Medhue Simoni

Pamela Galli wrote: Medhue and Darrius, two of my favorite people, are able to disagree without insulting everyone who disagrees with them. You might try growing up/a pair and try to emulate them. And to reiterate my position: If LL wanted to delay my payment a month, it would be fine with me, not because I have a slave mentality but for other reasons it is not safe to mention publicly. Well, that's nice, but I do frequently offend people, not on purpose tho. I don't have a problem with people differing from my view. I do have a problem with people attacking others for have 1 tho. This is why I frequently defend some1's right to complain. I can completely understand why some1 is not upset over long waits. Personally, it has never affected me much. My argument always has to do with what it does to the economy. Tho, I do understand when some1 actually does need that money to get by, and see the incentive that fast cash can bring to an economy.

Well, the ultimate goal of the slave owner is to indoctrinate their slaves, so that the slaves will keep themselves in line, and attack any1 that speaks of freedom. It's like that experiment with the monkeys.

Qie Niangao wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: Well, the creator of a mesh avatar could make textures with alpha'd parts of it, to hide things also. We can also rig their avatars to the collision bones and be able to use all of the body sliders, [...] Testing my understanding of the situation: It's specifically the body sliders that control collision bones, right? And not the face sliders? Which maybe constrain the facial morphs? Although come to think of it, I bet the head can be controlled a lot more than on these new defaults. This must be written down somewhere, not merely embedded in the system avatar model. God I hate all this stuff now. Well, that is the way LL did it. There are no face collission bones, at least in the files we were given. There is just the head bone, which the whole head is weighted to. Of course, I have no idea how LL's system works, but collision bones are not what generally morphs anything. Morphs are simply a retopology of the mesh connected to a slider. I think it just so happens that SL's collision bones follow the morphs of the avatar's body to detect collision, and we are using them as a hack. So, yes, the facial morphing is constrained on mesh avatar because there are no bones to rig to. Morphs are not difficult in anyway. Every 3D program has them, and there is even a file format called MMO. I believe both DAE files and FBX files can contain morphing data. If LL simply implemented the ability, morphing would make fitted mesh obsolete, as we'd just create morphs to fit the avatar sliders. A totally custom mesh avatar could morph in any way possible. Heck, if LL implemented morphs, we would not even need a new skeleton, as we could just move parts of the mesh with morph sliders. For instance, we would not need ear bones, as we could just morph the ear and play that as an animation, just like we do with facial expressions. Even wings could be morphed to flap, and look as realistic as using bones to do it. We could even have moving fingers with morphs. That's all LL did with their facial morphs and hand morphs. So, I was wrong. We don't really need 2 things, those being more bones and morphs. We just need morphs. I'll take that. Literally, importing meshes with morphs would fix all issues related to mesh and avatars. A creator would have the ability to make any creature possible, with just the implementation of morphs. Yes, bones might be better in some cases, but morphs will make everything and anything possible. I'm actually working on a contract, right now, where they want me to create a default male and female character, each with morphs to customize the bodies, exactly like our SL default avatar. We are using the Genesis2 figure from Daz as our base. Unity implemented morph imports at the beginning of the year, and I convince this company that we should use them. The coder is currently working on a system to lip sync the avatar's mouth with the morphs I created.

Well, the creator of a mesh avatar could make textures with alpha'd parts of it, to hide things also. We can also rig their avatars to the collision bones and be able to use all of the body sliders, which is probably the best functionality that those collision bones offer. Rigging eyes has always been possible. The big issues are not having finger bones, and facial expressions/talking, which either requires a mess of bones or a morphing system. Don't ask me why LL's new mesh avatar don't utilize even the basics. I'd really love to know why. I'm dying to know why the eyes aren't rigged to the actual eye bones. It's eating me up not knowing. Seriously! I've said what I think LL should do with avatars before, but I will summarize it here. We need 2 things. More bones, or a custom bone importer, and we need morph imports/blend shapes/shape keys. That's really it. LL could implement a bone system for static meshes, and then allow those to attach to the avatar. That would give us all the bones we would ever need. Cloud Party actually did this also, and it was very cool. If we get both these features, we can easily blow away the default SL avatar in every way possible. To me, clothing layers aren't really a big deal. Any way you do it, it's just textures. You actually cause more lag by allowing some1 to associate that many textures to 1 avatar.

