Myra Wildmist

Orca, you might want to look at the thread I linked in the OP, regarding height. I'll recap what seems to be the final conclusion: FS gives a slight taller, but close to accurate height. LL gives a significantly shorter, inaccurate height. Creating a prim and measuring yourself with it is still the most accurate method.

Thanks for doing that, Coby. That's great to know. Odd that LL viewer is so much shorter. Has it always been that way I wonder? I'm seeing more "short" avatars these days; maybe they're relying on the LL measurement too much. (EFA. That wouldn't make sense. That would result in taller avatars if they were using LL.) Thanks everyone for your input on this thread.

I'm beginning to think it's time to make myself shorter. When I started SL, I was usually shorter than everyone else, but, recently, there seems to have been an influx of shorter - probably more life size - avatars in SL. I guess the new default avatars must be shorter. I like my shape, so I want to stick with that as much as possible. What do I need to worry about to make myself shorter? If I use the height slider bar, will it adjust all the important parts - arms, legs, etc. - proportionately? FYI, I have another thread about measuring height, here, that's related: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Your-Avatar/What-s-the-best-way-of-determining-your-height/td-p/2091767

Jada, If I'm understanding what you're saying, the Agent Height is shorter than the actual height of the avatar as measured from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head. (I found this wiki, which I think is germane. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetAgentSize.) I get the opposite results using the FS viewer, though. The FS viewer reports me as taller than what I'm getting using the prim method or other measurement tools. (I haven't looked at the LL viewer.) The viewer in edit shape shows a height about 6 inches taller. I checked this a few times, redoing my prim box 3 times, so I'm not sure what's going on. I guess it's what you said about 3rd party viewers using "actual avatar mesh height", but "...they are a bit off too..." I'll try to check the LL viewer, later, and see if it's different.

Also, I presume the measurement shown my the slider is inaccurate. It seems to add about 6 inches to what the height measurers say. Or should I use that??

FYI, 3.28083 feet is one meter. The system returns a Z value in meters, of course. Myra Wildmist hangs her head in shame.

Hi, dresden. Sorry, I'm not the most technical person. Would you mind explaining that, please? What do you mean? Should I create a prim box and eyeball its height to line up with my feet and the top of my head?

I seem to have a few height measurement tools, but all the ones I have have this basic formula inside: heightfeet = size.z * 3.28083 So I guess it's just grabbing my Z coordinate and doing a conversion on it to feet and inches. However, I've noticed others around sl give me a different height, sometimes a couple of inches higher. I know to take my shoes off, btw. : ) Is there an accept standard for determining an avatar's height? Does LL have something they use? Also, why 3.28083? What's that? I'm thinking about shortening myself, but that's a topic for another thread. : ) Thanks for any help.

No, I have an AMD card, but still that sounds like my problem, so I'll give your suggestions a try. Ty, Trinity

Thank you everyone for responding to this post. You were all very helpful, I learned a lot from all your posts, and I think I actually understand what's going on. Just thought I'd recap what I'd consider the two main points to take away from this thread: In world deformer items, such as Liquid Mesh, aren't real deformer mesh, because the real deformer mesh as identified in the JIRA would require a update to the viewer to accommodate the deformer implementation. Currently, the status of the Mesh Deformer project is unknown and appears to have stalled. LL isn't saying whether they plan to advance it and any speculation on why is just that - speculation. Again, thank you, everyone for your help.

Aremon, You might also want to read this thread I started, especially the posts by Medhue. http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Mesh/Why-is-it-so-difficult-getting-Mesh-Deformer-to-work/td-p/2060975/page/2 I'll quote some key statements: "The issue is that LL won't progress the jira and testing...The deformer does exactly what it was designed for, and actually, it does much more than was originally conceptualized. The only thing holding it back is LL." No one knows why deformer isn't moving forward and LL isn't telling. But the consensus seems to be that it works.

I started using the LL viewer, today. I really like the chat features, so far. Unfortunately, I'm encountering a regular bug. Sometimes when when I bring up a group chat, the screen will flash and all the text will disappear. Even text in my menus and icons! Is this a known bug? Is there a work-around or graphic setting i should adjust? I'm just using the recommended settings and I didn't have problems like this using FS. ty for any help ** Additional info ** I tried the viewer some more and discovered something else is going on. After a while, especially in situations with heavy traffic, the viewer seems to start slowing down, having more and more trouble rendering the world. I'm pretty sure this is a graphics issue, now. Just not sure which one.

Medhue Simoni wrote: Exactly Sassy! These are just excuses so that LL can do nothing. The Deformer works AS IS!! No more work is needed, except maybe some final touches. Another excuse is there is no interest, which is BS. That is the longest jira ever created, probably in the history of jiras. That ALONE, tells you there is more interest than any other jira they are working on. Medhue, If the deformer works as is, what's the issue, then? Someone mentioned LL might be thinking about reworking the base skeleton. If they are thinking about that, would that affect the deformer project? I would think it would, based on what I've been reading, but I'm quite new to this topic.

