Medhue Simoni

Perrie Juran wrote: One of the big issues in SL is lag from unoptimised content. Maybe LL is thinking they can help alleviate this by forcing creators to work with only certain "compliant" formats. Also, after the first round of tests then they can add other formats. On the current time table they still have a year to go before the "Grand Opening." Medhue (not to single him out here) is only one Creator in an ocean full of them. Nothing obligates LL to cater to the formats he or anyone prefers. The format has nothing to do with restrictions. The formats can't really restrict things at all. If the format can save something, then it can save thousands of them within the format. I don't have a problem with the FBX format. I actually love it. My problem is with restricting the programs to make that format. Technically, I really don't understand why LL even says they are going to add other formats besides FBX. I don't see the point, besides like texture formats.

Drongle McMahon wrote: By the way, I thought Ebbe's earliest statements indicated that Sansar would be using an existing engine, and that Unity was mentioned in that context although no decisions had been taken. Indeed it seems highly likely that they would want to reinvent the wheel as far as the underlying technology is concerned. In that case, much more of their efforts will be devoted to the layers above, which, amongst a host of other things, would include controlling content parameters. Thus Sansar would really be a meta-platform. Some contraints would be imposed by the underlying engine. Have we heard any more about that? I only remember them refering to Unity as an example of model they were trying to create, and that also uses FBX. I don't remember them saying they were going to use it. That said, I've worked on Multiplayer Unity games, and it literally takes an afternoon to set up. There is no way really that a Unity engine is going to hold hundreds of detailed avatars at a time. Just with the avatar we were using, we were lucky to have 50 of them and still have over 10 fps.

Perrie Juran wrote: 2. I'm wondering if we aren't being confused by the terminology that is being used. When Ebbe says "content creators" if what he is really meaning is (entire) experience creators. As a simple example a College reproducing their campus in a virtual environment. 3. If what is really being referred to is Experiences, the 'tax' on content could make a bit more sense. The fees that LL would charge really would be based on the server loads for that experience. It could be that within that Experience you could only use content that was made by that experience creator and that is how that creator makes their money. Now whether or not that would work is another story. We do know how freebie prone many people are. But those freebie prone people are not really part of the target audience. Although it is obvious that LL is stressing the whole experience aspect, I'm really not sure that is a winning formula. I'm currently taking a good look at Experience tools. I've actually pulled my coder off our main Unity game to take a look at Experiences with me and see what we can do. Yesterday, I was at the TPVD meeting and asked Oz about whether they had plans to allow Experiences to be sold. He said they've considered it, but there are no plans. This drastically limits the scope of why someone would make an experience. That said, after playing with my coder today, we still might make something with it. Today, I also went and checked out some of the Experiences that have already been made. So far, nothing really impresses me, but I've only tried a few. There are only 9 total right now, and 2 are the same sim. If LL is banking on Experiences, then it doesn't seem to be taking off. It's kind of easy to see why. I've talked about this before. The bottleneck in making things in SL are coders. There aren't enough of them. In order for something like Experiences to work, then LL would have to spend time making these experiences, and then giving the code out for free, so anyone could create their own version. Or, LL could just magically make coding easier, lol.

Another thing about Blender that drastically changes the professional market, is not just the price, but also the side effect of being free, which is that everyone on your team is using the same program, and version. The most common problem that I see with new studios, or small teams, contracting 3D jobs, is that everyone is using something different, or even just different versions, or the cost for the company to pay for enough seats. I have yet to work closely with a team of people and not have this be our main issue, besides the task at hand. When we are all using Blender, then there are no issues at all. Years ago, Blender wasn't good enough for a pro. Now, I think it is, if not the go to for most now.

