Cathy Foil

What I would like is a Maya ma file, preferably in Maya 8.0 or older format, that has the standard default female avatar mesh and the standard SL skeleton positioned and sized exactly as they are used in world. I have found both of these things separately but I can only guess at the relative size and placement of the avatar mesh to the avatar skeleton. I don't need it weighted but it sure be great if the mesh was weighted exactly the same as the regular avatar mesh is in SL. The reason I want this is so when I make Mesh clothing I will know exactly where the edges of the avatars mesh will be so I can fit clothing and other accessories perfectly. When Qarl gets done with the new mesh deformer my creations will fit any avatar shape perfectly. I love to have the male avatar mesh and skeleton as well but the female one is most important to me right now. I seriously been searching this forum and the archives for 4 or 5 hours now. Any help would be much appreciated. :D I wish LL could set up a page the we all could contribute files to supply all the needed templates and meshes for people to get started with their particual program and version.

Sorry wrote the following response before I saw you got it fixed with a different skeleton: Looks like your skeleton may be facing the wrong way. The front of the skeleton should be facing X. Detach the skin and turn your skeleton 180 degrees around. You will of course have to spin your mesh 180 degrees as well. Freeze your mesh and delete its history before skinning it again with Smooth Bind. Here's a link to another skeleton you might want to try. http://abbloch.com/slmaya/skeleton.ma I found it in a post by Chosen Few. He said he got it from Reed Steamroller. I hope that helps.

Are you uploading the item you created as a "Sculptie" or as a "Mesh"? If it is a sculptie it looks like you didn't select "Lossless Compression" when you uploaded the sculptie map to SL. Here is a link to info about sculpties http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims:_FAQ If you are indeed uploading your item as a "Mesh" I can't help you there. I don't know Blender to be able to tell you what you are doing wrong. Hope that helps.

It may not be the script at all. My viewer crashes anytime I touch or click on any mesh that has a lot of vertices 1000 or more. I am not sure of the exact number. I have had this problem ever since beta testing opened to the public. I made a bug report but it seems to have gotten little or no attention. Your work around sounds like a great way of making sure vendors and other interactive mesh objects from causing havoc. For working with my own mesh that caused me to crash I lowered my mesh detail level in my preferences to medium or low. This didn't look pretty on screen but allowed me to edit my mesh and do what I needed to do without crashing. Sure hope LL gets this bug fixed soon.

I have had the same problem since open mesh testing began on the Beta Test grid. I made a bug report but as far as I know nothing has been done about it. My only work around was to go into my viewer's preference and under graphics lowered the mesh detail slider. This in essence lowered the number of triangles a mesh was being displayed on my screen. I was then able to right mouse click on my rezzed mesh and select "Edit". I could do anything I needed to the mesh then. Well applying textures to different faces became tricky because with so few triangles it was hard to tell exactly what face I was clicking on. I would try setting my "Mesh Detail" to medium if you have it set at high. If you still crash then set it to low. I hope that helps.

Yep the Beta Test Grid is definitely messed up. I am pretty much having all the same problems as you though I can rez things from my inventory. I can't upload anything. I was just trying to upload a simple texture. It just keeps saying "Unable to upload asset". I can only get to other sims by logging out and typing in the sim's name on the log in screen. I am using Phoenix viewer. I went to Sandbox Goguen to see if it was grid wide or just in the mesh sandboxes but had all the same problems there. Hope they fix it by morning.

I have said this before. LL should not punish large mesh with such a harsh PE. LL's concern over large mesh is the lag it will produce because large mesh can been seen from farther away. The solutions I suggested is have large mesh have a different draw distance than regular prims. For example, say your draw distance is set at 100 meters. Large Mesh draw distance would automatically be set for 50 meters. Indeed I suggested having a set of draw distance sliders so the individual could decided what was important to them and how much lag were they willing to put up with. A draw distance for regular prims. A draw distance for sculpties. A draw distance for mesh and even a draw distance for avatars. Which from what I hear avatars are what cause most of the lag in SL.

