Nice unique design. Aligons? Alien dragon?

She’s a Photo-synthic Alien. Pretty much a tree changer (why they have no mouths :) ) Could be seen as a dragon, just not one of this world haha.

And thats why i love meshes comming to SL, less detail then a single sculpt and still looking more kick ass ! And nice job on the model.

Yea I muuuuuuch prefer this over sculpts.

Biggest selling point for me is really the UV mapping i tested some old UT2004 models i worked on, on the beta grid and its amazeing how much better a single 1024x1024 texture map can look then several wastefull 1024x1024 textures cluttered over several sculpties... not to mention the horrid loading times resaulting of that XD

No kidding XD I was introduced to 3D through SL, so sculpt texturing was all I knew and bothered to learn. But now that I study 3D animation, I have discovered I have a love for UV's and I don’t know how I lived without them before 8D

cute is the kitty out yet? I just need to save up fer that and get a friend to make it into a sphinx itty breed <3 yer av is perfect fer it

This is my last week of school, then I get a 2 month break. Ill be making sure the cats are done and out in that time!

The Main Problem with Meshes tho is only people on LL's Viewer 2 and even see or use mesh avatars. so people like me who refuse to use LL's crap viewer are out of luck xD that and you cant use textured clothing on mesh avatars

Well, not to seem rude. But if they don’t wish to use the main viewer that’s their issue. 3rd party viewers have caused their fair share of problems, the latest being that some can’t even rez certain types of textures :/ Trust me, I know I get plenty of people asking about issues, only to realise its their 3rd party junk causing it. The LL one may have its issues, but it’s the genuine one, so it’s the one we develop on.

As for the clothing issue, we will have that covered :) we have plans to make both “parties” happy.

Yeah, that "no textured clothing on mesh avatars" thing is awkward, and ... so typically Second Life, if you know what I mean; a (seemingly) arbitrary restriction (probably) backed up pages and pages and pages of technobabble excuses.

Don't get me wrong; I love SL. Getting back to the Metaverse is the single big driving force in my desire to upgrade my desktop and get it back online. Griping about things like this is as close as I've gotten to the SL experience in the last year!

As for third-party viewers -- pffft. Call me when they have reliable Linux support. Linden makes stuff that works on my OS (if not my wheezing archaic hardware).

The textured clothing on mesh avatars restriction really isn't some arcane "Oh, Linden Labs" douchebaggery, it's really a quite obvious side effect of completely replacing the base avatar mesh with something else. The textured clothing for the base avatar only works because LL can guarantee that the UVW mapping on that mesh is 100% consistent with the mapping needed by the clothing 100% of the time. No such guarantee can be made when that mesh is completely replaced with a third-party construct. The mapping is almost always going to be completely different, and that would cause the clothing textures to break *horribly*. There's not really anything LL can do about it. To be clear, I'm hardly a Linden cheerleader, but this is a case where the underlying technology imposes the restrictions.

There, no pages of technobabble required. :)

All right, that DOES make sense. It actually kinda made sense when I started thinking about how clothing textures are laid out in the first p;ace, but even so, that's an entirely clear explanation.

Still, so are most of the other "why can't we do X when it seems so straightforward?" questions.

I don't know enough about UV mapping...but shouldn't it be possible to have *additional* UV info of some sort to tell SL "okay here's where the clothes go"? I'm seeing people loving mesh avs at first, then realising they can't wear human clothes and abandoning them in favour of the still-shoddy human mesh...

For example... WoW fits the same clothing texture to multiple different shapes...how's that done then? If it were possible to make the two meshes actually work with one another, it'd make it a whole lot more realistic as the future of SL avs...

wow works that way just like the old SL mesh body/clothing its all pre-determined nothing is every unexpected by what the developers created. The only way I could see LL's clothing working with other rigged mesh would be either A. the content creators of the grid follow that one UV and never change. B. LL develops a way for the texture bake to project on a mesh and create an asset for us to use or it apply to the UV of the rigged mesh. Option B would still have a lot of issues though if a polygon is in front of another one the first will catch the texture and the last may miss it or only get part of it.

As I see it there may never be a fix for this problem just due to how UV's work. Every game out there makes each "clothing" asset or anything a character would wear just for that one mesh or they keep UVs to the same layout like LL's standard body.

Hmm, that's a huge shame. :/ I know a load of people that would be really upset that they couldn't use the gigantic array of available human clothing with their new mesh avatars, so I'm REALLY hoping that LL creates some sort of at least partial fix. It completely negates one of the ways I very badly wanted to use it, which would be to create proper 'pudgy' shapes for people that actually look like real bodyfat and not strange and pregnant looking.