irihapeti wrote: i dunno really what is the point you are making anymore other than it seems that everybody who makes 3D design engines, tools and scene viewers dont seem to know what they doing. Daz, Unity, Unreal, LL, Autodesk, etc I didn't say they didn't know what they are doing. I'm stating my opinions of their business models and marketplaces. Economics is a big interest of mine. It's partly why I love SL. It got many things right, and still benefits from those things. They got the concepts of free markets right. SL would not be what we all love without it. Unity got the free software right, and so did Daz, and then Unreal went that way. It's brilliant!! Overtaxing the artists, that choose to spend their precious time creating for your platform, that is just dumb, and there is just no economic term that better describes it. You are engaging in an act that can't really benefit you in the end, and ultimately limits you. They all also check all the products, which sounds like a good thing, but logistically is a nightmare, and adds massive costs that doesn't need to be there. I suggested approving merchants instead. You check their products a few times, and then they are on their own, and you listen to the customers. Checking every product turns into month or 2 month long waits to get something approved, and that is if they don't make you change something. It gets ridiculous. Hence why I sell my products for those platforms on my own site, like many others do. irihapeti wrote: can say that Blender is the one. But it isnt. The Blender UI all by itself, defeats heaps of non-professional amateur wouldbe designers/modellers. Probably more than pretty much all other 3D toolsets combined. Mostly bc Blender is the first goto tool for amateurs Blender is not perfect, but like Neo, it could be the one. I used to think the same way about the UI. I was constantly trying to make it act like I was used to. It could not be done tho, because I touch too many parts of the program, and eventually the UI change fails. So, then I decided to embrace the Blender UI. When I let go of the old rules, it was then I saw the genius of Blender. Primarily, the fun part is the animation system, especially for me. Every aspect of animating, is a joy in Blender. My background is actually fine arts, and now I'm getting more into modeling and texturing. The more I get used to it, the more and more it feels like I'm using my hands and not keyboard and mouse, especially when you throw a pen into the mix. The only thing I still haven't really touched are the material nodes. Blender even has a game engine.

Drongle McMahon wrote: Unless something has changed since I last looked into it, FBX is still the proprietary format of Autodesk, and is without any public definitive specification. So they are free to change it as and when they like, so that compliance can only be defined by them. In those circumstances, it is impossible for anyone else to claim compliance, because there is nothing to comply with. Thus it may be a desire to test only with guaranteed compliant content that leads them to allow only Maya users to participate. IMHO, Maya has no say, at this point. If Maya tried to change it, and it wasn't magnitudes better, nobody would addopt the new format. Many engines use FBX now, and a major change would break everything in those engines. A new format could be created, but this currect version is fixed, at this point. If LL wants to test content, then all they have to do is test it with Unity stuff. Like I said, the exact same FBX that I bring into Unity, I can bring into Unreal, Sketchfab and more. Drongle McMahon wrote: Of course that is only strange if you take the stated intention seriously. As myself and others have pointed out before, the cause of huge increases in participation, that must be the aim, are probably best served by eliminating the amateur (in both senses) from the creation process. Consequently, I take that intention with a very large pinch of salt. I do not expect Sansar to be a place for people like me, not a professional creator and not a willing consumer. I think there are sufficiently few of these that we don't matter at all. A world even remotely similar to SL, needs a tons of content. If LL doesn't cater to amateurs, then they won't have enough content. Although not totally similar, Daz, Unity, and Unreal have this same issue. In each 1 of their forums, I tried to explain to them that their decisions to inspect every product, and charge a huge commission, would limit their marketplaces and slow the growth of their businesses. None of them listened, and they are all suffering from a serious lack of content. I tried to tell them that they were creating more overhead for themselve, and making the situation for the artist unsustainable. If you look at any of their marketplaces, they barely have anything. In Unity's marketplace, about the only good stuff are the premade game codes. I pointed out to Daz, that even though they check every product, most of the content is unusable. As an example, I once was doing a contract job, and the client wanted me to use Daz and the Genesis character with these specific shoes for the character. All of a sudden, it was impossible to animate the character, because something in the scene was slowing everything down. It was the shoes. They were something like a million polygons. I had to bring them into blender, decimate them down to about 1000 polygons, and then everything worked fine. This is with "professionals" at daz checking every product. My point is, that having a strict marketplaces really doesn't help anyone, especially the company running everything. Yes, SL has it's issues, but these issues are mostly self inflicted. If I want to make a MOD for a game, I get detailed specs and limitations that I have to stick to. There is no reason at all that SL could not have worked that way, or the new Sansar. LL would be shooting themself in the foot if they limited Sansar to only pros.

