Cathy Foil

If you are not even seeing the preview image in the upload window then the file you are trying to upload has some serious issues. You should try uploading one of the free sample DAE files. If they upload OK then you know your viewer is working properly. If it doesn't then it might be an issue with the viewer or SL and your original mesh you made DAE file might be perfectly fine. Here is a link to the test DAE files. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Mesh/Sample_Content You might want to give us more information. Like what program you are using. Hope that helps. Cathy

You can not use Nurbs for creating mesh for SL. Polygon is the only mesh type that can be uploaded to SL. You can convert your nurbs to polygons and then export it. You can try uploading your textures manually to SL. Then rez your mesh and apply the texture. Hope that helps. Cathy

You want to rename fbxmaya.mll before you try to install the new one. Name is fbxmaya2012.mll. You will have to restart Maya if Maya is already open when you rename it. Be sure to uncheck the "load" and "auto load" for it. You can find out where the plug-in is located by opening up the Plug-in Manager like before and clicking on the letter "i" to the right. Might as well because you need to uncheck the "load" and "auto load" anyway. You can note what version your fbxmaya.mll is as well. The converter archive probably has it as well so if you need to install it again you could. If you get the same plug-in to install that I am using you shouldn't have to use the FBX converter. I hope that helps. Cathy

Nomasha Syaka wrote: Thanks Cathy, unfortunatly no go. i followed your instructions to the letter and the mesh results in a single face. Any other thoughts? Just to be clear you did create a new Lambert for each of the Lamberts you were replacing right? For example if your finished mesh had three lamberts with three textures applied named Lambert_1, Lambert_2 and Lambert_3. Then you created three new lamberts to replace the three original lamberts so the new ones would be named Lambert_4, Lambert_5 and Lambert_6. If you did do that and it still didn't work you could install an older fbxmaya.mll plug-in. I would rename your current one to something like fbxmaya2012.mll before you install an older one. Just be sure to not have both the original and older fbxmaya.mll set to load and auto load at the same time other wise when you go to export your mesh you will have two DAE_FBX files options in your export selected window. I am using fbxmaya.mll version 2006.08. You can get it at the Autodesk Plug-in and Converter Archive. http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775920 Hope that helps. Cathy

I am using a Maya 8.0 so I don't know if this will work for you. My version won't export correctly multiple textures either but I figured out a work around so that I don't have to use the FBX converter and can export directly out of Maya as a DAE_FBX file. The problem with my exporter is it doesn't like multiple texture files applied to the lamberts. My solution is replace all the lamberts with new ones that don't have a texture applied to them. I then export as a DAE_FBX file and upload to SL. Rez the new mesh. Upload the textures manually and apply them manually to the mesh and take the mesh back into my inventory. You can even make the lamberts different colors in Maya and they will hold in SL. They will tint your textures in SL but you can manually change all the faces back to white like any other prim. Here I will write a step by step instructions. I know an easy way to select all the faces of any Lambert. 1. Make a backup copy of your mesh before start. 2. Click on the "Window" menu at the top of your Maya window. 3. Move your cursor down "Rendering Editors". 4. Select "Hypershade" 5. Move your cursor over into the Materials tab window into a black area and hold down your right mouse button. 6. Go down to "View" and select List. This will make it easier to see all your lamberts. 7. Move your cursor over one of your Lamberts and hold down your right mouse button. 8. Move your cursor to the right and let go selecting "Select Objects With Material" This will select all the faces that are using that lambert . Note: It will select all the faces of all the objects in your scene so you can't just make a duplicate of your mesh though you could just deselect the faces your don't want manually. 9. Move your cursor over on top of your mesh and apply a new lambert. Under Common Materials Attributes do not apply a new texture file but you can click on the grey "Color" box and apply a color. 10. Repeat process with all the other Lamberts you had applied to your mesh and export as a DAE_FBX file. I hope that helps. Please let me know if that process works for you. Cathy

