Medhue Simoni

Oh totally! IMHO the good thing is that these guys actually learned how to use SL, and showed everyone just how crazy it can get. I'll repost it, just so people don't have to leave the page to watch it.

Bobbie Faulds wrote: Very cool. I saw the demo stuff you did. I'm so looking forward to some of the changes coming. It is quite exciting for everyone. Oh the possibilities!

Yesterday, LL announced that we can upload Bento Avatars and attachements to the main grid. Just posting the announcement here incase someone missed it. I'm not sure any creators have Bento stuff on the marketplace yet, but I know I will have some soon, as well as some other creators. https://community.secondlife.com/t5/Featured-News/Project-Bento-Testing-Is-Now-Live-on-the-Main-Grid/ba-p/3035460

So, I'm on Youtube, and what do I see? Monster Factory from Polygon, in Secondlife again. They did 1 episode where most of the time they played with the sliders for the default SL avatar and then ran around being goofy. I'll link it at the end. Now, they have this 3 part series, and here are the first 2. Take note, the SL videos have 70+k, and 50+k respectively. They are, by far, the most watched videos Polygon has produced. The original video that sparked this series has over 160k views now.

Drake1 Nightfire wrote: ChinRey wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: my bi-pedal mesh avs are still very complex, and will remain so after the new skeleton. They are done by some of the best in SL. Oh, in that case there's no need to worry. If it's made by some of the best, it shouldn't take more than a week or two before you receive a lower lag upgrade. Problem solved. Right, because the new skeleton will vastly change how a rigged mesh Lycan is rendered and will lower the ACI to almost nill. Well, in this image, my mesh Lycan that I made years ago, is way under the limit, and he is wearing mesh hair all over his body. Of course, I plan on updating him, as he will massively benefit from the new bento skeleton. It's actually pretty easy to get decent scores, if you understand what you are doing. My goal on the next version is to keep him under 20k. Here is the wolf I made with the Bento skeleton. Notice how low his rendering cost is. He also utilizes bump map textures and specular map textures.

Prokofy Neva wrote: Medhue, I understand where your deep, dark suspicions are coming from, but it doesn't make sense for Linden Lab to be behind this. Yes, we know they have Supply Linden. But Supply Linden does not make much cash dollars from selling Lindens, as far as we've been told about this system in the past (maybe it has changed). Supply Linden either simply writes ("prints") new Linden dollars into the system to be sold, in order to keep the LindEx stable, and takes in those dollar payments OR he deletes X amount out of the money supply and sells them -- we don't know which. Is all selling conversion to dollars? Or is some of it burning? We just don't know. Well, the Federal Reserve devalues the dollar every single year. That is their whole goal. It doesn't make sense for the people, but it does for governments. It's Keynesian economics. Do you think that LL hired a Keynesian economist, or an economist of the Chicago school, or Austrian? My bet is that they are a Keynesian. If they are, then devaluing the linden makes total sense to them. To them, it will spark economic activity if people get more lindens to spend. In their minds, it works even better for LL as land is priced in dollars, not lindens. So, when they devalue the linden, LL still gets the same amount of dollars from people paying tiers. Of course, none of this makes much sense if you're an economist of the Chicago school, and makes even less sense if you're an Austrian. The way this all happened looks suspicious. It looks like someone is trying to drive the value down. So, why hasn't Supply Linden stepped in? The value of the linden has remained stable over almost a decade. We've really only seen anything like this maybe once or twice, and I don't remember it happening this quickly. The whole point of Supply Linden is to keep the market stable. Not intervening tells me that this is what LL wants. Enough said.

Qie Niangao wrote: I don't know if there's a way they could get what I'd call "significant" income from dumping L$s at the standard buying volume -- and last I checked, volumes have been at or below average through this whole incident. Again, though, even if they do, it's a short term thing that would mean their regular trickle of Supply-originated L$ sales would be stopped dead for months or years, the market consumed by all the regular L$ sales that would be displaced by Supply's one-time sales. Right! I never said it was a good plan. To me, it looks like LL needs cash now, or looking to supplement their grandfathering, and using the Lindex to do that. Long term, I agree it is a terrible strategy, that can only hurt their reputation and prospects for the future. I'll certainly remember this, and have much less trust in the company. Why would I even be excited about Sansar if I know that this is how the companies thinks it can create wealth for itself, by taking from others? Creating wealth should be easy for LL. It's mindboggling that they don't understand this. Then again tho, if all their advisors have a Keynesian attitude about the economy, what they are doing is expected Keynesian behavior.