irihapeti wrote: if LL havent already worked out in the design phase what it is they are selling before they start coding/building then they in big trouble. Which I dont think they are. Ebbe has been pretty clear about what he envisage for LL in what he said so far. What they have designed for the company + when Ebbe said stuff earlier like umm! dunno about that dunno about this. when we asked him questions. He was referring to the technical aspects (like can/will it actually work technically). So dunno. We only just finding that out ourself, by actual code it, is what he was meaning is my understanding this of how these kinda guys speak. based on sitting in lots and lots of meetings in the RL, and reading lots and lots of tech docs, design specs and funding proposals, for about 4 years now Well, I'm thinking about the complex systems that need to be created. There has been no talk about the animation system. Yeah, there has been talk about possible skeletons, but not about the actual system that drives the whole system. Animation systems are a HUGE deal. It's not something you just think up along the way. How will the avatars interact? I've head nothing about this, but alpha has started. IMHO, that doesn't make any sense, unless you need those creators to help you. This means, whatever they come up with, is what the rest of us have to use. There is actual genius in SL animation system, although never really finished, and riddled with bugs. I seriously doubt LL can top it tho. Heck, Unity's animation system is not as good, in many ways.

Kenbro Utu wrote: As I have mentioned before, I believe that the real customers of Sansar will be the professional "experience creators." It will be up to those creators to draw their own customers to their own creations. I don't believe LL will be providing much if anything for causal users. It is just the feeling I get from their descriptions. I think they want a lot more hands-off and not have to deal with the daily rigors of a population like they do in SL. If that is what LL is thinking, they will fail. As a developer, I already have engines to build things on. Sansar would only be part of that equation as a side note, and only if all the content from my original game easily ported over. That is really the key point, that the same thing I make for Unity or Unreal, also works in Sansar. I tend to think that even if LL isn't catering to the SL user base, the merchants will be, and they will make Sansar a pleasant place for SL users.

I don't know any professionals that do things for free, with no incentive at all. You act as if people are just sitting around doing nothing, and waiting for LL to call. I pretty much guarantee you that nobody is in the alpha testing without some kind of interest in it, even if that means the joy of playing around in it. Personally, I don't understand, at all, why they even told anyone there would be an alpha with only hand picked creators, nor why they announced the program they would use. If this is what they were going to do, there was no reason to say it. The logic of anouncing it all escapes me. SL is not a game, and neither is Sansar. They are engines. Engines are always in Alpha or Beta stage, permantly. In the case of SL, or Sansar, they are engines that require artists to form. People that understand, not just the creation process, but also what makes a good system, for both users and creators. LL has never proved they have these people. Maybe in the beginning of SL, but definitely not in the pass 6 years. If they did, then Fitted Mesh would not work the way it does. The animation system would not have been broken for most of SL existence. We would have gotten custom skeletons in SL. There would have been restrictions on avatars. I could go on and on. What LL has shown, is that they are perfectly willing to ignore good advice just to spite people. They have shown they don't give a crap about the artist's time, nor whether the artist can profit at all(another reference to Fitted Mesh). What LL needs, is as much help as possible, not selective people who will confirm their own biases. LL needs people who are going to fight for the artists and the consumers. The last point I'll make, is that professionals, who don't sell their creations in markets, don't really know how to make things for markets. I work with a number of "professionals", and most of them have no idea what would sell in an open and free market.