BrighterWorldAdvocate02 wrote: Its funny; I read an article on exporting files into DAE_FBX format, and the author said you simply make sure the Maya-to-Collada plug in was installed. I was shocked to find that Maya 2012 doesn't have a Maya-to-Collada plug in. After a couple of weeks of trying to decide what should be done, I read a second article that explained something quite interesting ~ Maya 2012 automatically exports Collada files. Go to File > Export Selection, and in the dialog box, select DAE_FBX format. :matte-motes-sunglasses-3: I think I might know what might be causing some of the confusion. I don't have Maya 2012 so I don't know if the DAE_FBX plug-in is activated when you load Maya 2012. My guess is that it probably is not. To activate the DAE_FBX plug-in click on the "Window" menu in Maya and then go down to "Settings/Preferences" and then click "Plug-in Manager". Once the Plug-in Manager opens scroll down and put a check marks in the "loaded" and "auto load" boxes next to "fbxmaya.mll". Now you should be able to see the DAE_FBX option in the files type of the export window. There are many plug-ins that come with Maya but are not activated by default. OBJ export option is an example. My Maya 8.0 the OBJ export option was not activated when I loaded the program and I had to go into the plug-in manager and set it just as I described for the fbxmaya.mll plug-in. I hope that helps. Cathy

I am using an older version of Maya so it may work a bit differently. 1. Save your weights of your skinned mesh before starting. 2. Select the pelvis joint. 3. Use the scale tool to make the skeleton smaller. Your mesh will automatically shrink as you scale the skeleton. 4. Select your mesh and Delete its history. This will detach the skin. 5. Freeze transformation of the mesh just to be on the safe side. 6. Delete the history of the skeleton and do Freeze Transformation on the skeleton. 7. Weight/Skin the mesh to the skeleton. 8. Apply your previously saved weights back to the mesh. 9. Export out of Maya as you normally do and use the Z offset in the upload window to compensate for your now smaller avatar. I hope that helps. Cathy

There are a bunch of things that can cause Maya not to work right. You might want to start with something much simpler. Like say a polygon cylinder weighted / Skinned to one arm or leg of the skeleton. This is assuming you been able to upload something like a chair or other mesh object that doesn't need to be weighted to a skeleton. Remember only polygons work with SL. You can't use Nurbs or subdivisions. Make sure you are doing exactly what Sae Luan is doing in her video. If you even miss one thing it won't work. You shouldn't need to use the FBX Converter at all. Exporting out of Maya as a DAE_FBX. (*.dae) file you don't need the converter and can upload it directly to SL. I hope that helps. Cathy

Cool thanks Chosen! I had forgotten about the "Use Image Ratio" option. I have a question. I know you can expand the image range in the UV Texture Editor so that it repeats the image file. A lot of times instead of stacking UVs on top of each other I will use the other three quadrants of the UV Texture Editor and just change the image range from the default of Minimum U: and V: of 0.0000 to -1.0000.. This gives me the same texture image in all four quadrants. I know I can expand the grid and the image range bigger if I want to. I also know that you can change the image being displayed simply by clicking Image at the top and selecting a different file. What I like to do is be able to show different image files in the different quadrants all at the same time. Do you know if that if possible? I have searched and searched and haven't been able to crack it. I know I could combine say four textures onto one photoshop file but that file would be huge then. Anyway any advice would be great. Thanks!

Wow that is a lot of polygons in your example. Hair always seems to be one of the biggest lag producing objects people wear. Anyway to get to your question. You can stack your uvs of the individual hairs on top of each other. This way you are basically using the same pixel on all your hair strands. This will allow you to make the UVs bigger using more of the hair texture image. You could even try using an oblong texture instead of a square texture since your hair is longer than it is wider. Say a texture that is 128 pixels wide by 1024 pixels tall. Now of course in Maya an oblong texture will still show up as square in the UV Texture Editor. So you would stretch the UVs wider to cover as much of the texture as you can. Hope that helps. Cathy

Yes you should be able to fix those problems with proper weighting of the skin around those joints. Here is a link to a wonderful video on how to rig or skin a dress and export it to SL. http://saeluan.net/tutorials/maya/rigging-a-mesh-in-maya/#comment-99 If you want to see how the default SL avatars are weighted you can download them here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/STORM-1716? They are in the Attachments section. Hope that helps. Cathy

I tried to do exactly like you said you did and upload it to the SL grid and got an error. I then tried uploading a simple sphere with just the default material lambert and it too got an error so something really seems to be wrong with the upload on the SL grid. It is very well possible that there is nothing wrong with your DAE files but SL is messed up. I logged onto LL Beta Test Grid and had no problems uploading any of the DAE files that the regular SL grid wouldn't. On the Beta Test Grid also called Preview Grid also named Aditi you can upload mesh for FREE. It will say you paid L$ when you upload but it doesn't really take any L$ from your account. You will probably notice the balance of L$ shown in the upper right corner is different than what you see when you log onto the regular SL grid Agni. Here is a link to instructions on how to log onto the Test Grid: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Preview_Grid Hope that helps. Cathy