Blur is definitely your friend, unless you are new, then it can just confuse you more. My tip about using blur is, it is generally the last step, and pointless to use until you have worked out how the weights should be. You'll waste time blurring things that you are just going to go over again later. Shoulders and the crotch are always going to be problem areas. There are a number of reason, 1 being bad topology for a crotch or armpit. Even the most experienced riggers are going to go over those areas numerous times. As many have shown about the New Mesh Avatars LL released, even experience riggers can get bad results. I have yet to rig something and it not take me days to do in total time. Because I'm usually the person animating the character too, I'll end up spending time while I'm animating to try and get the weights as perfect as possible. Of course, I'm a big Avastar cheerleader, and if you do earn some money in SL, you should consider getting it. That said, I've had to do many contract jobs now for work outside SL, and for some fricken strange reason, recently they all involve rigging too. Yes, Avastar gives you some great tools that makes things easier, but rigging is a pain in the butt no matter what tools you use. I've seen some autoriggers do a decent job, but I'd still rather weight it myself than use those autoriggers. It gets easier and easier the more you do.

I agree with you Lota. Yes, there are security measures, but the reason why it takes so long is not because of security measures. LL claims they can handle the transaction in 3 days. So, why does it take 5 days or more? It obviously takes longer because LL doesn't allocate enough people to the job, nor takes the appropriate measures to makes sure it can do the job in a timely fashion. As far as some saying that it's no different than at a RL job, that's a slave's mentality. Plus, it's not comparing apples to apples, but to oranges. In RL, at a "real" job, you have a contract that says when you get paid. If you are a merchant, you get paid upon delivery of the product. In the real world, I almost always get paid as soon as I deliver the product, or even before. Never does some1 pay me a week later, for things that were sold 2 week ago, after I ask for the money. Part of the reason SL doesn't grow is the lag in pay. If things aren't instant, fewer people are willing to wait. I don't think I probably would have thought about selling products full time if we had not had Xstreet there to get the money right away. All that said, I think a couple of days is reasonable. On my website, if some1 pays with a credit card, I have to wait 2 days for it to be sent to me. That's not a big deal. Most people pay with PayPal anyways, so it's not a big issue. Like I said, 2-3 days is reasonable. When you start getting into 5 days, that will usually include a weekend, which turns 5 days into 7 actual days. If LL could consistantly deliver in 3 days then I don't think any1 would really complain. This issue is all about LL not allocating the right amount of elves to the task, IMHO. Imagine playing a game, and not receiving your points until a week later. That has the exact same impact in an economy.

Phil Deakins wrote: I mean why are they doing mesh avatars at all? Well, there is the issue of lag. The new mesh avatars are a fraction of the rendering cost of the old avatars. It's actually quite drastic. The bad part, and the part that LL doesn't seem do understand, is that we are going backwards with avatars that look like statues. Without facial expressions, and finger bones, a mesh avatar is never going to be as good as the default. Why arn't they working on making mesh avatars functional? That is the big question, if you ask me.

Perrie Juran wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: ..... I mean why are they doing mesh avatars at all? They're creating a market for armpit hair? YaY! Not! I don't see anything LL puts out there as competition. The SL default isn't competition. It's not much different. What LL could be in the business of doing, is setting standards, not that I want them to do that in their current form. Standards would be beneficial, but only if the people setting them are well informed, which LL is not, at least about mesh avatars. I seriously hope LL was involved with all of this and the creator so that they can better understand the hurdles. That said, it's obvious that they don't fully understand when the mesh avatars don't have working eyes. I'll give an example of how this could go, as far as standards. Imagine they put out a decent Werewolf, which the new 1 is not bad. Then people like myself might make AOs, or accessories to fit him. As the assets for this character builds, more merchants create avatars to match, so they can also use the accessories. The end result are tons of products around every LL character, and clones of that avatar in different forms. Heck, if I had the files, I could get that werewolf's jaw and eyes moving. We could even give him different teeth options. New hands would be good too. Did I mention they are HUGE?

