Cathy Foil

One way to get around this problem would be for skin makers to give out a system skirt of their upper body. On the mesh avatar simply set one arm to be textured by say the Baked_Skirt texture. Then simply wear the system skirt from the skin designer and after that you wear a second system skirt of the tattoo. So that is another Bakes On Mesh WIN! I have talked to Vir Linden about adding additional texture slots for system tattoos to include the skirt, eyes and hair. So using system skirts won't be the only way to go. It would probably be a good idea to add a skirt slot to system skins. This would illuminate the need to wear a system skirt for the skin texture. We are still in early stages of the beta testing for Bakes On Mesh. I can think of several proposals that would make this work around unnecessary but at least there is a work around for now.

Oh Bakes On Mesh works right now with non-SLUV meshes. The textures you drop in the system tattoo file just has be made to match UV layout of the mesh you want it to go on. The problem when trying to use a system clothing file for a non-SLUV texture is on the system shirt the hand area is always 100 alpha. So if you try to use a system shirt for an non-SLUV texture there will be a big hole where the hand is showing the skin. Since system tattoo files do not have any sliders there are is no alpha affecting them so the whole texture you use on them is visible. It would be nice if LL adds more texture slots to the system tattoos. Right now there are slots for the Head , Upper Body and Lower Body. It would be nice to have slots for skirt, hair and eyes as well as slots for normal map and specular map.

I think you need to learn the definition of secret. Perhaps English isn't your first language? There are lots of stuff most people don't know. It doesn't make them secrets. For well over a year the Content Creators Meetings were held on the regular SL grid. They were switched to the Beta because Animesh is not available yet in SL and only works on the Beta grid for testing. Seeing that it only makes sense that content creators working on Animesh would need to demonstrate what they are working on and bugs they may find at the meetings having them on the Beta Grid just is logical. No conspiracies to hide anything from anyone. No the meetings are every Thursday at 1 pm SLT. Since LL is based in America and as far as I know all of LL employees are in America meetings have to be held during business hours when the employees are on the job Monday through Friday. You know it doesn't take a rocket scientists to realize these things. As far as I know this is no longer the case and I have not heard from anyone that they can't log into the Beta Grid. It doesn't take more than a simple Google search to find instructions on how to log into the Beta Grid. I am sorry if you don't have the brain power to figure it out. There is no secret meetings going on. It is always midnight someplace on the planet. You do know the Earth is sphere and that it spins and goes around the sun? I am sure you see one and every group of people as snobs and cliques because the way you speak to people is so rude and filled with anger I am hardly anyone can stand to have you around. You don't bring anything to the table. Your insights are horrible. You offer no helpful suggestions. Your manors and interpersonal skill are atrocious. You are not worth anybodies time reading or responding to. Definitely not worth anymore of my time. I wish you luck and hope your real life is a much happier one than I imagine it to be judging by the way you write in your posts.

Hi Jess, I found a solution to the problem we were having with the shirt system clothing for Bakes On Mesh. We can just use system tattoos for the Baked_Head, Baked_Upper and Baked_Lower. They can even be tinted so using them for things like makeup layers will work fine. I also tried system hair and it also worked fine for Bakes On Mesh. I still like to find a solution so we can use all the system clothing for Bakes On Mesh that use custom UVs but at least the tattoo will work for now.

You know I think you are great Optimo. Either Vir misspoke or you didn't understand him correctly. I have tested it. Normal maps and specular maps work on any mesh using Baked On Mesh system. You just have to apply the normal map and specular map either manually or with a script like any other mesh or prim. All Bakes On Mesh does right now is take the textures your LL default avatar is wearing on one of the 6 areas of the avatar body and flattens them down into diffuse texture. It then takes that texture and automatically applies it to a mesh using Bakes On Mesh. Since the default avatar doesn't use normal maps or specular maps they are not available for the Bakes On Mesh code to apply them. Now it may be possible that LL could create two new system clothing types that would allow us to put the normal map and specular map textures in them and then when worn the Bakes On Mesh could apply those textures maps automatically to a mesh setup to use Bakes On Mesh. Depending on how much work this would be it may or may not be a feature that would be in the initial release for Baked On Mesh.