I am in the same boat as you Moo since we both make large ships using sculpties. I was so looking forward to switching to mesh for all the reasons you have said but the PE for larger mesh is making that impossible. :matte-motes-crying: Only good thing I can think about the PE costs is fewer and fewer people will take the time to master sculpties in favor for mesh. A few will make large ships out of mesh but the prim costs will be so high I am sure they won't sell much and give up so less competition. I'd rather have large mesh with a reasonable PE cost and more competition but have to look at the bright side.

Madeliefste Wrote: "When the object uses a script the primcount will be four times higher then a scripted sculpty." I was shocked to hear this and logged onto the test grid and added a script to one of my meshes I had created. It did not increase the prim count. Am I missing something? If LL increases the prim count for any mesh that has a script in it that be insane. I hope that I simply miss read what you had wrote and that my experiment with my mesh holds true.

If the wording in the tutorial is as you say I agree with you Qwalyphi. The restrictions have to be made clear to the buyer before purchase. Other wise it is like buying a new car only to later find a note in the glove compartment saying the car can not be driven at night or faster than 45 miles per hour and if you broke either restriction you get a fine and have to return the car. It would not be an enforceable restriction. I am not a lawyer but I expect it would not hold up in court and the seller could be sued for misrepresenting the car. Now whether or not LL would follow common sense is a whole nother matter.

Found out what was happening. Runitai Linden made a post named "Why are my Meshes Showing up as Prims?" Here's a link to it. Runitai Post Basically you just need to update to the newest mesh viewer. There is a link in his post to them. Hope that helps.

It may not be you at all loup124. I was on the beta test grids earlier today and the grid was all messed up. Lots of mesh were only showing up as spheres. I tried rezzing several mesh I recently uploaded and they rezzed as spheres as well. I tried uploading a new mesh which was the same DAE file I just uploaded last week and when I tried to rez it it came out a sphere as well. In one sandbox it wouldn't let me upload any mesh at all saying I hadn't gone through some tutorial process or something but on another sandbox it let me upload but got just a sphere again. Hope that helps

Thanks so much for putting up the Maya rigging tutorial! I am using Maya 8.0. Does anyone know where I could get a Maya skeleton for the standard SL avatar? Best if it is a MA not MB file. My version is so old it doesn't have the ignore version setting on opening files created with newer versions. An MA file I can open up with notepad or word and just change the version manually so it will open up on my Maya. THanks in advance if anyone can help me out.

Yes! Much much better PE today! Had 64 meter mesh that was 1070 prims now 979. Two smaller meshes one which was a dolphin which was around 30 now 10 and an small space craft that was about 50 prims now a much better 20 prims. Let's hope PE stays at this level or crosses her fingers in hopes it may come down a bit more.

First I want to thank Runitai Linden for responding to my initial posting. You’ve answered my questions quite nicely and I think I have a good idea now why LL has taken the approach to PE costs. The current approach I think is going to hinder and hurt mesh development. I do personally believe that SL has to embrace mesh in order to survive. Other virtual worlds and gaming platforms, which are the main competitors for SL, graphics are getting better and better every year leaving SL behind. Here are a few ideas I had that might be a better approach to dealing with mesh and lag. There could be different tier levels, on initial uploads, for mesh of different in world physical size and or scalability. What do I mean by this and how would it work? You could have two or more different kinds of mesh. For instance you could have mesh that is scalable in world. Its PE would go dramatically up as the size is increased just as it does now. Then you could have fixed size mesh. The in world size is fixed upon upload. The bigger the mesh the more it costs to upload and the fewer triangles one can have per mesh object. Even smaller fixed size mesh should be given a break and allowed more triangles per object and get a smaller PE than they do now. This approach would discourage lazy people from just going to Google Sketchup 3D Warehouse and uploading huge buildings or ships that have a high poly count. Lazy people are usually cheap when it comes to actually having to pay for something. The second approach I take is giving the individual resident more control over draw distance so they can tailor their lag experience to their machine and internet connection. As I suggested in my previous post have more than one draw distance slider. One for prims, one for scultpies and one for mesh. Come to think of it how about one for avatars as well seeing as it appears that avatars and what they wear may be causing more lag than just about anything else in SL. Let the consumer determine how much lag that they are willing to put up with by giving them more control. My last thought is wondering if bandwidth usage actually cost LL more real dollars cutting into their bottom line? Does mesh mean considerably more bandwidth than prims or sculpties? If real financial bottom line costs are behind, what I consider harsh PE on mesh, then why not offset those costs? How? I been suggesting this for years why not get some NATIONAL ADVERTISERS at least on the opening splash screen when you start up your viewer? Heck if I where the owners of Phoenix I sell that space for advertising. Perhaps make enough money so the developers can work full time on it. Hey if it meant lower PE or land tiers I look at a Coke Cola ad as SL loads.

