Jennifur Vultee

The mesh maker skould have provided you with a UVW map so you can create your own textures without guesswork. If its a full perm kit and didn't come with a UVW map maybe you can ask for it...its possible they simply forgot to include it. If its properly UVW mapped at this point all you really need to do is use thw UVW map make your textures in Photoshop or Gimp, upload them and apply them to the mesh. If the mesh maker included a .dae in the sale you can import that to Blender if you want to to test textures before uploading them...of course that also means you can upload the mesh showing you as the creator instead of the person who made it.

Here's what I don't understand Nyx...since everything in SL is already mesh why can't all viewers already see mesh when its imported? Why is special code in viewers needed to see mesh? I mean prims are mesh, the avatar is mesh, sculpties are mesh, the very ground and sky are mesh. I can do CTRL + Shift + R and see the mesh that makes up SL...so why are user imported meshes so different that they need special code?

Talk to Sandi or her partner from Lolas and they will give you the developer's kit.

I tried it and hated it...who wants a choice of half screen window or full screen pixilated? Not me. I know its a beta but its dumbed down even more than Viewer 2...and I didn't think that was possible. PLEASE, PLEASE, never make this web viewer mandatory!

You have to select the item you want to edit from the list...pretty sure anyway, the last time I did it was on the beta grid on the mesh viewer since I'm forced to use a version viewer 2 there. Once you finish editing save then look to the top left of the side bar appearance editor for two arrows like this << that will get you out of edit mode. I own a clothing shop and yeah the new appearance editor is confusing and I hate it.

Hi Kwakkelde, First of all uninstall OpenCollada...it doesn't seem to work with 3DS Max because it scrambles the texture mapping. I've brought this to the attention of Nyx Linden. Instead go here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775855 and install the official Autodesk FBX plugin for your version of Max...it works.

Sorry for trying to help with your problem Vivienne...but its rather rude to spit in the face of someone trying to help you. I responded to you against my better judgment, a mistake I will not repeat. I should have confined my responce to Madeliefste.

Actually Viv its more likely that there aren't that many Cinema 4D users. I don't know if Cinema 4D has a built in FBX/DAE exporter if if ya'll are using a plugin but it does look similar on a smaller scale to 3DS Max users who've tried the OpenCollada plugin for 3DS Max. I tried OpenCollada and got the mesh into SL fine but the textures were scrambled, I know of a few other Max users with similar results. If its a plugin you're using see if there's a different one you can install.

Ann as long as your version of 3DS Max exports in the FBX/DAE format you can use it...I'm using Max 8 with the Autodesk FBX plugin since Max 8 didn't ship with an FBX exporter. Later versions ship with the plugin already installed including 2010 and 2011.

Each mesh object can have 8 "faces" (specified with something like "material ID" in the modelling program), so that means 8 possible texture maps per mesh. I believe you're confusing faces and UVW mapping, a mesh can have up to eight UVW mapped textures...if a mesh has eight faces it would be an eight sided object.

To a recent ticket citing a problem with viewer 2, after waiting 4 months for a reply the reply received was "have you tried viewer 2". To a problem with destination guide listings not working, I was asked "are you using viewer 2." Eventually, after confirming I use viewer 2, I was told put in another ticket. To my comment about waiting 3-4 months for the last ticket to be answered, I was told if they don't answer your ticket in 4-5 days put in another ticket. And now, for three days I can not even access my ticket history to determine if tickets are being addressed. Eh...I think they just skim the support tickets. The last ticket I submitted a almost a year ago I asked about wether or not its permissible to have a topless sculpted statue on mature mainland since the rules for mainland seem a bit fuzzy...support closed my ticket after a month saying if I felt there was an issue inworld I should file an abuse report. I was told to abuse report myself and I hadn't even bought the statue yet. In the end I was so shocked and frustrated with the reply I just let it go...it just wasn't worth the brain damage to re-opening the case.

