Avastar User Interface (Armature)

This article describes the Avastar User Interface in more detail. Due to the nature of the product the interface is rather large. Therefore we have split the interface into several functional groups. These groups are found at various places in the Blender  framework:

• Export Panel is in Render properties
• Shape controls Panel is in Object Properties
• Rig Display Panel is in Object Data Properties
• Expression Controllers are in Properties Sidebar
• Mesh Tools are in Tool Shelf

Adding an avatar to the current scene is easy. Just select “Avastar” from the Add menu. The avatar will be placed at the current cursor location on the current layer.

The entire Avastar object can be moved by selecting the rig (the orange circles) then move it just like every other Blender Object.

You can add as many Avastar characters to your scene as you like. This allows you to make multi character animations.

The avatar object is made up of eight meshes. The meshes are the standard SL meshes:

• headMesh
• upperBodymesh
• lowerBodyMesh
• eyeBallRightMesh, eyebalLeftMesh
• skirtMesh
• hairMesh
• eyelashMesh

We have added materials to the main meshes:

• avastar:mat:head
• avastar:mat:upperBody
• avastar:mat:lowerBody
• avastar:mat:eyeBalls

Hint: All Avastar meshes provide SL compatible UV maps for textures. Therefore you can use Avastar also for creating texture based clothes. A detailed description is provided in the supplemental document “The OpenSim Avatar Mesh“.

Hint: The materials will only be created by Avastar when they do not yet exist in the current blend file.

One easy way to predefine your Avastar skin is by simply providing predefined materials in your blend file and use the listed material names. When you then add an Avastar character, it will be already textured.