The Content Creators Meetings are open to anyone who wants to attend it is no secret and the meetings are not held in the middle of the night unless you live Far East. Normal maps and specular maps work on mesh using Bakes On Mesh to apply the diffuse texture you have have to apply them exactly as they do now. I say so far your criticism and critical thinking skills are the only thing that is failing. So far pretty much all your predictions from a year ago have not come true. You really have no idea about how to disagree with someone in a civil manor do you? While the person you are referring to was wrong in the believe that Bakes On Mesh would make custom mesh avatars obsolete and bring back the classic SL system avatar as the most popular I find your choice to call them a Neanderthal repugnant. Black cherry koolaid is my favorite though I haven't dunk any koolaid in about 20 years. While yes the initial release isn't going to eliminate the need for all appliers it will greatly reduce the need of much of them and the lag they cause even it is just a small of lag. Nothing is ever a perfect solution. If you want perfection why are you in SL at all. SL is full of imperfection. If it was perfect from the get go appliers would never have been needed to be invented. I haven't read this claim by the Linen in question so I don't know if you are reporting what they said accurately. If what you said is true then they are wrong. Bakes On Mesh will not eliminate the need for full perm template mesh. It will however give the opportunity to new ways of doing business in SL. For example a mesh clothing designer can make mesh and if they wish release the UV pattern and or a decimated version of the mesh for others to texture and then sell those textures using system clothing files. Then anyone who buys the mesh clothes using Bakes On Mesh and wears it can buy the texture artists system clothing and wear it and mesh clothes will have the texture of the system clothes applied to it automatically. This would mean an increase in sales of the mesh clothing so the original mesh designer is happy because now more people are buying their mesh clothes and the texture artist is happy because they can make great textures and sell them without having to make mesh themselves or buy full perm mesh to texture and do all the extra work of dealing with mesh. Will this mean a possible drop in full perm mesh sales to texture artists? Perhaps. Only time will tell. Markets change all the time in real life and SL. You can either take advantage of these changes and or adapt or you don't. If you don't it could mean you lose sales or you may not lose any sale. In business as in life there are no guarantees. Better blind than brain dead. Yes people will be able to wear old system clothes. This does not mean new system clothes with new beautiful textures what will be able to be up to 1024 by 1024 will not be made because they will be. I am only familiar with the SLink avatars. I know the female SLink avatar is made of 4 layers. With Bakes On Mesh custom mesh bodies will only need 1 layer. That is a saves of 75%. Actually it will be a bit more than that because custom mesh avatars won't need to be cut up into pieces. SLinks avatars are cut up into over 100 pieces. When you cut a mesh you crease the number of edges and vertices. So the hundreds if not thousands of edges and vertices created by cutting up an mesh avatar will be eliminated along with all those layers. A custom mesh body using Bakes On Mesh potentially has the equivalent of 60 layers of textures all baked down into between 1 and 6 textures. Most custom mesh avatars will probably just use 3. Head, Upper Body and Lower Body. All current mesh bodies are now made up of textures for Head, Head, Upper Body and Lower Body plus 3 or 4 extra layers all with Head, Head, Upper Body and Lower Body. That is a total of 12 1024 by 1024 texture. I have already addressed this. Making alphas for clothes is easy for the clothing designer. It just takes a few minutes. Clothing designers who want their existing clothes to work with new avatars that use the Bakes On Mesh if they want to continue selling clothes for those avatars. If they don't want to take the time they don't have too but they are going to miss out on the opportunity of selling their clothes for those avatars. It also gives clothing designers the freedom to design clothes anyway they want without having to worry if a particular mesh is cut up in a way what will be able to be hidden. The designer just makes the clothes and one alpha and it will work on all the custom mesh avatars that use LL default UV layout which all the current mesh avatars do. I am sure all the currently uploaded mesh avatars will be converted to use Baked On Mesh since it only takes a minute to setup each mesh. Then any mesh clothing that didn't work by hiding the avatar body parts using the HUD can just wear an alpha made for that piece of clothing. So if a particular piece of mesh clothing didn't work with a particular mesh avatar because that avatar wasn't cut up in such a way that the right parts could be hidden wearing the alpha would solve that problem if the mesh avatar was set to use Bakes On Mesh. You do realize all the mesh clothing you bought for your custom mesh current avatar will still work with at avatar right? You do know that whenever a new body comes out there is no quarantine your old clothes will fit or work with any new body? You do know you have an unhealthy fixation with 2006 system clothing and that new textures will be made and will just be using system clothes files as a way to apply those textures to custom avatars and custom mesh clothes and shoes and a whole bunch of there things I can't even imagine? Remember just about everything you have said has been wrong whether it was said a year ago or today. I fully expect that once Bakes On Mesh is released and become well liked by the vast majority of residents, mesh body designers, clothing designers and texture artists you will have to admit you were wrong or leave SL in shame. I think you must be looking into a mirror. I have spent hours with Siddean Munro the owner and creator of the SLink avatars testing and playing with a mesh avatar setup to use Bakes On Mesh. She and I had so much fun changing skins, and tattoos and yes old system clothes to see how they looked. Surprisingly if they were made well back then with great textures they looked even better on the new avatar. Yes if the textures were bad quality they still looked bad on the new avatar. Most of all it was fun just right mouse clicking and wearing things and being able to add one piece of clothes or texture on top of another and we didn't have to touch a HUD! If that is backwards I am all for it!

