Can I export avatar in a pose

[Pamela Galli]

I want to make a bedspread that is pulled up over two avis in sleep poses. Is there a way to export each avi in their sleep poses, so I can fit the bedspread over them?

[Gaia Clary]

Here is a quick answer for blender:

 

1. Pure blender: Apply armature modifier, apply shape keys, then export
2. with Avastar: Freeze Shape as static object, then export

 

[Pamela Galli]

Thank you Gaia -- I should have made clear I want to export an avi in a pose inworld, into Nblender where I am making the bedspread.  

[Pamela Galli]

I am guessing, having no experience with avatar meshes, that this question is just too dumb to answer :smileyvery-happy:

But not one to be thwarted, my plan is to build a prim dummy around the sleeping avi inworld and export that.

 

[Gaia Clary]

I don't think that you can export your character in the "current pose".

What you need is to find the bvh file of the current pose and import that to blender as a new action. Then you can aply this action to your armature and scrub over the timeline to find the pose that you want to use for your model.

Here is some documentation to achieve this with blender/avastar:

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avastar/help/motion_transfer/

[Aquila Kytori]

Hi Pam

This is going to be the blind leading the blind ...............

I don't think you can export an avatar with anything other than in the T pose.

If you wanted an avatar in Blender with that "Sleep pose" you would have to save the "Sleep.bvh pose file separately to your hard drive and then import that .bvh file to the blender file you have the avatar mesh. Then "join" ( i don't even no the correct term ) the .bvh bones to the avatar mesh so that the avatar mesh takes up the same position as the Bones.

Anways you can tell i have no experience with rigging meshes .........but that is not going to stop me teaching you how to do it

 So another option is to download the Avatar Workbench .blend file from here  http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avatar-workbench/ and use it to pose the avatar.

This is a .blend file that has:

                           The SL female avatar on layer 1 and the bones on the layer underneath (layer 11).

                           A Make human avatar on layer 2 and bones for that on layer 12.

                          A SL male avatar on layer 3 and his bones underneath on layer 13.

 

Using this blend file its very easy to pose one of those avatars into the desired position and then copy/paste the result into another .blend file and then you could use it as your sleeping dummy.

 

1: Avatar workbench file open in Object mode and layer 1 visible : Select the three parts of the female avater mesh, Head, Upperbody and Lowerbody.

2: Shft + D to make a duplicate of the selected parts and the M to move them to layer 5.

3: Got to layer 5 and with all three parts still selected Ctrl + J to join them into one mesh Object.

4: With layer 5 still visible Shift select layer 11, thats the one below layer 1 that has the bones for this SL female avatar mesh.

5: With both layers still visible and in object mode select the bones. Then change to Pose mode, (you will find pose mode in  list with Object and Edit mode). Change the 3D manipulation widget to the Rotation widget and select a leg bone and rotate it. The avatar leg will follow the bone rotation.

6: Rotate the other bones untill you have the avatar posed as you want it.

7: Deselect all and go back to Object mode. In object mode select the posed avatar mesh. Using Ctrl + C copy the mesh and then go to the Blend file you want to use it in and Paste it there with Ctrl + V.

Next you have to Apply the armature modifier because if you don't when you rotate or scale the posed avatar it deforms horribly. But you will find you cannot Apply the modifier because the mesh has shape keys. Before deleting the shape keys you have to create a new one which ( i think combines them all into one new one ) The image below is taken from http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/5364/how-to-apply-shape-keys

8: Follow the instructions in the image below on how to first create a new shape key before then deleting all of them.

Note it is very important that it is this new shape key that is deleted last.



 

9: With all the shape keys deleted the avatar should still be posed correctly. Now you can Apply the Armature modifier and delete the bones that are layer 1.

Done, the sleepy avatar is now ready to be put to bed.

I see Gaia has already replied ...............oh well .................I expect she has done this before lol

 

[Pamela Galli]

Wow thanks for all the help everyone! Really appreciate it!