Constructing Advanced Custom Avatars

Is every avatar constructed with the standard in-game prims? If so, are there any courses relating to creating really freaking good-looking models?

I look at in-game objects and architecture, and while some of it is quite advanced, it doesn't compare to the smooth, curved surfaces that I see in some of the most professional avatars, the ones with flowing organic feel to them. I look at some avatars and ask myself how in the world they could have been constructed using the same system.

I'm guessing that the default human models are exempt and use some sort of custom technique to achieve their appearance, but you can't possibly tell me that they're made out of the prims we have access to. Nevertheless, there are indeed non-humanoid (or humanoids that simply don't use the default body system) avatars that have that level of quality.

I've looked for tutorials/FAQs/HOWTOs/freaking personal comments, and I haven't been able to find ANYTHING useful. The best I found was this one big building in SL itself that was devoted to teaching people how to build. It never got into more complex objects and shapes, though. I've looked on Google, on the forums, ingame, on the SL Wiki, asked friends, and I've come up dry.

The sad thing is that I have a job working as a 3D modeller, and am taking courses to advance my knowledge. You'd THINK that I could figure this out. The main problem is that the type of 3D modelling I'm used to is done with programs that give you literally thousands of tools to make the process as easy and elegant as possible. And while I'd be glad to pour hours upon hours into learning the idiosyncrasies of the basic system we as SL users are provided with, and definitely will end up doing so, I'd love to be able to see how the experts create their works, and what they would advise as far as quirks to watch out for and advantages to capitalize on.

I totally, completely, absolutely refuse to believe that nothing has been written on this subject. On the slim chance that there have been no words spoken about this, ever, let us start now.

Drami:

Not sure if this will help, but I asked alot of the same questions in a previous thread.. Only got one response but maybe we can get a conversation going.

The link: /8/8f/53931/1.html


Its not as hard as it seems at first.. but once you get in to it and the more you want to do the more challenging it gets. If you want to do Tinies find a good animation that folds and compacts your avatar first...

Anyways... good luck!

- M

*smiles* Thank you for your reply. To be honest, I read your post before I made my own, and it saved me from asking a lot of questions that I was going to ask. In a rather small amount of words, the messages in that thread gave me a good idea of some of the technical aspects involved in creating an avatar. My main question now is artistic, which wasn't specifically covered.

I've thought about just using the converter (available at /54/09/32283/1.html), but that's not a solution. It's an easy way out.

Hi Drami. First of all, welcome to SL.

Let me see if I can be of some help to you. First, I'll address some of your specific questions/comments, and then I'll offer some tips to get you on your way. As someone with 3D modeling experience, I'm sure you'll take to SL modeling like fish to water, once you get your head around the advantages and disadvantages of SL's limited modeling toolset. (And yes, I'm serious when I say "advantages". You will discover that modeling in SL forces you to learn to think minimalistically, and that your modeling skills will improve as a result. You will become an expert at doing a lot with a little, and that will make you a MUCH better modeler both within SL and without.) Okay, let's get started:


Practice, practice, practice. More on this later.


Correct, there are only two things in SL not made of primitives, the avatars and the ground.


Yes and no. If you're talking about certain quadraped avs like some of the tigers running around, that's done with an animation override to make the av walk on all fours instead of upright. The model itself is still a plain old human avatar. It's just animated differently so that it poses and moves like another animal.

If you're talking about other types of things like centaurs, scoprion creatures, alien monsters, etc., those for the most part are done by attaching prims to the av in creative ways, and texturing them very well. As I said above, this all comes down to practice and artistry. You'd be amazed how some of the most organic looking models are really nothing more than a handfull of well placed prims with really good texturing. Next time you encounter one, right click on it and select Edit, and you'll see the outlines of the prims highlighted. You'll be suprised how simple most of these things actually are.


Aw, don't beat yourself up. Like you I'm a 3D modeler, and my first couple weeks in SL consisted largely of cursing at the computer, and getting really annoyed that what would elsewhere be the simplest tasks seem way over-complicated in SL. In other words, I thought the prim-only system of modeling was silly, limiting, and that there was no way to create anything realistically organinc. All that changed, however, when Starax Statosky moved in next door to me for a while, and I saw the things he was making. For the first time I realized what was possible, and I've never looked back.

