Romaq Rosher

I am not clear the best forum to communicate with Slink hand tattoo artists, but I would be happy to post at places recommended. I would like to pay an experienced SL tattoo artist who can do SLink hands for a "full body" tattoo. I know a custom tattoo done professionally is an expensive request. I am looking for something in the style of Pathfinder Seoni, as seen here: http://paizo.com/image/content/PathfinderCampaignSetting/PZO9237-SeoniTattoo.jpg It does *not* need to be exclusive, I don't care if it is sold to other people. It does *not* need to be a duplicate of the Seoni tattoos as seen in the image, just in the same style with roughly the same coverage including face and hands. If someone already has something that is a close match, that would be VERY happy for me, I could just buy it. But so far, I've not seen anything that looks close and has the same coverage. The best I have been able to come up with is https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Arcane-Ice-Tattoos-by-Caverna-Obscura/4484627? but the artist does not appear interested in SLink appliers, plus it is not as effective as a light 'ice' color on a lighter skin. If you prefer to contact me in SL, I am there as "Romaq Rosher". Thank you for considering this commission.

"Stone" Yup.... EVERYBODY must get stoned! "Slider to scale effect" Yup... if only. Though I think I'd rather have LL working on "Avatar 2" support and build the *NEW* Avatar, one more like http://www.makehuman.org/ and less like the one described on AND while they are at it, they can put a 'look at me I'm not so stoned' controller in the new avatar. I mean, I can dream, right?

Yeah, I wouldn't mind a slider for backing it off to some degree. I do realize a genuine smile does close the eyes, but not... like that. Not so much. That degree is just plain evil and looks hideous.

Thank you for the response. It's just... horrid when I see my character smile.

http://forums-archive.secondlife.com/327/1b/258180/1.html shows how far back this goes, and of course you can 'open the eyes, force smile, take picture' so your static images don't look so ugly when you want to smile... But on using a 'smile script' product, eyes still close, smile still looks creepy. Was this ever put on the 'bug' list? Is there a correction to this travesty in the huge stack of things to fix on making support for new mesh bones? Anything new on this issue and I simply missed finding it? I would love to have my avatar smile, but *not* with the eyes nearly closed. Who cooked up that much eye closure on that animation? And has this person long left Linden Labs?

Just thinking over the whole mess... I'm glad to know Oz has a grasp of the mistrust and anger over 'Old Linden Labs'. He is asking us to give them another chance, and he wants to show the process and the people now in place will make things for the better. As a consumer of both TPV's and the Linden Viewer, and from what I heard of the entire recording... ok, let's go with it. NOT having the LL release crap out while I'm standing there doing nothing would greatly improve my user experience. So would being able to join a party in progress without having the viewer go nutz with the black screen/ one frame per minute choking. If I could chat in a group without it being broken due to lag, that would also greatly improve my attitude towards Linden Lab. I'm going to keep my options open. I'd really like for Linden Lab to show me. I'm not clear on what other way there is to go about it. At least for me.

