Medhue Simoni

To be perfectly clear, I'm a Libertarian. To us, the NAP(non aggression principle) is our guiding principle. It just so happens that capitalism, not corporatism, is consistent with the NAP. IMHO, Libertarianism is, by far, the most logically consistent political philosophy there is. We are the most fiscally conservative, and the most socially conscious. Most of us are supporters of the Austrian school of economics, which is similar to the Chicago school of thought, but more logically consistent. Mises and Hayek are hailed as libertarian heroes. Now, unions can be consistent with Libertarianism, as long as it holds true to the NAP. In Detroit, this is not the case. You will quite likely get your butt handed to you if you dare to cross that picket line. The only way for their strike to work is to not allow new worker to come in, as they understand that most people can do their jobs, and would willingly work for the wages being offered. I agree that the net is making government obsolete, but I would argue that it is more than just communication. The net is, and has always been, the closest thing to a truly free market. Entrepreneurs flock to the net with their ideas, because they know the net has less hurdles to jump over, and few ways to control it. There is no doubt that communication is a key factor tho. Heck, just go onto FB, you'll see pretty quickly that the people that are the most clueless, are those that still watch the boobtube, as every network simply parrots the government's lies. As for your last statement, I'll just ask who decides what a crime is, and who's crimes have the potential to affect the most people? I would argue that government creates crimes by it's very nature. Any laws, outside of common law, is the state creating a new crime, which is solely based on biases. Many laws the state creates are all about legalizing or shielding corporate entities from prosecution for real common law crimes. Government creates volatility in the markets because no small business man knows when his business will be considered a crime. Government is Anarchy, as anarchy is defined today. Here is an entertaining video that highlights the Hayek vs Keynes debate.

Well, I'm from Detroit. This is UNION capital here. The city just filed for bankrupsy, and all those unionized workers aren't going to get even half of what their unions promised them. I say F them. They all left Detroit and bought big houses in the burbs. That's what people do when you give them everything they could ever need, a pension and retirement at 50. Now, they are worried about whether they can still pay for their home and the 2 others they bought for their kids. What the leftists fail to understand is that the market is like water or karma. You can't control it. It will just go around you or through you. If you try to inflate your income using force, you may live well for awhile, but it will all come crashing down when the market catches up to the coercion. The only path to true prosperity is competing in the market and proving your worth. From reading this thread, I'd guess only a couple of people here have ever worked in a real factory. Well, I did for most of my life. It's only been the last 7 years that I've not worked in a factory. I was never in a union, despite working for companies with unions, and making products for unionized companies. They wasted money like crazy. I'd have to sit and wait for 1 of the 10 highlow drivers, that were doing nothing, to be told to unload my truck. 1 hour of waiting was the norm, just to drop off crap they needed yesterday. I got paid more at the factories I worked at, because I learned every machine in the place. At every single place, I learned everything about the products we sold, every step of how they are made, who we buy the parts from, and even ran the shipping departments when they needed me. You earn more by proving to your boss that you are worth more than what he pays you. You prove it to him every day. Your boss can not pay you more, if what you do does not generate more profits to pay you. The market is the only fair, just, and sustainable arbitor of worth. If we didn't have any government involvement, prices on almost everything would always be dropping. This is the natural progression of things. A free and unconstrained market ensure this will happen. Why? Because we all get up every single day and do things faster, better and smarter. Again, every single day. When you have a totally free market, it is the consumer that is king, not the businesses or corporations. The average person has the biggest influence on what is produced, with the least amount of waste possible.The ONLY reason prices do not drop consistantly, is because central banks in every single nation print money and hand it to their friends. In doing so, they lower the value of every coin in circulation. Today it is mostly paper money they are just printing or adding to bank statements. Back in Rome's glory, they were doing the exact same thing, and it's the whole reason the empire crumbled. In the beginning, all the coins were pure silver. By the end, all their coins were made of junk metal. The USA just did this exact same thing and it shows exactly why governments are ALL evil, and they will destroy your nation, if you allow it. In 1964, a quarter was 95% silver, and you could easily buy a gallon of gas with it. In 1965, quarters were no longer made out of silver, and by 1973, the dollar was completely detached from gold. Today, if you have a 1964 quarter, it will still buy you a gallon of gas, and probably a good coffee. See, things aren't really getting more expensive, the governments are just printing so much money that it overrides the natural process of deflation. In the US, the Federal Reserves stated goal is 3% inflation. They also just changed how inflation is calculated to hide the massive inflation currently going on, which by the way we calculated it back in the 50's would be around 15% inflation. That is nuts! The hardest thing to get across to these socialists that want more government control, is that when they allow the government to continue to print fiat money, they are hurting the poorest people the most. It is probably the most inhumane thing a government can do, besides all out war.