Speaking as the Neanderthal that give Oz and Vir the idea for Bakes On Mesh during a Project Bento meeting, when it was still under NDA, your understanding of what Bakes On Mesh is capable of and what it is for is very short sighted. (Note: While I came up with the idea for Bakes On Mesh on my own I was not the first person in SL to have the idea for such a system. Some pretty intelligent people had requested it years ago.) Yes Bakes On Mesh will make it possible to wear old 2006 texture on their custom avatars. Not all textures from 2006 are fugly. The LL default system avatar is getting an upgrade so that its texture resolution will be up to 1024 by 1024. So yeah skin and new system clothing with brand new beautiful 1024 by 1024 textures will be seen on it but that isn't what the main purpose of Bakes On Mesh is for. Bakes On Mesh makes custom mesh avatars less laggy and easier to use and easier to create and maintain. Bakes On Mesh also can be used on mesh clothing and hopefully soon Animesh as well. Just right mouse click on a folder containing the mesh and system clothes and alphas and wear. Custom avatars and other mesh can still use custom UVs with Baked On Mesh. Bakes On Mesh does not limit any content creator. They can use it or not. They can us it in conjunction with their current system of Huds and Appliers. Personally I think creators will rely less on Huds and Appliers since Baked On Mesh is superior to them and easier for customers to use and way less work for mesh content creators to setup. Bakes On Mesh basically just make custom avatars as easy to use as the system avatars at the same time making them less laggy. Just right mouse click and wear. You can still use normal maps and specular maps. Just things are going to be easier to use and less laggy. Do TRY to keep up Klytyna...

The only use I can see for a script to control the Bakes On Mesh would be to change which baked texture would be applied to an area or face of a rigged mesh. For example say you bought a mesh shirt which using the Baked_Skirt texture but you want to shirt to use the Baked_Hair texture instead but the mesh shirt was No Mod. A script to change which baked texture would come in handy. We are hoping to get more than the 6 baked textures. Hopefully we will get some auxiliary baked textures slots. This way if one was being used for something else another one could use one of the auxiliary baked textures. So a clothing designer might give you a system skirt with to wear but also give you an system Aux_1, Aux_2 and Aux_3 so chances are one of those would be free for you to us on your mesh shirt.

