Cathy Foil

Project Bento has finally been announced. :D There is a new Project Viewer that has new bones that have been added to the default avatar skeleton. The Bento Viewer's skeleton has new Face Bones, Wing Bones, a Groin Bone, and Tail Bones. I just thought I put up a few links for a couple of videos and to where you can download the Project Bento Viewer. Right now you can only upload mesh rigged to the new bone on the Beta Test Grid Aditi. Here is a link to where you can download the viewer: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Project_Bento/5.0.0.309171 Here is a video I made going into detail about the new skeleton for Project Bento Here is a wonderful video made using Avastar showing a rigged avatar animated using the new Bento Bones: I am so glad I was allowed to be apart of Project Bento. I think all the Bento members residents and moles and Lindens did a outstanding job. :D I think Bento will be a huge sucess. :D Cathy

Awesome thinking Aquila! I believe you are aboslutely right! To test your hypothesis I created a simple animation where the avatar moved straight up 100 centimeters in Maya and exported the BVH file. Checked it in a world processor just to make sure that the BVH file did move exactly 100 units. Then I created a simple small mesh of two cones where the point tips met each other exactly basically forming an hourglass. Where the two pointy tips meet or the middle of the hourglass marks the eact center of the mesh. I then snapped it to the mPelvis bone and rigged it to the skeleton and weighted it 100% to the mPelvis bone. Exported it out as a DAE and uploaded it to SL. Then I wore the mesh and made my avatar invisible. Next I played a T-Pose animation to my avatar wouldn't move and created a cube. I moved the bottom of the cube so it intersected with the middle of the hourglass mesh I was wearing on my mPelvis bone. I then played the animation that moved my avatar up exactly 100 unites and then stretched the top of the cube till it intersected the hourglass mesh new position. The cube was now exactly 2.53985 tall. So accounting for error since I had to scale up the cube by hand it was really 2.54 meters. So it definitely looks like LL considers the unite of measurement of the BVH file to be in inches and then converts them to centimeters. OK just to make sure I did the same thing in SL to measure the distance between mPelvis and another hourglass mesh I put at the center of the grid in Maya and weighted it to the mPelvis bone as well. Wore it in SL and measured the distance between them to get the height of what the mPelvis should be in Maya. Then made another animation moving the avatar up to where the eye height is in Maya and then measured in SL again using the new animation. Everything worked! For those who like to know I scaled up the avatar in Maya from the tiny default skeleton 39.331947 times in XYZ scales to get the avatar to be the correct height for creating animations using Maya's default unit setting of Centimeters. Love to hear if you have anyone has any other insights. Thanks again Aquila! Cathy

Perhaps someone can help me with this. I am working on adding a new feature to my MayaStar plug-in. I am adding the ability to make animations with it. I got just about everything working except when I animate the avatar moving in any of the XYZ axis when I upload the animation and play it in SL the avatar actually moves about 2.5 times farther than the BVH code would indicate it should. If the animation moves the avatar 100 Centimeters in Maya it should move the avatar in SL the same amount 1 meter. When I measure it in SL though the avatar actually moves about 2.5 meters. I have carefully examined the BVH file and indeed according to the numbers show a change of 100 unites which I assume are centimeters. I have even edited the BVH file manually to make sure the avatar starts on Zero and ends on 100. I could just make my avatar in Maya bigger to compensate so it is in proportion but I would really like to know exactly how far does the hip or mpelvis moves in SL then according to the BHV file it moves a 100 unites. UPDATE: OK I played around with the scale of the avatar in Maya and think I got it to work pretty accurately. See the default avatar was originally created by LL using Maya but when they created it they messed up and created the avatar tiny. I can only assume that they thought they were working in meters when in fact the default unites in Maya is centimeters. At first when I animate the tiny avatar in Maya the rotations were fine but when I try to make the avatar move then uploaded the BVH file the animation in SL would barely make the avatar move. So I scaled up the avatar 100 times making it the real size it is in SL and tried animating it. Again the avatar rotations were fine but the translations, meaning when the mpelvis would move it would move 2.5 times farther than it should as I already explained. Anyway I calculated that 1 meter was 40% of 2.5 meters. So instead of scaling my avatar up 100 times I scaled it up to just 40. Now the avatar seems to be the correct size for animating in Maya. I still like to know the exact amount a 100 unites of movement in the BVH file will make that avatar move in SL so I could get the exact scale for the avatar.

