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Avastar: -7- From Shape to Mesh

Avastar supports the import of your own shape to allow exact animations made for your character. But we also provide a way to export your shape back into Second Life as a weighted mesh. While it does not make much sense to reimport your already existing shape to Second Life, there are some situations when you actually want to have your shape imported as mesh.

Work with your own SL Shape

Avastar supports the import of your own shape to allow exact animations made for your character. But we also provide a way to export your shape back into Second Life as a weighted mesh. While it does not make much sense to reimport your already existing shape to Second Life, there are some situations when you actually want to have your shape imported as mesh.

But we do not stop here. If you like you even can use an entirely different custom mesh for your animations. However i will not cover custom meshes in this article.

Reasons to support mesh characters:

  • You want your shape setup as a mannequin in world (for your shop maybe
  • You want to use attachment point animations which only work with meshes but not with the defauilt Avatar( Attachment point animations will be available with Avastar soon)

Hint: I assume that you have at least Blender 2.62. that is the first Blender versions that provides a working Collada exporter for Second Life. So you no longer need to install the “SL Collada Addon”

 

Export your Shape from Second Life
On Windows the Viewer is normally installed in the Program folders. Unfortunately the Character shape is also stored in the installation folder.  On Vista and on Windows 7 you must run the Viewer as Administrator. Hint: If you are on Windows, then open your SL viewer by Right Click on the Viewer icon, then “Run as Administrator”.
Ensure that you have the Develop Menu in your menu bar. If you can not see this entry, you can enable it by pressing CTRL+ALT+Q (on Windows)
open the Develop menu and proceed to the Avatar entry
From Avatar proceed to Character tests
And from Character tests proceed to Appearance to XML

When all is running smooth, then you will find your XML file in your installation folder. For me it is in:

C:\Program Files (x86)\SecondLifeBetaViewer\character\new archetype.xml

For you it might be at a different place.

  

Import to Avastar

Add a new Avastar rig by navigating to:

Add -> Avastar

By now you should see a default mesh character and an orange colored Rig around it (lots of orange circles):
Open a Properties window:

 
  • find the “Object” Section (not Object Data!)
  • finally scroll down to the Avatar Shape tab
  • And select “Load Shape”:

By now the default Mesh character has been replaced by your own mesh character. Note, that your imported character is rigged and weighted already. There is no need for any additional step. However you can still change the Avatar shape by using the shape sliders. You find them in the properties sidebar (press “n” while your mouse points somewhere into the 3D view)

You find the shape section below the “Load shape” button.  We provide the exact same shape sections in Avastar as you can find in the SL Shape editor. The sliders are supposed to behave exactly in the same way.

Hint: The sliders are a bit slow sometimes. Currently there is not much that we can do about that.

  

Export as Collada

I recommend that you have installed Blender 2.62 or newer.

  • Enter Object mode
  • Select the parts of your mesh (usually the Head, the upper body and the Lower Body)You might want to also select the eyes, eye lashes, skirt.
  • Important: Also select the Armature. You need to do that, because Avastar changes the Bone offsets.
  • Now locate the Collada Export Helper in the Tool Shelf:

  • Click “Export SL Collada” button
  • A file selector box opens. Here you can specify the name of the export file.
  • Finally press on Export SL Collada:

 

Import to Second Life

You find a short description of the Import on the SLCollada page. After you have uploaded your mesh, you can wear it. It should respond to your movements.

Important: You might find your mesh become distorted when you wear it. This is because your shape has a certain influence on the appearance of the mesh. You have to define a “neutral shape” which cancels out all influence on your character. With Avastar we will eventually provide a way to find the neutral shape. For now you may need to experiment a bit. Best is to start with a new default shape and then adjust the sliders (only the body and head size sliders are relevant)

And now go and dance Collada :)

Here is it as cheat sheet:

  • import model (select .dae file)
  • check “Skin weights” to see if your mesh is OK
  • optional: select “joints” (if you have exported with your armature)
  • Proceed to the “Upload options” tab
  • Check include skin weights
  • optional: Check include joint positions (if you have exported your armature)
  • optional: in the “Physics” tab select a physics shape
  • Calculate weights & fees
  • Upload

12 comments to Avastar: -7- From Shape to Mesh

  • MicrosoftsourceCode
    May 18, 2012 at 9:23 am · Reply

    Making a giant tiny avatar using Blender 2.63 did not match you tutorial. Either the Limit distance for head and chest are not needed any more. When I rescale just the rig with out adjusting anything the whole avatar scales in unison. I follow all the other steps without changing any offset. After saving file I upload to SL. I load the files and an Avatar Shape. The object does not have it’s own unique icon. When I click wear it attaches as a right arm attachment. The height and avatar look ok and I can adjust it’s shape. Whoever when I try and change my outfit all my outfits have the shape of the imported shape. Changing shape of avatar after that has not effect. I have to re-log on to SL for normal shapes to work.

  • Renmiri Writer
    May 12, 2012 at 3:38 am · Reply

    I also get the error. First, there is no “archetype.xml” anymore, now we have a “avatar_lad.xml”. Second, when trying to import “avatar_lad.xml” there is a floating point value out of place and the import fails. There is another xml file in the character folder, “genepool.xml” that imports ok, but that file is the body of a chubby child.

    • Gaia Clary
      May 12, 2012 at 8:45 am · Reply

      the file is named new_archetype.xml On windows it will only show up if you run your second life viewer as administrator. Its a matter of file permissions, because for some reason the new_archetype.xml is written into the viewer’s installation folder.

  • Blaze Columbia
    May 3, 2012 at 7:23 pm · Reply

    I am unable to import my custom shape with the last two versions (419 and 432) of Avastar while running Blender 2.62. It keeps showing an error.

  • isigmund
    January 26, 2012 at 3:02 pm · Reply

    Hello,
    I followd the tutirial and was able to import my mesh avatar to SL. Problem is that it sems I cannot use standard SL skins or clothes from the marketplace on my mesh avatar. To make my mesh vivible in SL, I wear it and additionally use a full body alpha to hide the standard avatar. It seems that using this Alpha also hides he skin and clothes. Am I doing something wrong with using the mesh avatar in SL or is it in general not possible to wear skins and clothes on a mesh avatar ?

    Thanks for your help
    Take care
    Ingo

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