Existing custom mesh bodies that are cut up and use Huds to hide the different pieces of the mesh body can also use the Bakes on Mesh system at the same time. If a piece of mesh clothing you buy has an alpha made for it great just wear it or use the Hud of the custom mesh body to hide the different parts of mesh body. Smart clothing designer will make alphas for their existing mesh clothes they are selling. Making an alpha only take a few minutes probably less than 10. So not a big deal for clothing designers to update their current line of mesh clothing they are selling. For custom mesh body designers it probably take about 10 or 20 minutes to make their mesh bodies work with Baked On Mesh. They don't even have to upload a new body just wear one of their bodies and edit it. The mesh body will still work with their existing Hud as before. I predict new bodies coming out will abandon cutting up their mesh into many pieces and many layers in favor of just using Baked On Mesh and customers will like it better since it is much easier to simply right mouse click on a folder containing the mesh clothing and alpha and select Add or Wear than mess around with a Hud.

We have already brought up to Vir at the meeting of adding more slots that have nothing to do with any part of the LL Default System Avatar. Right now we have 6 slots. Baked_Head, Baked_Upper(For Upper Body, Baked_Lower(For Lower Body), Baked Hair, Baked Eyes and Baked Skirt. We are hoping to get more slots for like Aux_1, Aux_2, Aux_3 and so on. These Aux slots would be good for clothes, huds, shoes and other accessories. Just how many more slots we need or be reasonable is something LL has to figure out.

For mesh clothing on a custom mesh avatar using the Bakes On Mesh system you just wear an alpha created by the clothing designer just like you do when you wear mesh clothing on the LL Default System avatar to hide poke through.

Normal Maps and Specular Maps can still be used on mesh using Baked On Mesh system with appliers or manually. Bakes On Mesh does not break any existing content. Nor does it take away any functionality we already have. It would be nice to have the ability to apply Normal Maps and Specular Maps to the LL Default System Avatar and have it work with Bakes On Mesh too but like I said you can still apply Normal Maps and Specular Maps to mesh that is using Bakes On Mesh system.

OptimoMaximo custom mesh avatars and mesh clothing can still have custom UVs and use the new Bakes On Mesh system. The UV pattern of the default avatar is irrelevant. As long as the textures that are to be applied are correct for the UV pattern of the custom mesh avatar or mesh clothing they will look the same as if they were applied with an applier or applied manually by editing the mesh in SL. For mesh clothing you would want to use the LL default avatar skirt system clothes for mesh clothes. Step 1. In SL in your inventory right mouse click and select create skirt. Step 2. In your inventory right click on the new skirt and select wear or add. Step 3. Right mouse click on your avatar and click "Edit Outfit". Step 4. Add your texture to the skirt. Step 5. Wear your mesh clothing and right mouse click on it and select edit. Step 6. In the edit window click on the texture tab and with "Diffuse" selected click the window that opens up the texture file inventory window. Step 7. Under the preview window is a new button named "Baked" click on it. The window will change and instead of texture file you will see a drop down menu. Select "Baked Skirt". Step 8. Save and close the edit window. The system skirt will disappear and your mesh clothing will go grey and then the texture that was on the system skirt will now be on your mesh clothing. (Note: Your mesh clothing does not have to be a skirt. It can be anything on any part of the body. ) Now if you want to give your mesh clothing to someone you can give it to them NO MOD and also give them the System Skirt you made in your inventory which can also be NO MOD. All they have to do is right mouse click on each and select Add or Wear. If you make another System Skirt with a different texture you can given them that too and they can now wear it to change the texture on the mesh clothing. Normal Maps and Specular Maps can still be used on mesh using Baked On Mesh system with appliers or manually. Bakes On Maps does not break any existing content. So if your favorite mesh body designer or clothing designer doesn't want to use Baked On Mesh and continue to use appliers and all the same methods they been using they still can.

