Avatar from scratch - obj file

Hi everybody.

I have a question: I've developed an avatar from scratch using poser/maya creating the obj file for shape and the bvh file for animation.

Now, I want to use this files in SL: can I upload my obj file in SL?

Can anyone help me?

Thanks

Sorry, but it can't be done. SL can only use their own simple base avatar for avatars. I really wish I could import a poser-style figure, but SL juat can't do that.

In spite of the huge variety you see in SL, they are all the same base avatar, twealed, deformed, or covered in prim parts.

You mean that if I want to build a particular avatar, I have to build body parts using prims and then attaching them to the avatar?

Yes.

It's sort of like building a suit of armor. You build the pieces and attach them to parts, like your legs, and arms, and then use animations via BVH files to create an "override" that replaces the standard animations for walking, sitting, etc, with ones designed to make your avatar work the way you want it to.

Darn! I had the same question. Back to the drawing board!

Well, theoretically, one could alter the mesh (.LLM) files in the SecondLife\Character folder, but those changes would only apply to that client, and would affect all avatars viewed on that client.

Though if the changes just included additional morph targets, one might be able to distribute shape definitions made therefrom in-world, even though the modded mesh files would have to be distributed off-world, and re-installed after each update. It would also require modding the avatar_lad.xml file, to add the new morph targets and define how the in-game sliders affect them.

Not sure if that's all that would be necessary to save shape definitions with additional channels, or if the client code itself would have to be modded as well. Not sure how a client without the mods would react to a shape definition with "unknown" channels, either. Might ignore them silently, might crash.

Feel free to ignore me, I'm just thinkin' out loud (err... through the keyboard) here.

Give it some time. I heard some amazing news the other day about the future of the avatar. I can't say more, sorry. Unless the plan ends up being another Havok 2, I have no more avatar-related complaints.





(For the unitiated, Havok 2 was the physics upgrade we were promised like 2 years ago, but never got. Hopefully the avatar upgrade won't shere the same fate.)

Tease!

Should I put off making any more clothes for awhile?

I hope that's not in reference to what I said. Absolutely don't put anything off. The changes I was told about could come tomorrow or next year, or not at all. Keep doing what you're doing.

quoted for my thoughts exactly

I was being facetious - but maybe a bit too hopeful too.

When things were relatively quiet in SL, when 5 K concurrent users was a lot, LL was planning radical moves and a committee to consult about possible changes. Some discussion of this at:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/08/01/slviews-2-and-slcc/feed/

However, that was when we were still numbered less than 100K. The emphasis now, as we reach 6 million members of whom 40 K might be online at once, seems to be to make the system stable and scalable. I believe once that has been achieved to a tolerable level, we'll see changes:

mono (make scripts usable for smooth real time movement)
havok 2+ (make physics more realistic)
puppetry (make puppet more realistic, perhaps controllable by mono scripts)

LL have already converted a lot of the communications from UDP to TCP/IP, so progress is being made!

The sad part of all this havok 2 business is that everyoe else is at Havok 4 or above which absolutely can't be done. I would honestly perfer an built from scratch physics engine that fit SL and was current, and didnt break anything.
And I often wondered is the Tao of a large sum of money greater than the linden tao?

At this point SL uses meshes for avatars that are what? four years old? and inferior to those in most virtual universes. I think they will have to be updated sooner or later and sooner seems as if it would be less trouble than later. In fact as things evolve I would expect either residents to be given more power to customize the meshes or an ongoing series of improvements and additional options from Linden Labs.

Id groove on the abilility to download an avie from a third party source. Until that fantasy comes true we are stuck with gluing on prim parts.

wow, would be awsome.... three years in SL pleaseeeeeeeeee, fix the look of the avatar soon!!!!!!!

It was mentioned by Ceera that one could"twealed (tweaked??), deformed". How do you deform an avatar outside of the normal sliders?

I have seen some people make childern and furries that appear to go well beyhond the bounds of the sliders. I know in the case of many furries, they use prims to 'cover' errors like deformed chests and body parts. However once they take the prims off, you see that their shapes are like super long toothpick legs, arms and odd faces.

In the case of the people who make super short avatars, they seem to accomplish deforming the avatar but keeping the body from deforming too much.

Any insight is most welcome.

Existing methods use the appearance sliders and/or animation overriders to change body shape.

Most furries are a normal avatar, with the normal restrictions as far as how much the sliders can change things. They are wearing prims to cover parts of that avatar, and in some cases deform facial features or make body parts unnaturally small to adapt to the prim parts. For example, my favorite vixen avatar is a largely normal Human body shape, and the head is deformed so I have almost no chin, so the prim muzzle covers that deformed face and allows the avatar eyes to show. That avatar couldn't get smaller than 3'10", which is the smallest the sliders can take a female Human form to. That is also the lower limit for a human child avatar.

I also have a "Tiny" fox avatar, that is only 0.5 meters tall. What you see is 100% prims. The entire avatar body is folded and scrunched into a 'meatball' that is just a bit smaller than the avatar's prim body. Prim parts are attached to that folded avatar's body parts. The animation overrider alows the prim body to move more or less naturally. But it is incapable of using most normal animations! Try to dance or to use a scripted chair or bed, and suddenly the deformed body is unfolded, and it looks like you've tortured the poor thing on the Rack!

Most other inhuman avatars work with combinations of these methods. Like I have a quad collie form that reshapes the body for a lot of the form, and uses prims and an animation overrider to get the rest to work.