Violaine Villota

October 20, 2017

@ChinRey thanks! Yes I was really happy to find that fast flutters are possible. It really is dependent on the graphics settings and lag though of course. Even in this video it's not as smooth as it is without a video recording app running and shadows, and the fastest ones need the wings to be non-flexi so I added a button on the HUD that would make them 2 different levels of flexi or stiff for the top speed flaps.

I'll remember not to use LOD for really simple meshes if I get around to making them. But with the learning curve involved and my need to give priority to my RL business that may take a while!

October 20, 2017

4 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Yes but there's more to it than that.

This is getting a bit technical but right now I'm evicting a few tenants who forgot there's something called "paying rent" and I stumbled across a sofa in one of the houses. It has a couple of pillows like this:

In wireframe it looks like this:

And apparently there is no simplification whatsoever for the mid and low LoD models. Here's the low:

For the lowest model, however the builder choose to go all the way down to a single triangle:

Which means you'll have to crank up you LoD factor, adding even more lag, if you want to see that pillow from across the room.

Building like this is sheer lunacy by any standard, it's a tremendous waste of gpu power. And it's not at all uncommon in Second Life, this is only a random example I happened to come over just as I was writing this. I've seen worse, much worse.

Yes, there are lots of factors that are inherent to the way Second Life is, we have to accept that. But sloppily made content like this can and should be avoided and the large amount we have of it in SL reduces the performance of everybody's computers significantly. Cut down on this wastefulness and far more users would be able to switch ALM on without suffering from annoyingly poor framerates and overheating computers and the people with high end game machines could experience SL wearing Occulus Rifts.

I had that happen to me when I was experimenting with a simple mesh cube and didn't know why I was only seeing half of it at a certain distance.
I guess I'm still enough of a noob at mesh to know what I needed to do to fix it.
BTW I finally finished those gadamn wings after, oh I dunno, almost a month? LOL
I hope people do use ALM regularly enough because I don't ever wanna go back to life without materials! Consider me spoiled.

October 18, 2017

17 hours ago, ChinRey said:

They used to say that increasing the RenderVolumeLODFactor didn't affect performance too.

Here is a simple test that only takes a minute and that anybody can do:

Stand absolutely still at a location where you won't see any moving objects. Open whatever windows you need to read your fps and to switch ALM on and off (which that will be, depends on your viewer). Wait a few seconds for the fps to stabilize and read the number. Switch ALM on or off, wait a minute or so for the fps to stabilize and read the number again. Everybody should do that test before they say anything about how laggy ALM is or isn't. And even afterwards it's important to remember that the result is only a snapshot of one specific incident. Different conditions may give completely different results.

I've only done that test once myself and it was in a fairly high lag environment where my computer was struggling a bit in any case. I can't remember the exact numbers but they were in the low 20s with ALM on and high 30s with ALM off. That's a huge difference and even more important, high 30s is a perfectly acceptable fps, low 20s isn't. I'd love to hear what results others get.

Object to object occlusion is a two edged sword. To put it simple, if you switch it off, your computer will spend more time preparing for items it may need later and less on what is already in the scene. Whether you loose or gain from that in the long run, depends on what the future brings.

I did a similar test to my ALM test, switching O2O on and off and got only a marginal difference - about 1 fps difference (O2O switched on being the fastest). A single fitted mesh item in the scene can easily make a bigger difference than that. But again, that was just a snapshot - different conditions may well produce completely different results.

One aspect we should have discussed, probably in a thread of its own, is what is an acceptable frame rate. The answer to that is probably very personal. For me, anything in the 40s is good, if it's higher than that, I can enhance my experience by increasing my graphics settings (unless it causes my computer's fan to start up that is - that's an instant experience killer). An fps in the 30s is perfectly acceptable but if it's lower than that, I can enhance my experience by reducing my graphics setting - the increased fps more than compensates for the reduced image quality.