I'll just remind people that it takes a ton of skill to make textures, especially on a 3D model with geometry. Personally, when I take my time, I'm an OK texture artist. I've easily done hundreds of charcoal portraits, oil on canvas, and acrylic paintings in RL, but for some reason I hate spending hours texturing in Photoshop. Maybe it's cause I'd rather be animating. Modeling most things can easily be done in a hour or so, with UV maps and all. I'd rather pay some1 that loves to texture things to texture my meshes, than me rush through it. I'm just saying that we are all creators/artists/innovators, and we all have our specialities or areas that we love more than others.

Since no1 else has commented, I will. I've only looked at the software and some videos. Of course, I don't know for sure, but I doubt you can export it directly into the dae format that SL uses. I would assume that you would have to rig and weight the clothing in another program. I know I've seen people talking about Marvelous Designer in chat groups, and I just found some SL related videos on Youtube. Here is the link to the search term I used on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=marvelous+designer+2+second+life&oq=marvelous+designer&gs_l=youtube.1.7.0l10.2992.12621.0.20366.18.9.0.9.9.0.201.1270.0j8j1.9.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.5zuB7oFxnTk

Ok, I'll answer the question. What I would do is, use the mesh with the bad UV map with clothing textures that don't have a pattern to it, or 1 solid color. The other mesh I would make the textures you want to make for it. I would also contact the seller of the bad UV map mesh, and let them know about the problems you are having. I never redid the mesh deforming tanktop's UV map, because it works fine as a tanktop that is 1 solid color, even a camo texture looked fine on it. All that said, I'm not really a clothing designer.

Well Drongle, a female's top stretches out alot in the chest area. If the UVmap doesn't reflect this stretching in the space it provides to texture the area, then you have a very stretched out, distorted looking shirt. I recently had to do this for my mesh deforming clothing. For the female's tanktop, I just used the same tanktop I created for my Lycan avatar, and just shrinkwrapped it around the default female shape. What I didn't think about what how the UV map was done, which I didn't change and was created from a more male body shape. When I tried to put any pattern on the female tanktop, the chest area stretched like crazy. If I had redone the UV map, I would have gotten less stretching.

Darrius Gothly wrote: Medhue Simoni wrote: First, it is a benefit to all of us that LL's biggest concern be profit. [...] This is where I will disagree with you Medhue. Were this a rational chain of events, a company that is focused on Profit would be a good thing indeed. But Linden Lab's actions are not rational nor are they promoting Profit. Well, I can't really disagree with you there. In my view, corporations tend to lose track of who the most important actor is in the equation.

nikita Jefferson wrote: LL is motivated ONLY by money, everything they do is through the prism of money. I remember long ago and i am sure it was Phil D. had a post called "LL s dirty little secret" ( i apologize Phil if it was' nt you) He fortold of LL taking over x street and it becoming MP and getting everyone to list on there, thereby taxing every sale, and taking shoppers from inworld to MP. I could forsee that too, and all this is at the expense of inworld shopping, LL can t get a cut from inworld sales and they care nothing about inworld merchants. First, it is a benefit to all of us that LL's biggest concern be profit. Just like I make items, improve items, and think up new items for the sake of profit. Without profit, I can't make more items. Because I seek profit, I must satify my customers, or they won't willing give me their money. When profit is your primary goal, the customer is the boss. The better I satify them, the more profit I will make. Profit shows that you are doing something beneficial for the world, and people want it because it betters their life in some way. When people don't have profit as their main motive, it is much more likely that their motives are not beneficial to you. 2nd, this conspiracy to tax all content isn't well thought out. 5% is hardly something significant to even sustain a service like the MP, especially considering the inefficiencies of corporations. Almost all sites that sell 3D content on the web, charge 50%, not 5%. I think the theory really falls apart when you can still sell items inworld. Now, could LL have done things better? Of course! Was LL somewhat retarded in how they did do things? Yes! Very much so. Personally, I would have made it so that any1 that actually owned land could sell items on the MP for free, and any1 that did not would be charged a 10% commission fee. In this way, it promotes inworld ownership, and charges those that don't have an investment inworld.

