No avatar, no business

#1

Hi

I used the last 3 days to try to get an avatar without those insane black eyelashes.
So far here what I tried:
**1-Fuse => Maximo => HF (Black eyelashes) **

2-Fuse => Maximo => Blender => HF (rigging get destroyed. Legs doing S, extra space under the shoulders, deformity. )

3-Fuse => OBJ => (fix the alpha in texture with Photoshop) => Maximo (eyelashes looked good in it) => HF (rigging poor, eyelashes are broken again (by Maximo))

4-Fuse => Maximo => Autodesk FBX Converter (2013.03) to get the texture in a folder => (fix the alpha in texture with Photoshop) => HF (rigging work, Material get broken)

5-Fuse => Maximo (FBX Unity) => HF (Black eyelashes)

6-Fuse => Maximo (DEA) => Blender => FBX => HF (T-Poseā€¦ but the material were anyway too affected)

7-MakeHuman + Blender = Damn are you crazy! you want me to rig that manually! (Itā€™s very sad because they are open source and they miss an opportunity to not build a bridge to HF.)

8-ReadyRoomā€¦ where, as the name say it, only the room is readyā€¦ For what I saw, base on what they install on my machine, itā€™s far to be plugged to any asset market that we could try in order to buy.

Apparently, there is not too much any easy options to create an avatar for HF.
So all we have to offer to the new resident is a blue, asexual, naked, nonhuman creature avatarā€¦
(Do you really like to feel naked to explore around ? :wink: )

I understand that you are focused on the core functionalities to just have this universe working.
But HF is basically a complicated thing to jump in for the creator, so imagine for the simple visitor.
And they will expect to minimally have an avatar with a minimum of customizationā€¦ otherwise, that will be ā€œbeen there, done thatā€ rapidly.

I have chosen to invest time here in HF, after have seen which direction have chosen the other pretenders to the metaverse (that I canā€™t write the name).
And to me, HF is more aligned with my vision of the metaverse.
I fear that the game will have been played before the next 2 years. And those little things might have a significant importance. I would be very sad if the market move to any close market solution and left HF deserted.
It will take more than 7 people online to make something happen. People will stay if they feel that they can be something in it, I think it starts by a custom avatar.

That said, if someone has a good idea to solve that eyelashes thing that is not destroying all the rest, let me know.

No, I wonā€™t talk about the chat :wink:

#2

Agrees completely
No built in avatar is like a pool with no water
And no built in chat system is like um forgetting Ur swimming trunks

I tried ready room with the rift yesterday suggests renaming it not ready room
O.o

#3

There is a good reason why I am been trying to push for the Avatar standard to pave way for customizable avatars.

The end result that Iā€™d like to see is for people who know how to create for archeotype/proto/race-avatars that anyone else could use and customize to their liking (to the limit of what ever the Avatar creator has given it) without the requirement of an an external 3rd party program, instead using tools others creators have done within hifi.

Unfortunately I havenā€™t seen any attempt or worklist item to even try to allow those who know to do anything about it (still waiting for scaling bones, being able to set blendshapes via script, among many other qualms) and instead of the dealings with other companies.

#4

I canā€™t believe there is no way to have one of those 2 solutions implemented:

  • An option on the fts package creation to force the FXB to use texture from the texture folder (instead of the embedded ones) [FBX convertion]

  • A way at the loading of the avatar to use the texture from the folder in priority over those from the fbx [a Texture override solution] (that one would be the cadillac)

If we could be able to the deal with the texture directly without have to edit the fbx, fixing a transparency issue or add a custom logo on a shirt would be quite easy to do. Including probably to be able to reduce that ugly bright nostril side effect.

#5

With the mixamo fuse avatar. Not sure how you destroyed the rig.
You need to bake the eyelashes to a seperate texture. High fidelity thinks the amount of alpha is not enough and makes it solid with the default UV map.

That baking to seperate texture worked with my first avatar.
I tried to make later one and i think i failed. SO i just remove the faces at all and use no eyelashes for that test.

Using avatar you made in high fidelity is really still a pain. and readyroom is far from ready. I looked at it 1 or 2 weeks ago. and the options to customize where not enough to make it usefull

#6

Building an in-world avatar maker could eat up tons of time and budget.

As we can see there is a big demand for it, certainly opportunity exists there, but even the pros canā€™t get it quite right yet in terms of providing this kind of thing as a service.

In our AAA games, typical RPG the avatar maker, sliders etc are all very well done, so thatā€™s a standard that is going to be hard to meet for crowdsourced contentā€¦

How can it all fit and work etcā€¦ its ludicrous to even think about how complicated it is. The other thing is if we lock it down, how can it evolve in the future? The minute you lock it down, you are stuck with the UV maps and default animations foreverā€¦

What I would like to see is HF take several of the lower-cost or open source tools, ie CC fuse, make human or Manuel bastioni, and make sure the integrations work with those seamlessly.

#7

The problem is that none of them works right now. And we canā€™t expect to see them fix their stuff for us.
So maybe the solution is to have at least a piece of software to convert them in betweenā€¦ (a bridge) even if this is temporary, that would be already that.
Or have HF more open to allow us to use workaround.

#8

for my money if it used tons of time and budget it woudl be totally worth itā€¦
Look at how people shop in virtual worlds
and its all about clothes, look how people blog about virtual worlds and its all clothes
once people feel proud of their appearance then they want to stay
3rd party solutions dont cut it
they are 2 restrictive develop for and they are so generic bland that verge on funny bad
then look at tired old secondlife

#9

I totally agree to the benefits, from what I see it is actually feasible given the current capabilities in High Fi. After that tablet app tutorial from @MissLiviRose , it made me realize that Hifi is an API call away from an asset management system of some kindā€¦ branded avatar tablet apps?