I haven't noticed much difference between Object to Object Occlusion on or off, but having shadows on or off definitely makes an impact as does anti-aliasing. But I just can't stand having that turned off so it's always at least on 2x.
One other thing I noticed, and I'm not sure what exactly causes it but there is a slight sort of pixelated thin shadow on the edges of an alpha texture when against a fairly bright background. The textures and alphas are clean, so it must be something about the way the system handles the combination of textures in the diffuse, normal and specular slots with alpha textures yeah?
I thought that might push me towards mesh wings in the future some more, until I tried on a set I had bought and noticed that mesh wings did a weird thing around the edges too with the ambient occlusion turned on if the mesh is in front of a bright light or very bright background, like it looks more aliased.
Attaching a pic of the edge thing I'm talking about on my texture. It's only noticeable very up close and against bright or light backgrounds so it might not be a thing people even notice much but if there is a known way to get rid of it I would love to know.
I don't have a pic of the edge issue with meshes, but it just makes the edges look more jagged with ambient occlusion on.

October 12, 2017

5 hours ago, Oz Linden said:

Your timing in asking this is very good. We're in the process of testing a form for this on LindenLab.com now; it should be available quite soon.

It really isn't because we wanted to make it harder, we've just been focused on other things.

Thank you! Thank you thank you!
I'm glad to get some kind of answer from a Linden about this, as I had always been really happy with the way that the process had gone in the past. SL had always been one of the more reliable sites to honor DMCA notices and quickly, so I was really confused about the change.
I'm happy to hear that an online form is coming. I just happen to be unlucky enough to get ripped off quite often, when I first put my images online on my site I didn't realize how important watermarking EVERYTHING would be. My work got shared, re-uploaded and spread enough that a few people took my images and sold them for a few dollars as digital stock on Deviant Art, about 12 different designs, and I didn't catch it until a lot of people got access. They were also hosted on some hot-linked pages for download, a few were even used by a huge photo editing app company because the artist they hired lazily searched 'fairy wings' on google and used a bunch of images from the first image search page, some of which were mine and many others from wing maker friends as well. We came to a settlement, which I'll never know if it was fair to me or not because actually taking it to court and filing a finding request for the financials (maybe it's called something different) is insanely expensive so we just had to take their word about how much they profited.
I hate discovering these, hate having to file these notices, it's frustrating to find other people profiting off of my work especially since having to take care of this so often means I push back actually making my own digital stock since I only have so much time in the day. Asking the offender to remove the item, even as nicely as I've asked and even when I assume they may have unknowingly used stolen content usually results in a crazy aggressive response with them insisting I'm the mean one for asking them not to sell my work. So I just report, and even then I'll sometimes have them angrily contact me, adamant that they still had the right to use my content.
One of the recent infringers here in the SL Marketplace that I reported had the nerve to make a slightly new version to sell with a note saying that the previous one was removed due to a "malicious DMCA" and that all the work was 100% theirs, stating that "if it's reported again I'll take legal action". When I contested that statement in the reviews, they also amazingly admitted to copying my work, "but just the veins" so they thought that was fine. As if that made it okay when obviously that is the backbone of the entire design and that's what I registered with the copyright office.
In the past couple days I did see an article about how frivolous and actually malicious notices were on the rise and maybe that had something to do with the change to excluding emailed notices.
Hopefully the new format will help curb that problem as well while making it easier for honest notices.
So long story short, anything that makes it easier for those of us with legitimate complaints will be very very good.
Many of us will appreciate it so much. Thank you again for the input

October 11, 2017

17 minutes ago, Chic Aeon said:

The problem in (and it won't be going away) that everyone sees things differently do to their viewer settings so what may look great to you using materials could look HORRIBLE (and I mean quite horrible) to someone using a different Windlight setting.

I wish you luck on your journey. Just be sure and test with a ton of Windlights --- unless of course the item is just for YOU and YOUR photos :D.

Thanks Shouldn't be a problem as there are about a bazillion WL settings in Firestorm that I don't even use ;P Do you sell WL settings btw? I'm just noticing your Windlight Queen title.

October 10, 2017

1 hour ago, Sassy Romano said:

Nope, i'm confident that LL will accept a signed email signed with a qualified signing certificate.

2009, not 1980 https://www.engadget.com/2009/10/31/how-to-email-a-second-life-dmca-notice/

Ah! Thank you! It's definitely worth it to get a digital signature notarized, I have to report them often enough.
Hopefully this hasn't changed since 2008.