Well, information is just that, not any more than that. How the information is interpretted, is a whole other matter entirely. Many of us have our own information, which others don't have access to. My accessment on the SL economy is that it is mostly holding steady, with dips and highs from time to time based on what LL does. The economy is slightly more volatile than it was before the major search engine changes, which makes sense if people can't find things. There has never been a single event, beyond the search engine changes in 2010, that has ever affected the economy more, at least since I joined in 2007. Do I think this TOS stuff is affecting the economy? NO, the affect is tiny, if any. Do I think this TOS is affecting creators? Yeah, to the extent that they waste their precious time speculating on things they can't know, instead of making something. Have I stopped uploading things? NO, but I do work on projects across many platforms and currently not working on anything specific to SL. I will be making more and uploading more for SL in the near future, and until I see concrete evidense that LL has bad intentions, It won't bother me at all to upload anything I make. Do I think others aren't uploading content because of the new TOS? Maybe some tiny select group, but they might make up 20% of all creators, at best, and probably not many of the people that make a living off their products. Do I think LL should address the histeria or change the TOS? Sure, if the affect is people not wasting their time talking about it so much.

Should I even attemp this? Probably not, but I will anyways. In the end, I really don't care what LL's TOS says, beside not violating them myself. Why is that? Because I'm already invested with thousands of items and make thousands off SL. If I get screwed by LL, then I'm out of here. Enough said. It doesn't f...ing matter what the TOS says. If they sell my content without my permission, they will have a lawsuit on their hands, irregardless of what the TOS says. The only people the TOS means anything to, are LL and the naive people that think LL has some kind of power.

Gromlok Landar wrote: So Medhue, when you export as OBJ file, did you collapse the stack of your modifiers on the right side where it was converted to poly or mesh and the UVW Unwrap etc included in the 3d model before exporting ? Pat Saving it as an OBJ does all that for you. Whatever you have assigned to the model, be it materials, or modifiers gets applied and embedded in the OBJ. When you start up a new scene and import that OBJ, it will be a clean model with no modifiers, just your finished model with all the properties you had assigned it. I generally number all my saved OBJ files, so I can go back to a previous version, if needed. Like I said before, IMHO it just makes sense to save all final models in OBJ, because you know you can import into almost anything. Let me give you an example of a problem that I generally have, and how an OBJ shows me the problem right away. This is quite similar to what you are experiencing too. Let's say I'm working on a model, and I want many faces. I assign those faces, and then I apply an Unwrap UVW modifier. I unwrap the model and think I'm done. I apply materials and save it as a DAE for SL. In SL, I figure out that I need to set up the faces differently. So, I go back into 3ds Max, and change the faces, but now my Unwrap UVW modifier isn't updated to these new faces. If I save it and upload it to SL, it will not be right because the Unwrap UVW modifier needed to be removed and reapplied. If I save it as an OBJ, and import it back into Max, I will see that my faces aren't right, and I will no longer have the Unwrap UVW modifier, but the UV mapping is still embedded in the OBJ. So, I can change my faces, then apply my Unwrap UVW modifier, and check that the faces are correct. Of course, I'm just using the term faces, meaning the SL faces, as to not confuse the conversation. Then, I'd save it as an OBJ again, import it back into Max, apply my materials, and check it all. I hope that made sense, terminology is always the confusing part.

Gromlok Landar wrote: Medhue, can you explain why you export it as an OBJ file and how you can see if something is wrong if your doing multi sub object please ? Pat I use 3ds Max 8, and there was always little bugs between the material IDs and UV unwrap. I totally forget how you have to do it to get it right and have the textures show on the models. I found out right away that if I just saved the model as an OBJ, then I could reimport it and check the materials and UV maps. When you save it as an OBJ, it saves all the UV and material information. When you reimport it, you have a fresh model with no modifiers or anything on it. You can apply a UV unwrap to it and check the UV map, and open the material editior and check that. It should all be embedded in the OBJ file. OBJ is probably the most common format for mesh objects and almost every program can import an OBJ. Collada on the other hand is hit or miss for support, and every 3D program does collada a bit different. Generally, I've never seen too many issues with meshes in collada formats, but again, I do use that format unless I'm uploading to SL. So, OBJ just seems like the best format to store your meshes in, as you can use that format in every program, with no issues at all.

