Medhue Simoni

Why not go sideways a bit with this old SL classic. And the sequel! Man vs Second Life Man vs Second Life 2

The priorities are set when the animations are uploaded, so only the animator can change them. There can be many issues with priorities and AOs, as many people make AOs with priority 4 animations. I have more perfectly real life timed combat animations at my store. You can make your own animations system for Machinima. You could even create your own animation system where all your actors click at prim and allow you to control them with a hud.

The first video also includes Osprey Therian, who's real life body past away last year. It fitting for her to be included in the avatars.

Eva Tiramisu wrote: Thank you, never saw thatone! Speaking of Robbie Dingo - thisone never stops to amaze me ... It's a good thing we have the video to remember the build. I've always been a big Van Gogh fan. I'll post the video here so that other don't have to goto Youtube.

I thought with all the upevils going on recently, this video would be a good look back at SL, and a little part of it's magic. Plus, some newbs might enjoy it, as well as us oldtimers remember when. Enjoy!

LepreKhaun wrote: Very nicely done, thank you for a great introductory tutorial to this subject. At 7:14 you made a minor misstatement when you said "... you'll notice these lines, kind of like a target symbol. But they're not always all that reliable, depending on the size of the region..." What you're commenting on is the alignment cross hair symbol that shows the center of an image. This seems to appear in "odd" locations and sizes until you compare the face's UV island on the image. Then you'll see that those islands near the center of image are picking up part of this symbol. If you manually change the texture Repeats on any of your faces to (say) 2.0 x 2.0 this might be a bit clearer when you see the cross hair in its entirety and how that face is overlapping it. Thanks LepreKhaun! I knew, as I was saying it, that I could of be more clear, but I just didn't think it was important enough to explain it any further. My point was more that, if your mesh is tiny, the lines would be impossible to see. When I was making the video, I had the consumer more in mind, not really other SL creators. Nice explaination of it tho. Although it is a nice feature, I'd rather it was possibly done differently, like maybe highlighting the outline of the specific face. Even maybe a grid pattern might be better.

Well, I'll take it easy on Rod, but I will say that I expected more. For the most part, I think his biggest achievement was getting the viewer usable again, and cleaning up some of SL's messy code. Maybe the issues were too large to begin with. Where I'm disappointed is in the lack of big changes that would make a dent in the slow decline. Rod talked about R&D, early on in his LL career. Where was this R&D? There certainly wasn't much in SL. The potential for R&D in SL is vast, yet they did little to none. LL didn't even have the proper allocation of personal to handle the basics in development, let alone full out R&D. Oh, he had opportunities. The mesh deformer was handed to him, and could have led to even more. I can only say "WTF" when it comes to never getting custom bones. This collision bone BS is not looking good to me. It's a flat out mess to develop for, and the end result is not as good as the mesh deformer. I feel bad for clothing designers that will have to deal with that mess LL is creating. The funny part is, that LL will end up spending more time on this option, and make more changes to the system, than the deformer could ever have done. The real problem that I have with this whole situation we have with CEO musical chairs, is that the complexity of SL is not condusive to such a corporate structure. It takes years to understand something like SL. We've seen what can happen when a CEO doesn't understand SL. Pick your flavor. LL or SL needs to be more like the Blender Foundation. They have 1 guy that has been running the show for like a decade. Ton Roosendaal understands Blender. Even more, he understands the users. SL has stalled because we don't have a Ton Roosendaal. Phillip was supposed to be our Ton Roosendaal. Why he left SL for those other "ideas", I have no f....ing clue. Why he is now building Hi Fidelity, instead of investing that kind of R&D into SL, again I have no F....ING clue. This argument that SL is old, is total BS. Every game engine has pipelines. Pipelines get old, not whole platforms. LL has done quite a bit to keep up many of the pipelines. The are some aspects of SL that are still miles ahead of other platforms. Even some of the new stuff. Many don't like Pathfinding, but it is truely a dream to use when compared to any other similar thing on any other platform. Somehow, LL actually made it easy. Try doing it in Unity, their version is now in the free version. I played with Waypoints back in the day, which is way more work for the game developers, and uses much more resources. SL also has a very nice Materials system now, and things are rezzing faster with better fps. I know I'm going to get boos from the crowd, but I liked the idea of gamifying SL. It's a solid concept that is really the only direction SL can go to gain users. I really don't think Rod was committed to this. Many different large corporate entities are moving to create game development engines for the masses. Unity is the most noticable crossplatform engine out there. Microsoft is working on Project Spark, which I'm in the beta. Project Sparks is basically a simplified game development engine where all the code is packaged in a way that allows any none coder to create complex objects that can do many things you would need in a game. This is sort of what I proposed in a forum post last year, that LL should write game code for SL, and any1 could easily plug their products into the game, or make their own game. Yahoo has recently purchased a game development engine, and now has acquired the Cloud Party team. What is up in the air with many of these game dev engines, is whether they will allow for importing of assets. Of course, we know Unity does, but Project Sparks does not, and who knows what Yahoo will eventually do. To conclude, SL is far too complex for any CEO to just walk in and do anything significant. SL needs a different corporate structure, with a CEO that wants to make it his life's work, not a stepping stone or side step. We don't need a big name. We need some1 looking to prove themself, not some1 that is established.

