From the Imprudence Blog
It has been an intense two and a half months since we first announced the Imprudence project. There has been laughter, there has been joy, there has been boredom and frustration, stress and near burn-out, and a medley of other emotions thrown in there as well.
But today it’s all worth it, because today the first release candidate of the Imprudence Viewer is ready!
Read the rest for more information, plus sexy download links!
Tags: imprudence
I’ve been plotting and scheming and laboring for the past month on a new project. Those of you who have heard me hinting darkly of a grand manifesto and giggling maniacally in the dead of the night — now you’ll find out why.
From the Imprudence Blog:
Imprudence is (or rather, will be) a major fork of the open source Second Life Viewer. Our aim is to greatly improve the usability of the Viewer through community involvement, thoughtful design, modern development methods, and a pro-change atmosphere.
Why are we doing this? Because we, the Second Life Residents, need a better Viewer, and Linden Lab isn’t getting it done — not fast enough, anyway.
I’m sure they’re trying. They have made some modest improvement. But they are faced with intractable obstacles that block them from making real progress: a lack of resources, an overloaded QA process, and a large established user base who are, on the whole, sullenly content with the way things are — and tend to resist any change.
Those are tough problems, and I don’t foresee Linden Lab being able to get past them any time soon. Rather than continue to push against these obstacles with little to show for it, I’ve decided to carve another path. A community project has its own obstacles, but they are obstacles that we can overcome. They are obstacles we can act against for ourselves, instead of sitting on our hands waiting for someone else to act for us.
Go on and read the full post and our manifesto.
I have high hopes for this project. It has been a long time coming, and there are a lot of people dissatisfied with the current viewer. If you’re one of them, get involved in the project and help us make it better!
What: a presentation of my UI design contest entry.
When: Thursday, July 17 at 3PM SLT (PDT)
Where: Benjamin Linden’s office in SL
Grant Linden has invited me to present my UI design at the SL User Experience Office Hour (SLUXOH) this Thursday at 3PM SLT. Not being one to turn down an invitation from a Linden to show off my goods to the world, I’ll be explaining the design rationale, answering questions from the audience, and waving a laser pointer around and making spaceship sounds with my mouth while we wait for my slide images to rez. I can guarantee it will be a hoot and/or holler. BYOF (bring your own feedback).
By the way, if you’re into this sort of SLUXy stuff, I recommend subscribing to the SL-UX mailing list. There are a bunch of neat people who put forward interesting UI ideas and feedback at sporadic intervals… lots of good times to be had!
P.S. Does this make my butt look FIC?
It’s done! I am pleased to present to you, SL Animation for Blender Newbs. It’s 6 pages long, with pictures. It might take you maybe 30 minutes or so to follow along, I’m guessing. If you have any feedback (e.g. suggestions or praise), leave a comment on any of the pages.
Enjoy.
I’ve been banging away on a tutorial, called SL Animation for Blender Newbs. It’s a gentle introduction to the SL animation exporter, with just enough Blender-fu to get you started. And it has pictures! It’s about 80% done right now; I’m hoping to have it finished up tomorrow or the next day. So, mark your calendars and all that. *4AM head-desk-bonk*
Tags: exporter
A new revision (2008-06-02) of the Animation Exporter is available. This revision is mostly UI changes to improve usability, especially for new users who have not mastered Blender’s UI yet. The new layout will also scale better to different screen sizes.
[Update Dec 15: PLEASE NOTE: If you get an error about a missing pickle, you will need to install Python.]
Here’s the revision log:
And a snapshot of the main view. Click to enlarge:
Enjoy.
P.S. I still deny that I’m maintaining this thing, despite all evidence. :P
Tags: exporter
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!
[Update Dec 15: PLEASE NOTE: If you get an error about a missing pickle, you will need to install Python.]
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.]
Tags: animation, blender, bvh, export, second life
Attention, readers: I’m looking for an enterprising geek to OGLE my avatar — that is, to capture the 3D mesh of my avatar shape.
I will pay L$ or USD$ for a mesh capture of my avatar. I have the following modest requirements:
If you can do this for me, please leave a comment, IM in-world (Jacek Antonelli), or email (jacek.antonelli ~ gmail.com).
[Update: The ever-cutetastic Patchouli Woollahra very kindly OGLE'd my avatar. Thanks, Patchi!]
Back in May of this year, I posted about my work on a script to export animations from Blender to SL-compatible BVH files. Well, as you can see from the comparison screenshot below (click to enlarge), I’ve made a lot of progress since then.
(Mind you there’s some difference between the camera angle in the two shots, and possibly some slight mis-rotation of the hands from SL’s rather zealous animation ‘optimizing’ algorithm.)
Some difficulties I’ve encountered:
Subtlety, be banished!
Nevertheless, my animation exporter script is a very significant step up from Qavimator: smooth blending between keyframes (controlled by my most-beloved Bézier curves); custom rigs for different types of animations; inverse kinematics to provide that extra stick in the feet; layering and blending single actions to create longer animations; and all the rest.
And as it happens, I’m currently in a trial period as animator for one ChronoForge 4D, a manufacturer and purveyor of sharp, pointy things with which to poke and jab at other similarly-minded avatars. So next time you stab someone through the heart and then kick their body to the ground (in SL), you might say a little thanks to the kindly, peace-loving artist who made it all possible.
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