I just want to add that when I'm working on a mesh, I always save it out as an OBJ. The OBJ files contain everything you would need, with no problematic extra stuff. It also applies all your modifiers, and embeds the materials and all that. This is actually how I check the model to make sure it has no issues. No matter what changes I make, when I'm done, it gets exported as an OBJ, and then reimported. Of course I save max files, but when it comes to a finished model, it always gets saved as an OBJ in the final step. I then reimport it, check everything, and export to DAE. I think the last thing I would do is export a model in FBX to use somewhere else, unless that was my only option or it's an avatar with a skeleton.

Well, I'll give you my experience Cathy. Probably 8 years ago, I got 3ds Max, but knew nothing about 3d creation. I fumbled around in there a few time. Eventually, a few years ago, SL announced mesh was coming, so I decided to really sitdown and learn 3ds Max. It was remarkably simply, but I think it is just cause I'd been creating 3d stuff for awhile and was more familiar with terminology and how things work. I tried blender at that time, but it was akin to me opening 3ds Max for the first time. Since I've done mostly animations for some 7 years now, I'm pretty knowledgable with avatars. I've always kept my eye on Blender, because of how powerful it is and cause it is free. Dealing with how 3ds Max and Maya do things with licensing is just not the kind of crap any creator wants to deal with. When I got a peak at Avastar, and how they integrated all the SL avatar stuff into Blender, I knew this was a good time for me to sit down and learn Blender. It was easy, probably because I already knew 3ds Max. IMHO, Blender is not complicated at all, unless you know nothing about creating in 3D. Plus, in the preference, you can pretty much make Blender work alot like Max or Maya. I just changed my rightclick and leftclick the other day. I'm more comfortable now in Blender so why not just make it work like I want it. Of course, if I do more tutorials, I'll have to switch back for that. All that said, I think Andrew makes great points, especially because I jump around programs so much, I only learn the must know shortcut keys. A tool bar would be much appreciated.

JackC Citron wrote: The problem is that the female SL avatar Mesh is by default the same height as the male, so it's making it difficult to make properly aligned poses in poser, and upload to get the same result in SL. As Kwakkelde said, you can change the size of the avatar in the parameters tab. Choose the body and then use the scale dial. It should not change the skeleton when you export the bvh, but at least you can animate with sizes that are closer. I do not do much couples animation, so I'm not sure how well this process will work for you. I would generally use Avastar in Blender for something like this because Avatar has all the SL sliders in Blender and you can match exactly the size and shape avatars you want to animate in SL.

I'm assuming that you are making an animation that puts your avatar close to the ground, as this is when height becomes a problem. SL animation is sensitive to avatar height in SL. So, if your avatar in SL is really tall, and you made the animation to fit that avatar, it won't work very good on a small avatar. Essentially, you have to create your animation to fit the size avatar it is intended to be used on. Like I said, this is only a problem with animations that bring you closer to the ground. Basically, the first frame of every animation in SL is a reference or position frame. You can alter the height of the first frame to adjust the height of the whole animation in SL. Notice, I did not say to change the size of the avatar in Poser. You just change the position of the height so the feet are lower or higher compared to the rest of the animation.

Well, although I'm still somewhat new to Blender and would probably not be looked at as part of the community, I have been a big supporter of Blender and followed it's progress. I've seen some of the debates around right/left clicking and I have to say that it seems more nastalgic than anything else. My user case is that I use about 7 different programs on a regular basis, and it generally takes me a good half hour before I stop left clicking on things in Blender, and another half hour to stop right clicking in Daz or Photoshop or whatever. With all the different programs that I do use, I'm not really sure I'm ever going to get used to right clicking to select, especially if it isn't second nature after almost 8 months of using it regularly. Maybe if all I used was 1 or 2 other programs that worked differently, and Blender was my primary program, it would be less of an issue. What we are really talking about here is what the default should be. Any1 can go change it, if that is what they prefer. By defaulting the select to right click, Blender is only detering it's use by more users. Defaulting to left click would not even be an inconvenience to older users, as they already know they can change it. I don't think older Blender users totally understand what this confusion does to the brain. It makes everything else in the software seem even more confusing because the new user is constantly trying to remember to right click. It's only now that I'm more comfortable with Blender that I can override the confusing aspect of right clicking and see how much of Blender is pretty comparable to using Max or Maya, and how many aspects are much easier.