Here is the version of Singularity I am currently using: Singularity Viewer (64 bit) 1.8.6 (6157) Feb 26 2015 19:38:50 (Singularity) It is the most recent version of Singularly. I have always seemed to have the best success rate with uploads using Singularity verses any other viewer. Of course I always go to the most updated version of LL default viewer if all else fails. Up until recently I was on a PC that was just over 10 years old and found that Singularity gave me the best FPS rates.

WOW! You are amazing Drongle. In my testing I only uploaded my DAE files with the Singlulairty viewer on the Beta Test Grid. Uploading the DAE code I pasted using the Singulaity viewer I get Blue = Face 0, Black = Face 1, Red = Face 2, and Green = Face 3. I wonder if all viewers would assign the faces in the same order? What a nightmare if my method of separating a mesh so that each material used is it's own object then in Maya combining them in reverse order and merging the vertices as you go would only work if uploading with the Singulairty. It would be nice if LL gave us the option in the uploader window to assign the Faces to the particular material names that appear in the DAE file. Like in my example you see a list in the uploader window "A" then a drop down field where you could select the Face it will be in SL and so forth for materials B, C and D. If I had named my material "A" "Blue_Material" instead then in the window you would see "Blue_Material" with the drop down field next to it.

I made a simple cube and applied 4 materials. The material names are A, B, C, and D. Here I will copy and paste the DAE code below. The material id is near the top of the code. I don't think the order in which the materials appear matter. If I remember right one of the test I did to DAE files of the same cube but different combining order had the same material order in the DAE files but in SL they had different faces assigned to each material but I ran so many tests hard to keep everything in order. If I remember right A = Blue Material, B = Green Material, C = Red Material and D = Black Material color. Blue is on 3 sides of the cube and green, red and black are on one side each. Almost forgot when rezzed the whole cube has 20% alpha setting on all materials. 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Hi Drongle, you provide great info as always. I spent an hour testing it out and yes indeed things have changed. Took me a while to figure how to get a predictable order out of Maya but I managed it. In Maya 8.0 using the Open Collada plug-in alphabetical order of the material names doesn't matter. It still matters the order in which the materials are combined but instead of first to last it is now last to first. Step 1: Separate your mesh into individual objects so each material is its own object. Delete History of each object. Step 2: Select the object you want to be the last face in SL and shift select the object you want to be the next to last and combine the two and VERY IMPORTANT merge the verteices. Example if your mesh has 4 materials and will be 4 faces in SL you pick the object you want to be Face 3 first then shift select the object you want to be Face 2. Remember Face 0 is the first face in SL so a mesh that has 4 faces will be named Face 0, Face 1, Face 2 and Face 3. So Face 3 is the last face in SL. Step 3: With the object you just combined and merged shift select the object you want to be next lowest. In this case it would be for Face 1. Combine and Merge. Step 4: With the object you just combined and merged shift select the last object which you want to be Face 0 and combine and merge. I normally Delete History at this point. You are now ready to export your DAE file. NOTE: When merging vericies a hard edge is formed so if you want soft edges you will need to soften them before you export your DAE file. I have only tested this with the Open Collada plug-in and my version of Maya so I can't say for sure it will work for all Maya users. Hope that helps. Cathy