This guy, the classic Wolfman avatar, I really do like alot. Again, he fits my Lycan AO very well. The bad part is that he is not fully functional. Eyes moving, and mouth moving would really do alot to make him feel real. This is why these avatars are such a disappointment. LL could have released avatars we could all build on. We could be making clothing, animations, and accessories for these avatars. The problem is that almost all of our own creations are more functional. My avatar has a moving jaw, and moving eyes. Plus, I can animate right on him in my program. What I think LL should do is make them more functional, and then give us the files so that we can make things for them, just like we can with the SL default.

I finally got a look at the new Mesh Default avatars. I didn't try all of them, actually just the Werewolf and the Vampire, figuring others would go over the human avatars. Really, I don't know what to say, other than WTF! First, Let me talk about the modeling. This is the bright spot, and the texturing, kind of. The models, from what I seen, look to be very well made. All of the avatars that I tried were very efficient and had extremely low avatar rendering scores. The only gripe I have with the modeling are the hands and feet. On the Werewolf, they are HUGE and strange. On the Vampire, the feet are HUGE. It's like the artist just chooses a part and decides making them HUGE would be cool. This also bring up that they could have gone further. If they are using materials, then I couldn't tell that much. I didn't see much bump mapping nor very good speculars. These could have set the avatar off and made them look much better. Beyond the actual modeling, everything else fails, miserably. The rigging is hit or miss. On the Werewolf avatar, there is 1 vertice that keeps poking out of his back. The rigging to the bones, and how those limbs fit on the SL skeleton, are very bad. You can see this in the arm pits and the gap between the legs. There is far too much room in both areas, which means either the rigger didn't spend enough time on those areas, or the modeler modeled those parts in that way. It looks very bad tho. My feet were under the ground in both the Werewolf and Vampire avatars. This is ridiculous. I did everything to see if it was just me, but no, both avatars were released with their feet swimming thru the ground. The body shapes were also no modifiable, which means you can't just quickly fix it. No excuse for eyes not working. Obviously, the creator, whom I have no idea who it is, doesn't know that you can just rig your own eyes and move them to fit your avatar. It's simple, and has ALWAYS worked. Again, no excuse for eyes not moving. There is also no excuse from the avatars not to blink. There are a number of easy ways to do it. IMHO, there is also no excuse for not having the jaw move on the werewolf and vampire creatures. I've pointed out that we do have extra bones and how to use them. Now onto animation! It's just bad. I'm not talking about the actual movements, but the implementation of it all. For the Werewolf, they basically just reused their old AO from the first mesh werewolf they released. It fit the old werewolf better. On the new werewolf, not only does the animation push his feet under the ground, but his hands are basically going thru the body the whole time. The good part is, that the new werewolf mesh avatar fits my Lycan AO perfectly. I suspect that this new werewolf doesn't use a bone deformer, or uses a reduced 1. This is also probably why LL's old animation pushes the feet under the ground, as it was made to fit an avatar with a bone deformer. The Vampire creature is a total mess. Besides the fact that the avatar is quite strange looking, because of the hunched back and HUGE feet, LL did nothing for his movements. The vampire creature comes with wings on his back. The wings don't move at all, and there is a major glitch in them that makes the back sides of the wings transparent. So, from the front, he has skin between the bones on his wings, but not from the back. His AO is even worse, and just uses the same AO from the werewolf. This doesn't make any sense, beside the images on the HUD being a werewolf. Plus, just like the werewolf, the AO pushes the avatar's HUGE feet under the ground. To wrap this up, I'll just say that it's another example of the lack of actual testing and knowledge that the Lindens do and have about their own product. The obvious problems with these avatars should have been caught. I mean really, as soon as you wear them, you would know their are problems. So, either they weren't tested at all, or their testers are monkeys. Here is a look at the Werewolf avatar with my Lycan AO on. Notice how his feet are above the ground.

Sassy Romano wrote: Yes, all that good stuff is the final piece of pathfinding that would have made bots useful. You'd have thought LL would have had some spare server capacity with all the idling sims to be able to host some server side NPC's and even charge for them if they wished. Or, LL could just create the structure for us to import objects with bones. Then, we could have perfectly working NPCs, with animations. With a little more effort, animated attachments. We can all dream tho.