Hmmmm...does this mean someone might actually look at my concierge level land ticket sometime by the end of this year? I filed a ticket seven weeks ago and its still marked "new", I'd kind of like to reclaim the three parcels of land I had set for sale in mid August...my group that owns it was deleted.

Of course with human avatars the skin would have to be part of any clothing since meshes like all other attatchments currently don't support layers like the SL base avatar does. I see it as being a great thing for non human avatars but those who try to do them as human replacements are soon going to realize their limitations. Even something as simple as seperating the arms in the UVW map breaks all clothing...that is IF you could wear clothing with your mesh once its imported.

I havn't heard anything definite from the Lindens how long the open beta will be.

7. CONTENT LICENSES AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS 7.2 You grant certain Content licenses to Linden Lab by submitting your Content to the Service. You agree that by uploading, publishing, or submitting any Content to or through the Servers, Websites, or other areas of the Service, you hereby automatically grant Linden Lab a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicenseable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the Service. You understand that this license enables Linden Lab to display, distribute, promote, and improve the Service. You agree that the license includes the right to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing, or providing support or development services in connection with the Service and future improvements to the Service. The license granted in this Section 7.2 is referred to as the "Service Content License." 7.3 You grant certain Content licenses to users of Second Life by submitting your Content to publicly accessible areas of the Service. You agree that by uploading, publishing, or submitting any Content to any publicly accessible areas of the Service, you hereby grant each user of Second Life a non-exclusive license to access the User Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content In-World or otherwise on the Service solely as permitted by you through your interactions with the Service under these Terms of Service. This license is referred to as the "User Content License," and the Content being licensed is referred to as "User Content." "Publicly accessible" areas of the Service are those areas that are accessible to other users of Second Life. If you do not wish to grant users of Second Life a User Content License, you agree that it is your obligation to avoid displaying or making available your Content to other users. For example, you may use Virtual Land tools to limit or restrict other users' access to your Virtual Land and thus the Content on your Virtual Land. "Your interactions with the Service" may include use of the Second Life permissions system and the copy, modify, and transfer settings for indicating how other users may use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, or perform your Content In-World subject to these Terms of Service. Any agreement you make with other users relating to use or access to your Content must be consistent with these Terms of Service, and no such agreement can abrogate, nullify, void or modify these Terms of Service. You acknowledge that when you receive a User Content License you receive only licensing and use rights: You therefore do not acquire ownership of any copies of the Content, or transfer of any copyright or other Intellectual Property Rights in the Content. You acknowledge that with respect to the use of the words "Buy" and "Sell" as used in this Agreement and throughout the Service in the context of User Content: (a) the term "Sell" means "to grant a User Content License in exchange for Linden dollars or other consideration in accordance with the Terms of Service," (b) the term "Buy" or "Purchase" means "to receive a User Content License in exchange for Linden dollars or other consideration in accordance with the Terms of Service," and © the terms "Buyer," "Seller," "Sale" and "Purchaser" and similar terms have corresponding meanings to their root terms. This includes User Content that may be Bought or Sold on the Xstreet SL online marketplace. 7.5 You may delete copies of your Content from the Service, and the licenses you have granted for the deleted copies will terminate with certain limitations. You may delete copies or instances of your Content that you have displayed In-World or that are in your Account inventory through the normal functionality of the Service, including by emptying the trash folder in your Account inventory. In such event, the licenses granted by you in this Section 7 shall terminate in the manner provided below, but only for those particular copies or instances of Content that you have deleted from the Service. You acknowledge that this termination will not apply to any other copies or instances of the same Content that you have not specifically deleted from the Service, including without limitation those that may be displayed elsewhere In-World and those that may be in the Account inventories of other users to whom you transferred copies. You acknowledge that the Snapshot and Machinima Content License granted to Linden Lab and other users with respect to your Content will survive any such termination. You also acknowledge that the Service Content License granted to Linden Lab with respect to your Content will survive any such termination solely as follows to permit Linden Lab: (i) to retain server copies of particular instances of your Content, including copies stored in connection with back-up, debugging, and testing procedures; and (ii) to enable the exercise of the licenses granted in this Section 7 for any other copies or instances of the same Content that you have not specifically deleted from the Service, including those that may be displayed elsewhere In-World or exist in other users' Account inventories. Non-exclusive, that means if I so desire I can sell or give away any mesh, texture, sound file or animation I create because I'm granting Linden Lab a license to use "the Content solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the Service." I retain copyright of my uploaded assets and Linden Lab gets a non-exclusive copyright to use it for Second Life. "You understand that this license enables Linden Lab to display, distribute, promote, and improve the Service. You agree that the license includes the right to copy, analyze and use any of your Content as Linden Lab may deem necessary or desirable for purposes of debugging, testing, or providing support or development services in connection with the Service and future improvements to the Service." This section says they can use it as they deem appropriate for the good of Second Life. At no point does any of that say I grant Linden Lab worldwide exlusive copyrights to content I upload. Nice try Viv but you got it wrong.

