another bad news is that while upgrading to blender 2.66, all my other installed import/export addons are now gone. Not gone from the system, as I still have the folder with blender's 2.65 info and they're there, but they're not installed anymore. Do you know an easy fix for this?

Hi guys, I need help sorting out an error in blender because of an addon. I really don't know who else to ask for help. I've been trying for days to install the SMD import script in blender. For some reason I just couldn't get it to enable. I believe I was installing an older version of it (1.6.8) and found, after much searching, a 1.1.7 version that did allow me to enable it. As I went to test if it could correctly import something, I get this error: I think it's because the instalation went wrong (again). Could someone please give me a helping hand in fixing it? It usually takes me about a week, maybe more, to install addon scripts in Blender; I really cannot understand why these things are so hard to install, enable and get working properly.

Update time!! Added a hair decoration (thought I might need to change the ribbon colour to blue...), made some modifications to my shape, added some wonderful dolly eyes I found here and eyelashes from here (they're modifiable, to I was able toadjust them to my big dolly eyes). I experimented with two blushes, but they were far too red for my skin colour. I'll keep hunting though. Also want to try and get some more BJD eye makeup (there's an effect in the dolls that I'm looking to recreated, from the scultping) and some more realistic lips. Also, I need to start working on my outfit... (I'm making mesh )

Dunno why I can't post this in the Vanity Thread. I keep getting redirected. Anyways, I'm slowly getting the BJD look I've been hunting for. Unfortunatly, the eyelashes I have don't fit well with my new eye size, so I'll have to hunt for soe new ones. Also, I feel a light blush and a hair accessory is missing. I had found a blush I loved the other day and forgot to buy it before I closed the window. Can't find it anymore... T_T As for hair accessories, I'll probably have to make something myself that fits the theme of a BJD. Comments? ^.^

SL is certainly a bizarre world. I've been trying to find some good, efective ways of in-world advertising but have had little sucess on my own. I've been told things like adboards and classifieds don't really work most of the times, especially for newcomers. I'm just look for some advice on in-world advertising for SL shops. I would like to tell people inworld "Hi, my shop exists and you can find it here. We exist." Does anyone have some tips for me?

I also find it very strange you can make shirts but not pants. Can you teach me how to make the shirts? They're hard for me. Anyways, I'm not a pro here, but you could try to use two cilinders, one for each leg, stretch them to the crotch area and then connect the vertices in crotch with Fill. Then you chould be able to select the ring of vertices nicely and extrude up to the waist. Finally, apply a shrikwrap modifier. I usually pick as a target "project" and select the avatar model. Works preatty well. That should give you a preatty good base to start working with. You can then apply the modifier and do your modeling and sculpting. If you want to use a mirror modifiers I suggest doing it after the shrikwrap modifier. Blender just has some weird quirks sometimes. And of course, add edge loops and subdivisions wherever you need (legs, crotch area, etc). Good luck!

Hum, ok. I can't find instructions on how to install the patch. I tried to download a blender veeson that had the patched compiled, but it didn't seem to work. Could I get a little help installing this?

Thanks so much for the replies. The blender script for seams sounds amazing! I'm definitely giving it a try. I'll also be sure to look up poser: a friend of mine had mentined it, but for animations. I had no idea it had a cloth simulator. I tend to aproach mesh clothing from a more "real" world aspect. I used to do cosplay and messing with fabrics, so I aproach clothes-making from a sowing point of view, instead of modeling something out of clay, which I've never done before. I suppose that's why I loved MD so much.

Two days ago my trial for MArvelous Designer unfortunatly reached its end. I loved the program: its cloth simulartion was spectacular, mush better than Blender's, who seems to operate outside Earth's gravity sometimes. Unfortunatly, Mervelous designer isn't free and I've been desperatly trying to find another programme similar to it, at least when it comes to cloth simulation. I haven't been able to find anything, so I'm turning to the forums. A free programme (like blender) would be ideal, but I'll take a trial version if I need to. They won't give me another trial for MD... T_T

Need advice on how to create two mesh effects (for high-poly models): The first is a vintage, leather padding, like this: http://steel-mastery.com/images/products/full/DSC_0058.JPG The second is a fabric wrap effect around the top of a model, like this: http://toteallygorgeous.com/zcart/images/Purple%20Long%20Sleeve%20Wrap%20Top.jpg I have a few ideas on how to model the padding but no clue on how to go about with the fabric wrap.

I wasn't sure if I should post this in the emsh forum or here, but since this is a texturing question, thought this was the right place. I had a revelation recently: one of the best ways for me to learn meshing is to look at other-people's models. I get a lot of info just messing around with pre-made stuff. I recently downloaded some models from actual videogames and was surprised to find something: the mesh models themselves were very simple and easy to construct. Do you know what made them look so beautiful, clean and professional, to be included in a comercial videogame? The textures! They were absolutely amazing. So, despite my initial belief that I had o model in mesh the most intricate details, I now have to turn the other way and learn advanced texturing techniques. I'm looking for tutorials to texture mesh in blender, in combination with Photoshop. I'm looking for advanced techniques, even if I don't understand everything: I usually work best when I watch something rather complex and them go look for the details myself, so I can handle it. Hit me with the best photoshop and blender-texturing tutorials you possibly have. My objective is to get to the level where I can create something that looks AS GOOD as this: http://firstkeeper.deviantart.com/art/Leya-Hirsing-Texture-sheet-182710904?q=boost%3Apopular%20((leya)%20AND%20(by%3Afirstkeeper))&qo=3 http://firstkeeper.deviantart.com/art/Leya-Hirsing-Presentation-shot-182711014?q=boost%3Apopular%20((leya)%20AND%20(by%3Afirstkeeper))&qo=0

This never happened to me before: I tried using both a PNG texture and a 32bit Targa (although, I forgot how to manually create an alpha channel) and I can't get this fixed. The mesh parts are uploaded linked. Any suggestions, please?