October 10, 2017

@Chic Aeon @Fluffy Sharkfin thank you both.

I've hand painted velvet textures before so I guess I'll likely have to just do that with maybe some experimenting with the normal and specular maps.

I'm glad that iridescence is rendered very well so if I had to choose I'm fine with the trade off of not rendering velvet realistically. There may yet be some way to trick the system though, maybe generating the highlights where the shadows usually go in the specular/normal maps and alphas? I'll post if I figure anything out but sounds like this one is kind of a dead horse for now.

October 10, 2017

I read the thread in the link you provided, however it doesn't give any more detail into how LL decides on DMCA reports, only how the process works in terms of the steps involved on our part and what happens if it's taken down.
I've had DMCA's not taken down immediately and asked for additional info, so I still think that they are in fact reviewed and they aren't just removed every time without verifying a match.
Do you have info directly from LL that proves they don't review their DMCA reports for validity?

8 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

No, they don't investigate them and never have. If they receive a report from an individual or a lawyer which is properly/professionally phrased, Linden Lab takes the content mentioned in the report down and gives the affected party two weeks to file a counter claim at which point the content is restored.

There is a catch to this however; To file a counter claim you would have to initiate a court case and send the relevant information to Linden Lab to prove a counter claim has been made. While the content at that time is restored, Linden Lab is under no obligation to do so before the case is settled.

As to the notion that there are more legitimate reports than false ones; Truthfully neither of us can know for certain which is true concerning the ratio of one to the other. Not every person that has been hit with a DMCA has the resources to file a counter claim and some simply find the whole process to be too burdensome/tiresome to bother with.

Like it or not though, having to fax or snail mail in the reports does have an effect on the more casual/frivolous tier of false/weaponized reports as it adds in extra steps that simply are not present when accepting a report sent by e-mail. In the case of snail mail it costs actual money, cheap as postage may be.

You're free to believe that these changes were made for other reasons of course and free to believe that any content taken down and never restored is the result of a legitimate claim but do bear in mind in such matters that very little is ever quite so black and white.

Semi-relevant; You may wish to read the following thread as well, it also contains a slightly more concise outline of the process Linden Lab uses for DMCA filings.

October 10, 2017

@Jerilynn Lemon thank you. Yes LL has been good about removing infringing content and I'm sure they still are, I just wish it were easier to report, and honestly curious about why they would go about it this way.

October 10, 2017

That's just as annoying as having to fax them - which I've been trying to do tonight but the faxes have been unsuccessful And snail mail takes time, or money if I don't want it to take a few days. I suppose I could drive over but that's also taking time out of my day I could be using to work. Their IP team is who would handle it unless I was going to get a lawyer to deal with it but I shouldn't have to pay a lawyer just for a DMCA take down.

It sucks whenever I find an infringement, more so when it's one that is being sold for profit, and LL's system just makes it suck more. Especially now though, when they have been made aware of the infringement via email, acknowledged that it's been received and have all the info they need but I still have to wait until their fax line opens up while the infringer continues to profit and they make a cut.

9 minutes ago, Jerilynn Lemon said:

If all else has failed, due to various mentioned reasons, have you thought of sending a DMCA to the legal dept of LL?

Send the notice via registered mail, signed receipt requested to their headquarters in San Francisco and clearly marked LEGAL DOCUMENTS.

I can't guarantee anything, but it is an option.

.

October 10, 2017

1 minute ago, Solar Legion said:

Or maybe, just maybe it has more to do with making it harder to file false/weaponized DMCA reports.

Nah, it just has to be because they don't want to deal with them. Yeah that must be the only explanation, I mean you've mentioned it twice now so that surely must be the case.

That doesn't do anything to detour false DMCA reports though, why would the method itself stop that? Don't they have to actually review the report they are being sent?
Neither method makes a take down automatic as I understand it. If an online DMCA report were automatic, but faxes were not, that explanation would make sense, but that's not how this works.

There are more legit reports than false ones, so I don't think detouring all reports across the board would be an effective way to detour false reports only. That would be a less effective way to protect the work of artists who have legitimately had their work stolen.
I'm open to an explanation btw and did ask them, but no response as to why.