Hi Adele, Maya 2012 fbxmaya.mll plug-in is known to have issues. You could update your fbxmaya.mll to 2013 fbxmaya.mll. That way you wouldn't need to export your mesh as a FBX or use the FBX Converter. I have a video on YouTube that goes over all the options for exporting Collada out of Maya. While the video is geared towards rigged mesh and my MayaStar Plug-in there is a lot of good info in the video in general. Plus in the description there is a bunch of links to Open Collada plug-ins as well as Autodesk's Archive plug-ins. Here is a link to the archive: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775920 You want 2013.3. If you want to also keep your original fbxmaya.mll on your C drive under programs Autodesk Maya 2012 look for folder named Bin then Plug-ins. That is were your fbxmaya.mll is located. Just rename the file to something like fbxmaya2012.mll. If you don't the file will be written over when you install 2013.3 fbxmaya.mll. Just in your Plug-in Manager don't have both set to "Load" at the same time. They can conflict with each other otherwise. Here is a solution I figured out to be able to have complete control over the order of the materials. I am copying and pasting from a thread that is a year or two old. https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Mesh-Face-Numbers-in-Maya/m-p/2821632#M29190 OK got it to work inside Maya! Drongle pointing out it is the order in which the materials appear in the DAE file was the key. Thanks Drongle! OK there may be a better way but here is how I was able to do it in Maya without having to edit the DAE file. 1. Extract all the faces of the different materials so each material is a separate object. In your case you have two materials. One for the shirt and one for the tie. So extract the tie faces from the shirt making them separate objects not just one object with two materials with boarder edges. The extract function under the Mesh menu has an option to either "Separate Extracted Faces" or not. If this is not checked then the selected faces of the tie will not become a separate object. 2. Once separated into two objects delete history of each object. Then, in object mode, select the object you want to be FACE 0 in SL first. Then while holding down the SHIFT key click on the object you want to be FACE 1 in SL. 3. Under the "Mesh" menu click "Combine". Then click the "Edit Mesh" menu and click "Merge". NOTE: This will make the edges where the two object combine hard edges so you may need to soften these edges for your particular needs. 4. Delete history of the newly combined object in this case your shirt and tie. 5. Export your mesh as a DAE file as usual. If your shirt and tie are already rigged and you don't want to rig them all over again duplicate the mesh first and separate, combine and merge as in steps 1 through 5. Then do a quick Smooth Bind to the skeleton and then Copy Weights from your original to the duplicate but don't use the "Use smooth skin weight copy" option in the "Copy Skin Weights Options" window. The "Copy Skin Weights" function is under the "Skins" menu > Edit Smooth Skin> Copy Skins Weights. What you are doing when separating your mesh into separate objects and then combining them back into one object is really reordering the vertiex order. Maya creates the DAE file by exporting the vertex in order. Lower vertex numbers first then higher. Vertex named vtx(0) exports first. So if the material you want to be FACE 0 is made up of 10 vetices then they need to be named vtx(0) through vtx(9) so they are exported to the DAE file first. Here is a link to a nice little MEL script that I use that automatically separates a mesh into separate objects by materials. http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/poly-split-per-assigned-shader It is only for Maya 7 through 8 but it seems to be a simple script so it may work for newer versions of Maya as well. New versions of Maya may even have this feature already built in. Hope that helps. Cathy

Some sandboxes don't allow scripts and some allow scripts but don't allow more than simple scripts. Have her try another sandbox. To avoid texture upload fees try the Beta Grid. Uploads are free and she can develop her product there and when it is perfected some viewers will let you make a copy on your hard drive which you can then upload to SL. Also there is a product named Second Inventory which will also do this. I have no idea how TMP kits work so this may or may not be possible.

I don't have a TMP kit so I am not sure how much help I can be but I will give it a go. Try logging into SL or the Beta Grid using a different Viewer. It is possible that the problem is the viewer isn't working correctly because of some sort of update either in the viewer code or to LL's server code. Have your wife wear in SL or the Beta Grid something she had already made for TMP she made a while ago and you know works. If it also doesn't work then you know there isn't a problem with the TMP kit and is either a viewer problem or a LL server problem. If it is a script problem make sure you are in an area that allows scripts to run. Make sure the scripts are set to running. You may even want to restart the scripts even if they are set to run. What exactly is the nature of the problem with the TMP Kit. What is happening when you upload your Wife's creations to SL or the Beta Grid and wear them? What program or programs is she using to create with? Hope that helps. Cathy

I haven't played much with making animations using Maya. I done a bit of research on the topic since it is high on my todo list of things I want to add to my MayaStar plug-in. I do know that in Maya the BVH exporter doesn't like the mPelvis bone to rotate at least not 180 degrees. I am not sure if that is the problem you are having. Here's a link to where you can download an animation rig and mel script that I know works for making animations with Maya for SL: LINK Now the skeleton has all the correct names for BVH and the Y Axis is up instead of Z which I believe is what BVH files have to be. SL can now upload .anim files but the .anim files Maya generates is not compatible with SL so you may be suck with BVH files. I hope that helps. Cathy PS Your mesh is beautiful. Great work.