The advantage you have, coming in a ywar and a half later, is that you already know what's possible since such things are so much more common now. You don't have to get past the disbelief part like I did. All you really need to do is take a good look at how some things are put together, and you'll "get it". Once it clicks, you'll be unstoppable. Trust me.


You make an excellent point. There really isn't enough good tutorial information out there about how to make organic structures. It's something that I think people kind of stumble across, and then just do. As with many things artisitic, the techniques can be a bit hard to put into words. I've been meaning to put together some slideshow-style tutorials on scifigeeks.net for months now, but I never seem to find the time to do it. Sorry about that.

Anyway, here are some basic tips I can give you. I'm sure some other people will have more:



All of this will serve to make you a more efficient modeler in any application. It's kind of like learning to drive a stick shift after an automatic. At first it seems stupid and silly since the automatic does everything you need it to do in a much easier way, but once you learn the stick, you notice that you've become a much better driver in either type of car. You're much better equipped to interpret the feel of the road, and to understand the car's response to different situations, which makes you better at controlling whatever car you end up driving.

Once you make the transition to "think in prims," you end up much better equipped to build anything you want in any application you want. You'll find yourself automatically analyzing every object you come in contact with in the real world from trees to buses to buildings to dogs & cats to people, and then automatically envisioning the prims they're made out of and the textures that bind them seamlessly together. Trust me; you'll catch yourself doing it and you'll want to slap yourself, but you'll know then and there that your brain has wired itself the right way for some kickass 3D modeling.

Thank you! :) And thanks for going to all the trouble of responding so verbosely and making it all pretty with text formatting. You certainly didn't have to. :)

(Thank you also for providing example formatting code in your post. ^.- Seeing as I don't post to forums that frequently, and the omission of a "code reference" link somewhere near the text entry area is quite glaring. ^^;)



One of the models that stuck out to me the most (even though it isn't really organic) is the Probe Droid. (http://www.slexchange.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=item&ItemID=8371) I wouldn't even know where to start with something like that. Especially the whole "five legs" thing. I suppose that the model is simple enough, but the logistics behind its successful impementation are things I just don't know yet.

I haven't tried it ingame yet, because I never thought about it, but is it possible to see what someone else's avatar is made up of? Preferably without them seeing that telltale line of dots. ^^; That would be embarrassing as hell. o.o



It's always the way that the people who are more experienced end up having the harder time of it, no? Expectations are bad. Once you have them, you don't just get to work your butt off to get something done, you also have to work to get rid of those presumptions.

By the way, I think that no matter how good I get or how comfortable with the system I become, I'll still think it's silly and limiting, implemented by the developers as a way to control any number of things, the first intended one probably being framerate. Necessary, but still sucky.

*is kinda tempted to use that import tool and upload a converted NURBS model, just for the sake of being ornery.. :D*



Most anything having to do with art is taught in a common way. First you learn science and theory, then you learn the technical/engineering aspect, then finally you start to incorporate artistic flourishes. I could easily see a tutorial that first addressed the logistics of prim building (and perhaps included an editorial about the commonalities of anatomy shared amongst various species), then the implementation (biggest and most needed part, imho), and then went on to list quotes/examples from artists who wished to comment on stylizing things. Perhaps, if I get to be any good, we can work together on it and find other contributors. :)



*salutes* Will do! :) Probably as soon as I finish replying to you, actually. :)



Oh, yeah. ^^; Duhness. ^^; No idea why I forgot about that.. my mind must not have been working. *blushes, embarrassed* Considering how spheres are my only true loves, it's rather silly. I guess I was so overwhelmed/distracted by how stupid I thought the prim system was that I wasn't in the mental state to even try to tackle the problem. Which is even *more* embarrassing.. ^^;;

But thank you for helping to motivate me.



*gets excited* Wow, you can *do* that? :D I didn't realize there was a cut tool. Guess I didn't see it. I was easily able to spot the hollowing feature, however, but with no tool to remove parts of the object's surface, I thought it was pretty stupid - not useless, but definitely uncultivated. I got the idea that I was missing something, though.