MIstahMoose wrote: I feel like you forgot to point out you were using the "Selected Face" Option in the edit menu. People might miss that part if they aren't following your mouse.. "I can change all the faces like this, Then I can change a single face like that" Kinda skipped the explanation there Yeah, I think I went thru the steps again at the very end, stressing the Select Face option, trying to make sure I was clear about it.

Here is a quick video that I made to show how SL faces work with Blender Materials.

In Blender, SL faces are Materials. Every 3D model has a Material, which should also have a texture assigned to it. In Blender, you can generate textures for your Materials tho. If you have 14 textures for the model, you will likely have to combine some of them to fit them into the 8 faces that you need for SL. How you do this depends on the UV maps. Basically, you want to search for a video tutorial that is specifically about Materials and UV mapping.

AOs are the most important. Everything else is secondary. Just Kidding:matte-motes-sunglasses-3: Something I love and I think is under used, other than for annoyance purposes, is chat based gesture systems. I'm not talking about the normal gestures, using the gestures system. I'm talking about a gestures system that triggers animations based on the words you would type in normal conversations, to make your avatar more lively and reflex what you are saying better.

Pretty cool! I come from a very tradition art background, and worked in just about every medium pretty extensively. It's very neat to see these still paintings come to life.

If you are going to rig hair in Blender, I would suggest getting the Avastar addon for Blender. Avastar was made with SL in mind and works seemlessly with Blender to create SL avatar accessories. Once you install the addon, you will get an option under Add, to add in an Avatar figure to your scene. It is fully rigged and weighted with special tools specifically made for editing the SL avatar. Once you add the Avastar character, you just bring in your hair, line it up on the head, and parent the hair to the Avatar figure. All the weighting is done automatically. You can then go and clean up or change the weighting as needed. Here is the link to where you can read about and buy Avastar: http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avastar/ Here is a link to Gaia Clary's Youtube page, where you can find tons of video tutorials on how to use blender for SL, and Avastar. http://www.youtube.com/user/gaiaclary/videos

If you are using Avastar, then you might need to click the Weights option on the left hand sidebar, at the bottom. You will see a set of options like Weight, Animate, and Retarget.

This is why I question your focus on a different currency. Besides the complexity of a working virtual currency, you add complexity to the whole situation with a different currency. It is hard enough just to be able to have a profitable sim to run all this on, but you want to add even more complexity. If the reason for the currency is to create value to run the cities, than I see this failing from the start. Why? Well, any new currency takes time to implement. Bitcoin took a few years to even catch on. Now, bitcoin could do this, as we all had other currencies to use. So, in the case of your project, you would have to start off using Lindens, than slowly implement the new currency over time. Or, you could just allow people to pay with either currency. If your currency really does produce it's own value, people will gravitate to using it over Lindens. The other problem that I see with virtual cities, is that, just like the net, there is no need for any central location, or it is just less important. In the real world, that is what cities are, and the prime reason for moving to a city. Everything is centralized, so your transportation costs are lower. In virtual communities, you can't group too many things in 1 area, as the hardware can't handle all those people. Some of the most successful virtual cities in SL, are all most based on real life landmarks, which is the whole appeal of going there. I'm not saying that what you describe can't be done, only that the nuances are quite different than real life.

Well, it is definitely interesting. I would say that SL is already Libertarian in many ways. Most of the residents just don't know it or don't understand it. What I'm perplexed about is the money aspect. Money is just a means to exchange goods. Yes, a non inflationary money supply is better for the people, but I'm not sure how much this applies to virtual cities. Plus, the work that it will take to create this new money supply will be vast, and hardly profitable to any1 that takes it on, at least in the beginning. Of course, because the money would not be inflationary, it would gain value over time. The other problem is getting people to use this virtual currency. The services or products would have to be exclusive to this new money supply, or people will just use what currency they have. Even with bitcoin, it really didn't take off until it was being accepted by more businesses. Personally, I think you are focusing too much on what money to use. If SL was more open to a bitcoin model, or allowing residents to use it, then I would agree with you that the money is important. Being that LL is completely ignorant of currencies and how they work, I would not be putting much focus on the currency aspect. Lindens are convertable, and widely used in SL. It's as good a currency as any, if you can't use gold, silver, or bitcoins.