Yippie!!!! Hey, anything that makes rendering faster, and less lag with high poly mesh, is awesome in my book. I'm constantly rendering out animations to show clients, so anything quicker helps me bigtime.

Oh, and incase some1 else hasn't mentioned this. You don't need to use alt, or the camera controls to turn the view and avatar. You can simple just click on your avatar and slider your mouse in the direction you want to look.

Hoppimike wrote: Fitting clothing. Really, this should be much easier. I think it could do with a bit of an overhaul. The normal clothing can cling weirdly to your character, meaning that you have to go for mesh, but mesh seems unnaturally rigid and doesn't cling hardly at all to your character, meaning hours wasted tweaking clothing to make it fit, changing items of clothing that you like just because they don't look right with another, etc. The whole thing feels quite cobbled together and archaic now. Yes you can make it work if you're very experienced or whatever but it's not very newbie friendly. I really think it needs to be rethought. As a content creator, allow me to clear up this issue for you. Many people in SL want to blame content creators, but the actual reality of the situation is that the clothing problem is ENTIRELY the fault of LL, and has almost nothing to do with the skills of creators. I am primarily an animator. That said, because I'm an animator, I fully understand the avatar, and rigging clothing. There are basically 3 types of clothing. First there is the system clothing that is actually part of the default avatar. They are essentially textures on the avatar's body. Then there is prim clothing, which is created using prims and sculpties which look extremely stiff on an avatar. Finally, we have the latest feature that is mesh clothing, which is rigged to the avatars body and will move along with the bones. Mesh clothing is what I'll go into detail about. Essentially, LL has no clue what they are doing, to put it as politely as I can. I was in the mesh development group when LL was working on mesh. They didn't much think about mesh being used for clothing, or at least they did nothing to facilitate it. Personally, I didn't think much about it at the time, as I didn't make clothing. As soon as mesh was released, clothing creators started making clothing with mesh. Even tho the clothing could be rigged to bones, there was still a very glaring problem. The SL avatar can be many different shapes. LL didn't create a way for the clothing to fit those unique shapes. So, what was a creator to do? Well, since LL wasn't doing anything about it, the creator community came up with a system they called standard sizing, in which creators made mesh clothing to fit 5 specific sizes that they hoped would fit most users. At the time, I was totally against this, as I really felt the community needed to demand that LL develop a good solution. Never did I think LL would totally ignore the problem, but they did. The community, disenchanted by mesh clothing, discussed solutions and eventually privately funded a solution that was dubbed the Mesh Deformer. This was developed by an ex Linden name Qarl, and it only took a couple months and was submitted to LL. It worked fairly well, although there was concerns that it would create a little more lag. LL sat on it saying that they weren't getting enough mesh clothing to test it. Then nothing from LL. And again nothing from LL. So, standard sizing ruled, despite it not working out for most users. Here is where we come to what we have now. Of course, people kept complaining about mesh clothing, and it seriously made LL look bad. So, they decided to do "something". In some user group meeting, I don't even remember if I was there, but I might have been, a creator brought up that he/she was rigging clothing to the collision bones, instead of the animating bones, and the collision bones would expand similarly to how the avatar's morphs would expand. Now, I have no idea what relationship this person had to the Lab, but for whatever reason LL jumped on it. This was about 6-7 months ago. Within a month or so, LL released the first versions of what they would eventually call Fitted Mesh. I tested it briefly and thought, well it kind of works, and thought LL would take the time to make it work much better. Let's just say I was hopeful. Then, not a month or so later, they released it as a finished product, at least in their opinion, which doesn't say much. I, of course jumped right into it, to test it. I was appalled. Like I said earlier, I know avatars, and I have rigged many things in my life. What I saw was total crap. It is literally impossible to get it to work properly. If you get it to fit the avatar, then you will screw up the actual rigging that moves the clothing with the bones. If you make it so that it works perfectly with the bone movements, then it won't actually fit around the avatar. It was and still is a mess. LL had done nothing since to correct any of it. I've spent easily weeks trying to get it to work properly, and it is literally impossible, but to LL, I guess they think it works fine. So, don't blame the creators. We, the creators, have also suggested many other much better solutions since, even to the point that Cathy Foil developed a PERFECT solution that a bunch of us had been discussing. She got the viewer to allow her to import a kind of morph into SL, and it even had sliders, just like the avatar, to adjust the size and shape of the clothing to fit any size avatar PERFECTLY. She posted it in the forums and you can easily find that thread and see it. Of course, LL either didn't see it, or they just ignored us as they usually do. So that is it, the whole mesh clothing debacle. Blame LL! Don't blame the content creators! We have bent over backwards to try and get LL to listen to us. Here is the solution that Cathy came up with, if you want to see. Ignore her comment about giving me credit, as I did nothing to help her with this, and I can't even say that I was the first to even suggest it. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Custom-Sliders-for-Fitted-Mesh-a-Solution/m-p/2529439#U2529439