Qie Niangao wrote: I think many SL creators are delusional about this. Project Sansar is not for us. LL does not care whether any SL users ever try Project Sansar. Frankly, it would be pathetic for them to base business decisions on we few stragglers still using or creating for SL now. Why is it not for us? Few stragglers? Well, I sell a set of Fitted Mesh, and Classically weighted bodysuits for clothing creators in SL. I sell, on average, a few of those every single day. I really didn't expect to sell that many. As of today, the total is getting near a thousand, and the product has only been on the market for a year.

Sassy Romano wrote: Hmm it actually makes sense to me what LL are doing regarding Maya. They need to validate content against a known file format and while I understand your sentiment towards it all being FBX, the same could be said about DAE as an import format for SL. It's more efficient from a development perspective to reduce the number of variables when dealing with any root causes of potential unknown causes of error. It wouldn't be much fun to find that their importer struggled with a peculiar but non compliant FBX file, so they'll just constrain the output source. The problem with this thought process, is that you don't know that you are getting compliant FBX files that work on every platform. All you know is that you are getting FBX files from Maya. You have no clue whether those FBX files are standard FBX files. If you design the importer to only handle those from Maya, then you will likely have issues with other FBX files. As I have said before, Maya rigs aren't always compliant with other software. On the other hand tho, all Blender rigs are compliant with Maya. Sassy Romano wrote: As to who they've chosen... *shrugs*. I'm less excited about it being optimised for oculus rift. That niche, development only kit that has been superseded by far cheaper alternates. I remain to be convinced as to whether OR as a standalone product will even ever end up being a commercial offering. Actually, I'm not excited about it at all unless the avatar motion is real time animated from a motion capture input. Simply looking at higher quality 3d content via a headset, is that actually what will drive the next environments? LL can't articulate who their current customer is and what that target customer wants so I'm not exactly confident that they have a clue as to what's wanted next but I'm sure the devs are living the dream playing with cool stuff but there's so much marketing bull in that part of LL's, it's hard to find out what it's actually all about. I'll watch with passing curiosity but I guess my enthusiasm has mostly waned. IMHO, VR is another gimmick. It will not become mainstream. There are still far too many obstacles, and the biggest being having to wear those headsets. Hololens tho, is something that could very easily be mainstreamed, and only require a set of glasses, not a whole head set.

Don't ask me why they need to announce this, but here it is. http://www.lindenlab.com/releases/linden-lab-invites-first-virtual-experience-creators-to-project-sansar-testing As I have stated before, LL's choice to only allow Maya users into Sansar is an arbitrary 1. All the Maya user is doing is creating an FBX to upload, which all 3D programs can do. The only reasonable reason they are only letting Maya users in, is so that LL's friends have a jump on everyone else, or their friends will help shape how things will work in Sansar. Yes, the same people that advised LL on SL development are also dictating the Sansar development. We all know how the SL development has worked out, with creation bugs that are now 8 years old. See, an FBX is just an FBX. The format doesn't care what program created it. The same FBX I import into Unity, can also be uploaded in Unreal, HiFi, or even SketchFab. I've made a number of animals and avatars for Unity and the rest, as have many other people. If these do not work in Sansar, it will be because LL did something wrong. Of course, we won't know that until LL let's the general public in. What bothers me the most about this exclusivity that LL is engaging in, is that they are setting up a situation where they won't really know the issues with Sansar until it is too late. Sketchfab has let me into their beta testing of their 3D viewer, which now allows you to view animations. Again, this uses FBX. I simply took my Lycan Avatar, and exported him to the FBX format and uploaded him to Sketchfab. This is the exact same avatar that I sell in SL, just exported as an FBX. Some of the speeds of the animations are too fast, but I haven't looked to figure out why. It could entirely be my fault. https://sketchfab.com/models/a3a5078fd254463eaff8725c2b98beda Here is another SL avatar, that I just created, uploaded to SketchFab in FBX. https://sketchfab.com/models/af456ee3da95444e96d646700ecaafcc My point of showing this is that FBX just works, and in every platform that accepts FBX, they just work. They don't need to be made in Maya. Maya has no special features that would make the FBX files different. Like I said, LL's decision to only let Maya users in, is completely and totally arbitrary, or they are simply doing it to give their friends advantages in Sansar. I'll also point out, that none of those Maya users come to the forums to help anyone, unlike the rest of us. If you ask how to do something in Maya, here in the forums, you'll be lucky to get a reply from anyone. Are these really the people we want in Sansar first? How much are any of those people going to help the community?

