Category: Simulator User Group

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group meeting, held on  Thursday March 9th, 2017 at 1:00pm SLT at the the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

HTTP Fetching

As I’ve noted in several recent SL project updates, the Lab is shifting the fetching landmarks, gestures, animations, shapes, sounds and wearables (system layer clothing) away from UDP through the simulators and to HTTP via the CDN(s).

The simulator side of the code is already in place on Aditi and awaiting further testing (see here for more). Vir is heading-up the viewer side changes required to support this work, which is now getting “petty close” to being available in a public viewer (most likely a project viewer). I’ll continue to update on this work through my various SL project update reports.

Rendering Costs

Vir has also been looking at the viewer-side rendering costs of various avatar models to improve the overall rendering cost calculations. This is more a data gathering exercise at the moment, but it is hoped it will lead to improved calculations when determining the overall rendering complexity of models, and will likely mean that, for example, the cost of rendering rigged meshes will at some point be updated.

This isn’t directly related to the potential of animating objects (e.g. for non-player characters). While the Lab is apparently still pondering on this as a possible project, it would mean back-end changes to calculate the land impact of avatar models used as NPCs, rather than alterations to the viewer-side rendering cost.

Animation Transitions

There have been, and continue to be, a number of issues with animation playback, some of which appear to be related to llSetAnimationOverride, one of the server-side functions for controlling your animation state. Some of these were reported early on in Bento, which exacerbated some of them (e.g. quadrupeds crossing their forepaws).

Issues can also occur with jump animation states (pre-jump, jump and landing), as has been reported in BUG-7488. For example, During the meeting, Troy Linden and Medhue Simoni pointed to problems: for Troy, it was with respect of an avatar “sticking” in the landing animation, rather than returning to the expected standing animation; Medhue reports issues in general playback, and whether the transitions will actually play correctly.

It not clear if these issues are all a part of the same problem, but feedback from the meeting is being relayed back to those at the Lab poking at things.

Information and Tools

People are still having problems finding Bento information on the SL wiki – such as the skeleton files. This is partially due to the files being on the Bento Testing page.  It’s also not easy for new creators to find information on suitable tools (e.g. Avastar. MayaStar, etc.).

One suggested solution (allowing for the wiki currently being locked from general edits) is to have a general SL tools page where the various tools, etc. can be listed with links to their respective websites. This could include free tools: GIMP, Blender, Wingz 3D, etc.), plus tools which are not specific to SL can be used within (e.g. Maya, Zbrush, etc), and then add-ons like Avastar and Mayastar.

Such an approach, coupled with a clean-up of the Bento information, might be suited to being included in an overhaul of the wiki Good Building Practices pages the Lab is working on as and when resources are available. Troy has made a note to take these ideas back to the Lab.

Other Items

Transparency Rendering Cost

There was some discussion on whether the rendering cost of a rigged mesh should remain high if it is set to transparent. Some felt the cost should be lower, and Vir noted that the system avatar has a special UUID for an invisible texture when can reduce the rendering cost of the system avatar. However, rigged meshes may not be subject to this check, which may also depend on how the mesh is made transparent (i.e. via a texture or via the transparency setting). He also noted that rendering as transparent could add cost over rendering a rigged mesh as opaque.

There was some discussion on whether simply having the mesh in memory, whether or not it is rendered, could add to its complexity. Vir indicated that as he’s not precisely sure how things are handled, he’d have a look at the code.

Calling Animation UUIDs via Script without the Animation Residing in Inventory

A question was asked whether it would be possible to have a script call an animation via the animation’s UUID without the animation being physically in the parent object’s inventory. The short answer to this is “no”.

While animations can be pulled from objects with modify permissions and used elsewhere, many items with animations (chairs, beds, etc.), tend to have animations in them set to No Copy, limiting the ability to freely re-use them. If animations could be freely called via script using their UUID, this protection would be eliminated, as anyone with the UUID could use the animation as often as they wished, regardless of whether or not a version of the animation resides in their inventory.

This conversation edged into the issue of people being able to pull Copy permissioned inventory from a No Modify object by opening it; however, that is something of a separate situation, which was not discussed further.

Avastar Status

AvaStar is now at release candidate 4, with RC 5 on its way, which may be the final RC before a release.