October 10, 2017

I can understand when it's really sensitive information being exchanged like social security numbers or credit card info, but for a DMCA it's just not the standard anymore.
It's not a legal issue according to DMCA law, they are allowed to accept email or have an online form like anyone else, but they are also free not to accept it I guess.

I've gone to Staples before to fax things but it's extra time to put together all the info, print it out, drive over to wherever, fax it and pay whatever the fee is. When I find 7 different infringements in one day, it's a big chunk of my time that gets sucked away even when an online form IS provided. Having to go drive somewhere to do so just makes make more work for the people that have had something stolen from them and it's just kind of ridiculous. If they can build an entire virtual universe, which they do profit from, I'm pretty sure they have the capability to create a secure online form for an issue I'm sure they have to deal with quite a bit.
Or maybe that's the point, to keep people from filing a report at all so they don't have to deal with it?

October 9, 2017

One other possible reason - for every day the infringing item stays up, they get a cut of sales

Of course, they're going to keep that and I won't be reimbursed for the fraudulent sales. If only the infringed item could be deleted inworld and everyone who bought it refunded, but I know that's not going to happen.

October 9, 2017

Nearly every website out there has an online DMCA form to make it easy for people to file takedown notices when they find their IP is infringed upon... except Linden Lab. No, we have to use a fax machine.

I don't own a fax machine. Yes there are free fax services online but they are limited to maybe 3 pages and I usually have more than one item to report at a time, as the infringers tend to make more than one thing from my art. So, I've had to purchase an online fax service JUST for this purpose. I have no other reason to fax anyone anything.

In June I had a bunch to report and requested that an email address be made available to me for future reports as I tend to have them often and it's really impractical for me to fax them. I was emailed from their IP team with a request for additional info, and even sent a few DMCA notices to that email address that were successfully dealt with so I assumed all was good and I wouldn't have to go back to stone age communication methods.

Until now, as the one I filed late last week is apparently not going to be accepted via email and I will have to fax them instead.

Even though the reported items and my original work will all need to be viewed on a computer, because all evidence is in the form of urls.

Even though they are completely capable of accepting it through email and have for me within the last couple months, I'm now being told that was 'just as a courtesy' and DMCA reports must be faxed.

Seriously, why? Does anyone know?

Kinda seems like it's set up to make it harder for people to report.

October 7, 2017

Just a little update on my progress here. I've gotten the wings to attach in the right place, just flexi prims with normal and specular maps so they have the appearance of being sculpted. The slow animations are working fine but the fast flutters seem to break upon importing them into SL and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

They just sort of vibrate instead, so I'm still working on this. Maybe things can't go faster than 5 frames apart or something?
Anyway, here's what I got so far:

October 5, 2017

Is displaying a rich velvet texture such as silk velvet at all possible using specular and normals maps? Or can it not handle something like that? I haven't really seen materials enabled velvet textures that look like the real thing just by browsing the marketplace, so would it just have to be baked or painted in? Shiny things seem easy to make and map but something like this seems too complex for SL yeah? See the photo link for what I mean, with silk velvet the light is reflected more from the fibers that are on the side or edge of whatever it's wrapping around rather than from the front.
il_340x270.1099784485_4gs5.jpg

October 3, 2017

1 hour ago, Parhelion Palou said:

I have ALM on always along with everything but DoF. System is Win10, Intel i7-6700K @ 4GHz, 32GB RAM, GTX 1060 w/ 6GB, 512GB M.2 SSD, 500GB SATA SSD. I only turn ALM off to see what things I build look like without it. Sometimes some lighting adjustment is needed.

Ah yes, I really love the effect of DoF but it does slow things down so that will probably just get turned on for photos if anything or in a low lag place.

Thanks everyone for your input! I really appreciate it. I've been away for some time and wasn't sure if having ALM or Bump/Shiny on was the norm by now or not.
I don't want to turn it off myself, now that iridescence is possible it's a whole new SL world to me!