I am using Maya 8.0 and I get an error if I try to upload mesh with multiple textures. The way I get them to upload is this. I make my mesh and UVs and apply all the textures to my mesh in Maya. I mainly use Lamberts for all my textures. Once I get the my mesh looking the way want I then select each of the meshes faces for a particular Lambert and then hold down my right moue button and "Assign New Material". I make the new material a Lambert. (NOTE: Do not add any kind of texture file to the new lambert. It is the texture file that is messing up the DAE file.) I repeat the process for each material in my mesh. You should now be able to upload your mesh and since your mesh has no texture files you will have to upload those textures manually and then rez your mesh in SL and apply them. A few things about the new Lambert materials with no 2D texture files. Under the "Common Material Attributes" the "Color" slider is default is at 50%. This will make the face in SL of the mesh 50% transparent. You can change the Alpha setting in SL manually or in Maya just move the "Color" slider all the way to the right making the box next to the word "Color" turn white. You can also click on the white box and change its color and when you rez your mesh in SL that face will have that color though you can edit the color in SL just like any other prim by selecting the face and changing its color back to white so your textures will look normal. I haven't really played with any of the other settings in "Common Material Attributes" so not sure what would happen or if it works with other materials like Blinns or Phongs. I hope this helps. Let me know if this works for you.

The dress is weighted / skinned. You need a version of the dress that is not weighted / skinned in order to do what you want. You could contact the dresses creator and ask them if they have a version they didn't upload with weights or pay them to upload a new version without skin weights if they are open to doing it. Hope that helps. Cathy

You may very well be right but you may very well be wrong. I can totally understand your feelings about people stealing content or buying mesh from websites and then breaking the copyright agreements and selling them here in SL. That being said you don't know the statue in question was stolen. It is very possible that the person selling it does have the rights to sell it here in SL or was indeed the original creator of the statue and had been hired to make it by the game company but had retained the right to sell it to others. Only thing you can really do is if you think something is stolen from a game or website is email whomever you think owns the copyright. Unless I was 100% sure and could prove that someone didn't have the copyrights to the mesh item they were selling here in SL, I would never post in any forum their names or links to their stuff on the MarketPlace. Because if you are wrong you could be in for a world of trouble.

Does it happen only with mesh you just uploaded or also with meshes that uploaded fine and looked fine in SL? If it is happening with mesh that was just fine in SL days or weeks ago then it might be your viewer or a new glitch with SL. Try logging on with a different viewer.

OK if it is just the groups that are created when you combine your meshes together it is an easy fix. After you combine your mesh click on the word Edit at the top of your screen. Then move your cursor down to "Delete by Type" then click on "History". That will get rid of the groups. (NOTE: When you delete history you will have to weight the mesh to your skeleton again. But if it is the groups that are messing it up then you have no choice but to delete history.) With your mesh selected, click "Export Selection". In the export window open the "File of type" menu and select DAE_FBX (*.dae) type a name and click the "Export" button. You now have your DAE file you can upload directly in SL. No need for the AutoDesk FBX converter. I know you probably already know this I just want to make sure. If that doesn't work let's try something simple to make sure your plug-in is working correctly. 1. Click File > New Scene 2. Click Polygon Tab > Click on the icon of the Sphere 3. Click File > Export Selection 4. Chose DAE_FBX (*.dae) 5. Name it and click Export 6. Upload your new DAE file into SL. If the sphere doesn't upload then there is something wrong with your plugin and we can go on from there. If it uploads then something you're doing wrong in Maya. Believe me all it takes is doing one thing like having "Remove unused influences" turned on when you bind the mesh to your skeleton and the whole thing won't upload to SL. I hope that helps. Cathy

UPDATE: I talked to Sae Luan she is the one who made the video I linked to earlier. She uses Maya 2012 and has no problem with the fbxmaya.mll plug-in that came with the program and exports selected using the DAE_FBX format. When you export in this format it creates a DAE file so no need to convert it using the AutoDesk FBX converter program. My advise is watch her video very carefully and do exactly what she does. Hope that helps. Cathy