ChloeVida wrote: Ooooh,these look good! Many thanks! So,I would need Blender,Maya and MD together? Isn't there any way to make low-poly clothes into MD ? I mean,an easier way You don't need Blender, Maya and MD. You just either need Maya and MD or Blender and MD. You need Maya or Blender to rig your MD mesh. You could just use the quad conversion in MD and not rebuild your mesh into quads using Maya or Blender. I have already given my reasons why I don't like MD's quads. If you absolutely don't want to rebuild your mesh into quads manually to decrease lag and make your MD clothes more efficient increase the "Particle Distance" in MD. As you increase the Particle Distance you will loose detail so increase it as much as possible without loosing too much detail you want your mesh clothes to have. Then use MD's quad conversion. Since MD quads do not have good edge flow the mesh will be harder to rig and not move as well as mesh you rebuild into quads manually in Maya or Blender. I highly recommend you rebuild your mesh into quads manually and not rely on MD to generate the quads. Hope that helps. Cathy

Marvelous Designer is an absolutely wonderful tool for making clothes for SL. I use Marvelous Designer to do the initial design of the clothes usually because it is so much faster and you can get natural draping and folding of the cloth quickly and easily. It also makes nice UVs which are the same as your 2D patterns you created when designing the mesh. I never use Marvelous Designers quads. They have horrible edge flow. I always retopo my mesh in Maya into quads. This has so many advantages. You end up with good edge flow which not only makes the mesh look better it help it to bend more naturally when the avatar moves and it makes it easier to rig. Not only that by retopoing your mesh you can cut down on the number of vertices needed for the mesh which makes it less laggy and cheaper to upload. Yes it may take you 45 minutes to several hours to retopo, depending on how complex your mesh is, but it is worth it. I have a couple of videos I made a while ago on how to retopo MD mesh into quads using Maya: In the second video I show how to reproduce the UVs that were created by Marvelous Designer for your new quad mesh. When I am done retopoing I rig with MayaStar which is for Maya. If you are using Blender Avastar is a must. I hope that helps. Cathy