Checking out the Flickr link... @Timmi Allen ZOMFG you meshed that farrari? *faints* that is seriously badass. Just to clarify - not that I know the first thing (yet) about mesh - will there be an actual editor built in, or is all this to-do just over the new ability to import stuff from outside SL? Yeah Timmi is pretty bad ass...wait till you see his work on the beta grid. That's not to discount what the rest of us have done at all...you will see things that will amaze you when the beta goes public. ^^ Currently no there is no built in mesh editor in the beta viewer beyond what's currently available on the main grid...in other word the standard Edit window. The Edit window does include a few small tweaks related to mesh such as render cost and prim cost. So yes its about mesh import not inworld mesh creation tools.

Ashasekayi Ra They told us Monday that they finished the code for bone offsets. That will allow you to move the joints of the skeleton around so that you can make avatars with different structures. Actually a couple of the guys were playing around with bone offsets yesterday with some cool results. Its not perfect yet but they were having fun. It was really cute when one was six inches tall and typing 90 miles an hour. lol There's still some bugs to be worked out like tiny avatars float at around waist height and bigger than normal avatars get somewhat pushed into the ground. But the guys were all excited getting to finally play with bone offsets.

Nah I didn't think you were being contentious at all. As far as for your organic target models yeah you're going to want to upload your own physical shape for those I would think. Just keep it to the bare minimum polys/verts and you should be fine I would think.

I haven't personally played with scripting any meshes yet but I have seen scripted doors, a merry-go-round and a car. A few days ago one of the Lindens who deals with programming physics was zipping all over the mesh sims in a mesh car and crashed into my train while I was talking to Dante and zoomed off. I got the sense he was crashing into things to test the physics reaction either that or really sucks at driving. I see no reasons vehicle scripts shouldn't work, if they require a specific orientation I'd guess you may need to drop the scripts into a prim that would be your root prim of the mesh. Depending on how much the mesh costs in prims and its render costs will determine the amount of data that's going to be in motion. I am doing a mesh truck right now so I'll play around with a simple car script I have and post some information here.

I'd say you summed it up pretty well...we just posted about the same time. Basically all the decomposition tool does is create a physics shape from your model that is just the basic shape of your model. It doesn't preserve any detail...its kind of like wrapping it in a sheet of plastic. With a physics shape you upload of course you have more control on how your model can be interacted with.

Funny you should ask about physical shapes. lol I've been fighting with a physical shape importer bug that has decided to rotate my physics shape 90 degrees to the left and pointing it down. Gotta love a new viewer. The physics shape can be a simple shape you upload or you can load your model into the physics shape and use the decomposition tool to simplify it into a physics shape. Of course you have more control over your physics shape if you create it yourself rather than using the decomposition tool to simplify your model. Making a model phantom is also an option. The picture below was taken with the physics shapes made visible, in viewer 2 enable the Develop(Crtl+Alt+Q) menu then scroll down to RenderMetadata, and enable Physics Shapes.