Mattu, You are using the fbxmaya.mll plug in right? I am not sure if it comes already activated in newer Mayas. You should be able to load it from your Plug-in Manager. In Maya click Window then move your cursor over Settings/Preferences and then click on Plug-in Manager. There you can set fbxmaya.mll to loaded and auto load. From there when you go to Export Selected be sure to pick DAE_FBX file format. You shouldn't have to use the Autodesk FBX Converter program at all. If it still doesn't work see my post above this one on the Autodesk Plug-in and Converter Archive. Also be sure to watch the video I posted.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Yes that's exactly what I said, well at least it's the case for 3ds max, older versions, up to 2011, export a dae format SL understands. The 2012 version (and I bet the 2013 version..I need to try that since that's what I use right now) makes a dae file SL does not understand. That's why it needs to be converted in a 2011 converter. If the Maya 2012 and 2013 DAE_FBX plugin is no longer compatible with LL DAE file format you could try loading an older plugin from AutoDesk Plugin and Converter Archive. I think all you have to do is rename the fbxmaya.mll file to something like fbxmaya2012.mll. You have to rename it before you install the older plugin otherwise it will over write the fbxmaya.mll because older versions use the same name fbxmaya.mll. So you will end up in your Plug-in Manager window two options fbxmaya.mll and fbxmaya2012.mll. I would only have one selected to load at a time. Other wise when you go to Export Selected you will not know which DAE_FBX goes with which plugin version. Here is the link to the Autodesk archive: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775920 I hope that helps. Cathy

I am not sure why with rigged mesh the AutoDesk FBX converter program doesn't create a DAE file that will work in SL. I am not saying that it can't just that I haven't been able to get it to work with rigged mesh and I don't know of anyone else who has. The the AutoDesk FBX converter program does make good DAE files that can be used in SL as long as those mesh are not rigged. Like a mesh chair or house or ship. I have exported a rigged mesh directly out of Maya as an FBX file and opened it up in Notepad and it does have all the necessary information and then I converted it with the AutoDesk FBX program and opened up the DAE file and it too also had the information if memory serves me correct. It's been like 6 months since I tried. What appears to be happening is the DAE file created by the AutoDesk FBX program is not quite in the right format that SL uses at least it doesn't for rigged mesh. Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: What I wonder is this: the object does export in other formats, but are those formats suited for rigging? Maybe that's the issue. If there is no rigging in the export, there is no error maybe. OK I think I know what you are asking. Yes you can export out of Maya in other formats that the AutoDesk FBX program can read and then convert into DAE files but only the FBX file exported directly out of Maya contains rigging information. So only the FBX file has a chance of being converted into a rigged DAE file. Now mind you it been 6 months since I last tried this method. I always create my DAE files directly in Maya and don't use the AutoDesk FBX convection program. I am using Maya 8.0 so newer versions of Maya may work differently.

I was going to tell you to just do a search for "Maya" with the search button near the top right of this page but when I tried it came up with nothing. It must be broken. The forums were just down a few minutes ago so maybe by the time you read this the search feature will be working again so give it a try. If it is not just click on my name and look under all the posts I have made. There have been quite a few about Maya. As far as I know Maya 2012 comes with a plugin that should work right out of the box. You shouldn't need to use the FBX to DAE converter program. In your plugin manager look for fbxmaya.mll and make sure it is loaded. You should be able to directly export out of Maya as an DAE_FBX.dae file so no need for the Autodesk FBX converter program. Besides I don't think rigged mesh will work with the Autodesk FBX converter program. There are a ton of other things that can go wrong when exporting DAE files out of Maya. Just one thing not set right or named right and the whole thing won't work. Here is a link to a wonderful video made by Sae Luan. It shows how to rig a mesh in Maya and export it out as a DAE file. http://saeluan.net/tutorials/maya/rigging-a-mesh-in-maya/ I hope that helps. Cathy

____________________________________________________________________________________________ 16 wrote: i think you both pretty safe here. the text has been attributed and it would fall under fair use for commentary ____________________________________________________________________________________________ You are probably right 16. Though how ironic that the website itself would seem to contradict you. If that is ironic? What if I credit the creator of the original model? Do I still need permission to distribute my model? Giving credit is a nice gesture, but it doesn’t affect copyright at all. To sell or give away your version of the model without permission from the rights holder of the original model is copyright infringement.

I think I know where you are going with the "Substantial similarity" thing as far as copyright is concerned. Let me just warn you that similarity would not be exclusive between mesh verses mesh similarity but also sculptie to mesh and regular prim creations to mesh. So I am sure just about every design that can be created with mesh has already been created here in SL in prims or sculpties that could claim "Substantial similarity". My advise would be unless two meshes vertices match up exactly, especially on something that replicates a common real world object, I let it go.

Helium thanks for replying. I figured there must be something wrong with Tubosquid's explanation of copyrights.