Blinking

[Miltades]

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone had figured out a way to make ones mesh head blink, without using scripts to fade invarious stages of a mesh head in blinking states or using alpha textures.

The reason I ask is LL have for whatever reason decided weighting to eye bones shouldn't be done. For reasons that make no sense. (Apparently this makes people crash??? Not that I've experienced.)

Anyhow. I have tried placing a secondary eyelid in place just  under the 'open' eyelid and attaching it in world, tot he eyes. As the eyes are what blink and bring the eyelids with them (in this case). Alas, it is crude and hasn't worked well.

Any help would be appreciated. Maybe there are some attachment points or bones or, something I haven't tried yet. 

PS : I do use Avastar.

[Medhue Simoni]

Hmmmmm..... What?

 

Where did you hear that you shouldn't rig to eye bones?

Why don't you want to use a script?

What I have done, and I think works very well, is I make a separate eye lid, and then I use a script to turn the visibility of that mesh on and off.

I also use the skull bone as a jaw bone, but if you aren't doing this, then you could use the skull bone to make your character blink.

[Miltades]

Hey Medhue,

 

From the Firestorm crew. You can no longer rig to eye bones without them going totally spazzy. Unless you use an older viewer, wehich I beleive they are phasing out. So rigging and weigthing makes eyelids go all over the map.

 

I am currently using my jaw bone, for, my lower jaw. If I wasn't, that would have been my go to, but as it is, I like showing off my pearly whites lol.

 

The reason I'm not too interested in a script is partially how my avatar is made (the eyelashes are part of the body as a whole) and partially because I don't think it looks as nice, especially on busier or heavier sims. Lag makes lots of things go, ew.

 

I read something from, years back mentioning 'a' bones. or 'a' attachments. Are these still a thing?

And if you're still getting your eye lids rigged and weighted and working. Could you tell me how and what viewer you are using?  Cheers x 

[Medhue Simoni]

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Miltades wrote:

Hey Medhue,

 

From the Firestorm crew. You can no longer rig to eye bones without them going totally spazzy. Unless you use an older viewer, wehich I beleive they are phasing out. So rigging and weigthing makes eyelids go all over the map.

 

I am currently using my jaw bone, for, my lower jaw. If I wasn't, that would have been my go to, but as it is, I like showing off my pearly whites lol.

 

The reason I'm not too interested in a script is partially how my avatar is made (the eyelashes are part of the body as a whole) and partially because I don't think it looks as nice, especially on busier or heavier sims. Lag makes lots of things go, ew.

 

I read something from, years back mentioning 'a' bones. or 'a' attachments. Are these still a thing?

And if you're still getting your eye lids rigged and weighted and working. Could you tell me how and what viewer you are using?  Cheers x 

---

Sorry, I've been ridiculously busy the last few weeks. I ALWAYS rig mesh eyes to avatars, because mesh has materials and eye can look shiny, like they are supposed to. I've never had a problem with them. As far as viewers, I ALWAYS use the SL viewer to test my items. That said, most of the people I do work for, use the FS viewer, and I've never had an issue. I actually just made an avatar for a FS user, with rigged eyes, and she hasn't had any issues. There is nothing special to rigging eyes. Eyelids I use a script to make the eyelids go visible, or invisible. Yeah, script can cripple a sim, but a simple script isn't going to cause much lag, and if the sim is laggy, it's not going to be because people are using eyelid scripts. The problem of lag caused by scripts have much more to do with particle system and complex scripts. I think every avatar should be allow a small amount of script, for things like simple gesture, animations, and avatar related things.

[Miltades]

Hi Medhu,

I should have been a little clearer. I meant that you can no longer weight to eye bones in the same manner you do for other bones. Doing so causes the same effect that fitted mesh did when it first arrived, where the weighted area stretches across the sim. 

[Medhue Simoni]

Well, weighting to eye bones is done the same way as any other bone. There is no special way. Like I said, I always use and make mesh eye for every single avatar, human or not, and have never heard anyone complain about them. They just work. I can't explain why this rumor persists, other than some creator isn't knowledgable about doing this, did it wrong, and now thinks it's impossible. I not only make mesh human avatars, but also mesh animals, like a cobra, and I'm working on a bat right now. I have to vastly change the SL skeleton to do this, and they have working and blinking eyes. They are also extremely efficient in every way, compared to 99% of the avatars currently walking around SL.

[Medhue Simoni]

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Miltades wrote:

Hi Medhu,

I should have been a little clearer. I meant that you can no longer weight to eye bones in the same manner you do for other bones. Doing so causes the same effect that fitted mesh did when it first arrived, where the weighted area stretches across the sim. 

---

Possibly, you overheard something about using animated attachment bones for the eyes, or for blinking. I know people(meaning LL and Machinimatrix) are working on problems with attachement bones, but I have never touched them, as I've never needed to. There has been issues with attachement bones and compatiblity between LL's viewer and Firestorms viewer for years now, and as far as I know, there still are.