irihapeti wrote: you made a argument earlier that said that price scheduling by template makers is anti-competitiive. by the RL legislation Cathy Foil Reply: OK you are throwing in terms and saying things I never said. What I said was when full perm creators who put price limits in their license agreements or TOS in an attempt to keep resellers from devaluing their creations is illegal according to US law. They are not trying to be anti-competitive because they are trying to hold all resellers who buy their product to the same standard. The resellers who buy their product are all on the same level playing ground. Full perm content creators who try to put price limits on their creations are not stopping other full perm content creators from not requiring price limits on the items they sell so no anti-competitive happening here. Perhaps I am misunderstandings by what you men by anti-competitive. irihapeti wrote: the IMVU system is also anti-competitive by the same legislation. The IMVU system fixes the bottom price at which goods are sold. Is a artificial system this. Is not based on market forces. is not based on supply and demand. Is not based on a actual RL scarcity of resource Cathy Foil Reply: IMVU is not doing anything illegal. It is not breaking US law. The way IMVU works is that every copy no matter who sells it the original content creator must be paid for it. In SL unlimited copies of full perm items can be sold or given away for free without the original content creator receiving anything. Since in Second Life there is no cost to the reseller or seller per copy the number of copies that can be distributed is unlimited. Yes IMVU is an artificial system but so is Second Life's Markerplace. You are wrong that IMVU is not based on market forces. You are wrong that IMVU is not based on demand. Both IMVU and SL Markets unlimited copies can be made at no costs to the reseller or content creator and both IMVU and SL Markets do not have scarcity of resources to limited the supply. irihapeti wrote: is a system designed to retain value for the suppliers (content makers) by setting a bottom below which prices cannot go. Is a attempt to limit the effect of depreciation on the suppliers Cathy Foil Reply: I don't know if IMVU created their system in an attempt to help retain the value of the items original content creators create. I am more apt to believe the the owners of IMVU simply believed that for every copy that is sold the original content creator should be paid for their work which is pretty much standard in many industries such as movies, music and publishing. The end result is it does help keep original content from being devalued by resellers undercutting each other. irihapeti wrote: this kinda system is how RL cartels work Cathy Foil Reply: You need to re read the definition of what a cartel is and how it works. Definition: an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition. For IMVU to be a cartel they would have to have meetings with content creators in which they all agree to sell particular type of items at the same high price. IMVU all original content creators can sell the items they create themselves at any price so there is no restriction of competition between original content creators. irihapeti wrote: tbf tho to IMVU, having a cartel system is not what they intended when they made it. But is the outcome by the RL legislation Cathy Foil Reply: To be fair IMVU is not a cartel system never was. Having a system that requires the original content creator get paid for every copy is not a cartel nor is it anti-competitive. It is just a different system than SL's. irihapeti wrote: + everybody (platform owners, content makers, ip holders, etc) are struggling with how to retain value for themself (stop depreciation). Which is fair enough + Cathy Foil Reply: No argument here. irihapeti wrote: the article you link to is about a consumers view Cathy Foil Reply: Actually it isn't written from a consumers view. It is written from a content creators, wholesale and resell point of view. It is a pretty balanced paper. While it does touch on that in the short term consumers benefit from falling prices in the short term in the long term such devaluing of written work, in the form of digital copies, actually force out professional writers because they can no longer make a living from writing and what is left are hobbyist who for the most part can not write as well as the professionals so while now there are more hobbyist writers and more books the quality of the writing is lower making it harder for consumers to find high quality books. Now don't jump to conclusions here. I am not advocating that SL be for professionals only. SL has and always should be completely open to hobbyist. Things have always sold here for hobbyist prices. The paper basically says the laws are out of date because the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and Clayton Act in 1914 were written when there was always a real life costs to reselling items. Today however this is no longer true for digital goods. Back in 1890 and 1914 if a reseller sold too many things at a loss they would soon go out of business. The wholesalers always were paid full price for every copy the resellers sold no matter what. Today with digital goods a reseller can distribute unlimited number of copies and there is basically no real life cost per copy. OK yes the tiny bit of electricity it takes to transmit the copy and yes the hardware and software to run the servers but those costs next to nothing per copy so essentially the cost is so low that here in SL LL can offer free user accounts the ability to distribute unlimited copies of digital goods. Basically there are no financial losses for resellers even when they distribute free unlimited copies. The paper correctly identified that because these acts were written so long ago there was no way for them to foresee a time when unlimited copies of things could be made and distributed by resellers that would basically cost nothing for the reseller. irihapeti wrote: is similar to quite a few other papers that take this approach. The approach basically pits ip holders (suppliers) against consumers. And then makes a pro-consumer argument. That the digital market should put the consumer before the ip holder is a binary argument this. either|or, win|lose. Lots of ip holders engage in binary arguments as well. Just take the other side. Each side making their best arguments for whats in it for them. And they accept that whats good for one side can sometimes be detrimental to the other side however they also seem to accept thats just how it is meaning they not examine the premise itself. The premise that the market is binary. Some win and some lose. Which is true. but not in a consumer vs supplier sense. The win|lose market equation is actual applied to supplier vs supplier and independently to consumer vs consumer Cathy Foil Reply: I have no idea about these other papers you mention so I will have to take your word on what they say and conclude. I will however say the paper I linked to do not take that approach nor come to those conclusions as you can gather from what I wrote above. irihapeti wrote: the market is about strivng toward equilibrium. A balance between supplier and consumer (supply-demand). Is actual pretty impossible to reach equilibrium while the binary premise is applied to supplier|consumer and I think that until the suppliers (ip holders, content makers) and consumer advocates get this then we all going to keep on struggling to find a resolution + when we have had this kinda chat before on this forums, then I made some ideas on how this could be done (like resolved, so it works for consumers and suppliers and the world/platfom hosts and also is RL legislation compliant) at least for digital goods in market places like IMVU, SL, Sansar etc i not get into it again now bc tl;dr already (: but if you want I be happy to say again how I think it can be done Cathy Foil Reply: I would love to hear your solution to help keep digital goods from being devalued. While I may not have agreed with allot of what you wrote so far I am always open to good ideas. IMVU has its own problems and if you can come up with a better solution I am all ears. Mind you I don't think there can be or should be major changes to how SL full perm work now here in SL. I like for things to be different in Sansar and leave SL the way it is so those who prefer SL's system can stay and have SL's system and those who prefer the new system at Sansar can find new opportunities there. Having two virtual worlds SL and Sansar both work and function using the same system and rules would be a huge mistake. If they are equal then most likely 50% will stay and 50% will leave for Sansar. Can either world survive with half the residents? Yes I kow most people will spend time in both but fairly soon people will have a favorite and spend the vast majority of their time and money there.

