Just when the trademark issue started to fade away from public consciousness, Linden Lab has provided us with an even bigger fish. Continuing Linden Lab’s campaign to strangle your inner child, it seems from all evidence that Dusty, Everett, and/or other Lindens are stepping in and barring the SL Kids community from participating in, and possibly even attending, Second Life’s 5th Birthday celebration. (more…)
A new revision (2008-05-28) of the Blender to BVH exporter is available. Here are the noteworthy changes:
A note about Auto-IK: for this revision, Auto-IK is enabled already, to make it easier for beginners to pose the armature. Just grab and pull on the arms or legs (but not the hands or feet; those won’t work), and the limb will move around. If you don’t want Auto-IK, click off the “Auto IK” button in the panel on the right (about 1/3 of the way down the screen).
A note about the hand and foot control bones: by default, they have no effect. But if you scale them up to scale 1.5 (select the bone, press S, type 1.5, press enter), the corresponding limb will try to reach for the control bone, using IK. You can use this to keep the feet planted on the ground, for example. If you don’t want the control bones cluttering things up, you can hide them by selecting them and pressing H; get them back with Alt-H.
By the way, a tip about using IK targets (like the control bones): it works best if the limb is already (without IK) in a pose similar to how you want it. So, IK just gives it that extra “snap” to keep it in place. If you only use IK without posing first, the limb might bend the wrong way and you’ll have to see a doctor.
Enjoy.
P.S. This doesn’t mean I’m maintaining it… :P
Long-time readers may recall my post last December about an animation exporter project I had been working on. I’ve been meaning to release it to the public for a long time now, but never got around to it… until today!
I’ve cleaned up the script and packaged it in a Blend file with the skeleton (it can’t export arbitrary skeletons as animations, it’s currently tailored to a specific one). The download link is below, but first I’m going to make you read my statement:
This script is the product of countless hours of study, effort,and tweaking. I had intended to use it myself to create and sell animations in Second Life, but plans and interests change, and I don’t see myself doing that anymore.
So, rather than keep it to myself, or let it linger untouched on my hard drive until the heat-death of the universe, I’ve decided to release it for the benefit of other animators and the general public. I hope some people find it it useful, and it makes their lives a little bit easier.
But, I have no interest in maintaining or providing support for it. So, if you can’t figure out how to use it, find someone else to teach you. If it stops working, find someone else to fix it. If you need it to do something new, find someone else to improve it.
I’m not trying to be rude. I’m sure you’re a very nice person. But I have a lot of ideas, and not a lot of time to spend on things that don’t interest me anymore.
That said, if you have the inclination to write me and say thank-you, or tell me about a project that it has helped you with, that would make my day. (I’m jacek.antonelli on gmail.)
- Jacek Antonelli
(May 19, 2008)
So there you have it. Go free, little exporter! Go free!
Both the scene file and the script are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. (As is the image up top.)
Enjoy.
[Update: If you wish to use Blender’s Auto-IK feature for posing, you will need to unlock the left hand’s location. To do this, select the skeleton’s left hand, press N to open up the Transform Properties, and turn off the little lock-shaped buttons next to LocX, LocY, and LocZ. You may wish to do this for other bones as well, depending on your needs.]
Just in case you didn’t have enough giant megaprim sculpty octopods in your life, you can follow the pictoral story of the creation of my Giant Octopus sculpture from start to finish.
Background: Linden Lab has announced that they are planning to implement a system where search results can be flagged as mature, prohibited, spam, or worthy of being showcased.
I’m quite glad to see that some of the Lindens have started to give some heads up about their plans. The “surprise announcements” on the blog come off as arrogant and aloof (”Feedback? We don’t need your stinking feedback!”), and the suddenness of the announcements also triggers an instinctive opposition to change, the gut feeling people get when suddenly presented with something they don’t have the time or information to understand.
So, these advance notices are a step in the right direction. However — and this makes me quite sad — very few of the pre-announced systems undergo any significant changes before they are rolled out, even in the face of legitimate criticism (setting aside the usual wall of bitching and moaning). (more…)