I need help....

[Mesi-Murasaki]

Ok, I am wanting to make a second life avatar out of the brawl 3d models of lucario... I have no idea where to start. If there is anyone who plays Second Life who might want to help me, please say so here. My second life name is Mesi Emerald. And I apologize if this is in the wrong forum... I had no idea where else to put this.

[Old Rabbit]

You might get more help or advice in the Artwork Techniques section.

http://forums.furtopia.org/index.php/board,9.0.html

[Mesi-Murasaki]

Oh.... ^^;;;;; could you move this than please?

[Kobuk]

Moved here to this forum as the topic fits better here.

[Mesi-Murasaki]

First off I'm not dead lol, just been having to deal with low grades and my computer almost dying.... Anyway, I am still attempting that lucario avatar XD I have decided to make it a mesh avatar. I am working with blender, also I want it to be a rigged avatar. How do I do this and how come when I upload it to SL with the mesh preview viewer, it's giant? How can I make it smaller, like 3'11" in Second Life height? Sorry if I seem like such a noob, ^^;;;;

[Kobuk]

Mesi: I merged your new topic which you had posted titled "Second Life mesh avatar" with your slightly older topic (I need help.) as they are pretty much the same.

[Avan]

I have no idea how sceond life works it, but you can try scaling the model down. Should be a fairly elementary function to be able to scale the mesh. But knowing blender's UI...
You might want to ask Syi/Weiss - he knows blender.

[Mesi-Murasaki]

Mesi: I merged your new topic which you had posted titled "Second Life mesh avatar" with your slightly older topic (I need help.) as they are pretty much the same.

Thanks for doing that, I should have just posted in the first one again anyway.

I have no idea how sceond life works it, but you can try scaling the model down. Should be a fairly elementary function to be able to scale the mesh. But knowing blender's UI...
You might want to ask Syi/Weiss - he knows blender.

Does he use SL? Because SL has a whole lot of requirements,that much I know... And thanks for trying to help

[Avan]

He knows blender

[Storm Fox]

Hope you don’t mind if I jump in…

first, you will need collada, → (COLLADA) but I can't say to much about it, I just don't have a lot of experience with Collada, aside from research.

Now, as for the scale,
Avan’s right about simply scaling down the model, if it's to big,

however it may not be big enough, because your going from (Blender to Second Life) when you need to be going from (Blender to Collada to Second Life)

In blender and most other programs, "one unit, is equal to one meter" (39.3700787 inches),
but collada uses "one unit is equal to one centimeter" (0.393700787 inches),
so you may need to scale your model up, 100 times normal when importing to collada, unless you edit the collada import script.

just be sure to apply the scale transformations in blender, once all your scale changes have been made,
not applying the changes may or may not cause errors when you export, it’s just easier to apply the changes and not worry about it.

And it may also help to take a look here. → (Exporting a mesh from Blender)
it talks about importing blender mesh avatars into SL, and addresses the scale issues.

And finally, I don't know for sure, but I assume that the bones in the rig would need to have specific names in order for the SL animations to work,
maybe that's something collada helps fix, I'm not entirely sure,
But this page has some info and a download that may help. → (Uploading and wearing a rigged mesh)

Now keep in mind that I've done research into making avatars for SL, but never actually made or imported anything,
And a lot of my info comes from the SL wiki.
Beyond that, once you start working outside of blender, there’s not much else I can help with,
my knowledge outside of blender is a little sporadic, so I'm sorry if the info I've given is also, a little sporadic.
But if there’s anything you need to know about, in regards to working directly with blender, feel free to ask.

[Mesi-Murasaki]

Hello Storm Fox   So I imported the lucario model to SL beta just to see how big it would be.... it's huge in SL... huge is an understatement. He's a giant LOL.. I will have to scale it down but I am worried about the .tga textures that came with it. If I shrink down the model, when I put the textures on, would that affect it's appearence on SL somehow?


EDIT: Here is how big he is without any editing or any changes.
 http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/155/lucarioslprogress.jpg/

[Storm Fox]

Scaling the model, will not affect textures in any way, so long as UV mapping is used, which is most likely the case.