Can anyone explain to me why mesh PE has to go up when a mesh is scaled up? I know they can be seen from farther away so therefore placing a higher load on the servers but come on. Even at 64 meters it is just like moving the prim 32 meters closer to the avatar. Is it the LOD? Does it make the large mesh look better from too far away? If so why not just make mesh over a certain size have different LOD changing distances from smaller mesh object? Is it that at ground level with large meshes combined with all the other standard prims and scultpies LL is afraid they cause just too much lag? Well here is a few of my suggestions if this is the case. One I already said. Set the LOD distances different for larger Mesh. Two set larger mesh to different loading priorities at different altitudes. I am not sure I am saying this properly. You know the order of how things are loaded onto your viewer within the draw distance you have set. Perhaps have a second draw distance set option for just mesh in the viewer’s preference menu. If you are going that far why not a separate draw distance setting option s for prims and sculpties. Let the residents decide which settings are best for them. So for mesh at ground level mesh can be set at say half what the view distance is set at. To clarify if some ones draw distance was set at 200 meters any mesh that was 100 meters or further would not be loaded into the viewer. But at higher attitudes where things are a lot less crowed the all mesh within the 200 meters would be visible. If larger mesh are too much of a burden on the physics engine why not simply make all mesh over a certain size automatically phantom? If someone needs it to be solid they can simply use invisible regular prims as we do with large sculpties now. Is it the texture on larger mesh that is the problem? If so why not lower the size limit of the texture allowed on larger mesh? I know these suggestions are possible. Anything is possible with computers and programming. It is just a matter of will and time.

There is a way for LL to be able to break content and not break content at the same time so that improved performance from new hardware and software could be embraced and mistakes made in the past learned from and fixed. Curious? Why not have new grids added by LL? Grids that have different settings and rules. Grids that can start off from scratch learning from past mistakes. Always keep the original SL grid as it is to satisfy content creators who designed and still sell their stuff on the original SL grid. This will keep the lawyers away. Here are a few examples of grids I like to see: "Classic Prim Grid" a grid with no sculpties no mesh. Maybe limit the number of linked prims and or limit the number of scripts that can be used and distributed in link sets. "Sculptie Grid" A grid were everything is made with sculpties. This grid would have an improved sculptie that is more accurate one that is not based on a three dimensional grid that is (RED) 256 unites by (GREEN) 256 unites by (BLUE) 256 unites but uses a TGA alpha layer info to increase the accuracy to a grid of 1000 unites by 1000 by 1000. Perhaps double the number of vertices per sculpt and increase the max size to 256 meters. "Mesh Grid" You guessed it a grid with nothing but mesh objects. A grid where the cost of the mesh is reasonable. Perhaps a grid where costs are based on file size not triangles. A grid that has all the features a Collada mesh is capable of. Different grids different rules. Different content and prim costs associated with the type of content that can be rezzed there. Old content will always be good on the "Classic or Original SL Grid". Let the residents decide which grid will be most popular. Content creators who are here in SL to make money will migrate to the most popular grid. My guess would be that "Mesh Grid" would eventually become the most popular.