As I said, I'm with my son all the time. No, I'm not working all the time, I'm just on call all the time. I can discuss something while I'm on the golf course with my son, if I need to. There are 4 reasons I won't apply for a job in silicon valley. #1 is that my son's mother lives here. #2 I'd need to learn Maya more, which I do use, but I love Blender much more. #3 I love Michigan, but not the cold months. #4 I think game development is expanding at a rate that gives freelancers more control over their life, especially with the flood of Unity developers today. It's also worth noting that I turn down more contract jobs than I take on. I actually looked up animations jobs in silicon valley this year. Every single major game companies had numerous job openings for animators. It was seriously the most abundant position needed in the industry. The only game company that I would want to work for, is Ubisoft. They are miles above the rest. After seeing the WatchDogs preview, I might learn Maya just so I can apply for a job there. I'll animate rocks, if I have to.

I bring them customers, or at least I did. Today, beyond my videos, I won't advice corporations, that contract me, to do anything in SL. There was a time that I did. We, the customers do all their advertising, and the more they piss us off, the less advertising we'll do for free. Employees are easily replacable, customers that advertise for free, are not. Personally, I'm on call, all day, every day, even when on vacation, and I've been doing this for 8 years. I don't know what your problem is, but I can do multiple things at the same time. It doesn't bother me 1 bit. There are times that I'm contracted by multiple companies all at the same time, and we are all on skype updating each other on the progress of things. I love it. I live for it, and my son. Getting burnt out is not part of my thought process. This is what you do when you run your own business. The people at the Lab have cushy jobs, and get paid very well for only an 8 hour day. I didn't say they had to work all the time. You inserted that so that you can rant about stuff I never said. I implied that LL's management should organize the work schedules and employees in a way that doesn't leave the corporation dormant on weekends. Companies do this all the fricken time, but apparently not in silicon valley, where they are on their high horse. If there were "plenty of people" then it would be kind of hard for me to make a good living. The fact that I do, and fairly well, says I'm needed. This is what the market and economics teaches you. If you aren't making money, then you need to rethink your situation.

Expand LillyBeth! Today, I'm not even sure that SL makes up 1/4 of my income now. I get income from about 8 sources today, besides the big contracts that I get offed on occasion. LL is competing with those other platform for my time, and losing, bigtime. I really have no idea why I keep paying for my sim here. It is probably because I still love SL, the people I know here, and my customers. I'm continuously frustrated by LL's actions and the work they put out. I increasingly do not see a future here. I want them to shape up. I want them to make SL what it could be. They don't feed me at all. The money I get from SL represents value that I am giving to LL. That money that people pay me, and the products they get help SL, as much or equally to what I get from them. It's a 2 way street, and I will never bite my tongue like a servant would, as I'm not their servant. I'm their customer, that can bring more to them than any employee they could ever hire.

I replied to you here. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Animation-Forum/Animating-Mesh-Mesh-Deformers/m-p/2176759#U2176759

Hey Psistorm, I use Blender with the Avastar add on. Avastar gives you the whole SL avatar with all of it's bones. I'm not sure if you can move the mskull bone, as I didn't move it, I just rigged the jaw to it, and it just happen to be in a position that didn't look bad unless I opened the jaw to extremes. Here is a video that I made about Avastar. It's not my best video but it shows kind of how I used Avastar to make my Lycan Avatar.