Qie Niangao wrote: I'm just not seeing any way for LL to be making any significant income from the change at all. As you pointed out yourself, there is a gain for LL. Whether it is significant or not, is totally dependent on volume. And...... the volume is there for a massive amount of gain for LL. Not to mention that fewer people will be taking their money out of SL because the price is that much higher.

If I were a landbaron, I would be calling for LL to have a set linden rate that we pay for sims. It really makes no sense that land is priced in dollars and not lindens. It is only because the land is priced in dollars that LL can so flagorantly manipulate the lindex. If all land was priced in lindens, the lindex would be a much more stable environment, and if LL wanted to screw with the lindex, they would also feel the affects of it.

IMHO, it could very well be LL driving the value down. They control the value of the sell orders. This looks to be part of Ebbe's plan of taking more from those of us that produce value in SL. If LL continues this tactic, SL will gradually fall apart, as we'll all leave because we can no longer pay our tiers. LL is biting the hands that actually feed them.

If I remember correctly, when you use Daz's SL export option, it automatically offsets the first frame, which is why you can't just animate 1 joint. This doesn't means you can't. You just have to not use Daz's SL export option. If you simple export the bvh normally, it should work and not auto offset the first frame, because you are using the SL rig.

Pretty cool stuff! Many years ago, I explained a very similar system, hoping LL would create it. You nailed it. Kudos!

Gael Streeter wrote: I tend to agree with Kitsune. Since I clearly mesured the incompatibilities between the animations and the sliders, I look at all aspects of the problem and can not find the right way to use the Bento bones for my Mesh Heads... First let me say, I haven't specifically attempted to make a mesh head only, with bento, but I have made a number of avatars, including humans, and extensively rigged their heads to use all the possible bones and sliders. In my honest opinion, LL with the bento project have gone above and beyond, hoping to make some of you mesh head makers happy, which is impossible. Me tho, and I'm sure many other avatars makers and animators could not be happier with what we have. Is it perfect? Heck no. Would more time make it better? Yeah, probably, but this could also go on forever. We could spend the next 6 months getting more of the sliders to work, but it still won't be enough for replacement mesh head designers. Again tho, for the rest of us creators, we have compatibility that I thought we'd never see, and I'm sure many of my customers will love adjusting their avatars with the limited sliders that do affect our avatars.

Personally, I don't understand the need for Alt Eyes, other than for the very reason you are pointing out. The reason originally stated for Alt Eyes is wrong, as the current eyes can be used without the eyes being affected by the Look At feature in SL. I showed Cathy this with my original Fly avatar(pre bento), which used the eye bones as the fly's wings. I could not do this if the eye bones could not be overriden. So, as I said, the only good reason to have alt eyes is for the very purpose that you are presenting. I seriously wished the reason for the alt eye bones would have been discussed in the open beta, as I would have shown that the reasoning is flawed. All that said, Teager, you have a number of bones that you could use as eye bones for your horse. Heck, I grabbed 6-7 bones from the face to construct the bones for my elephant's trunk. Might I suggest the forehead bones, as I don't see much use for those in a horse's forehead.

Hmmm, interesting. Looks familiar. Needs good mocap animation!

I'm trying to figure out why I'm seeing the same thing. Live support doesn't open until 8 am sl time.

LOL, It just hit me. About Alternative skeletons. I never really used them or needed them, because it is the same as retargeting animation to a new rig. Avastar's features in the animation retargeting are awesome, but we don't have access to retargeting animation onto the full Bento skeleton. If we did, then I'd just retarget my bvh from the elephants original cusotm rig, to these Bento bones, and I don't need an "Alternative rig".

Oh, and while we are talking about this, I might as well add in some comments about my adventures animating the nunchakus, as it might be useful in making Avastar better. I mean, Avastar is awesome, but nothing stands still, and I can kind of envision what you are talking about, as the bones are all there to do as you please with. It's just about how the best and easiest way to do it. In the case of my nunchakus, it would be handy to be able to quickly attach/parent bones together at will, as in 1 frame they are parented and the next frame they aren't parented, and the next frame they are parented to another bone. I chose the nunchakus to do, not just because they are cool and I'm an expert user of them, lol, but because they have this unique need to switch hands. This could be useful for a number of things, not just weapons like this. Imagine dribbling a basketball. You also talked about baking animation, and how the the exporter works, or something about that. I just want to say that I always feel the need to never bake animations until I have to, so the animations are always in a perpetual editing stage, and this way I can always comeback to it. If that makes any sense. I just never need to bake animations, nor want to. Keeping things in the prebake stage gives me a clean set of keyframes to look at, and easily see how and when bones are interacting. Or maybe I don't understand what you were saying.

