Ashasekayi Ra

Thanks for starting this interesting thread Medhue. I wonder when they will change the color indicators on "show draw weight"? Most people have not read the jira where Nyx said the new top number is 40,000. As a side note, someone mentioned not using the marketplace as a comparison. In a perfect world, you could ignore the fact that other merchants are making inefficient mesh that looks really good visually to the average user. There are countless clothing models being sold right now with insane poly counts. A number of them do look visually great. No matter how great the texture, there will always be a massive difference visually between a 400 triangle dress and a 4000 triangle dress that is complete with actually draped folds. (And yes, I know 4000 is an insane number for a simple dress, but it is out there.) Now, if we had normal maps in SL, we could have a whole different discussion. But, we don't. So, yes, a merchant selling certain items (especially organic ones) will have to find a difficult balance between what SL shoppers expect visually (and they expect a lot of detail) and what is efficient. Keep in mind that it isn't just creators that zoom into worn attachments. Shoppers do too, and they want a lot of detail. They want that buckle on their boot to have actual geometric depth and the shiny shader even if the usual viewing distance would make it pretty silly to have it made from actual geometry. An SL merchant does have a different set of problems from a traditional game modeler. A traditional game modeler is bound by numbers handed down by coders and designers who need to maintain certain framerates and download amounts. The SL merchant is bound mostly by the eye of shoppers and the limitations set by the LL developers.

Hi Emily welcome to the forum (and to Blender) I'd agree with a previous comment about learning general modeling skills before tackling clothing. In the end, if you learn how to model properly, you can model anything. There are many great Blender tutorial sites our there now. I'd recommend checking out the Blender Training series at Canned Mushroom. It has more of a course feel and will get you started on the right foot. Modeling: http://www.youtube.com/user/cannedmushrooms#grid/user/2BA5BDF79FF50122 Texturing: http://www.youtube.com/user/cannedmushrooms#grid/user/AB4DF1F21A33CB3 Another great site is Blendercookie.com, which has a great modeling section. Another site that has a course style is http://www.gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html. I've started a channel dedicated to digital clothing (for the most part). Here are two playlists: General SL: http://www.youtube.com/user/ashasekayi#grid/user/2A3AF00B41F652ED SL Rigged Clothing: http://www.youtube.com/user/ashasekayi#grid/user/11D6E99BB51A2BB2

Aww thanks Tessa. I appreciate the comment.

If you are going to use a current version of Blender for rigging. you need to use Blender 2.59. Those others won't work. If you need to also use joint offsets, you'll need to use Blender 2.49. If you are going to use automatic weighting, you should pick "Bone Heat" in Blender 2.49 not "Envelopes". if you are using "Don't Create Groups", you have to either place weights in the mesh manually or use the "bone weight copy" script. Here's a playlist that goes through the process of rigging an item for SL using Blender: http://www.youtube.com/user/ashasekayi#grid/user/11D6E99BB51A2BB2

Do you see the same problem when "joints" is not checked?

Right. It is pretty much agreed this one is Blender's fault. An LL dev did state if the Blender guys didn't fix it, they would consider putting code in the SL uploader to try to catch the anomaly and correct it on upload. But, they are waiting to see if Blender fixes it first.

You can't use Blender 2.6 for rigging because the bones are rotated incorrectly on export. So, we'll have to wait for the Blender Foundation or LL to come up with a solution. In the meantime, you can use Blender 2.59 for regular rig jobs. If you need joint offsets as well, you'll need Blender 2.49. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/New-Blender-2-6-Release-and-Problem-With-Rigged-Mesh/td-p/1177337

Heya Jusden ^^ I'd be extremely interested in such a tool. I wanted to make one at some point. But, my ability to sift through LL's C++ mesh code was beyond me. I know Python at an ok level, but I've just started playing around with Blender Python. So, that idea didn't go far. I'd surely be willing to help as a beta tester. Server weight seemed to be the one that would have been easiest to calculate. As far as physics, I wasn't sure if you'd be able to predict that one since part of that is closed off. But mainly, I was most interested in download weight. It would be great to test out different LOD triangle counts and how they affect the download weight without going back and forth between SL and Blender.