All I got to say is, "WTF"!

I have no clue, but I almost always have shadows on. This is probably because I'm always making something tho.

I'll chime in, no1 needs to ask me. lol My position is similar to Toys, and Chics, although I have cheated and uploaded content into SL. I'm very much limiting my uploads to test products, and essential product updates. Outside of SL, I've been working like MAD. My website that sells items for Poser, Daz, and Unity3D, has gotten 7 new products. The last Unity update gave us Blendshape morphs, which is quite exciting for a gaming platform. I have yet to update my new Unity products with Blendshapes tho. I've added a couple of products to InWorldz, and been playing around in CP, and others. I was even nominated in InWorldz's yearly best of. It's nice to be noticed. It's likely I'll have more than enough to play with on other platforms, as they seem to be constantly innovating. It kind of makes me sad to see SL and LL self implode. Oh, my sales are actually significantly up lately in SL. This doesn't mean it will continue tho. These other worlds are still working out the bugs. Everyday, things are getting more and more compatible with everything else. LL has disconnected itself from the community and few at LL understand SL as a product, nor the issues of the platform. For me now, the TOS, and LL's lack of urgency to respond, are really the last straws. I will no longer give any favoritism to the platform. As far as UCCSL, I, of course, was never involved, and actually wrote comments against such a group. I will have to admit, that in some ways, I was wrong about their usefullness. I have no idea what the fuss is now about the group, nor do I really care. Again tho, I will say that I see more the need for such a group, but I think it should really stick to legal issues with LL. Too many times, a group like this can turn into an ideology, which eventually does more harm than good. If they simply stuck to the main issues that every1 can agree upon, and those that are of a legal matter, I can see where this group would be very helpful. Not really related, but definitely concerns IP. Youtube is now vigorously challenging the copyrights of content in videos. Basically, instead of adhering to the DMCA, Youtube has created their own system. In their world, every1 is automatically guilty of copyright violations, regardless of whether a claim has been made against you. You are forced to prove that you have the rights to use all of the content. I'm not just talking about the objects in the scene, or music, but whether you even have to right to use the video editing software for commercial purposes. I'm assuming that PROOF means proof of purchase or other such things. As an example, Youtube blocked monetization of the last video that I uploaded. It was a video of Sword animations that I made for the Genesis character. I used a Daz3D background, Michael 5 skin texture, and clothing bought from the Daz3D store. The last back and forth email I got from Youtube asked me if I used Daz3D's software to create the animations. I explained the process, which also involves motion capture software. My next email from Youtube was telling me my video could not be approved, and then gave me some generic statement on how to obtain written permission to use some1 else's content. I, of course, rifled off a responce about the vagueness of their response to me and to clearify which element of the video they are refering to. This was today. The video was posted just over a week ago. Whether it is monetized or not doesn't really matter to me, as It still serves the purpose it was created for and generates sales. What is disturbing, and makes Youtube a risk to invest time in, is that Youtube is doing this to push channels into being managed by networks. Kind of like TV networks. Then Youtube will monetize your videos without all the BS. Oh, and just to help out those creators that are expanding outside SL, and help promote another great business that seems to really know and respond to customers. If you notice, Shopify is now advertising all over the net, especailly Youtube, and here on SL's site. I've been using them for almost 2 years now, to handle all my website stuff, and all my payment processing. SendOwl, is an app for Shopify that delivers all my download links to customers. Shopify is a joy to use, and gets better and better.

I was just stating what happened in the clearest, most direct way. I really liked Andrew's Proposal. I posted it on these forums. The Blender conference was a great place to bring up all these issues and I think everyone gave UI a good think while there.

Hoegoe Kawashima wrote: So, after failing at making eyes way too many times, I finally decided to try rigging some mesh eyes. (It's a furry head I'm making.) In Blender, it's all rigged, works like a charm, no problems...but when I import to SL, the eyes get sucked into the human sockets and while they look great...they...are...far too back. Is there a way to make the translation of the eyes fixed? Like, is there something I can click on export, etc? I really want to use the eyes I made..Do I have to adjust the shape or something? Anyway, any help would be appreciated. This whole eyeball thing is driving me right out of my head. Just taking a shot in the dark here, but maybe, if you moved the eyebones, you might need to apply the location to fix the position. You also have sliders for eye positions in SL. Your SL avatar need to be the default, or whatever setting you might be using in Avastar, in Blender. You will have these issues you are talking about if your SL avatar shape doesn't match what you are working with.