I doubt this is done with multiple mesh heads. Plus, there really aren't any expressions in this head. What is likely going on, is the jaw is rigged to the mskull bone, which is an extra bone in the SL skeleton. I do this with most of my avatars. I even make speech gestures using by animating the mskull bone, which can be used with voice. The eye lids look very smooth, but I still think it's just another mesh with different materials to switch between to make it look like you are blinking. This is another trick that I use. Other than these 2 options, we are never going to have facial expressions, outside of someone making custom expression with different meshes and changing the visibility of them. LL just doesn't give us any ways to do this efficiently.

It's really not a big deal being a merchant in SL, but there are issues with mesh clothing in SL that you won't have in Poser. SL doesn't have a proper fitting system to make the clothing fit all avatars well. LL did create a system, but it doesn't work very well, so it makes the whole process much more work than it should be. What program do you use to make the clothing?

I don't have much more to say about this than already has been said, but why not bump the post. lol I also agree that the SL listings are lacking massively in information for the consumers. There should be fields for every relevant data set that every 3D site give information on. Besides SL, you will never see a marketplace selling 3D content that doesn't list the polygon count, as well as other stuff. The only place this is not standard, is SL. Don't ask me why.

I just want to confirm that Avastar works great for custom avatars like this. It can get complex tho. It might be worth taking the course Gaia has created for custom rigged avatars like this. I've done a number of unique avatar rigs using Avastar, and I don't know what I'd do without Avastar, especially for the animations. Here is 1 of my latest avatars. I actually use the eye bones for the wings, cause the fly doesn't have irises to move anyways. I use the skull bone to move the mouth a little. I use the extra bones in the legs to move the 3rd set of legs, although this can get wonky because they inherit rotations from the other leg bones.

If you are moving the positions of the bones, then you need to also check JOINT POSITIONS in the upload window. You would also need to create an animation, and play it inworld to override the default avatar animations, as those will mess up your avatar.

I'm not really a dance creator, but I have created some mocap dances. What I would likely do, is look for sections in those 222 seconds that can loop perfectly. I would have I could get a few different dance loops out of it, and then be able to mix and match them in SL.

Kwakkelde Kwak wrote: Madeliefste Oh wrote: Normally it's done with morphs. When you have a jaw bone and two eye bones, what more bones would you need? Those are the only parts that can actually move. The rest is musles and skin, which are best to imitate with morphs. It's perfectly possible to animate a face with bones. As you can see here. Like I said tho, it's a ton of bones. Either way, bones or morphs, it's more data. The question is really what is the best for Sansar, and the creators. I don't know the answer to that.

Madeliefste Oh wrote: Normally it's done with morphs. When you have a jaw bone and two eye bones, what more bones would you need? Those are the only parts that can actually move. The rest is musles and skin, which are best to imitate with morphs. I've animated and created facial expressions with both bones and morphs. To get good deformations with bones, you need quite a few bones to achieve it. Heck, just lips alone could be half a dozen bones, easily. Really, I have no opinion about whether morphs or bones are better to use. It really does depends on the platform you are creating for, and what the game/character's needs are. With advance bone system tho, some of them include musles deformations, and can be quite complex, while giving varied and realistic results. For movies, it's quite compelling, but for games, I think it's a bit over the top.