I will have to respectfully agree to disagree with you irihapeti about whether or not my argument was OK until a certain point. I will give this to you yes not everyone is motivated by financial reward nor will all people be less motivated to be original, creative artistically or innovative when that financial reward becomes less as prices fall due to undercutting and market saturation brought on by full perm buyers. I will however be willing to bet that the vast majority of people who sell on the market place do have financial gain as at least in part a motivator and when the returns on their investments lessen so does their motivation. I never said there was no benefit to full perm. Full perm definitely has a place in any economy and has many benefits to offer many many people. As the example you use for texture artists. I am not against that at all in any way. If full perm sellers themselves didn't see a problem with undercutting and devaluing of their work so many of them wouldn't try to stop it by putting price limits into their license agreements and TOS. My argument still holds true that full perm items only could get the higher prices they were getting because of the prices non-full perm items were selling for. That when non-full perm items lose their value and can no longer sell at those prices due to undercutting and market saturation brought on by full perm resellers the full perm items valve also then goes down and can no longer sell at their prices. Less financial reward for probably most people who are participating in the MarketPlace will most likely mean they will be less motivated. Like I said it is too late to make any sort of drastic changes here in SL to how full perm functions but I really hope that project Sansar LL comes up with a system that keeps this pattern of devaluation from happening. Devaluation of digital goods is not unique to SL. It is happening in real life too. Anytime there is basically no real financial cost to make and distribute unlimited copies of anything this can and does happen. There is a very interesting article from Duke Law School: THE APPLE E-BOOK AGREEMENT AND RUINOUS COMPETITION: ARE E-GOODS DIFFERENT FOR ANTITRUST PURPOSES? by MICHAEL WOLFE You can read it here: http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1249&context=dltr

I understand why full perm sellers put price restrictions into their licensing agreements and or TOS. They do it to try and help keep their work from being devalued. Currently the way SL works there is nothing in place to stop this from happening. I have seen it happen over and over again. One person buys an item full perm and sells it for a decent price. Then a second person buys it and starts to sell it for a slightly lower price. Then a third person buys it and sells it for even less. It doesn't take long till the price has dropped through the floor not only making the original full perm item practically worthless but it even hurts other similar items that are not full perm that are for sale on the marketplace or in world. This downward spiral caused by the way full perm works in SL devalues all digital goods not just full perm. Even full perm items do not sell for what they used to sell for a few years ago. The current system of full perm in SL ends up discouraging creativity. Here's what has been happening for years. Original designers, who do not sell full perm, create new innovative and beautiful high quality items. They spend tens or even hundreds of hours just to make one incredible creation. They can do this because they were able to sell the item at a good price and get a decent return for their investment so they are very motivated to be unique, artistic and innovative all of which takes time and effort. Along comes a full perm creator. They look around and see items that are being sold for a good price. So they decide to make a similar product. Since they are not spending time trying to be unique or innovative they are able to put up on the Marketplace an item that has taken way less time and effort to create and sell it full perm for about 100 times more than what the non-full perm items go for and it sold well even if the quality was only half what the non-full perm items were. So people bought the full perm items because they saw things on the Markerplace that were selling well that were not full perm and selling well at a good price. They then priced their item they bought for a little less than the non-full perm items and were able to get decent sales and a high return on their investments especially since the time and effort was minimal. Only problem other people also bought the same full perm item and undercut the original reseller and this undercutting happens over and over again till the market is now flooded and now the full perm item is worth less. Why? Because the original non-full perm items can not sell for as much because they have been devalued because the market has been flooded low cost versions. This means now the original content creator who didn't sell full perm can no longer make a decent return on their time and effort. So the incentive to be original, creative artistically and innovative is no longer there. So they either invest less time or they leave or they become full perm sellers themselves. Here is the catch, it was only because the non-full perm items value that was making it possible for the full perm item to have a decent value. I have seen over the past few years the quality of full perm items go up and up but the prices keep going down. Why? Because buyers of full perm keep undercutting not only non-full perm items but each other devaluing all items. This means in order for full perm sellers to make money they have to create better quality items in order to add more value so they can get a better price but the prices resellers can sell at have no bottom they can give an unlimited amount of their items they bough away for free and there is nothing that can stop them not even the TOS or license agreement. It is illegal for a full perm seller to set any sort of price limit. It is against US law for them to do so. Google the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 which was amended by the Clayton Act in 1914. If something is illegal it can not be enforced by any TOS or licensing agreement. I totally understand why full perm sellers try to put a price limit. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against people who sell full perm. I have many many friends who sell full perm. We have discussed the problems with how full perm is setup and functions here in SL. They see the problems and see how their own work is being devalued. Personally I like how IMVU does full perm. The original creator always gets the same amount no matter who sells the item every time the item is sold so the price can never be lower than the original price sold by the original content creator. This does two things. The price of the full perm item sells for slightly less than non-full perm items. People who buy full perm have to add value to the item such as creating textures or adding their own mesh they create to the original item in order to be able to sell it for more than the original price. It puts an end to the endless cycle of devaluing and undercutting. It allows those who can't make mesh or are new to creating to start small and simple by creating textures and learn and grow over time as content creators themselves as their abilities and skill develop. It allows those who don't want to sell full perm to get a decent return on their investment without seeing their work devalued. Personally I hope LL does full perm in Project Sansar differently than it works here in SL. It is really too late to make any major changes to the system here in SL. I really like to see a system similar to IMVU's.