The whole sliders thing, well its nice yesā€¦ but it begs the question, could High fidelity beat everyone else at this point and become the source for avatar registry with creation tools? Its either partner or build from scratch ā€¦ thats the problem I thinkā€¦

-C

#10

Yeah, for all its shortcomings, SL has cornered the market on customizable avatars. I only wish I could look like in I do in SL, but in HF. Andā€¦I can change my look 100 times a minute.

I think that people want to have an avatar with which they can identify, and it seems to be something that can be done.

#11

Actually

You can direct fsts to get textures from another folder as defined by

textures =

Iā€™ve experimented this so you can do color swaps with avatars and avatar parts, if they use another texture. However you cannot set textures per each material that the avatar uses. instead its redirecting for all textures to a folder.

#12

I see "texdir = " which I already triedā€¦ Iā€™ve just tried to by adding "textures = "
this is not override the embedded textures of the maximo fbx.

I have not found so far any way to convert the embedded FBX to a non embedded one. (that is not break something else)

#13

the texdir does not override embedded textures (it doesnt doesnt work for solely embedded textures, you have to keep them separate at the start)

only ones in another folder. it takes some time to get used to.

#14

I finally solved the black eyelashes issue:

Now that itā€™s socially accepted, no need to
change anything on our avatars.

#15

Iā€™m looking at this eyelashes thing, there seems to be an opacity map rendered by Fuse that needs to be mapped to the albedo alphaā€¦ not quite sure how to do this yet, but looks feasible.

#16
#17

Find me a way to make my fbx getting its texture from a folderā€¦ and I will tell you how to put the alpha on the albedo using the Opacity map.
Here a test I didā€¦ I exported from FUSE to OBJā€¦ without even edit the OBJ, I used photoshop and I merged the opacity map with the diffuse map to get a diffuse map with alpha on itā€¦ I uploaded that to Maximoā€¦ and guess whatā€¦ Maximo displayed my eyelashes correctlyā€¦ ( I did the same with the hairs)
But after have rigged it and downloaded it from Maximo as an fbx, the alpha get lost again. (They just donā€™t support alpha in any mapā€¦ since they use an opacity map to do so)
I can tell you they break it, I extract their map from the downloaded fbx and they are de-alphatized (so this is not HF).
If the texture werenā€™t embedded, it could be fixable simply by using photoshop or gimp.

#18

Ok, I understand what you are seeing, thanks for that, it helps eliminate some scenarios for sure. Still working at it, like you I have successfully masked the albedo for alpha in photoshop. Iā€™m hoping we can unpack the fbx images in blender, will give it a try.

#19

The lack of ubiquitous, in-world customisable avatars is the biggest thing I am missing from High Fidelity.

But it seems HF doesnā€™t want to set any standards, wishing for the community to develop them (like chat). But without all the support needed to create a reliable avatar as @Menithal explains, no one will spend the time and effort creating a standard.

Until there is a standard, none of the clothing, hair, and accessory designers will come on board. No one wants an avatar with a permanent t-shirt and jeans, we want avatars that we can change at a whim to reflect who we are at any given moment.

And it seems that any avatar standard that gets made would need a lot of input from clothing and accessory makers, Iā€™m not sure how under this ā€˜leave it to the communityā€™ notion that such deep, large scale collaborations are going to happen. Not to mention how are clothes stored? Without an inventory we need a way to access and change outfits from different designers. How do designers secure their work to make creating it profitable enough in the first place? How will theft issues be dealt with, who is the authority? How do they sell their designs? What currency is used?

High Fidelity needs to establish a standard, provide tools for designers to create clothes and accessories for that standard so that a market can form - you wonā€™t get enough talented designers if they canā€™t make a profit or canā€™t secure their designs. This doesnā€™t have to be THE standard, just a starting point to build the market.

#20

As of the moment what I have been pushing one: you can find it extensively documented here

Its even pinned by the staff, so they are looking into it.

But the problems is that alot of features for the standards currently are missing, mostly to do with the customization abilities via blendshapes, textures or via bones that is missing throughout for non-creators adjusting them. Which the high fidelity devs have yet to address.

Now Inventory and shops, thats a different thing;
High Fidelity is trying to be a decentralized platform not a centralized world by it self, so thats something one has to wrap ones head around around.

Best description is just looking it like the Internet, with domains being sites instead of it being a ready made world with everything in place. Others have created the packages such as wordpress, and services like Facebook or Instagram around the platform. Thats basically the idea

Someone has to create the web-fronts to sell stuff, and the currency around it on an individual basis. This also applies to everything from Inventory, Avatar customization, and Content Security. But the problem there needs to be people who are able to create such for everyone else to you with this population is questionable of possibility at best.

But to do all of these the devs really need to give the content creators who can to actually create these stuff.

Simplified

  • We need an permanent identification system thats not bound to usernames inorder to have the ability to create an inventory system on domain-or-global scale that would keep to their concept of identity in the metaverse.
  • Since every shop is individual, and hifi are trying to keep everything decentralized, making ā€œownershipā€ harder other than actually having the files on your PC or having the links to assets, until and if Blockchain-ownership ever comes.
  • To create avatar customizations systems, we need features from the scripting API to have the possibility to create systems allowing for such.

But to be honest, Hifi wont be, and is not SL, There will not be a single base avatar, but instead multiple ones, so most of the customization will be going around mesh clothing, built for those avatars.