That kicks ass. :) I kept thinking "if ONLY I had a surface subtraction tool!" and this will probably suffice.



Having worked on several very old games where every pixel counted, I know this one well. :)



Haha, I know what you mean. :) When I first started drawing and painting, I saw everything from the perspective of how to paint it. When I started n00bing around in Photoshop, I searched out places where a little bit of dodge brush would make the difference in a CG rendition. ;) (Loved that thing.. at least till I became appalled by it) When I went on to learn C, accompanied by heavy math and physics training, it was all about how the swinging of the tree leaves was programmed, and nonsense like that. And when I got into 3D.. well, you get it. :)

Seeing everything in SL prims, though.. that's nightmare-worthy..

Thank you to both of you.

I will be the first to admit I am not a 3d designer... more on the scripting programming end of things. So.. your thread here has helped me get a better idea of how to use the tools in SL to better advantage.

I will be in playing with cut tools and torturing now.. lol..

- Mag

I'm not sure if any of these members are still active in SL, but I thought I would restart this discussion--even though the posts in this thread are almost 10 months old. I searched the forum and only three threads had "custom avatars" as part of their title. Searching titles and thread content produced too many results--go figure.

I, too, am interested in learning about custom avatar design. Is prim construction and modification still the only way to create custom avatars in SL?

Are there any options or 3rd-party software that will import NURBS-based models?

I assume you are only creating a linked, group of prims (object) that you then attach to a resident's avatar. The avatar is not actually modified. So, it is more like creating a custom suit of prims for the avatar to wear. I'm I understanding this correctly?

I'm looking to offer custom AVs as well as textures and clothing to residents [yeah, do we need more designers is SL ].

Any answers or corrections would be appreciated.

Well, I'm still here at least. Not sure about the others.


Nothing has changed if that's what you're asking, but slapping on the prims certainly isn't the only way to customize an avatar.



Nope. Even if externally created models could be imported, which they can't, NURBS will never be an option. SL, although not a game perse, behaves just like any other video game as far as 3D is concerend. There's not a single game in existence that uses NURBS. They're simply too computationally expensive for real time applications. They're great for film, and for certain industrial purposes (like designing car dashboards), but they're not at all apropriate for gaming environments. Everythig is in games is polygons. That's not likely to change any time soon.

I hear ya though. I love NURBS. To me, the most intuitve way to model has always been by lofting NURBS surfaces from curves. It feels most like drawing that way, and drawing was always my strongest natural ability. Polygonal modeling, though arguably more important and certainly more applicable to the broadest range of applications, isn't my favorite way to "sculpt". NURBS will always be my first love, even though they're application is severely limited.


Well, yes and no. Your understanding of how attachments work seems to be right, but as I said earlier, that's certainly not the only way to make an avatar. Prims are just part of the equasion.

Before you even get into attachments, there is tremendous allowance for variety in appearance just with the morph sliders (available when you right cick on your av and go into edit mode). I haven't counted, but I believe there are well over 100 individual sliders, each with 100 different settings, providing for millions of customization options on just the av model itself. The morphs do have their limitations of course, but they are quite powerful. It's only when you want to create geometry that the sliders can't accomodate that you need to add prims to the body.

Also, good texturing goes a long way. You'd be suprised how a well painted muscle suit, for example, can create the illusion that an avatar has a massive "comic book hero" body, or how a highly detailed rotting-corpse skin can make the body look hollow and emaciated, while in fact its actual 3-dimensional shape of the body in both cases might be very flat and unineteresting. Good use of highlight and shadow can work wonders.

Finally, don't underestimate the power of animations. Part of what makes us recognize avs as "human" is in the way they move. We're programmed at a very fundamental level to recognize biologic locomotion and equate it to mean "alive". We most often recognize different animals more by the way they move than by the way they look, whether we realize it or not. Think about someone you know who's a afraid of spiders for example. What is that they say always freaks them out? It's not the spiders body itself; it's the creeping and the crawling. It's all in the way it moves.

By changing the way an avatar moves, we can take advantage of that instinctive judgment response, and we can create the illusion that avatars look much more real than they actually do. In other words, 3D will bow to 4D every time.

When we see something that moves like a human, we tend to assume it is human, and we subconsciously downplay the importance of other appearance factors that suggest it might not be. By the same token, make an av walk on all fours in just the right way, and we might assume that it's a lion or a tiger or a billy goat or a dog. Keep it bipedal, but reverse the direction of the knee, and it could be a raptor or a kangaroo or an alien. Fold its knees inside its torso so its feet stick out the bottom and make its arms flap, and it could be a bird or a pteradactyl. Jerk its movements so they're not smooth, and it's a robot. The list goes on and on and on.

The bottom line here is there are lots of factors that go into making great avatars. Explore them all, have fun, and make something great.

Thanks for the detailed response. That's what I need to know. Now it's off to prim land and learning about avatar design.

When I open up my shop, Ill send you an IM.

I haven't been able to get into Second Life, because my computer's too old, but first thing when I do (by the way, I assume the only way to build with prims is to use the SL software?) is to start making human avatars with body fat in nontraditional-for-Second-Life places.

For example, look at this body:

The woman's stomach is about as wide as her hips, yet her legs don't have much fat at all.

All the "plus-sized" human female bodies I've seen in Second Life so far have a very specific hourglass shape that's just stretched or scrunched at certain points. Nevertheless, the lines/curves always connect from one same point to the other, so you really don't get much diversity in body proportionality in Second Life. (For example, inner thighs always seem to go from the crotch to the knee in a very homogenous path--look how similar the inner thighs are on this image compared to my last link or any other female body!)

I noticed that one avatar designer managed to add fat to the left and right of a man's chin in a way that breaks the stereotype for Second Life human male neck/face areas. He/She also managed to pull in that fat in a way that breaks the stereotype, resulting in slight (but not overpronounced) jowls that look very natural for a fifty-year-old man.

Is this only possible on the face, via photoshop face template altering, or do you think this is done through prims and thus can be done elsewhere on the body? I would love to do it on the ankles, since even women with larger legs end up looking ridiculously like runway models as soon as they're wearing a full-length skirt, since their ankles & feet have no thickness on them the way a real heavier woman (or powerlifting woman) would have. (Yes, that's the same body in the two pictures! The ankles allow longer hemlines alone to make the body type seem like someone else's entirely, which is just not realistic enough for my tastes.)

I don't want all avatars to look like this (either left or right picture!)

except when standing with one foot in front of the other. I want options whose legs happen to stick together almost all the way down to the knees when standing in that feet-6-inches-apart stance of the image above.

And how about some fat that comes all the way down to the knee joint, rather than tapering in starting about 2-3 inches above it? Like the right-hand example in this picture:


And what about someone who's ideally proportioned from the feet to the lower hips, but whose body comes in from the maximum hip width only to stick out again almost as much at the stomach, and then narrow out again above the stomach, heading up towards the underarms? Like this:



To do these things, will I have to build a human body from scratch, making my own spheres for every single basic part? Or is it possible to start with some premade avatar and then add additional 2 additional (symmetrical) stretched-and-cut sphere prims along each side of the stomach? And how easy will getting texture to cover these up be? Is it possible to patch in the texture of whatever body I'm working with? Make its color work along w/ the slider?


And, again, how much of these goals of mine have to be done in SL's software versus somewhere else (like Photoshop)?

Thanks for posting this.
I have been trying to figure out myself how to create prim attachments on avs, and my tiny kits,etc.
I even tried to make cod peice and boy that is frusterating.
Hard part is allignment, then get the item to attach and reattach to right place once you get the items up the way I want. I am currently very clueless about this.
Anyway subscribing to thread here is hoping I can read something that gives me some insight.

That's actually their heel you're seeing. Animal legs like dogs and dinosaurs simply have long feet and walk on their toes. Maybe not for the alien though . And I believe there is a program to import external models but it really fills the new ones with so many prims that it's practically useless.

That Floating robot as mentioned above is simply some spheres and a tapered cylinder for the torso, and tapered and non-tapered rectangles for the legs.

For attatching your outfit pieces, are you using a posing pedestal/stand? It will hold your limbs out like a model skinning tool.

- Jolan