(Link to info on UV mapping)

The majority of 3d models use UV mapped textures, and as such,
Texture positions are assigned using the UV coordinate map, the map assigns texture space to a given polygon on a mesh.
If that polygon is re-shaped, or re-sized, the texture will reshape with the polygon,
only if you, re-shaped, or re-sized the UV map, would the texture be positioned differently.

- - - - -

also,
would I be correct in assuming that you don't have the textures loaded into blender?
If so, you really should load them, so that you can see what you are doing to the textures whenever you make changes to the mesh.
because making blind changes is never a good idea, and is guaranteed to bring about new problems.

[Mesi-Murasaki]

Hey, sorry I haven't been on much lately... But i am here now. Me and storm fox decided to continue our pm convo here, to help others who may need help with something similar.

The model is made up of multiple objects, and what exactly does weighted mean? Also in those pictures is the second lucario model that came in the huge thing I downloaded of every character from ssbb. SL doesn't seem to like the first one, at least on my computer.. The models are all posed, and that one had no changes made to it.

[Storm Fox]

Hey, sorry I haven't been on much lately... But i am here now. Me and storm fox decided to continue our pm convo here, to help others who may need help with something similar.

That, and also so others can help you with your project as well as myself,
Because I can help you make a fully animated and pose-able 3D model… In Blender,
But I don’t know if the mesh, rig, vertex groups, and textures, will be fully compatible with SL.
Which is why I recommended bringing the conversation back here, so that maybe someone can offer insight on this.
But that doesn’t mean that you can’t continue on now, and cross that bridge when you come to it,
Although that may make a little extra work in the future, I’m not entirely sure.

The model is made up of multiple objects,

That’s what I figured,
Seeing that the model is separate objects, it would be my guess that the model was converted as groups to objects.
Meaning that the weight groups that came with the model (that are not necessarily compatible with Blender)
Were translated into mesh objects upon importing the mesh into Blender, from whatever file type it originally was.
There are a few different ways to handle this, but I’ll help you take care of that later.

and what exactly does weighted mean?

When I say weighted, I’m referring to the vertex weights.
Each vertex group has assigned vertices,
And each vertex in that group has a weight, (a value,)
And that vertex weight defines how much the vertex is influenced, (moved,) by a parent bone, of the same name as the vertex group which contains said vertex.
And finally, in order for all of this to work, the armature that contains said bone, must be parented to the mesh that contains said vertex group,
Which makes the mesh, the child object of the armature, thus the parent armature influences, (moves,) the child mesh.
There are also other uses for vertex weights and vertex groups, but that’s not necessary at the moment.

Here is an example .blend that I made to help explain rigging and UV mapping → (Link)

Keep in mind that it’s a very simple demo that I through together in about 15 minutes,
But if you study it, take it apart and see what breaks, as well as try to re-create it,
Then that should help you to better understand the features in Blender.

Also you should know that the UV mapping in my example is a bit sloppy, UV maps should fit together more neatly,
But I wanted to keep the faces as separate square tiles so it would be easier for you to play around with, and see how everything works.

And I set up the .blend so that you shouldn’t have to change any settings for the textures to work, but if the mesh appears without textures,
send me a PM and I’ll figure something out.

- - - - -

Now, to get you a mesh that you can start rigging, there are some things that I need to know…

Do you want me to help give you advice on what maybe best to do?

Or do you want me to tell you, step by step, what I would do if I was working on the model?
(keeping in mind, that while it may not be the best method for importing to SL, it will at least get you a working Blender model.)

Also, did you solve the problem of editing your model into a T-pose?
   
   If not, it would help if you could post a Blender screenshot, a top down view to help with the arms,
   and possibly a front view if needed, to help with anything else.
   
   An alternative to that would be if you could upload a .blend of the model in it’s current state.
   You can PM me with the link if you don’t want to share it publicly,
   Just remember that some upload sites share things anyways, and I can’t use P2P.
   
   If you decide to go that route, filedropper works well,
   They'll keep your upload for 30 days from the time of the last download.
   
   And also, dose any part of the model have UV mapping data?
   And if so, is it X axis (left, right,) symmetrical?
   And if not, would you feel up to the task of editing the mapping, in the future?
   
