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Friday Siamendes

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Posts posted by Friday Siamendes

    Space navigator users?

    in General Second Life Tech Discussion

    Posted

    Before I spend $$$ to replace my trusty (aging) Space Nav, I'd appreciate very simple feedback from other users:

    Have you encountered any recent (2017) Spacenav issues in any SL viewer, such as limited directional control, mid-session de-activation etc?

    "Mine is working fine" or "yes, I HAVE had recent problems" is all I need.

    Thank you!

    Custom Bento head - possible or are you out of your mind

    in Mesh

    Posted

    Wow it’s great to get two helpful replies! I will check out those tutorials Janet.

    Heather, I’ve spent enough time struggling with Blender to appreciate your experience. I learned enough to realize that there’s a reason why Bentos are really hard! I’m more of a bourbon drinker but I needed more than one for sure, and I didn’t even try UV unwrapping and texturing. 

    I also gained huge appreciation for what skilled makers have been able to do with the grotesque proportions of the SL default. “Wait, the eyes are HERE and the neck is WHERE?”

    As an animator I have had to explore other platforms such as iClone for facial animation. Their Faceware technology produces files that MIGHT be useful for SL, but as you know the skeletal vs morph based differences can be so challenging. 

    Another promising direction is the advancing facial “depth” technology emerging in the micro-Kinect in the notch of the Iphone X. But will any of it ever translate to the special Bento rig? If you want to animate emotion that goes beyond sequencing the Bento-head packages (which are cool) do you adopt another platform?

    A final note: I’m seeking a face that’s neither a luscious-lipped Playmate nor a rock-jawed stud. If anyone wants to earn some actual dollars rigging a facial mesh that I already have as an object file, IM me! Yes I’ll gladly approve a Scotch budget.

    thanks again!

    • Like 1

    Custom Bento head - possible or are you out of your mind

    in Mesh

    Posted

    As I swim deeper into tutorials and manuals about Bento heads, I am more awed than ever by the artistry and skill that goes into these creations. I'm in the planning stage for animated movies that use Bento-enabled facial expression. 

    Current heads meet many of my needs, but sliders can't quite achieve a particular shape I'm seeking for special applications of projected light. 

    As an animator with crude modeling skills, I could conceivably sculpt and rig this shape on my own. Would that mean weeks of study and $$, or months and $$$$ (for Mudbox or Zbrush)?

    What about commissioning the shape from a 3D sculptor and paying another artist to Bento-ize it? Could a major creator easily produce a variant, which she could then sell in her store?

    I realize there may be many possibilities. Before I choose a path, I'm just seeking perspectives from this expert community. Thank you!

    • Like 1

    GeForce Share for recording machinima

    in Machinima Forum

    Posted · Edited by Friday Siamendes

    And a bit more information from Gamers Nexus. This video adds FRAPS to its comparison of the Radeon and Nvidia screen recording utilities. It clarifies up/downsides for FRAPS:

    FRAPS minimizes gameplay impact with a super-low-compression codec, but the downside is HUGE files that can challenge even SSD write speeds.

    ReLive and Share/Shadowplay, optimized by the GPU designers, minimize gameplay impact by putting most of the load on the GPU and producing much smaller files in H264. This has implications for editing and rendering too.

    Gamers Nexus channel 

     

    • Like 1

    GeForce Share for recording machinima

    in Machinima Forum

    Posted · Edited by Friday Siamendes

    On 6/1/2017 at 9:47 AM, Gadget Portal said:

    Although I don't usually record SL, do a lot of recording and streaming of other games, and for me, FRAPS was always junk. NVidia Share gave much higher resolution, higher FPS, and an overall better experience. 1080, 30 FPS recordings while the game is getting 60+ FPS has always been a breeze with Share.

    Hi Gadget, Radeon is stepping up as well with enhancements to its Crimson/ReLive feature, which records up to 2160p. I have the impression that a lot of SL machinima makers are not gamers (that's true in my case). Share and ReLive are marketed to the gaming community. Thanks for sharing your experience.  

    GeForce Share for recording machinima

    in Machinima Forum

    Posted

    30 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

    I turned off all the GeForce add ins as they were hampering other parts of my system so cannot report on that. 

    I can say that I have been using Fraps for  seven years with no issues typically recording (from way back then even) at 1600. Of course one needs to have decent fps rates on the SIMS before recording no matter what screen capture software you use.

    I will say that while Flashback Express is great for recording tutorials from software programs (Blender for me) it will NOT do a good job inworld as its top recording speed is 10fps. So very limited on what it can record smoothly. 

    Happy that Share is working well for you though and hopefully for others.

    I also used Fraps extensively without problems at 1080. It's encouraging that Fraps gives you good results at 1600. I have talked to a couple Fraps users who get jerkiness as they raise resolutions. System differences and SL settings can play a role too. And yes, as you say sim performance has to be good in the first place. 

    My Mac recorders, like most screen recorders, don't offer the low-render settings that reduce the Fraps system load while recording (although the Fraps codec produces huge raw files). I could upgrade my old custom PC and return to Win/Fraps/Share, but only if the effort and $$$ deliver a high-res solution. 

    There's always iClone/Daz and Blender, with no recording overlay to worry about - but I hate learning curves!

    Thank you Chic!

    GeForce Share for recording machinima

    in Machinima Forum

    Posted

    Have any SL machinima makers used Nvidia's GeForce Share feature (formerly Shadowplay) for recording? Share is designed to record high-motion gameplay at 4K with minimal impact on fps.

    Add-on software like Fraps, Movavi, Screenflick etc. can produce seriously jerky recording at resolutions above 1080. Better recording utilities could bolster SL's viability as an animation/movie platform. 