Hi Punipe, I haven't modelled hair yet and I just tried a few quick experiments to see if I could come up with a quick easy way to adjust individual hair strands. You could extrude a Nurb Circle along a path. I would extrude it as a Polygon instead of a Nurb. With a Polygon extrusion you can edit the parameters of the extrude more like adding subdivisions in the Input "nurbsTessellate" settings. Funny they call it a nurbsTessellate even when you extrude a polygon. This way you can edit the path by editing the Control Vertex of the curve to easily adjust your individual position. Another way I tried, which I think I like better, was to create a generic strand of straight hair. Then create some joints going straight up the middle of the hair from one end to the other and smooth bind the hair strand to the joints. The longer the strand of hair the more joints you would want. I had to edit the weights of the hair so when I rotated or moved one the joints the hair would bend smoothly. This was pretty easy to do in Paint Skin Weights tool by flood smoothing each joint a bit. Once you get the generic hair to move nice save it as its own Maya binary file so you can import the hair strand multiple times. You could also do what is called Subdivision Modeling. With this technique you create a very low poly low rez model and it generates a nice higher rez model automatically. Best thing is you can simply edit the low poly model and the high poly version updates automatically. I have a few customers who use my MayaStar to rig their hair in Maya. Next time I chat with them I will see what method they use. Of course they may prefer to keep their modeling techniques a secret so I can't promise anything. Hope that helps. Cathy

Hi Paulyta, It looks like you are using MayaStar. If you had tried contacting me by sending me a note card in the last few days I apologize. I haven't logged into SL in a few days. I been busy working on an issue with the male avatar in MayaStar. OK so let me ask a few questions. Is the skirt Fitted Mesh or regular Classic Rigging? What viewer are you using to log into SL with? Are you using the T-Pose Stand that comes with MayaStar in SL to compare the version in Maya T-Pose with the T-Pose in SL? In MayaStar in the Appearance Editor window there are two buttons. One is named SL Default Avatar Shape and the other one is named Mesh Default. The Default Avatar Shape button makes the same shape as when in SL if you go into your inventory and right mouse click and create a brand new shape. This new shape is always female and is commonly referred to as Ruth. The Mesh Default button the skeleton is in the default position which is defined in the avatar_skeleton.xml file and has no Blend Shapes / Morphs applied. I am sure we can figure this out. Cathy

Will Project Sansar have its own Marketplace site or will the current Marketplace be used for both? Personally I don't think SL's current Marketplace should be used for both because it would just cause confusion for new users of both SL and Project Sansar. If Project Sansar does have its own Marketplace will it follow the same rules and restrictions as SL's Marketplace? The way I see it a new virtual world can have new rules which gives LL the opportunity to make changes to avoid some of the pitfalls we have experienced here SL.

I on XP and I find Singularity viewer works best for me.