MIstahMoose wrote: I am just tired of seeing all these complaints tbh, because they don't even have to offer this platform for the public. Nor do they have to allow you to make money here, but hey, lets throw rocks at a company who is in the midst of switching CEO and is trying to please their investors while keepign the community from falling apart. You don't understand business that well do you? Do you even own a sim here? I do! This means that I support LL in the best possible way, by directly giving them money. Not only that, but I help the community as much or more than any1 in this virtual world. What do you do? Complain about complaining? How productive is that? Let me give you a clue. If a business want to make more money, listening to their customers is usually the way to go. I didn't say do whatever the customer tells you. I said listen to them. If every1 took your view, then we'd all be too afraid to say anything and nothing would ever get better, as LL admittedly doesn't even use their own product.

MIstahMoose wrote: Oh, how dare they. Seeing their family on weekends, shame on them! Seriously! Can you not do both? I do. I live in Detroit, and probably 1/4 the people that work in this area work on Saturdays. Plus, there are lots of way to do things. Not every1 needs to go to work 9 to 5 only from Monday to Friday. I can't even drive anywhere between 3-6pm during the week because so many people aren't creative enough to work outside of those set times. Those same people spend over an hour driving to work because of the traffic. That's 2 hours a day they waste, which is 10 hours every week, and 500 hours a year they waste just because they have to work at those set times. If they had different hours, and work days, they might save a crapload of time in their life and see their family more. I work every single day of the week, 365 days a year. It doesn't bother me 1 bit. I also goto every single 1 of my son's ball games, play golf with him as much as we can, and I drive him to and from school every day. Of course, I love what I do, but every1 should. If you do not, then do something about it. Like I said, this is 2014, not 1985.

Accumulating enough money to cash out is like waiting for your paycheck at any other job. We have the added bonus of waiting again for LL to simply send the money. Economically, it is a huge negative to have to wait on payouts. It also seriously lessen the incentive to create in SL. LL doesn't have wait when they want me to pay for a sim, which means the transactions and our relationship are not equal. Anything that slows down transactions, whether in or out, affects the economy. Plus, we have the added annoyance of weekends, which LL doesn't allow any1 to work. Seriously, what internet company closes down completely on the weekends? That's when I do most of my work. It's like LL is stuck in 1985. Can't the billing people put in a few hours every weekend from home? Personally, I think LL's system isn't secure enough to immediately pay out, even tho Xstreet did it for many years. That is what seems to be the issue. They deal with fraud regularly, and it really doesn't matter if you are a trust merchant, as you get paid by random customers that could be engaged in fraud. That said, how can a company that makes millions every years not have a currency that is secure?

OMG, they show just how disconnected they are when they post BS standards that they know nothing about. It's fricken hilarious really. They attempt to clear things up by making things more confusing. Don't you love how LL can't even name things properly. So, for mesh clothing, we put AVATAR labels on things. Could they make it more confusing? I don't think they even know what the mesh clothing confusion is. Who are these merchants they are consulting with? Where did they come up with this Branded crap too. Would not Custom Avatar be a much better label. Every1 understands what custom means. What the heck branded has to do with anything, I can't figure out. I'm ignoring their request. It doesn't even make any sense. Ok, I lied, I checked it out. Crazy part is, it's simple to understand on the MP. It's their explainations that are confusing. My Lycan is a custom avatar. So, I decided to give it a try. ................... Why can't I add a brand? Why do I even waste my time?

Hi Syn, Yes, you can mirror animations. I showed a little of this in the video and just hoped people would play around with it. Just below the 3D view window, in pose mode, you will see 3 boxes grouped together. The first is to copy a pose, the next is to paste the pose, and the last box is to mirror the pose. You must copy the pose before you paste or mirror it.

Awesome, definitely sharing this video! I haven't made a pledge yet. Yikes! I will but I really want the $256 bundle, but just can't do that right now. I did get a huge contract this week that should set me up for the year, but not going to get paid for a while on that 1. Maybe I can scrape up enough if sales are decent this week in SL or I get paid on another contract. I gotta have the big bundle tho, lol.