Actually I'm not a professional...I learned Max on my own with the help of the built in tutorials, web tutorials and my well worn copy of the 3DS Max 8 Bible. And don't for a minute discount what you can do with Sketchup...I've seen an entire city for IMVU made in Sketchup and I bought it because it was that good. Right now I'm doing animations in Max for another project by the guy who made that city and I know his latest project will be just as good as the one I bought. It is relatively easy for me because I've been working in Max for very close to four years now but it was very hard at first. Don't let Sketchup's deceptively simple appearance and relative ease of creation fool you into thinking its not a powerful 3D application. Take your time and learn if its what you want to do...I had to just like everyone else. And I think you'll find the Sketchup groups in SL are a great source of valuable knowledge...some of the beta testers are using Sketchup and will no doubt be offering advice and help on the Sketchup groups. As far a blueprint drawing...I didn't draw them...I got them from modeling sites that supply free blueprints for 3D modelers or plastic model builders. The beta testers are already doing tutorials for Sketchup to Second Life. Its a simple mailbox to give a brief overview of mesh creation and import from Sketchup. Most of these early tutorials are going to be an overview to show how its done...I know if/when I do one for Max it will likely be a fairly simple mesh.

"... The same people who cannot make an email notification stop properly are the ones you want to program in a full 3D modeling tool into the viewer? .." Let's not be confusing a defective blogging platform with intellect. OK? You are insulting people and it is this very uber geeky defective personality disorder that turns people off so they leave SL. Ann I believe Daniel was referring to Linden Lab not being able to stop the email notifications because of the comment you quoted. Let me edit it a bit to what I believe he meant: The same people who cannot make an email notification stop properly are the ones you want to program in a full 3D modeling tool into the viewer? I could be wrong but that is what I got out of it, that Linden Lab was implied not the SL user as the one who unable to stop email notification.

Nitpick all you want Vivienne but the point I was making, and I know you got, was that Linden Lab is working to improve basic things like border crossings. Just because you can't always see the progress doesn't mean its not happening. As always you like to choose one or two sentences and take them out of context to twist them to your own agenda.

Despite Jennifur's intriguing arguments the revelation that quality software costs up to 3500 was staggering... Actually...quality software is as easily accessible as Blender, which is free and I never argued that quality software costs thousands of dollars. Frankly if anything I've been arguing the case of legal free software. Once again its every bit as powerful as 3DS Max...I'm not sure how many times I have to say it. And as I said in an earlier post I got Max for IMVU because it was at the time the only program that could do it all..that has changed because of the creativity and advances made by IMVU's Blender users. At this point for IMVU Blender can do practically everything 3DS Max can and had that been true at the time I bought Max I'd be a Blender user. For Second Life Blender can do anything Max can...for free. My biggest complaint about Blender is it's non standard user interface which I'm told by Blender users is being changed to make it more standard in a new beta release. I don't hesitate to recommend Blender for anyone who wants a free fully function 3D package. And as I said in a previous post...those of us with programs costing hundreds or thousands of dollars will be in the minority when it comes to mesh for SL. But really Blender isn't the only option...there's Wings 3D and Google Sketchup that spring to mind...are they as powerful as Blender and Max...well no but for most peoples purposes they would probably do just fine unless you want to do rigged attachments. And these are just the ones I'm familiar with. You want to talk about sim boundaries...ok. Phillip has also promised sim boundary crossing will be much improved by the end of the year. They are working on it. On the beta grid mesh sims you can cross a sim boundary and there is no rubbery band effect...you experience a few seconds of lag but it really doesn't even slow you down since its barely noticeable. Just like mesh these things have to be tested and worked out on the beta grid first before being implemented for the rest of SL.