Gaia Clary wrote: Hi, Medhue; Do you think it is beneficial to simplify the customizing of the control rig so that hierarchie changes become easier? Would this avoid the need for an external animation rig? The elephant trunk is 1 good example, and originally it was a snake avatar that brought up the use of an external rig. If you think that both of these can be done and animated easily without an external rig, I'd love to see it. I might even kiss your feet.

Here's another example of what is possible with the Bento Project.

I've been talking to a number of creators in SL, and many express deep concerns over 2 areas when considering to make things for the Sansar platform. These areas are the TOS, and commissions. No professional 3D artist that I know would accept the current SL TOS for Sansar, and neither will I. The only reason some of us did accept the SL TOS is because we had already established businesses in SL way before the TOS change. Such a drastic change in the TOS also makes many of us weiry about trusting LL, especially since LL doesn't seem to take our concerns about this seriously. As LL has said that they are catering to creators and developers with Sansar, are there any plans to adjust the TOS for Sansar? Please do remember that LL is competing for our attention. We, the 3D artists, have many options now, and there will be many more to come. Can you give us any idea what the commission fees will be in Sansar? This is another deal breaker in many of our minds.

Teager wrote: This is, however, based on the assumption that a background animation is added to the sl viewer for all of the new bones, which I still believe it should be. Without a background animation, bones moved to irregular positions will stay in their irregular positions, which would benefit the relatively small number of users who will rig and animate this way, but will also mean that for the greater number of users who choose to rely on the default bone positions, any animation played on new bones will get stuck in place. For example, if I were to play a single frame animation for a shocked face pose, to take a picture with, my face would stay shocked after I stop the animation, until relog or until I play another animation to put my face back in the default position. By that logic, you would be requiring either (1) every animation to "unanimate" itself back to the default position on the last frame, or (2) every creator of a face/hands/tail/whatever to include a background deform animation, even for meshes using the standard bone locations. If a default position is added to the sl background AO, my face would reset itself naturally without any extra expectations on the mesh makers or animators. I'm of 2 minds thinking about this, and the reason is because of these slider bones. Without the slider bones tho, there is no need for some kind of default, because this is already inherent in the SL animation system. The stand animation serves this purpose, as the system always comes back to the stand animation, or if you are flying it's the hover animation, and similarly with the swim animations you have the floating animation. All that said, there are 2 issues with this. The first is that if you set a face animation as the default stand with SetAnimationOverride, it will override the whole skeleton, even the body's animation. Currently, this is not so much an issue with the current AO systems being used, as most aren't using the SetAnimationOverride function. The 2nd issue is directly related to the slider bones. I saw some of this when I rigged my wolf's teeth to the Teethbones. When I uploaded the wolf, the teeth were offset, as I had no animation to set the position of the teeth, and I can't add 1 because it will reset any offset created by the sliders. It seems to me, that the problem is that the mesh itself isn't holding onto it's initial joint positions. So......, what I think is needed, is a default joint position that takes into consideration the initial joint positions, and the sliders, and created by the system itself, not us. This should really be a very low priority animation that is playing all the time, and within the server or viewer code.

Seems reasonable to me.:smileyhappy:

Innula Zenovka wrote: So maybe the first time under the new system takes longer than the others for some reason? Yes, I think this is the case. I cashed out again yesterday, and then got the money today. The weekend seems to be the same tho, which is ridiculous. I predict now then, since LL doesn't process these payouts on the weekend, they will have everyone cashing out Monday thru Wednesday, and few people on Thursdays and Fridays.

Personally, I think Spenser is confusing selling the lindens with cashing out. It sounds to me like he put in a bid that was too low now, and the money is now sitting there waiting for someone to buy the lindens. Of course, this is never going to happen any time soon, as the bid is too low. If he/she cancels the bid, and then puts 1 in at 250, someone will buy the lindens within minutes.