But...those people would be unable to wear human clothes, which is awful, especially since one of the people who would love that happens to be an absolute FIEND with collecting outfits. :C I'm badly wanting a way to reshape the LL mesh into my own without disabling the deformer slider ability or the ability to wear human clothes. I seriously would see it as a HUGE plus and would not mind having to keep the mesh separate from the attachments still for that, not at all. Is there any consideration toward them letting us do that?

There's still the plus side in that clothes could be modeled onto a mesh avatar to have some shape the way it ought to... Thinking of my fursona's jacket specifically...it should stick out and have distinct shape in places rather than comforming to his body, and it might even be possible to create the chain that wraps around the back and hangs off, which I currently can't have on my av because there is no way to attach a shape like that on the av (see pic: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4272088/ ) Would the jacket be able to be created separately and then attached/detached, or would I need to create two separate meshes, one with and one without?

Either way, I'd absolutely *LOVE* this feature for my own custom av, since he could look perfectly like I wanted him and would be okay with modeling his limited wardrobe onto him. BUT...I really see a HUGE problem with the way I wanted to apply this to my potential future vendor avs, and I'm really disappointed...

I wish I knew how to do it at all, though...what program have you and Dirtiran been using for the meshes, and can you recommend any tutorials for creating full meshes in it? And a guide to UV mapping, and importing them into SL...I don't know that either.
SORRY FOR LONG COMMENT!! x_x

For that jacket you could rig it either as one that just lays over the mesh of the avatar or better yet remove the polygons of what you would not see to prevent any clipping. The chain could also hang off like that with no problems just a matter of weighting the mesh the right way. The only real fix I could see with the current system is the developer of the character would need to make clothing for that asset.

Ll does plan on giving us a way to import more bones to the current set of bones so that opens up more doors for rigged mesh I think.

also I use blender and 3d coat. Blender seems to have the better collada export currently for 2.49b from what I hear of maya/max users they run into more issues than what I've found with blender. Look up a site called blender cookie they have a lot of video tutorials.

Thanks, I'll check out that site then. I saw someone else on here using 3D coat and hadn't heard of it, so I guess I'll look into that too. I've really been wanting to learn how to create proper meshes so I can make my av look like my drawings and mental image...but I barely know anything at all about how to create proper meshes. And since you've been using blender for sculpts, I'm assuming it's much better anyway for that too.

Thanks for the info! Does rigging with bones mean that full mesh avatars could animate extra joints and such? Like digi legs and tails...if so that would be amazing, even if they still can't wear normal clothes (bah!) :C

While that's true, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to make our *own* clothing textures, made with our own UV maps for our characters, and let them bake. The system's already there. It shouldn't care that you're using a different template. But they don't allow it anyway because of the people that will wear old clothing and have it displayed wrong. That's an "Oh, LL." problem. :(

I would not forget that LL did open source mesh and there should not be any TPV's getting left out of this I know of a few that already have support in the works for this new asset type. The only issue I see with a TPV in the early days of mesh is they will not be up to the same level with the code as LL. This is a given since LL is still developing the code and changing stuff around but I would bet by the time we see this live there will be a few TPV's able to render and import mesh with zero problems.

your going to sell those on SL?! Awesome! i'd get one. on another account if its a mesh first since im not 100% sure how the meshes will work. Still really neat i really like the character designs you make.

Why another account? Unless there's something really weird about the code, you should be able to switch in and out of a mesh body just like any other inventory item. Or am I missing something?

maybe but i just want to play it safe till i really get how the meshes will be. cant be too careful <shrugs>

That is, if you're fine with wasting your money only to find out you could've used them fine on your main account.
I personally have a thing against multiple accounts. (I never use them!) Hence, they're kinda pointless to me.

i got the L$ and i have different accounts mostly out of boredom but end up using them in RP areas.

Mesh will work exactly the same as sculpts on the client. There is no need for a new account XD On the beta, people regularly run around in sculpt and prim avs, interchanging between those and their mesh creations all the time. Mesh is not that different from sculpts, people need to realise this xD, it just has more potential than the other detail and load saving wise.

XD i wasn't going to make a whole new account lol, but thanks for clarifying that changing between the two should be no problem

Very very nice! Can't wait to see the finished product.

Wow I am absolutely impressed by your texture work! I mean you pull out so many details out of this low ploy character just with lighting o..o

Thanks! I cant wait to see what she looks like when I add the specular and normal effects <3

want it want it want it o.o

awesome :O

awww. I think it's cute. I love it's little belly!

Ok, that is an awesome design.

Heh. When mesh comes out, I'll be a happy camper.

Oh, by the way, do you know how you can fix the glitch on Blender that doesn't render the UV map texture properly in the preview? When I fully render it, it looks fine. But the preview... it's as if I never used a UV map! I'm just concerned if it'll effect the actual mesh in SL.

I am unsure I have come across this glitch D; (I am not that knowledgeable with 3D programs just yet). But while I work with textures the preview works fine for me, I just upload the image then reload in the UV window as I work.