I am sorry you are going through this Pussycat. It is totally unfair and the auction guy is being a total jerk. He could have easily setup his auction house way up in the air away from all his neighbours. Only thing I can think of, short of fighting fire with fire, is to suggest you try moving your store high up out of the range of his shouts. I would put a LM giver at your old location with a sign giving an explanation as to why you had to move your business. If that doesn't work you could start your own auctions that just so happen to always take place at the same times theirs do. Who knows you might bet a few customers from them. I hope that helps. Cathy

I made my video demonstrating rigging clothes because the vast majority of people rigging are making clothes. A smaller percentage are rigging hair and just a very few people in SL are making mesh avatars though that number is increasing. Rigging an avatar mesh would be the same process in MayaStar as rigging a jump suit or wet suit. Create your avatar mesh in the default T-Pose or any other pose such as an A-Pose, because MayaStar has a feature for custom bind poses, and then "Activate MayaStar" which will import all of MayaStar's mesh avatars and skeleton and a bunch of other stuff used by MayaStar. Place your mesh right on top of the MayaStar's avatar and either do Substitute Geometry or do a quick Smooth Bind of your avatar mesh you made to the skeleton and then use "Copy Weights" to copy the weights from one of the MayaStar Avatars to your custom mesh avatar you made. You may have a little bit of cleanup of the weights and you are done rigging your avatar mesh. Rigging an avatar mesh in MayaStar is one of the easiest types of mesh to rig. I could have a basic Fitted Mesh avatar rigged in 5 minutes with MayaStar. Why just 5 minutes because I spent two weeks rigging and adjusting the weights of my custom avatars I made specifically designed to transfer weights from. It literally only takes a couple of minutes to transfer the weights from my MayaStar avatars to your mesh. I put two weeks of time in so MayaStar customers don't have to. All rigged mesh uses the same LL default skeleton. Fitted Mesh uses the Collision Bones and must have the mBones in the skin cluster or it won't upload to SL. Classic Rigging rigs just to the mBones and doesn't need the Collision Bones in its skin cluster to be able to upload to SL. MayaStar has a bunch of animations so after mesh is rigged you can see how your mesh moves. If you rig your mesh as Fitted Mesh MayaStar has all the Appearance Sliders. This means besides seeing your mesh move you can see how your mesh changes shape as you move the sliders. Without the Appearance Sliders in MayaStar you would have to export and upload to SL a new DAE file and then wear your mesh in SL or the Beta Test Grid to see how your weights look. This could mean uploading 30 or 40 or 100 or more DAE files as you make weight adustments. It is kinda like typing a email on your computer without having a monitor and having to print out the email on a printer to see where you made any spelling errors and then going back and editing your email and having to print it out again and again. You will have the same problem using Blender unless you buy the Avastar plug-in which also has the Appearance Sliders and avatars which you can transfer the weights from. Yes you could download the Fitted Mesh avatar that was rigged and weighted by Linden Lab and just move the vertices of the mesh around a bit. If you move them too much yes the avatar would start to look weird as it moved. Honestly the weights of the default Fitted Mesh avatar are horrible. They are horrible because when Linden Lab did them they did them in Maya without having the Appearance Sliders in Maya. They couldn't see how the weights looked unless they uploaded a DAE file and then wore the mesh. Here is my video on the basic concept of Fitted Mesh and a bit of its history. Here's my video on how to rig mesh in MayaStar using Substitute Geometry. Just instead of a mesh clothes you would be doing the same thing with your mesh avatar you made. I hope that helps answer your questions. Cathy

I was curios so I went to Sandstorm (255, 34, 227) nothing but empty air. It is June 9th. Did you get the item removed finally?

Hi! Certainly MayaStar can be used to rig avatars. It would actually be easier to rig an avatar for either Fitted Mesh or Classic Rigging than it would be to say rig a dress or skirt. I have a bunch of videos on how to rig in Maya using MayaStar. YouTube Link MayaStar works with Maya 8.0 all the way to Maya 2016. PC and Mac. Linux should work too but not tested yet. Hope that helps. Cathy

You have to use the Second Life skeleton. You can move the joints to different positions if you need to. There is an option in the upload window to upload your joint positions. You can not upload your own skeleton so you can't make your own bones for your wings. Some people just make several sets of wings each in a different position and use scripts to hide and show them to give the illusion of movement. I am sure there are other methods but I am not familiar with them. Instead of rigging the wings you could make them an attachment and use specialized scripts to animate them. Puppeteer is one that comes to mind. What program are you going to use to rig your characters? Hope that helps Cathy