SL VOODOO CHALLENGE

[Deadmon]

The eyelids, jaw, ears, are all animated in this by existing SL points on the avatar/skeleton/something. How in the hell was this done?

If you think about it this way, the existing SL human AV is rigged to -something- that allows for the jaw and eyelids and ears and everything to be modified or animated in some way (fingers too)

My limited knowledge theory (admittedly) is that he/she somehow figured out how to animate to those points/whatever that allow the human AV to animate / change as it does.

This isnt necessarily a graphics topic, as it may involve either crazy animation voodoo, or crazy scripting voodoo, or both. Did this person make a custom viewer to do this? Or is it more easily explained?

Obviously this is some sort of voodoo shit, and the challenge is to de-mystify so that it can be replicated for building epicness.

[SalemAdams Wobbit]

Um...my avatar does that. It's basically a script. :P

EDIT: Granted, my battle-ready avatars (yes, I have more than one) are scripted so the base is 0 (in other words, all Ordo and weapon scripts, everything that is related to combat only).

Edited April 9, 2012 by SalemAdams Wobbit

[Riff Petrov]

Isn't your avatar mostly sculpts though? This avatar is mesh. I think he's asking how to animate a mesh avatar like this.

[Deadmon]

You arent understanding what the video is portraying. lol. Its rigged to something on the SL AV skeleton, its all one item. There is no sculpt-animating or alpha-ing or anything like that going on. It is a all one attached rigged head. No separate jaw, ears, eyelids, ect. Its a mesh AV head that works on specially rigged and animated points.

Points that arent available to most people (this person is the only I know of) that has figured out how to use the "extra" points to rig / animate.

[SalemAdams Wobbit]

My mistake. Hmm...I wonder what their company is.

[Larry Furlough]

Things like facial animations are done client side. In the source I believe this is what's responsible for that.

I /think/ that the SL avatar has a bone structure that is pretty basic, so my guess is that digits on hands aren't part of that skeleton. I'm betting money that hands are animated in a similar way to facial expressions. I don't know what file would do that in the source, though. I would guess it's got to do with the LLCharacter set.

A crawl through here could answer some of your questions.

She's probably modified the source. It's entirely possible to make things like flexi sculpts through that. Others won't see it unless they've patched the viewer too, but you can no doubt make a youtube video to showcase it LOL.

[Hokusai Otsuka]

It's my understanding that it could be a multi framed model that uses LL's new keyframe functions inorder to animate it.

[Kellervo]

You can't use those on rigged meshes, though. It is possible to make skeletons with those 'hidden' joints, but to my understanding the skin weights usually get dropped from the model, resulting in a mess.

Posted with iPhone

[Deadmon]

Yeah I know, thats why this is so intriguing because he/she has figured out how to use points not available to most people (whatever animates human eyelids and jaws ect maybe) or the alternative theory Ive heard from a furry designer friend of mine is that he rigs to ears or jaw or whatever, and animates those points by deforming or something.

[Hokusai Otsuka]

Right, keyframing mesh though is simply, making multiples of the same mesh with minor differences and using LL's keyframe function to switch between static mesh objects. I've done this in the past with older games, such as 4x4 Evolution where the steering wheel and driver model are keyframe animated. The keyframe lets only one of the many frames render at once until they're called upon. This is what I think she did for the face. As for the ears, they look as if they are separate meshes and probably animated via object rotation.

[Deadmon]

From what I hear, thats not a viable solution in SL

and the ears are animated parts, you can see in a diff video without hair that the ears are attached to head, not unique items

[Kellervo]

SL caps such animation at ... 6-8 'frames' for mesh. It isn't nearly enough for a fluid talking animation, and on the same rig it'd need to be split into multiple parts.

I'm guessing the creator rigged the pieces to the ear / chin parts and created a skeleton with which to animate them.

That gives me ideas.

Posted with iPhone

[Mark Karlfeldt]

I'm a professional animator and I proudly proclaim that this is some bullshit witchcraft.

[Kellervo]

That is definitely mesh-based animation of some kind. It does look like the blink is based on rotation of some kind (look at how the eyes pinch / twist at the sides, which is pretty unnatural / creepy looking). So it's probably some kind of jury-rigged magicks involving rigging and animating the ears / eyes / chin (which normally has no effect on SL avatars as those corresponding parts are handled differently).

[Deadmon]

[2012/04/11 21:00] O well I sacrificed lots of little animals to the elder gods and then!..well it was really just a lot of fiddling in maya and trying stuff out eheh. Basicly in addition to the standard avatar rig I added bones that matched attachment point names, chin mouth nose etc. for some reason anything with a side designation doesn't work like left or right. then I made animations for them that changed the rotation and worked from there :3

[2012/04/11 21:00] Sweet! So it's pretty straight-forward

[2012/04/11 21:01] What'd you have to do with the ears? I don't really get it

[2012/04/11 21:02] I used chin and nose >.> and then skull, not mSkull for the eye lids