October 2, 2017

Just curious how many people out there use the Advanced Lighting Model with Bump Mapping and Shiny settings turned on versus how many don't?
Now that I am able to run it I have it on most of the time and prefer to create things that will take advantage of it, but are there still a lot of people who don't? I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who is into being a fantasy avatar and more specifically, fairies.

October 1, 2017

@Fluffy SharkfinDude seriously, you saved me from so much frustration! All I need now is to find a time machine and use this method a week ago, ha!

October 1, 2017

19 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Sorry, I think you have the wrong idea, you don't attach the non-rigged wings to the rigged mesh, you wear the rigged mesh object which fixes the mWing1 bone positions separately, then you need to attach each non-rigged wing to the corresponding wing attachment point, then rotate and reposition it to align with the bones of the wing so that the pivot point for the wing matches the position of the origin for mWing1 (in order to do this go to the Develop menu at the top of the screen and choose Avatar > Show Bones so you can see the wing bones of your avatar).

Once you have the non-rigged wings positioned so they line up with the wing bones of your avatar, then as long as the wing animation you're using is only rotating mWing1 the non-rigged wings should stay aligned.

So are you saying that I would need to make a single mesh object that is rigged to the SL Avatar armature in Avastar that doesn't need to be attached to each wing bone, but rather gets rigged / skinned / binded to a single point via let's say, the spine or wing root bone? And then after importing the rigged mesh object and wearing it, I then attach each prim wing to the corresponding wing bone while in the Show Bones mode?
If this works, you are a hero. A hero I tell you.

October 1, 2017

40 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Yes, if you were to use flexi-prims in your non-rigged attachments it would probably give the same appearance of "flexing" (depending on the orientation and settings you use for the flexi-prims) without the need for rigging. Honestly I think that "results may vary" will be kind of an understatement, I can imagine how if you get them just right they could look pretty cool, but I foresee a lot of tweaking and fiddling to get them to that point (it's been a really long time since I played with flexi-prims much but I do remember them being kind of glitchy and annoying to work with).

If you're going to use non-rigged attachments then you won't need to rig any part of the wings, at most you'll need a separate rigged mesh attachment (which can basically be made 100% transparent or hidden in some other way) to set the joint offsets. There are a couple of Bento tails that use the same system to adjust the length of the tail without having to include multiple sizes, you simply attach the appropriate "resizer" attachment for the tail length you want and that offsets the bone positions to change the length of the rigged mesh tail you're wearing. That way you can supply something which repositions the mWing1 origin to the right place while not having to include any rigged mesh in your otherwise non-rigged wings (it also means you can potentially provide different versions of the rigged mesh attachment to account for different avatar sizes).

It's Maya, but the same would apply in Blender/Avastar.

Not entirely sure what you mean by a "wing adapter" but it sounds similar to the concept I described above with having a separate rigged mesh attachment to set the offsets of mWing1?

It does seem to be the "big thing" at the moment, and even if it doesn't turn out the way you expected chances are you'll learn some handy relevant skills along the way, best of luck!

Hmm, well I've done what you suggested, using mesh attachments that are rigged to the wing bones that I planned to make invisible, and I tried to attach the flexi prims to that. I had even deformed the armature / rig so that the wing bones were reduced to little nubs the same size as the little mesh base pieces but it still doesn't work Here is a video of what happens when I try to edit the flexi attachment. I attached the flexi prims to the mesh piece when rezzed on the ground - since I can't attach them while it's worn anyway - then took it back and attached to the proper wing bone. It had moved away from the original point where it was attached while rezzed on the ground. I can move it okay, but rotating is a hot mess. Every single rotation movement changes its position and moves it farther away from the mesh attachment. I don't know if there is a fix for this but after a week of torturing myself trying to make this work and asking in the forums with no replies, I am DONE, LOL. Done with trying to do it THAT way at least unless someone can point me in the right direction.

October 1, 2017

55 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Since you've abandoned the idea of adding flexi-prims to rigged mesh this is a little redundant, but just to clarify what i was trying to say, rigged mesh will have no problem using multiple wing bones, but were you to try and add non-rigged attachments hoping to make them seem as if they align with the rigged wings and join to the avatars torso at the point where wings would normally pivot then changing the rotation of any bone past mWing1 will change this...

into this...