   In case your wondering, all this is relevant to what methods are to be used to edit the models mesh.

And...

Also in those pictures is the second lucario model that came in the huge thing I downloaded of every character from ssbb. SL doesn't seem to like the first one, at least on my computer.. The models are all posed, and that one had no changes made to it.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but do you already have a Lucario avatar in SL?
wouldn’t it be easier to modify / fix that model, than to rebuild a new one?
Or is it that you want to make you own, that you built yourself?

Sorry for all the questions, I’m just trying to understand better, so that I can help better.

[Storm Fox]

Just a note on the example .blend I uploaded in the previous post.

I forgot to click “Update Automatically” in the UV editor before saving,

So if you take a look at the file, Inside the [UV/Image Editor Window] click on [View] and then click on [Update Automatically]

It will make the UV’s much easier to work with, if you move them around,

I don’t know how I forgot to do that, oh well…

[Mesi-Murasaki]

Hi... long time no see. Just pure irl crap... anyway I am back, and will try to be on more often Anyway I've been looking at all Storm Fox has said, and when I get an external hardrive (Which will hopefully be soon, since I am getting more allowence now) I am thinking about just ripping pokemon models from Batttle Revolution (I found a few guides on how to) that way I have access to more pokemon, might be a tad eaiser to do... ect. I would do it now, but my netbook wont even let me put the battle revultion rom on my 16 gig flash drive, even though there is plenty of room on it (I transferred everything on it to different usb drives) It wont let me due to disk cache being filled or something But I am not giving up ^^

[Storm Fox]

I am thinking about just ripping pokemon models from Batttle Revolution (I found a few guides on how to) that way I have access to more pokemon, might be a tad eaiser to do... ect.

There’s a chance of that being better, but I think that you will most likely get more of the same.
These models are not designed for this purpose, and won’t be compatible, or at least no more compatible than what you already have.

Whether with the old model or new ones, you will still have to edit and modify the model to make it compatible for SL.

But in all honesty on this 3D model business, the best advice that I can give as an experienced 3D CGI modeler is to make your own model, from scratch.

That may not be what you want to hear, but it is the best way to go, if this was just a quick edit then it wouldn’t be of much concern.
But what you really need to do, is to learn proper 3D modeling skills, and while it may seem harder to start from nothing,
You’ll be more familiar with the models you build, because you built them.
My experience has always been that it’s harder to work with a model from someone else than it is to build my own from scratch.
So you should really give it a try, it may seem slow going at first, but it will get easier with time.

Anyways,
These are just some thoughts that are worth considering.

[Mesi-Murasaki]

Yes, I guess I should make my own models, but I still want to do this somehow someday I'll take your advice and just play around in blender a little, maybe make something of my own when I get used to it  more ^^ And thanks for being so helpful to a noob like me  I really appreciate it.

[Storm Fox]

I don’t mind helping,

And if you keep at it, things will get a lot easier with time,
just to give you an idea of what I mean…

This is a project I did for an art trade a little while ago, (Link)
I have 7+ years experience, and at my level, this is considered to be a relatively easy project,
About a 3 of 10 in difficulty for me, and it took a little over 20 hours of work, over about 4 days.

When I was at 6 month experience, this would have taken me about 3 month or more to complete, and it would never have looked as nice,
So it does get easier with time, but you will need to keep at it.

And just to make things a little easier, try working with circles and cylinders of 8 vertices,
Cut off one side, it does not matter which, just keep the side that you are more comfortable with (X axis, left or right), and be sure to keep the center most vertices.
Once that’s done, TAB out of edit mode, and add a mirror modifier, and then a sub surface modifier too your mesh in that order.
(A sub surf of 1x is all you need for most work, but 2x is good for fine detail, remember, with most art, less is often more.)

Then TAB into edit mode on your mesh, and go turn your mesh into whatever you want.

When I first started, it took me a year before I figured out this technique, and believe me, doing this will help make things a lot easier, and save a lot of time.

Also,
Should you finish something of your own, and your feeling up to it, you should try posting your work in the artwork announcements section.