I had the same exact problem. I tried everything I could think of. Kill scripts, setting the prims to Temp, setting them to phantom and physical, tried to move them off sim into empy space, hit delete a bunch of times, right mouse click on them and delete and take. Nothing worked. Finnally I right mouse clicked on them and selected "Wear". The prims where attached to my right hand. At this point I the prim showed up in my inventory in the Objects folder. I then "Detached" the prim and then deleted it out of my inventory. It worked!!! I hope this helps.

Rene Erlanger says its comparing apples with orange regarding the type of platforms they all are.....but why IMVU was brought up? ....and you can also add WoW, Habbo Hotel & Everquest too.They all managed to grow their user bases during the recession (i.e since 2008)....and Second Life didn't. They all spent money on various forms of marketing (WoW -TV & Internet ads, IMVU Internet banner adverts, Habbo Hotel internet banner adverts, Everquest has Sony WW marketing).....Linden Labs by contrast spent very little on direct advertising & marketing You (LL) reap what you sow Rene you are a very interesting person. On one hand you criticize other people who compare SL business practices with other platforms like IMVU. Then in the very next paragraph you compare SL to other platforms inferring that LL should have done what those other platform have done. By the way I thoroughly enjoyed the YouTube video link you provided. Thanks!

Rene Erlanger says Nope, we're SECOND LIFE, not IMVU...nor do we want to be a copy of it. Despite LL's inability to make the right decisions & strategies over the last few years.....Second Life is still a superior and better product than IMVU. Rene not being willing to look at how and why another very similar virtual community, which is thriving and growing, is being as closed minded as LL has been to your ideas.

Vivienne Schell says in response to Cathy Foil: Why should Ferrari copy a bcyicle? Only cause more people ride a bicycle than a ferrari right now, at 1:15? An don´t oversestimate Mesh imports. IMVU has it, right? The result is ... trash. Well Vivienne when twice as many people chose a bicycle over a Ferrari when they are both free. It be stupid for the management of Ferrari not to find out why and see if they could adopt some of the same business practices. Especially when the dealerships sales are down and can't pay their rents because there is not enough customers.

Actingill Igaly says: I've watched the comments on this blog with interest over the last few days, and although tempted, have so far refrained from passng comment. That was until Cathy's post. I'm sorry Cathy, but I fail to see any reason why SL should aspire to be like IMVU. Actingill I only want SL to be consider emulating IMVU finer points. Because I believe it is those finer points that are why IMVU has over twice as many people logging in each day. Right now at 1:15 AM SL Time SL has 39,005 people logged in. IMVU has 80,068. That is why SL should aspire to be more like IMVU. I don't want to dumb down SL. I agree with you that in almost every way SL is superior technically. Where I think IMUV is superior to SL is one better management, two ease of use for the casual user, encouragement of new members to buy goods, encouraging the creation of fun places for those members so they keep coming back and keep buying products. I think your idea of having two viewers, one especially geared for new and casual users that is easy to use and a second viewer or content creators is a great idea. Though I wouldn't restrict the content creators viewer to only premium accounts. You will have to forgive me but I don't think the idea of banning all in world sales is ridiculous, radical yes, potentially hazardous yes, flies in the face of everything SL stands for no, SL doesn't stand for anything. It is just a virtual world where LL can make any rules it wants and can change them at anytime. Like I said it would take radical changes to the way money flows in SL. It could have some great advantages but it could also kill SL in the transition. The same way your suggestion of getting rid of the Marketplace could also kill SL and is a radical suggestion. Perhaps less risky than banning in world shopping but it could also have its benefits. Vivienne Schell says in response to Cathy Foil: IMVU is pure crap. The content there is about ten times worse than anything of quality you can see in SL. It´s not a Virtual Reality, it´s a more or less ugly, restricted 3D chat room. There are only three major advantages: 1.- It is bloody cheap (yes, cheap) 2. It is rock solid reliable 3. It is extremely simple And that´s it. SL is the by far superior environment by almost all means. And, you know, if you give people a choice, two thirds of them will go pulp, and only one third will go Shakespeare I agree with you for the most part Vivienne. SL is superior to IMVU in almost every technically way. I agree with you also that the majority of items for sale there are inferior to most of what is produced here in SL but with a few exceptions. I saw a few amazing creations for sale that equal or maybe even surpass the best things I seen in SL. This is mainly do to IMVU having mesh imports and SL not. I have no doubt that on the first day mesh import is available in SL that nothing in IMVU will come close.