Yeah, which plugin is really a big issue. I have an old 3ds Max, and just getting a plugin that worked took weeks, as there are 4 collada export plugins that I know of. Some of them, you have to completely uninstall to get other 1's to work right too. Congrats on getting it all to work!

Andrew Price, of Blenderguru.com, is starting a project to get changes made to Blender to make it more user friendly. I've only this year gotten into Blender, so it's glaring differences to other programs are quite obvious to me. Yes, you can customize things, but this doesn't help if you make tutorials for people, as you should use the defaults in tutorials, as to not confuse the watcher of the tutorial even more. Plus, the needed changes are more about getting more people to use Blender, rather than improving things for old users. For me tho, as I jump from program to program, it will keep my brain from exploding. lol There is also a short survey in the about section of the video. Please take the survey to help show what Blender users think.

Oh, and...... If you do use this technique, your avatar will likely work with my next update to my furry AO. It's quite popular, and I figure I'll update the AO with my own avatar, and animated jaw animations. So, it will work with the old scripted jaw avatars, and with whole mesh avatars that use the skull bone to animate the jaw. IMHO, it coud be a good standard for all mesh avatars that need moving jaws.

Draycko Aeon wrote: G'day SL! I am quite new to using Blender and have managed to make a Furry head. I was was planning to animate it so that I could add a moving jaw without having to seperate the jaw from the.. head mesh.. giving a seamless look, as well as, hopefully, nicer jaw movements. The questions I wanted to ask was, how should I go about doing this? -Is it better to texture or rig first? -would I be able to add expressions? - would Blinking eyelids also be something i'd be able to add? Yes, you can animate your jaw! If you buy Avastar for Blender, you will get the default SL avatar with all of it's bones. The SL skeleton actually has, I think, 5 bones that are not used at all. 1 of those bones is the m_skull bone. I used the skull bone to animate the jaw of my Lycan avatar. As you can see in the image, I didn't even move the bone's position. As long as I didn't open his jaw too far, it doesn't look too weird. I like to keep the default bone positions intact when I can, as it just works and looks better with motion capture. You can adjust the weighting to help to create different expressions also, but this is limited. For instance, I weighted the eyebrows a little to the skull bone also, to make him look more angry when his jaw is open. In Avastar, you have the option to export animation in 2 different formats for SL. 1 is the normal bvh, the other is an anim file. Anim files allow you to export those extra bones on the skeleton. So, if you do animate the jaw with the skull bone, then you want to export with the anim file option, which also allows you to set all the setting you need. I know I sound like a shameless Avastar promotor, but I view it as a must have if you want to make avatars or make mesh clothing. The SL viewer now imports anim files, so technically it is now supported. The way I did blinking eyes is I made an eye lid in the main mesh and gave it a separate face. It was directly infront of the actual mesh eyes, and I used a script to change the transparency of that eyelid face and turn it on and off randomly.

The strange thing is, that if some1 read the thread that you started, they would see that SL is the best virtual world. So, despite the fact that we talked about all these other worlds, they all made SL look like a beacon for creative people. I equally criticized those other worlds, just like I criticize SL. As for removing threads, it would not be a first for me, even tho I'm just trying to show a technology that was originally created for SL. We do have a viewer for it. That viewer is quite outdated at this point tho. Ultimately, my point is to show the naysayers how it works almost flawlessly, despite being made by an animator. If I can do this, than any1 can, and probably better. I don't hide how I feel about the project and how LL has handled it. I only get paid by the users and customers in virtual worlds, which means my whole emphasis is on them, not LL. Of course, my intent is not to post things only to have them taken down, nor to drive people away from SL. My intent is to show the mesh deformer to the world where it originated. Irregardless of what LL does, the deformer is out there, and people are playing with it. My video will still be on Youtube. Ultimately, I'd love to do a similar video showing how SL has this option, or something better. Right now, there is no better solution out there.

Gaia Clary wrote: Is this the only extra thing what needs to be done manually when you export with blender's bvh exporter ? Or does the bvh file need to be modified in another way as well (as i indicated before) ? I'm not sure. I have never used Blender's bvh exporter, only Avastar's.

Well, in Avastar, I think you have the option of it to create the first frame, or not. Either way, the first frame being different applies to both anim files and bvh files whether exporting from Avastar, or Blender's normal bvh exporter. I don't quite remember if it works in just Blender, as I've only used Avastar for animations in Blender.