Listening to http://lecs.opensource.secondlife.com/tpvd/meeting/2012-02-24.mp3 (Second Life issues about third party viewers) Linden Labs has a point, the viewer experience, how people perceive their world, needs to be consistent between viewers. I appreciate that, I applaud that. I also appreciate and understand they have limited resources and limited time, and sometimes in their judgement they simply have to say 'no' to something. Ok, I can go along with that. I very much hope Linden Labs gets THIS point: the community has asked for certain things for YEARS no response or negative response. Region/ Parcel wind-light, for example. Breast & buttocks physics, for example. Extensions on the attachment points, for example. Third Party Viewers provided these features without the 'assistance or consent' of Linden Labs. AFTER third party viewers made this the norm, THEN Linden Labs implemented those features. The perception that Linden Labs has to overcome is the perception, "Thank you for doing our job of listening to 'The Market' and supplying what people wanted. NOW STOP DOING OUR JOB!" We, "The Market" did not feel Linden Labs was listening or responsive to what we felt was important. The Third Party Viewers supplied what Linden Labs lacked, and we are left feeling a very serious breach of trust in the ability Linden Labs has to listen to us, "The Market." Your V2 interface sucked and was unstable. V3 is 'marginally better on the interface', but it's still unstable and for many unusable, and that alone creates a HORRIFIC user experience. Now you have the nerve to tell Third Party Viewers to stop doing such a superior job at serving your market? So... does your "Shared User Experience" mean crashing and sucking as hard as the current release viewer? I know, Linden Labs doesn't see it that way. That's really the heart of the problem as the reason for the 'drama' and lack of trust. Linden Labs... you want us, "The Market" to not be pissed off over your TPV rules changes? We will need to see some action on things like "Avatar 2" cleaning up the suckage of your current avatar mesh (refer to for details of how badly the SL avatar sucks). Convince us we have reason to trust you now on serving us, "The Market" now after having broken that trust time after time after time after time after time after time. And let's get a fix on your current release viewer so it doesn't crash to desktop on a flea-fart, or totally lock up to a black screen with one frame per minute flashing so you can see how badly screwed you are before going black again.What you desire is logical and reasonable. The context of these rule changes within this complete lack of trust between us, "The Market" and you, "Linden Labs" is the source of the drama and outrage over these rule changes. Your aspirations and intentions are wonderful, Linden Labs. But when it comes to implementation, you have a long history of SUCK. That's going to take some work to overcome. Don't tell us, "Well, everything is different now." Show us.

Thank you everyone for your help. I'll muddle through the work arounds, but the Solidify filter is VERY nice, and I deeply regret we can no longer use it.

I'm following along with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1AyEuB0b6M (Multi Chain Hax Part I video) and I would like to follow along with it. The Flaming Pear Solidify filter has a very nice effect, in my opinion, on blending the edges of an alpha channel and I wish to use that affect for various things I would wish to create. http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-alphamaps.html shows much the same thing with a built-in filter. The crucial goal is this: blend colors at the edges of an alpha shape into the background smoothly. Flaming Pear's Solidify is happy, but I'm game with 'whatever works' in Gimp. I fetched the latest version of PSPI for the latest version of GIMP, and it appears to work as expected. I *can* use some of the Flaming Pear freebies, just not Solidify. The image is a .png plant with a transparancy layer. I have tried duplicating the layer and having only that layer selected, but I get the following error: "This filter cannot operate on the image's background. Use it on a layer with transparent regions." I can click on the channels tab and see the RGBA. I made a new Alpha Channel Copy, selected and visible... the filter still responds with the error message. I've used Irfanview, set it up with the filters, some filters work. Solidify returns the very same error message even though Irfanview shows an alpha channel. What's the trick to get FP Solidify to work in GIMP?

Well, speaking just from what little I know (which is damned little) the avatar face really isn't that good either. If you are going to do an overhaul, you really need to do an overhaul. And if Linden Labs has to do all the work, they may as well do *ALL* the work. And as long as they are destroying all the old avatar clothing, skins, bodies and business of SL, they may as well destroy *ALL* the old avatar business within SL. Why stop at the face? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, it would seem to be better to have all the mesh clothing put on hold too until Linden gets around to putting out Avatar 2.0 in the next 10 to 20 years. Or, well... you can do mesh clothing for Avatar 1.0 so that when Avatar 2.0 DOES roll out, the current mesh builders for Avatar 1.0 clothing can better appreciate the destruction of the existing work done by current artists that does not use mesh. We'll have plenty of time to get Avatar 1.0 art in mesh built up and entrenched to make irrelevant when Avatar 2.0 finally rolls out some years hence. If it ever does. I am *SO GLAD* my plans don't rely on how human avatars look at all, or the tech base used. My current plans have to rely on 'micro avatar + prim attachment' tech for now so my avatar can remain 'grid agnostic', as well as to help me learn what I need to make a mesh-based micro. I'd rather the human avatars had better tools I can exploit for my own ends, but it is very happy for me I do not have to *RELY* on those tools. And watching the whole up-ending of an economy is mildly entertaining also. Especially knowing the ones doing the upending will be upended in their turn. But this is an amusement best enjoyed while not being a participant.