    Please share any experiences with GeForce Share - thanks!

     

    Anim file import issue

    in Animation Forum

    Posted

    I am resuming my use of Avastar, and just exported an .anim file on a Priority 5 setting. I then imported to SL.

    When I play the anim, whether inworld or locally, it goes into a motionless T pose. When I click the Stop button - the animation actually starts to play. 

    No stop animation command will stop it. 

    If I load into a poseball, a similar thing happens: when I sit on the poseball, I get T-pose. When I Stand, the animation starts. With the same problem, I can't stop it.

    I'd appreciate ideas or any similar experience - thank you!

     

     

    Facial enhancements with Bento

    in Animation Forum

    Posted

    As all SL animators know, especially if they create machinima, the current SL avatar limits facial expressions to a few ghastly presets. I have messed with Avastar a bit and it looks like the Bento rig will offer enhancements.

    My question is for more practiced Bento testers: do you expect Bento to deliver significant facial advances? For example, can we animate a mesh face to speak with eye directions, timed blinks, expressions etc, comparable to Blender rigs, Poser or Daz3d?

    Any thoughts would be most appreciated!

    Slat and qavimator coders, and a new animation tool

    in Animation Forum

    Posted

    Although Daz and other apps have many strong features, slat remains a unique tool with several features hard to find anywhere else, such as independent 3-axis curves for all body parts, blending, smoothing, frame adding etc.

    For that reason I'm interested in commissioning or collaborating with someone who can modify and update slat and qavimator source code, and combine some key slat and qavimator features into a new hybrid app. It's largely for my use and the community's, but the right combination might have commercial potential as well. Once bvh creators understand how these added features work they will appreciate the value.

    The slat creator's user name back in 2006 was "rod Martin," no longer discoverable in-or-outworld.

    Here's a link to the old forum posts on slat's genesis, with posts by the equally vanished "Vince Invincible" (nee "Vince Plunkett") who created Qavimator:

    http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/52/2e/83702/1.html

    The author is "housepainter" at the SourceForge download site.

    If anyone knows these creators, or if you're an experienced coder with an interest in this collaboration, let me know.

     

    Continuous local rotation vs DEG_TO_RAD

    in LSL Scripting

    Posted

    Thanks 16 but I have tried the TargetOmega scripts there and none of them work inworld as indicated. For example, the third script says:

    //Rotates very slowly around a cylinder's local or global Z axis // .... Good for making a propeller that rotates regardless of initial orientation.

    But whether attached to a root prim, attached to an avatar or unattached, the cylinder or cube follows the Global z axis (a sphere is not useful because it has no spotlight feature on a face). So I don't see how this would work for a propeller, for example, or my purposes. The first script on the TargetOmega page produced a syntax error, and the second script is for spheres so the axis syntax doesn't operate in a cute or cyclinder.

    That's why I am trying to modify the script I quoted - it's the only one I've found that actually rotates around the internal/local axis when I tip it unattached or attach it to the avatar. Frustrating! Thanks for the suggestion though!

     

    Continuous local rotation vs DEG_TO_RAD

    in LSL Scripting

    Posted

    I am trying to attach a spotlight to an avatar, and rotate the spotlight along its local Z axis - so that the orientation of the spotlight can be adjusted and it will continue to rotate around the direction of its "beam."

    I am an illiterate in scripting but have figured out that the script must Get Local Rotation, and I have tried several posted variants. The script below comes from an old post by the wonderful Rolig Loon - and it ALMOST does what I need. I have figured out how to set the desired axis, duration between touches etc. 

    But I need continuous rotation (or as close as possible) - and the Euler syntax (if I understand it) rotates incrementally as it keeps re-reading the axes. I have tried replacing the Euler with other rotation phrases but I'm too dumb to succeed.

    How can I program the object to behave exactly the same EXCEPT with "smooth" continous rotation rather than the tick-tick-tick-by-degree rotation? Thanks very much, wizards of script!

    The script:

    integer count;
    default
    {
    touch_start(integer total)
    {
    llSetTimerEvent(1);
    count = 0;
    }

    timer()
    {
    ++count;
    llSetRot(llEuler2Rot(<2.0,0,0> * DEG_TO_RAD)*llGetLocalRot());
    if (count > 30) llSetTimerEvent(0);
    }
    }

    Full rotation in qavimator

    in Animation Forum

    Posted

    When I rotate the av more than 360 degrees, inworld it jerks back around rather than complete the rotation.

    For example, suppose I have three keyframes: 90, 270, and then 2 degrees. Rather than rotate completely in the same direction, the av reverses and jerks back to 20 degrees - which does not surprise me, but I am trying for full and repeated rotations. I have tried some workaround tricks but the jerk is hard to eliminate - any settings or techniques?

    clips feature in slat

    in Animation Forum

    Posted

    I really struggle with this - i save a selection as a clip, then load and select the saved clip file, but when i try to paste it into the anim, a popup says "source frame size differs from destination." I try matching the number of frames in the "receive" selection to the clip frame count but still get the same thing. Anyone use this and have suggestions? Thanks!

    Eye direction contol

    in Machinima Forum

    Posted

    OK, looking at the wiki, now I understand a forum topic about creating a transparent object that you float where you want the av to look, and right click on it before filming. Which you would have to do when your UI is still on. Thanks!

    Eye direction contol

    in Machinima Forum

    Posted

    Does anyone know how to direct an avatar's gaze consistently during an animation that is filmed - for example look at the camera? Sorry if this is widely known but well, it's not widely known by me - any info or reference would be appreciated!

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