Ronald Greybeard wrote: i also found this in the log file after getting a dae parsing error 2011-11-03T14:18:15Z INFO: LLModelLoader::doLoadModel: Collada Importer Version: 1.4.1 2011-11-03T14:18:15Z INFO: LLModelLoader::doLoadModel: Dae version 1.4.0 2011-11-03T14:18:15Z INFO: LLModelPreview::verifyCount: Error: (expected/got)16512/16360verts Ah this error (expected/got) was brought up in another thread recently. Gaia's solution must be the answer to that problem as well. So, it seems to list how many vertices are in the object and then lists how many vertices have weights assigned to them.

Hey Nacy, I observed basically the same thing Drongle did. On the topic of UV layouts, it's worth pointing out the results of Drongle's experiment in a different thread when it comes to stacked versus non-stacked UVs. I found it pretty interesting that you get a cost savings from stacked UVs.

As far as I know, it hasn't been fixed on either end yet.

Blender 2.59 works fine for me with SL. I haven't had any unexpected vertex counts. The vertex count that SL reports does differ from the one in Blender's display. This is expected behavior. The SL uploader doesn't only count vertex location, which is the only thing Blender counts for vertices. The SL uploader counts vertex location, differences in normals and UV coordinates. That is why a flat shaded cube has 24 vertices in the SL uploader and 8 in Blender's display.

I add vertices all the time without disturbing the weight painting. However, if you are having a problem that you didn't have before, you could just delete the weights from the problemtatic section. Then, manually repaint them. I can only assume the error was caused by leaving out a required vertex group or some problem with the geometry/material ids that already existed. A bad paint job rarely raises an error in the SL uploader. The most that usually happens is ugly spikes and distortion when vertices aren't painted correctly. I'd really need more detailed information about your workflow to really have an idea what is going on with your file.

I usually make custom LODs. I haven't had an issue with material ids and LODs as long as they had the same name and order within Blender (latest versions 2.5+).

Glad you got it figured out. I'm avoiding 2.6 for the moment for a number of reasons. One of them being I've had more bad luck with corrupted files and bugs with that one.

So, I just exported a plain cube from Blender 2.59 (the version shouldn't matter since you are exporting a static mesh anyway). I didn't do a single thing to it. I just exported it with "export only selected" checked. It uploaded just fine on the latest project mesh viewer (244236). Btw, press Ctrl + Shift + 4 to get a print out of the log in the viewer. Note: I tried one with a UV map, and it uploaded fine as well.

First, I will say that it will be a hassle since the SL uploader doesn't respect bone rotations at the moment, So, if you can, you may want to model with a T-pose instead of an A-pose. That being said here is a workflow: - Rotate the arms of the armature down in Pose mode to fit model. - Select all the bones. Go to Pose -> Apply -> Apply as Rest Pose. - Do your parenting and weight painting. - Once you are done, go back to Pose mode in the armature. Rotate the arms back to their T-pose defaults. - Apply the armature modifer on the model. - Select all the bones in the armature in Pose mode. Go to Pose -> Apply -> Apply as Rest Pose. - Reparent the item to the armature with "empty groups" since the weights are still there. - Tweak weights if needed, adjust geometry etc.

If you are using a current version of Blender (2.5 and above), go into Edit mode. Then, go Select -> Loose Verts/Edges. If you have floating vertices, it will highlight them, then you can just use the hotkey "X" and pick "vertices" to delete them. In Blender 2.49, use "Non-manifold" under the Select menu.

It looks like there is some problem with the vertex count. Did you use decimation on this model? If so, did you remove doubles and make sure you don't have any floating vertices?

Which viewer version are you using? the main LL viewer? latest mesh project development viewer? Are you using the beta grid? Sadly, some bug fixes in the development viewer haven't made it to the main viewer. (Granted, I'm not sure if that is your issue yet.)

Do you mean you are only uploading a single cube? What options are you using in the uploader for LODs and the physics shape?

Which software package are you using?

Cool Viewer (a v1 viewer) and Singularity can also display mesh.

You can get that at Domino Marama's site: http://dominodesigns.info/project/primstar Look at the right sidebar and click "avatar".

If you are using 2.58 from blender.org, that one had a rotation issue in the .dae exporter. If you want to use a more up-to-date Blender, use Blender 2.59. (Blender 2.6 brought back the rotation error unfortunately.) As for your error in Blender 2.49, that one is strange. I've never tried using the simplebot file. If you are using Blender, there are easier ways to go about this though by using either Domino Marama's avatar.blend file or Wiz Daxter's plugin. Here's a how-to video playlist for Blender: http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=11D6E99BB51A2BB2