It is probably a known bug that has been around since the NDA days during Bento development. To see if it is fly up to 3000 or 4000 meters. Then open your preferences and click Graphics and then under Avatar Rendering: if Hardware Skinning is turned on turn it off. If Hardware Skinning is turned off then turn it on. I can't remember which it is but on or off one of the settings should fix the problem. Hope that helps. Cathy

Custom mesh bodies like SLink and others are all rigged to the collision bones making them Fitted Mesh. Clothes rigged to the same weights as the custom mesh avatar will change shape in the same way the custom mesh body. So if you wear a Bento head with the custom mesh body and wear clothes designed and weighted for that custom mesh body you have what you are looking for. Now if a custom mesh body designer wants to use a few Bento bones for knees and elbows they can. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. It is just if they do they then have to create all the animations for their mesh body too. Because of this you probably won't see many if any custom avatars using Bento bones for knees and elbows but it can be done right now. Medhue has made a video showing how Bento bones can be used in other places. In this video he shows how he uses Bento bones that are not necessarily directly connected with each other to act as if they are connected using animations. Elephant Animation Video Hope that helps. Cathy

I am not a 3ds Max user but a Maya user. It used to be you had to have all the original mBones defined in the DAE or you couldn't upload a rigged mesh. The "Include skin weight" would be grayed out in the SL upload window. Since Bento been released this is no longer the case. Now you can just rig to the bones you want to. So say you want to rig a hat. You can just rig it to one bone if you want to for example the HEAD bone. You don't need to do the procedure in 3ds Max "Bone Fixes" which I assume adds all the mBones to the DAE file for export. (NOTE: You can only rig to a maximum number of a 110 bones per mesh. There is now a 159 bones in the SL skeleton so it is easy to go over the 110 bone limit. If you do the "Include skin weight" will be grayed out in the SL upload window. A single DAE file can contain more than one rigged mesh. In a DAE file that contains multiple individual rigged meshes or objects each of those meshes can be rigged to 110 bones max and but the total number of bones contained in the DAE is unlimited. Meaning even if your DAE has multiple meshes and those meshes combined are rigged to all the bones in the skeleton or even all the bones multiple times over that is OK.) Hope that helps. Cathy

Hi Adele, I have made a number of videos this last week dealing with animating the Bento skeleton in Maya and even have a video about the problems with the BVH exporter 1.6 and a work around if you want to do translation animations on bones other than the mPevis bone. If you just want to do rotation animations and only do rotation and or translation animations on the mPelvis then the BVH exporter 1.5 is the way to go. Here is a link to my Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLurA9Qzby5GRuYtJ_K_8FA/videos Hope that helps. Cathy

The maximum number of joints or bones any single mesh can be rigged to is 110. If your mesh is rigged to more than 110 bone the Skin Weights option in the upload window will be locked or grayed out. A single DAE file can have multiple mesh in it but each mesh can only be rigged to a maximum 110 bones though the total number of bones in the DAE can be greater than 110. There are 159 bones total in the Bento skeleton. It used to be you had to have all the original mBones in the DAE file even if not all of them had weight on them. Now with Bento you can rig to as few a bones as you like. Meaning if you just want to rig to 1 bone you can say for a hat or ring. I hope that helps. Cathy

