Hello again old acquaintances!

#1

I’ve been missing for a while since my last post here. To be honest I’m much like some others here - more of a 3d artist or asset creator than a programmer /coder /developer. Much of what we talked about here - @Judas - @Menithal et al, admittedly was over my head and too difficult to understand at the time.
I have been busy since supplying a business in SL with rigged/skinned assets and trying to make some extra pocket money but the myriad bodies and lack of developer kit generosity is causing too much weight painting for various different shapes - fitted mesh for 5 different popular bodies with avastar per item - means all rigging and no play makes Archie Stanton a dull boy. and I have kinda backed away from it all for time being.
I have also delved into web development a little and bought a domain and began putting a website together. I have delved into the realms of grabbing and using custom CSS and accessing my domain folders with filezilla etc. Stuff which to me was a foreign language a few months ago. I feel this will prove handy.
I’d Just like to say HI again, and show you the stuff I beeen making in my absence. please ignore home page - i had some tech issues/conflicts with a plugin and only fixed it 2 days back. Otherwise it’s starting to come together.

http://www.meschene.com

It is still my aim to bring some fine avatars to hifi, the womans face I just made should give you some idea of the quality I’m aiming for - she’s not finished and has no hair yet but you guy’s should get the feel for where she’s going now should you care too look under NEW in the navbar.

I’ll be browsing about the forums to catch up and see whats happened. I have one question - does my long absence mean I have forfeited my little plot on earth ?

I’d like to get in and start doing something there soon if it hasn’t been passed on [I hope not!] :wink:

I still have no idea which webcam to buy to be able to have it map my movements to the avatar - any reccomends ?

Arch.

#2

Welcome back,

And no I dont think you have forfeited your plot… Atleast I havent used mine for a while now anyway, heh.

Here are some highlights that probably hit closer to what you do, since you were here last, according to your post history:

  • Camera Facetracking (DDE) has been removed until further notice. Hooks are there, but not used as of the moment. If you have an existing DDE version you could get it to work: Most havent had much luck though. Faceshift also is on rocky ground, as they have been acquired by Apple. Hopefully we will atleast get the ability to trigger blendshapes via scripts with the clients.
  • Lighting and Material system has been changed to a (limited) Physically Based Renderer (Albedo, Roughness, Metallic style) similar to Unreal Engine
  • Nowdays in Beta, and New marketplace was just released.
  • Maya / Blender Avatars and Animations are now cross compatible and interchangeable meaning you can have a Maya character with Blender clothing, and the otherway around. Blender steps is all written down here.
  • Static Mesh can now have generated Physics Hull
  • Lots of performance stuff in the Horizon.

Lots of other stuff has happened as well especially on Scripting, HMD, Hand controllers side.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask about.

#3

Hey @Menithal - thanks for getting back so sharp - appreciate the helpful information, much sounds exciting! - Been looking at Substance Painter recently, considering a subscription due to PBR being the apparent way forward… Blendshapes I’ve been considering as a next move after studying a few things, I remember @Judas’ little demo with blue square head which made it very clear how to get started so i’m looking forward to all this stuff. - but for the next weeks I’m furthering my studying of male / female anatomy and building a body of work to be able to bring quality of avatars up as high as i can. Blender and Maya each way compatible avatars/rigs sounds great!

HMD is something of another debate - been so tempted to buy in - but something better or cheaper and better seems to be lurking all the time…I’m temped by Vive - but not its price hehe.

Thanks again for the info too - I’m on a new machine in a new location since last time so i’ll go see whats required to get inworld this evening over a couple o’ beers… cheers!

Arch. :smile:

#4

The Vive ships with hand controllers. The Rift CV1ships only with the HMD, but when they make their hand controllers available, the price difference between the two units converges to nearly zero.

There are other less expensive HMDs like the hone based ones, but their low cost assumes you already have the phone that works for that purpose. Note though that those systems are pretty much head rotation only. They do not handle lateral movement, and your mileage may vary considerably on maintaining decent frame rates.

#5

No Arch, your plot is still there, according to my records, lot 66 is yours. Welcome back. Maybe not exactly as you left it, I dont know what you had on there. We had a few rollbacks some months ago, some stuff went awol but mostly everything stayed intact.

Its all quite stable now and havent had to roll back for months.

#6

Hey Adrian, thanks for reply, good stuff - I’ve been so busy with fingers
in too many pies - but i’ll be bringing things in again over the next
weeks. Thanks again :slight_smile: