Noob AV Question

I think me being only a week old gives me the right to ask this question.

There are avatars. There are ones where you build individual legs, arms, head, etc. Then there's the avatars where it seems to be one big bunch of prims put together, and they are outlined in a pretty thick black outline. I was wondering how you make those.

I don't even really know the basics of it, and I'm thinking you need to script in the movements.

And this brings up another question: How do you make yourself completely invisible to make avatars that are smaller than you?

Answers would be a great help!

Black Outlined AVs: Basically, its like 2 avatars. Make a Prim. Then duplicate it, make it hollow and enlarge it just a bit. Turn the outside of the 2nd one transparent. Use black as the Inside color. NOW- place it directly in the same place as the first one.
Make sense?

To make yourself smaller- there are "avatar crushers" you can pick up from the Freebie Tiny's that'll do that. Plus some of these avatars work by shoving your avatar underground with the "new" avatar attached above you.

To make youself invisible (sort of)- Invisi-prim. I think there's a free one available at a shop in Luskwood?

Thanks!

It requires scripting to make the arms, legs, etc. to move like you normally would?

As long as a prim is attached to an avatar, the prim moves with the avatar, which means you do not need to script the object in order for it to move with the avatar.

They include a script that continually plays a special animation that bends your arms and legs so far that they fold inside your body.

Some just fold your shins and forearms in, leaving your thighs and upper arms as stubs. Simple prims attached to those will move kind of naturally. It works well enough for simple motions like walking, but more elaborate gestures like dancing won't look right.

A more extreme case is the "meatball" animation, which folds all your limbs, plus your head, completely into your torso. It's better used in non-humanoid avatars like spiders and giant slugs. Any limbs would have to have custom scripted motion.

The black-edged sphere is actually a single sphere prim. It uses a weird quirk of the sphere prim mesh. Here are the steps to make one:


1) Rez a sphere and make it hollow (95%)
2) Select the outside surface texture and make it black. Leave the inside texture alone.
3) Set the begin and end twist to 180.

Step three flips all surfaces of the sphere around. The inside surface of the sphere renders facing outward and the outside surface of the sphere renders facing inward. The net effect is that you see the inside sphere texture surrounded by a black edge from the outside surface.


Take several of these and attach them to different parts of your AV.