I will have to respectfully disagree with Klytyna on this one. People will still want to buy mesh clothes for their custom avatars more than wear the old textures created for the LL default system avatar clothing system because mesh more often than not looks nicer than clothes painted onto the avatar's body. Of course if someone finds an old system clothing item that looks good on their custom avatar more power to them. It gives residents more options and in this case makes those more options are much easier to use just right mouse click in your inventory and wear it. No need for appliers. My feeling is most people would primarily make use of the skin and tattoo layers. This would allow residents to use all those skins they bought throughout the years and allow all skin designers to create new skin that will work on any new custom mesh avatar that takes advantage of the new automatic texturing system. It would also allow mesh clothing designer to use a simple alpha to hide the body parts of the custom avatar. In turn custom mesh avatar designers would not need to cut their avatar mesh up into 40 or 50 pieces and use huds and scripts to try and let their customers manually hide body parts to simulate alphas. The new automatic texturing system that Medhue is talking about can be used for other things besides applying textures to custom mesh avatars . It can be used to texture mesh clothes themselves. Say a mesh clothing designer creates a dress and releases the UV layout for that dress. A great texture artist can take that UV layout and make wonderful textures for that dress and sell them as an outfit. All the customer has to do is buy the original mesh and then buy the outfit from the texture artist and simply right mouse click on both in their inventory and click wear. Simple! The mesh dress designer is happy because they will sell more dresses and the texture artist community will be happy because now texture artists that don't make mesh can now make all sorts of textures for all sorts of mesh. It is a win win win. Mesh designers who don't like or are not particularly good at making textures don't have to make them if they don't want to. Texture artists that don't want to make mesh or are not good at making mesh win. The average resident wins because now the mesh clothing they buy are more versatile and if they want to they try making their own textures for the mesh clothes they buy they can. Mind you if a custom mesh avatar maker or mesh clothing designer doesn't want to use the new automatic texturing system they won't have to. For a mesh to use the automatic texturing system it will be an option they chose upon uploading the mesh to SL just like "Include skin weights" and "Include joint positions" are. So the benefits of such an automatic texturing system are: 1. Reduces lag because custom avatar would not need to have layer upon layer of mesh to simulate skin, tattoo and other clothing layer the default avatars have. 2. Makes creating custom mesh avatars easier because no need to take the mesh duplicate it and make it slightly bigger for each layer you want to simulate and then cut them all up into 40 or 50 pieces and have scripts and huds to hide those pieces. 3. No more need for appliers. 4. Makes custom mesh avatars and mesh clothes easier to use and more versatile. 5. Allows your favorite old system clothes and skins that were pre mesh new life. 6. Allow those who just want to make textures to make textures for all sorts of new mesh. 7. Allow those who just want to make mesh to allow others to texture for them increasing sales for both.

Hi DreamCrawler, What program are you using to create your animations Blender or Maya? I am assuming you are making your animations to 30 frames per second. If you are using Blender you can set the playback speed to a lower setting like 15 frames per second or 7 frames per second in the export options. Then you can animate your smile instead of using 350 frames use like 35 frames. See the BVH file is optimized by LL upload process. The more frames your animation is made with the more likely crucial keyframes will be rounded off or lost all together. Or should I say the rotation and translation data in those keyframes will be changed in the optimization process. By using fewer frames in your animation the chances are way less likely that the optimization process will mess up your keyframes because there will be a much bigger change in rotation or translation values from frame to frame. Think of it this way you have a staircase that goes up 10 feet or 120 inches. If you use 350 individual steps the change in height from step to step would be 0.34 inches for each step. The optimization process deletes frames where the change from one frame to the next is below a certain amount. So if 0.34 inches was below that amount that step or steps would be deleted. In this case all the steps would be deleted except for the very first step and the very last. If however your staircase was made with 35 steps then each step would be 3.4 inches tall. Since now the change per step is greater than the minimum value change no optimization will occur and no steps deleted. If you are using Maya to animate with you will have to open up your BVH file in a word processor like Notepad and manually change the playback speed. 30 frames per second is Frame Time: 0.033333 = 30 FPS. Frame Time: 0.066666 = 15 FPS So you could make your smile instead of using 350 frames with 175 frames and then Blender export it with 15 FPS or with Maya edit the BVH file to Frame Time: 0.066666 I am no animation expert but I been doing some experiments and this is what I been able to gather. If you are using Blender you could just export out as an .anim file. These types of files bypass the optimization process. However just like it is good to be an efficient modeler for mesh animating with as few frames as possible will also help decrease your files size and lag and should load faster for your customers. Medhue knows much much more about animating than I ever will. Perhaps he will weigh in on this topic. Hope that helps. Cathy