So let's bounce this back to Nyx Linden... given what Naiman is saying on behalf of the communiity... 1) that the community appears to want professional grade human meshes strictly through morphs on a level seen by a top tier game... one has no end-user supplied avatar content issues... 2) the community appears unable to make any forward progress towards supplying a technical definition of what a best current practice mesh would be, outside of videos of a top tier game that does not use user supplied avatar content... 3) that the community is willing to patiently wait until Linden Labs is able to invest in an avatar mesh with the low level of control shown in a top tier video game that does not use user supplied avatar content... ... is it safe enough to say that human avatars are simply going nowhere, and will do nothing until Linden Labs makes the total investment in 'Avatar 2.0' morph controls? Is it really reasonable to say there is absolutely nothing whatsoever the community can do towards a better human avatar mesh? Are we really ready to simply lock this thread up as there is nothing further to be said of a constructive nature towards community effort on a human avatar 2.0 mesh? Are we really done with this, yet?

Sure! But would the benefit of a mesh that doesn't suck and options to have several 'pre-morphed' freebie meshes to choose from override that problem? You would use morph targets to make it easier to alter a 'standard male body' to that of a child avatar or an overweight male to a weightlifter. I would see having several versions of the mesh 'pre-morphed' that maintain the same UV map. This may suck as a solution, but which sucks worse: the creation of something better despite drawbacks or having and doing nothing but wishing Linden made it easy to reach the goal? Supposing we had "morphed meshes" I'm not so clear we can have 'old man, young man, male child, obese dude' (nevermind the female versions of these) without using something like http://MakeHuman.org to create a base morph of the target age and body style, then converting that mesh to meet SL mesh requirements anyway. So even if we HAD better morph support on the mesh, I don't know how much it would help in the more extreme cases without the morph controls being complex beyond LL's ability to manage it. I may be wrong, but as I understand it the basic problem is the basic mesh and the sub-optimal UV map. So can we create a better basic mesh and UV map along with the process to 'pre-morph' that basic to desired morph targets? How would the creation of a suite of 'better bodies, better morphs, better UV maps' that can share the same clothing and skins be different from the many bodies up for sale on SL Marketplace that can only be worn and not adjusted? Do those sell? They can't be 'adjusted'. The advantage of an open commercial license product is that someone *could* 'adjust' them, they just have to use the original suite of tools such as Blender to make those adjustments. And as long as each mesh is using the same UV map, clothing and skin textures should be interchangable, correct? Am I close on any of this? I freely admit I really don't know what I'm talking about, I'm just shooting in the dark from what little knowledge I have. These are all issues I'm going to have to deal with on my project, and I have no hope of morph targets just for animal meshes from LL at any point in the future. I'll have to make do with what I can.

Can we make a hybrid of the avatar mesh we would have if we had access to face and hand morph targets? Could the hands and neck of such a mesh be shaped to blend with the old avatar and have all except hands and face transparant? If the hands and face of the desired mesh were shrunk and flattened, would that necessarily affect the UV map? Or if done properly, could we use a hybrid UV map and mesh for clothing and skins today, then when we have the desired morph targets, simply release a mesh with the hands and head, but clothing and skins based on the hybrid UV will still work the same? Does the skin baking of the old mesh cause a clash on the avatar mesh skin so we can't make a suitable blend between the old and new avatar mesh? Has anyone tried?