After reading a number of posts mentioning IMVU, I decided to check it out for myself. As I am writing this is it is Saturday 2:30 pm SL time. SL has 70,341 people logged in. IMVU has 141,773 people logged in. So after my exploration of IMVU here are some suggestions of what I would do if I were LL. This post is not an advertisement for IMVU just what they are doing right and I think LL should emulate from their example. I must say IMVU is doing so many things right especially when it comes to new users almost all of which could be implemented here in SL by LL. For example as you sign up for your free account if you pick the options that benefit IMVU you receive more Credits. Credits are the main currency of IMVU. While I didn’t take all the options to get the maximum amount of credits I still got 2,000 credits which is the equivalent of L$200. Something I had been suggesting LL give new freebie accounts for years. While L$200 does not sound like a lot in IMVU for example shoes on average cost around 600 credits or L$60 in SL money. Same quality of shoes in SL I seen for L$500 and more. So 2,000 credits goes a lot farther than L$200. Another thing IMVU is doing is give all new freebie accounts their own “Room”. The room is basically the same as a skybox here in SL with basic furnishings. It comes with a kitchen, living room, open space for a bedroom and dinning table. What this does is encourage new accounts to use their credits to customize their rooms. Now this “Room” or in SL terms Skybox is not rezzed in world like we think of it. Rather than it is rezzed in its own universe just hanging there in black empty space though the light in the room is always bright day light. This means no lag from other surrounding skyboxes. No one can just pop in on you. The outside of the walls are transparent so if you move your camera to the outside of it you can still see the interior. The maximum number of avatars in one room is 10 avatars and they can not walk or fly just move from pose ball to pose ball. Well, the equivalent of pose balls here in SL. As far as I can tell there is no in world selling the only place to buy things is on their Marketplace called the Catalog. What this does is instead of having mall after mall or shop after shop it encourages everyone to build interesting and exciting places for people to come and visit and hangout. If you see something you like you just right mouse click on the ground and click on “View products in this scene” and a webpage will open up where you can buy the items in that location no matter who created them. This means no need for in world shops. Doing this puts the in world experience emphasis on creating fun and entertaining places for the vast majority to hang out and socialize. I mean really in SL how many malls and shops can one walk around in before the majority of users get bored and log off and perhaps never log on again. Remember here in SL the vast majority of residents don’t create anything to sell they are customers for the minority who are the content creators. If the majority doesn’t have fun in world that means fewer perhaps eventually no customers no income to pay our tiers and rents. The last really great thing IMVU has that SL doesn’t is a preview or demo widow that lets you try just about everything before you buy it. The window is small and your avatar is the only one allowed in it but you can try one clothes, hair, shoes, furniture, buildings just about everything before you buy. This really encourages people to buy things. They know exactly what they are going to get. Finally everything, except for textures, is brought in through a mesh import. This gives the creators the freedom we here in SL are looking forward to when we get mesh import. So after my experience as a new user in IMVU here is what I think LL should consider doing. 1. Give all new accounts even freebies a few hundred Lindens to start with. Make it so they can only use them on the Market Place website. 2. Give everyone a free skybox or “Room” just like on IMVU. You can’t walk or fly just move from pose ball or chair or bed by clicking on them. Make these skyboxes off by themselves so no neighbors, no sky, no night, no ground just black empty space around the room. Limit the number of avatars that can be invited into the owners room say like 4 or 5 at a time. No LMs to the rooms the person who owns the room has to invite others in. No streaming music or video unless you have two or more avatars in the room. Allow a reasonable number of prims for the rooms but also let the skybox space be 100% modifiable so if someone wants to put up a different skybox or scene they can. With the limitations of not being able to walk or fly or have music and video, until they have more than one avatar in the room, many will opt to buying land or renting in world to have those things. 3. Consider banning all in world shopping. But if this happens land tiers and fees must be dropped to a few dollars a month for a sim. This will encourage land owners to create fun places for people to come have fun in SL and buy things. 4. Get a preview system for the Market Place website like IMVU’s Catalog website has. I know these idea seem radical especially number three but if you really think about it creating a world where the emphasis is on the enjoyment of the consumer will benefit the content creators which will them benefit LL.

