Currently doing a practice run at rigging and weight painting the horse avatar in Blender 2.46. So far its pretty close, I've only had to move one bone. This test run has shown me where I need to make adjustments to the topology, very minor and is a good start on the weight painting. What I need though is a way to mirror weight painting for the limbs, possibly a plug-in which I am looking for.
I have chosen currently to use 2 bones in the neck (neck, head) though I'm guessing from some comments I have seen that at least one of the current mesh horses in SL uses the skull bone for the jaw. I may consider this later if I find either the neck works fine with 1 or that having the addition mouth 'poses' hidden via being assigned to different materials in the figure become too much of a hassle or add to much to the LI (land impact) and/or rendering costs.
I know that definitely the WH (Water Horse) avatar is using the toe joint the same way I am using it though I had gotten the idea from a youtube video of a tiger avatar using it. If I had my own choice of rigging the true upper arm of the horse per limb would have a bone, the jaw would, and each of the ears, the latter so that they could be attached and not separate. I would also prefer the tail to be attached to the mesh itself and rigged with 3-4 bones but that is not currently possible in SL. It is for Cloud Party, which hopefully my figure will be in, especially if they open up withdrawals again. I've only become interested in them in the past month, it looks promising.
I have also been posting my progress on sluniverse and normally post there first as this is one of the places that has helped me on the way.Andalusian Avatar Progress thread on SLU
Still welcoming input, thoughts, queries, and curiosity. If you want to see something done for this avatar or a breed you want done, I want to know. I'll definitely be holding polls in the future to see what modifications and add ons people want for their avatars. I am also wanting to sell developer kits for those who want to make mesh whether static or rigged for the avatar. Basic texturing kits will come with the horse, as in UVs, guides, and AO maps.
I look forward from hearing from people as I develop this.
Peace and Carrots,
Kilynn
That is one heck of a nice piece of work. Interesting to follow the progression, Love it :)
ReplyDeleteThank you ^_^. Even earlier progress can be seen on my flickr. I don't have shots of it but I started out with a box and did the body first. From there in my gallery you can see I them extruded the legs out from that.
Deletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/36016815@N04/