The reason you can see the joints in the photo you provided is because they have "X-Ray Joints" tuned on. It is just a display setting and would not cause the skin option to be disabled in the Second Life upload window. You can turn on "X-Ray Joints" it is under the "Shading" menu. There are a bunch of reasons why you may not be able to upload rigged mesh to SL. There are 159 bones in the SL skeleton now. The maximum number of bones any single mesh can be rigged to is 110 bones. You may be over that limit. Another possibility is one of the bones you have rigged to is misspelled or one or more the letters does not have the appropriate upper or lower case. Open up your DAE file in a word processor program. Do a quick search for the following: Joints-array" count=" Count = will tell you the total number of bones your mesh is rigged to. After the count you will see a list of bones. Go through the list of bones and see if you can find any of the problems I mentioned earlier. I also suggest try rigging something that is super simple. Create a cube and move it over the head. Then select the mHead bone and shift select the cube and do a quick Smooth Bind. Then export out your DAE file and try to upload it to SL. If the skin option in the upload window is still disabled then there is probably something wrong with exporter you are using. Hope that helps. Cathy

Glad to hear things are moving better for you. One Smooth Bind setting you should be aware of is to make sure you set your "Normalize Weights:" to "Interactive". This will make sure each vertex is weighted to at least one bone and that the weight values are per vertex all add up to 1. If you have Normalize Weights set to "None" then the weights per vertex can be less than one or even more than one per vertex and SL uploader will probably have the skin weights greyed out then. Hope that helps. Cathy

If you are not getting the option to include skin weights in the upload window it could be any number of problems. 1. There is 159 bones in the SL skeleton now but the maximum number of bones any single mesh can be rigged to is 110 bones. If your mesh is rigged to too many bones it won't upload. 2. If a single bone is misspelled or has the wrong upper or lower case used it will not upload. 3. The maximum number of bones that can influence a vertex is 4. So when you do your Smooth Bind in Maya make sure "Max influences:" is set to 4. For clothes I always use max of 3. Only place you really need max of 4 is on a Bento head for the face area. To see a list of what bones your mesh is rigged to in Maya select your rigged mesh in object mode. Then if you have MayaStar click the MayaStar menu and then click "For Ealier Version of Maya" then click "SkinCluster Bone Names". Open the Script Editor and in the upper window will appear a list of bones. Each bone will be on a single line. Try a simple test by creating a cube in Maya and rig it to one bone say the mHead for example. Then export it as a DAE and see if it will upload. If it won't then there is something wrong with your exporter. NOTE: We no longer have to have all the mBones of the original skeleton in the skin cluster. We can now just rig to the bones we need or want to. So a hat can be rigged to just the mHead bone for example or just the mSkull bone. In the past long ago we used to have to select the mesh we wanted to export and also select the bones in the skeleton as well. Now we just have to select the mesh object. You do not have to select both the mesh and the skeleton anymore. If you are still having problems even with a simple cube rigged to just the mHead bone in the MayaStar menu click "Remove MAYASTAR Not SKeleton" it is second from the top. This removes much of MayaStar from the scene simplifying it but leaves the skeleton and your mesh. Then select your mesh and do Export Selection. This often works for those having problems. If you are still having problems then it could be one of the DAE export options. It is common when the scaling option is set to "Automatic" to mess up the file. Turn off Automatic and set it to convert to "Meters". Also turn off Cameras and Lights options. This just makes the files huge for no reason. In the export options make sure under the Deformed Models that there is a check mark next to "Skins". If you can't turn it on under "Animation" section above that animation is checked. Then turn "Skins" on then turn off Animation. You do not want Animations to export. Again it will just make the DAE file huge for no reason and may interfere with the DAE upload. Hope that helps. Cathy

There are 159 bones in the SL skeleton now. The maximum number of bones any single mesh can be rigged to is 110 bones. You may be over that limit. Another possibility is one of the bones you have rigged to is misspelled or one or more the letters does not have the appropriate upper or lower case. Open up your DAE file in a word processor program. Do a quick search for the following: Joints-array" count=" Count = will tell you the total number of bones your mesh is rigged to. After the count you will see a list of bones. Go through the list of bones and see if you can find any of the problems I mentioned earlier. Hope that helps. Cathy