aristoteles Himanez wrote: Of course, you never know with LL, but I think it is safe to say that Sansar will have facial expressions. The question is really how will they do them. Will they do them with bones, or strictly morphs. If with bones, then they would need a minimum of 15 facial bones. With facial bones, then any characters could have expressions, even custom made avatars. If they use blend shapes for facial expressions, then they don't need any facial bones. With blend shapes tho, LL would need to allow us to upload our own blend shapes in the fbx files, and then even custom avatars could have facial expressions. Of course blend shapes would be awesome for custom avatars, but creators could go crazy with them, adding lots of total data to each avatar. Yesterday I was reading this thread "ask the CEO" and if I remember well Edde said that - HIFI is a different program that will not be a part of Sansar (so maybe no facial expressions?) - There will be a very flexible customizable avatar - There will be many sceletons supported - and something about user created avatars will not be customizable, I think? That was a 19 pages thread, plus I have no idea about all this hi tech staff, so it is very difficult for me to understand. -Just because HIFI and Sansar are different programs, this doesn't imply, at all, that Sansar will not have expressions. I'll pretty much guarantee you that, if LL does it right, the same avatars made for HIFI, will likely work in Sansar, just like those same avatars work in Unity3D, if they use bones. See, we already know that Sansar will accept custom skeletons. So, whether LL allows us to use morphs or not, we'll still be able to animate facial expressions with bones. Ebbe was wrong when he said there are no set standards. There are, and most platforms are now using FBX as their format. So, essentially, you could make 1 avatar that works in Unity3D, HIFI, Unreal Engine, CryEngine, and Sansar, or any other worlds that will use FBX. - I seriously hope they do have a flexible customizable avatar in Sansar. It obvious that people seriously want it, and that it is essential to Sansar's success. That said, I'm not sure LL has the knowledge or mindframe to accomplist it. - Yep, he said that there would be custom skeletons. - Nope, there was nothing about things not being customizable. LL has only thought about the Sansar avatar. From what they have said, they have done almost no work on this yet. So, everything they say is just their thoughts, not something they are actually doing. IMHO, they are doing it all wrong. What I mean is, that instead of starting with the world, and then building out, they should have started with the avatar and built everything around that. I'm not saying they don't need a world to play in, I'm just saying that once you get the basics of the world going, the prime focus should be on the avatar system, because it will be so integral to how everything else works inside that world. Just look at SL. The avatar creeps into almost everything.

Of course, you never know with LL, but I think it is safe to say that Sansar will have facial expressions. The question is really how will they do them. Will they do them with bones, or strictly morphs. If with bones, then they would need a minimum of 15 facial bones. With facial bones, then any characters could have expressions, even custom made avatars. If they use blend shapes for facial expressions, then they don't need any facial bones. With blend shapes tho, LL would need to allow us to upload our own blend shapes in the fbx files, and then even custom avatars could have facial expressions. Of course blend shapes would be awesome for custom avatars, but creators could go crazy with them, adding lots of total data to each avatar. Even bones adds data too tho.

It's not really an easy thing to do. You have to us 2 types of rigs. 1 rig would be rigged using fitted mesh on your avatar. Then, you would likely create a different animation rig, or a mesh with a rig, to move those fitted mesh bones for creatures with different bone positions. Basically, you can't move the position of the collision bones and have fitted mesh work, so you use a different rig to move those bones. It's tough tho to set the collision bones position property to match the mbones. I hope this makes some sense.

There is no way to make 1 shirt that fits perfectly for all. To get the best results, you need to practice weighting for fitted mesh. To get them to fit more sizes, you likely need to make different versions with slightly different weights. My advice is to use Avastar, if you are using Blender. Avastar's latest version has tools to help you create different fitted mesh versions. I also sell a set of weights for classic and fitted mesh, although they are just weight for the best range of sizes, and you'd need to customize them for other sizes.

Rhys Goode wrote: Some animations - my dance hud for instance, or the pose stand built into Firestorm - make my breasts jiggle when I stop them, and am wearing avatar physics. But try as I might, I cannot make an animation using Qavimator that make them jiggle at all. Even an abrupt change at the end with "ease out" set to zero. Is there some secret, or am I trying to do something unnatural? Hmmm. I can't say that I've ever even thought about it. Possibly, this physics is in relation only to the COG bone, the bone the directly deals with how high you are off the ground. That's my best guess.