RayRobert wrote: This is totally just speculation, but it looks to me like you have normals flipped. What could be happening is that when you rig it, the normals get corrected. So, just flip the normals and you should be able to upload it as just a mesh. You probably do not want to rig a ring, I really don't know, because the hand morphs might not work properly with the ring.

LovedWarrior Quan wrote: Can I do a fitted mesh accessory with that and what is a fitted mesh please? Yes! Fitted mesh is currently being worked on by LL. You weight parts of the mesh to collision bones, so that your mesh can adjust to the size of the avatar. This is not in the main viewer yet. LL has a new avatar in various formats in the wiki. Just search for Fitted Mesh.

Why? Cause it's FLIP'IN easy for the user. No resize scripts! No hassles! Wear it and go, no matter which avatar you want to be, outside of custom mesh avatars. I'm not just talking clothing, but almost every single thing that attaches to the avatar. So, on and off, I've been playing around with the Fitted Mesh. It's still a pain in the asre, and likely will always be in some way. I think we also need a crotch bone, as I'm getting no bulge at all in my pants. Oh, that sounded weird. Sorry. Outside of wanting clothing to fit, I was thinking about other things you might wear. I decided to make a full boxing outfit, with gloves, shorts and shoes. I will have to make a few sizes, but each size will fits a big range of people. It just makes sense to make it all fitted meshes, as it will always fit them. Even shoes before, many were not making them rigged, but now it will be a must that all mesh shoes are fitted mesh. For my boxing gloves, it really works out great. No moving the gloves around to fit right. No resizing. Both gloves can be 1 mesh and worn on the Left forearm, to avoid any problems holding something. Earlier today, I brought out a pistol and holster for my combat system, wanting to shoot some zombies. I have been messing with my avatar quite a bit, and was a weird size. They rezzed in totally the wrong locations. The gun was floating off the the right of my right hand. I immediately thought, these should be rigged, and probably made for Fitted mesh. Yes, even guns. You might not want to weight the guns to the hand collision bone, to make the gun larger when they resize their hand, but you would still want it rigged to the hand. It would all attach exactly where it should. Imagine a cowboy belt with a holstered colt 45, fitting any1 that wears it. When Fitted mesh is finished, I will definitely make my Lycan Avatar be fitted mesh. It will be fun to make him a little tiny werewolf, and a really big fat 1. It definitely is an incentive for me to finish my female Lycan. So, basically, what I'm saying is, if you make anything related to the avatar, you probably want to start playing around with Fitted Mesh.

Hoegoe Kawashima wrote: I have been trying to figure this out all day! Well, the past two days, actually. But now that you said that extra bone, it makes more sense. I was trying to rig it to different parts, and it was going OK....until the head roatated or something. I'm still a little confused, though. How do we animate those bones, then? You mentioned you have AO. Quite frankly, I don't know how to have the animation only animate certain parts of you. Do you just put the animation in the typing script? I heard that you could do it gesture-based, but I'm not sure which is easier. I bet you get asked this question a lot! Which kind of makes me think it would be a good tutorial for me to make for Youtube or something once I figure it out. So, well, that goes back to the whole thing...how do you do the animation part if you can't, well...select it? Unless I'm doing something wrong. - Sigh- I wish I understood this better! First, lets get straight what I'm using. I'm using Blender, with the Avastar Addon. I'm using the mskull bone to animate the jaw. I'm weighting the jaw geometry to the mskull bone. Lastly, I'm animating that jaw with the body movements and without any body movements. With SL animations, you can just animate 1 bone if you want to, by not giving any of the other bones any movement, compared to the first frame. To use the mskull bone, you must export the animation using the anim files export option, not the bvh option. If you can't see or select the mskull bones, while using Avastar, then look on the left side bar and scroll to the bottom. You will see a set of options like Weight, Animate, and something else, with a little plus sign. Click the plus sign and you will get a set of options to choose different hidden bones. You also want to chose Animate, instead of Weight, to be able to animate the right animation bones. For jaw movements inside SL, I use a typing overrider. Some are built into their AO system, like mine, and you can also just drop a typing overrider script into the mesh with the animation, and it will work also. I also trigger animations with jaw movements, think of a roaring animation, using gestures, and using scripted gestures. For instance, when using my Lycan avatar with it's AO hud, if you type roar, your avatar will trigger a scripted gesture with sound, because you typed roar. I also have buttons on my hud that simply trigger animations, be them just the jaw or whole body animations.