That sounds like a plan. I know nothing of the code or requirements. Who from this forum would you suggest to volunteer their time if they have it available? Would you have a rough draft of specific targets? http://marianne.secondlifekid.com/ Marianne McCann has an interest in child avatars. A child's size and shape, and critical issues of having a good shape would be something she is familiar with. She has years of experience within SL and an established reputation. As I recall, she is watching mesh issues very closely though I do not recall seeing her posting anything specific in this forum. But she may be willing to be part of a working group that is actually moving forward on the problems associated with Avatar 1.0 and what could be done to fix it. http://www.robinwood.com/ Robin (Sojourner) Wood's templates at http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Technical/SL-Tuts/SLPages/AVUVTemplates.html are a critical part of creating clothing and skins. She would be an excellent person to 'volunteer' for participation if she has time and you can persuade her to join. I would like to see two documents with at least those two names attached. The first document is 'these are the problems Avatar 2.0 could solve in mesh without further involvement from Linden Labs'. The second document is 'these are issues Avatar 3.0 could resolve with critical yet hopefully minimal coding by Linden Labs, and here are the specifics of an approach to resolving those problems.' There are other specific people who should be attached to that project that are well known, well established by many in the SL community. http://blog.machinimatrix.org/ should be involved. There are others. Perhaps there should be a thread in this forum of who should be 'nominated to volunteer' and why, like the above list. Also that thread should have the list of those 'nominated to volunteer, yet declined.' Get a group willing to work on it and publish the specs. Someone on that group should be trusted to accept donations towards a prize awarded to the first who actually EXECUTES an Avatar 2.0 mesh 'to the published spec', and under an open commercial license. If someone actually does the work, they have a right to money. A *FAIR* chunk of money. Someone involved in this should be recognized as trustworthy to handle the funds for a bounty on this thing. I would not even complain if they were to receive a fair fraction of the fund for a handling fee. Is anyone else willing to scare up with volunteers to nominate? I'm willing to beg & grovel to the two names I mentioned if we can get some other nominations. Naiman, are you willing to be on an Avatar 2.0 committee to put together some specs? I could be wrong, but I really thing that one spec (Avatar 2.0) would need to be for a mesh that has ZERO Linden action involved, and a second spec (Avatar 3.0) would be what can be accomplished with specific Linden Lab coding effort.

"Breach of trust in LL issues" http://elfclanvr.grouply.com/message/1645 is the original thread concerning Elf Clan being forced to leave Second Life due to a billing mistake, and how slow LL was to sort things out, and how the LL CEO had to get involved. Zayn Till, the leader for Raglan Shire has been very public of his problems and distrust of Linden Labs, and other Raglan leaders have expressed similar distrust and intent to leave SL. A factor in this distrust has been DCMA issues, but I can't grab specific comments. Black Swan Rezzable http://rezzable.com/ had left in that period with sim pricing, and I recall DCMA issues but I couldn't locate that in a hurry. http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2010/12/16/ozimals-amaretto-in-second-life-copyright-dispute-amaretto-filing-federal-lawsuit/ is a huge stink that makes nobody happy, and some of that funk falls in Linden Labs no matter what they do. Perhaps that is unfair to Linden Labs, but that's part of the package. I really hate it when someone posts, "Well this and that and some other happened" but they don't have SPECIFIC links or bother to document the problem, and that's exactly what I'm doing here, so SHAME ON ME! Please take these things with the grain of salt you SHOULD unless someone can help pin this down to specifics... I recall reading about a 'steam punk-like' build that people loved (much like Black Swan Rezzable/ Greenies) that had the entire build taken down and removed, products no longer sold because of the ire the content artist had over his IP being copied. I recall this as being the fall of last year. I quickly tried to search for these things that I half-remembered, but I couldn't grab enough in search to come up with it. All this builds up to a strong distrust of Linden Labs, particularly in relationship to the communities in general, and a track record of unhappiness concerning LL and copy protection. If I'm not Disney Inc., what hope in hell do I have of being treated fairly or even get a hearing by Linden Labs? If I create things, I have to either fear a total smack-down without a hearing or stress over having my IP ripped with impunity. Because I don't have thousands of dollars to spend just on lawyer retainers, I simply do not matter to Linden Labs. THAT is the general feeling I get from fellow hobbiests. THAT is the impression Linden Labs swims against. THAT distrust of LL is going to permeate any discussion of IP protection issues with mesh, because the problem is not mesh... the problem is LL's current relationship and track record with the 'hobbiest' content creation artists. No technical solution is going to fix that. Thank you Nyx Linden and Blondin Linden for making the attempt through open and candid dialog, and perhaps working together we can reverse this trend. And if there's anyone who remembers the details I lack on the issues I mentioned above, I think it would be helpful to pin down specifics of events where content creation artists felt they had to leave SL or at least remove their work because of IP protection issues. General distrust of LL will take a great deal of work and time. Specific breaches of trust related to DCMA can be delt with in terms of how LL can move forward with better policy and tools so we can avoid repeats of someone believing they have to shut down an entire sim of beloved art simply because they felt they had no protection for their IP and no choice left to them by Linden Labs. That is very much an issue that needs to be repaired, and nothing technical with respect to mesh alone is going to fix that.