I doubt if LL will disable mega prims over 64 meters on the main SL grid. I rezzed a few mega prims on the test mesh grid and I was able to resize them up to 64 meters if they were smaller than 64 meters. If you try to resize anything larger than 64 meters it snaps down to 10 meters. You can then stretch it back up to 64 meters. This is true for mega prims and regular prims and also sculpties. In the edit build window you can type in the size for X Y and Z but only up to 10 meters. Between 10 and 64 meters you have to drag the scale handles. I hope they change that. There are quite a few giant meshes floating up in the air. What I suspect happened was someone rezzed a mesh on the ground and it was so big that since it rezzed several hundred meters up in the air. If their draw distance was set to only 128 meters they would not even be able to see it and not realized they had rezzed such a large mesh. I myself rezzed a 765 meter long dolphin I have been working on. I hadn't realized the scale at which I had created it. I rezzed it three times then happen to look up and saw them. Luckily I had my draw distance set to 512 or I would not have seen them. I thought perhaps there was a glitch. I hope that there will be some way in the upload program to tell people how big something is that they are about to upload. Biggest thing I seen was a 3500 meter tall gorilla. Actually best I could do was to see his face and fly around to see different parts of his body and that was with my draw distance set at 512 meters. If someone rezzes something that big and you are inside it you don't even know it even if the mesh is solid. Once inside a mesh it is hollow. Hope that helps.

Hi Storyof, I can answer a few of your questions. The viewer used for the Mesh Import testing on the Beta Grid will not overwrite any other viewers you may have installed on your computer. Here is the link to it http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/ You want to load the one from the "Second Life Project Viewers" section: MESH (ADITI) NOTE: Aditi is the name of the test grid. Mesh is an upcoming feature that will allow creators to model objects using external tools and then import them into Second Life. When you log on with this viewer it will automatically log you onto the Beta Grid named Aditi. You then have to look up using your Map any sim with the name "Mesh" in it. There are like 40 mesh sandboxes. Only the sims with Mesh in the name can mesh objects be seen and uploaded. For a FREE good easy to learn 3D Graphics program to make your meshes with I suggest starting with the FREE Google Sketchup program. You don't want the Pro version because that costs money. I find Sketchup much easier to make things than it is build with normal regular prims in SL. Here is the link to where you can get it. It is Sketchup 8 which just came out: http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/download/index.html Great thing about Sketchup 8 is it can export as a Collada DAE file format which is the type of file you use to upload your mesh to SL. As far as texturing in Sketchup it is a lot like texturing a regular prim in SL. You can also do a projected texture. A projected texture is like making a white clay model and then taking a slide projector and projecting the image onto the clay model. You have more controls than just that but that gives you an idea. There are plenty of how to videos up on YouTube for Sketchup. Sketchup is the first 3D Graphics program I learned. I am actually learning it again because many things are easier to make in Sketchup than in Maya. I figure those things I can do in Sketchup and then export them into Maya to do the things Maya does the best there. Lastly yes things on the test grid can be stretched bigger than 10 meters. The limit is 64 meters I believe but if a mesh was made bigger than 64 meters it will come in bigger than 64 meters. Sketchup has a figure of a woman standing in the middle. She is like 5 feet tall so if you were to bring her into the test grid she be 5 feet tall. There is also a tape measure in Sketchup to you can see exactly how big your mesh will be before you export it as a Collada DAE file. You are going to be blown away when you see what mesh looks like. Just don't right mouse click on any mesh that is not yours. Half the time I crash when I do. You can right mouse click on your own mesh object to edit them. Anyway I hope that helps.