Sassy Romano wrote: Myra Wildmist wrote: I'm starting to find deformer mesh in-world. This is a deformer mesh dress I found at a store called San Toki. The owner appears to be very active in the deformer project. If you decide to buy anything here, be aware there aren't any demos. Kinda a pet peeve of mine, but I got the dress to try it for science and all that, and fortunately it fit just fine. There are also regular mesh sizes included. So here's the problem. If you're using that with the standard LL viewer, then you are NOT using a dress made for *the* mesh deformer since that is not in the standard LL viewer! Because LL are dragging their feet, some creators are trending towards using the collision bones for deforming but that's no good really because it won't deform to different breast sizes which is probably one of the biggest problem areas. Multiple different deformer methods are doing nobody any good either. If I understand that, properly, Sassy, you're saying there's no standard for deformer. Is that the problem you're highlighting? I was using the latest FS version, when I took that picture, today. They just updated FS yesterday, I think. The dress looks fine. I'm finally getting the issue with the breasts. This dress seems to fit fine, so while there's still work to be done to get deformer to work for everyone, it does seem that it's working to some degree. Also, since I tracked this dress down by tracing the creator of some of the LL test deformer clothing available at Hippo Hollow, I'd bet it would work with the LL Deformer test viewer. All that aside, though, I totally agree: Having a bunch of different deformer methods in the market place is going to muddy the water.

I'm starting to find deformer mesh in-world. This is a deformer mesh dress I found at a store called San Toki. The owner appears to be very active in the deformer project. If you decide to buy anything here, be aware there aren't any demos. Kinda a pet peeve of mine, but I got the dress to try it for science and all that, and fortunately it fit just fine. There are also regular mesh sizes included.

Thank you everyone for the info. Very helpful. I found this article, too. It's a bit detailed, but it does a good job of explaining the current status of deformer and the complications. http://blog.nalates.net/2013/01/12/mesh-deformer-update-2013-2/ I just thought I'd edit this post to include a link to all of Nalates deformer info. It's below. http://blog.nalates.net/tag/deformer/ Nalate is very informed about the subject and she has some very helpful posts on her blog. ty, nalates.

Sorry, I actually found a quick explanation to this question, somewhere, but now I can't find it, again. I've been reading up on the Deformer project, but I'm still not clear on why exactly it's so hard to get it to work. Would someone mind explaining the basic issue, please? I read something about the attachment points in our original skeletons being hard to pinpoint, I think, but I can't find that, now. Thanks

Thank you, Theresa. Now, I kinda understand alphas, too. I can see where this can get to be a problem as mesh becomes more popular. I have quite a few mesh boots, now, and, of course, I'd like them to work with my mesh pants, skirts and dresses. The prob with wearing the old-fashioned jeans is I'm starting to love the mesh ones. : (

This might not be a mesh question and maybe more an alpha layer question. So let me know if I should post this in another forum. I've been trying on mesh jeans, recently. The alpha for the jeans makes my entire lower body, except for my feet disappear. When I put on the mesh jeans, they come down to my ankles. Fine, nice fit. But when I put on the alpha for my knee-high mesh boots, it doesn't affect the jeans. In other words, the jeans are still down to my ankles even though the boot alpha should reach up to my knees. Why is this? Is there a way around this, so I can get the knee-highs to work with the jeans? Do I need to start wearing flats? : )

Thank you, Gaia. : D Here's a picture of me with the alpha layer. I guess I need a skin and eyes, now. From what I'm reading, skins seem to be problematic on mesh avatars. Not sure what the deal is with eyes. I'm guessing they're not prims, otherwise I'd expect them to show up. I think it's interesting that even with mesh boots and skirt on, and their alpha layers, my mesh hips and feet still stick through. I could understand the hips, and the skirt's alpha mask not quite working, but is something else going on with the feet? Not really sure how much farther I can take this, now that I have my mesh avatar, but it's been a very good learning experience for me. Thanks, everyone, for helping out. As a sorta side note: I thought Avastar was really easy to use. Blender, not so much.

Yay! I successfully exported my avatar and reimported it back to SL as mesh. I followed this video tutorial from Gaia: That helped a lot. There are some minor changes to it, now, like you can rename your export file and such, but it seems to have worked fine. Here's a pic of me wearing my imported mesh. The white parts are the mesh: Soooo... Now, for my next question: How do I create an alpha mask for a shape? Is it different from normal alphas? Is there an easy way, now, that i have the mesh shape? Thank you : )

I understand that, Min. I was just trying to understand things. I understand that, now. You can resize them, but it's the rigging that "snaps" the clothing - or whatever - to the attachment points on your skeleton. So, yeps, there wouldn't be much point fo resizing them.

thank you everyone. I think I understand what everyone is saying. I understand the issue with attachment points and the clothing being rigged to those attachment points on a default avatar. That makes sense. But what happens to a mod rigged item when it's rezzed on the floor? Would I be able to resize it? I assume if I could it would snap back to its intended rigging when I put it on, but I'm just curious. (I tried to do this in-world, but I didn't have any modifiable rigged items.) @Gaia, thank you. That's very helpful info.

Could someone provide a tech-for-dummies (i.e. me) explanation of why you can't resize rigged mesh once it's in sl, please? It doesn't make sense to me that non-rigged objects can be resized, but rigged ones can't. So what is it about the rigged items? Thanks much.

I just thought I'd update this thread. I've tried a few other options to get my xml file into blender, now This was mostly as a learning process. I even tried an add-on to import Ogre files into blender. Ogre file extentions are also xml, so I thought maybe they'd work. Idk if they would or not, because I could never get the scripts to work. I could see myself going down a rabbit hole of tech issues, so I decided not to pursue that. Anyway, I ended up buying Avastar. It worked perfectly. I can see there's still going to be a learning curve, but it doesn't seem too hard to learn. If I have anything else to add as my mesh avatar adventures continue, I'll be sure to update this thread, again. It might be helpful for people starting out like I am.