... (or something equally odd-looking). As you can see from the second image, the alignment of the "fake pivot" on the non-rigged attachment is offset when you rotate mWing2 and the rotation on mWing1 then makes the part that would normally appear as if it were attached to the avatar move around.

As I said, it's not all that relevant since you're no longer pursuing the idea of using non-rigged attachments in conjunction with rigged mesh, but since my previous attempt to explain the problem was perhaps a little vague I figured I'd provide an example.

Ah! Okay I see what you mean now, yes that should work if I don't care about the wings not flexing at all, but I do like the idea of them having a little bit of the appearance of flex, which was the whole reason I was trying so hard to get prim attachments to work because then making the wings flexi would take care of that and I could be lazy about rigging anything ;P Not rigging them would take care of the resizing issue however, at least I think it would? This would mean I would still have to bind the mesh to the armature in Avastar for the to attach to the right place anyway, correct? And then wouldn't that break the ability to resize inworld?
I'm not sure what program you are using to show the animation, is that in Blender or in SL?
Also I thought it would be great if I could make a sort of 'wing adapter' so that any avatar could attach any wings they wanted to it and have the animations as long as they had edit and copy abilities on the wing panels. Alas, that's just not gonna happen. So it's back to rigged mesh or in-world animated flexi prims. It's sounding like people like the Bento animations more though...

October 1, 2017

@ChinRey Well I will try some Bento wings, with various flying motions plus some flex to the rigged mesh. The flexi aspect is the main reason why I tried so hard for a week to see if I could merge a Bento animation with flexi attachments but I'm done with that, total fail. That is, if I can figure out why Blender is so damn unreliable sometimes or why all of a sudden I can't rotate an object anymore Blender is going to drive me to drink, ugh! LOL
If it works though, I'm excited about all the options with animating in there! @Fluffy Sharkfin yes exactly, that's what I want are realistic - or at least, somehow more natural looking since 'realistic' isn't always desirable or practical depending on the environment - movements with some random little flicks and varying speeds of flutter.

Or maybe I'll put out a version of each as a group gift and see what the feedback is. They deserve it anyway for how long I've been gone.

October 1, 2017

7 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

That's because the attachment point for the wing is located near the end of the wing (on the mWing4 bones) whereas the pivot point you need for the wing is closer to mWing1 (on the back/shoulder blades).

As long as your wing animation only rotates the mWing1 bones (which should be okay for insect type wings since they don't have multiple bones so a simple flapping motion using the mWing1 bone would be all that's required) then you should be able to align your wing objects along the wing bones so that they lay along a straight line between the attachment point and the origin for the mWing1 bones.

The problem is the origin of the mWing1 bones are still "floating" outside the avatar mesh rather than aligned with the surface of the back...

...so you'll probably need to use a rigged mesh attachment with joint offsets to fix that, otherwise your wings will pivot in the wrong place when the flapping animation is playing.

You'll definitely need wing animations that only rotate the mWing1 bone though, any movement on the other mWing bones is going to make your attachments fly around in all sorts of crazy directions!

Well if I have to make rigged wings anyway, involving the other wing bones in the animation shouldn't break the attachments as long as it's rigged properly. I see no reason why the multiple bones couldn't be used to add a little flexing motion to the wings and have seen other's rigged mesh fairy wings that do so. I have already transformed the wing bone structure in Blender / Avastar to bring the pivot point of the M1 wing bone closer to the Av back so that's not an issue.
I had just tried to make little base pieces for flexi wings where the base pieces were rigged to wing bones that had been deformed and shortened to a nub to try to avoid the weird attachment issue but it still didn't work so I've given up on that particular method.

October 1, 2017

@Theresa Tennyson if there IS a way to attach plain ol' prims in SL to the wing bones with no rigged mesh, and use animations please do confirm and let me know what I'm missing because it goes all wonky when I try One of the issues for me specifically is that these are fairy wings rather than angel or bat wings. Most of the animated mesh wings I see, that use Bento animations are single panels on either side shaped like a bird or bat wing and using the whole wing bone.
The movements are very different than for a fairy or insect wing so I have not been able to use any existing animations so far.

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