.ANIM Exporter for Maya

Aura Linden is re-working the code on her open-source Maya .ANIM exporter. She was originally working on it in Maya’s MEL scripting, which would make it compatible with all versions of Maya.

However, after encountering some problems, she is now coding it in Python. This means the exporter will only initially work with versions of Maya supporting Python  (version 8.5 onwards). It may be that once this work has been finished, Aura hopes to be able to go back and complete the exporter in MEL for older versions of Maya.

Mayastar Update

Cathy Foil will have an update for Mayastar appears shortly. When the .ANIM exporter is available (above), it will be folded in to Mayastar, although it is not exclusively for Mayastar.

Splitting the Avatar Shape into Different Elements

This was suggested some time ago as a possible Bento follow-up as a means of making it easier for users to mix and match heads and bodies by allowing different underpinning avatar shapes for both, which could be worn simultaneously. This was seen as particularly useful for users who are uncertain about customising their form using the sliders, or where creators provide No Modify shape with their head or body product, limiting the suer’s ability to modify one or the other. N definitive proposal has been put together on how this might be achieved.

Supplemental Animations

This was also the subject of early Content Creation meetings with Vir as a possible Bento follow-on project. The idea is to allow “supplemental” animations to run alongside the animation states keyed by llSetAnimationOverride(), effectively allowing them to play together, rather than conflicting with one another as is the case at the moment. This is still be considered, but no work has been carried out as yet.

Next Meeting

As Vir is out of the office in week #11, the next Content Creation meeting will be on Thursday, March 23rd, 2017 at 13:00 SLT.

The following notes are taken from the Content Creation User Group meeting, held on  Thursday February 23rd, 2017 at 1:00pm SLT at the the Hippotropolis Campfire Circle. The meeting is chaired by Vir Linden, and agenda notes, etc, are available on the Content Creation User Group wiki page.

Core Topics

• HTTP asset fetching
• Animating objects
• Applying Baked Textures to Mesh Avatars

HTTP Fetching

As previously noted, the Lab is working on moving landmarks, gestures, animations, sounds and wearables (system layer clothing) from UDP delivery via the simulator to HTTP delivery via the CDN(s). This work is now progressing to the stage where initial testing is liable to be starting soon. It’s not clear if this is internal testing with the Lab, or whether it will involve wider (Aditi testing) as well. As things progress, expect the viewer-side changes to appear in a project viewer and then progress through the normal route of testing / update to RC and onwards towards release.

Potential Project: Animated Objects

As noted in my last Content Creation UG meeting notes, the Lab is taking a speculative look at using the current avatar skeleton to animate in-world objects to provide a means for users to more easily create animated objects (e.g. non-player characters – NPCS -, plants and trees responding to a breeze, providing mesh animals which do not rely on performance hitting alpha swapping, etc) – see feature request BUG-11368. for some of the ideas put forward which helped prompt the Lab’s interest.

It is important to note that this is still a speculative look at the potential; there is no confirmed project coming off the back of it, the Lab is currently seeking feedback on how people might use the capability, were it to be implemented. No in depth consideration has been given to how such a capability would be support on the back end, or what changes would be required to the viewer.

One of the many issues that would need to be worked through is just the simple matter of how an object might be animated to achieve something like walking, running or flying. These require the simulator to make certain assumptions when handling an avatar which are not a part of object handling. There’s also the question of how the skeleton would be applied to an object.

Having animated objects does give rise to concerns over potential resource / performance impacts. for example, someone having a dozen animated pets running around them as animated objects could potentially have the same resource / performance overheads as thirteen actual avatars in a region.

One possible offset to this (although obviously, the two aren’t equitable) is that mesh animals / objects which currently use a lot of alpha flipping to achieve different “states” of “animation” (such a the squirrel which can jump from the ground and swing on a nut holder and jump back down again, or the peek-a-boo baby bears, etc., all of which are popular in gardens and public regions) could be made a lot more efficient were they to be animated, as the resource / performance hitting alpha swapping could be abandoned.

It was suggested that rather than having the full skeleton available for animated objects, it might be possible to use a sub-set of bones, or even the pre-Bento skeleton. Agreeing that this might be done, Vir pointed out that using the full skeleton would perhaps offer the most flexible approach, and also allow the re-use of existing content, particularly given that things like custom skeletons (also mooted) would be too big a project to undertake.

Applying Baked Textures to Mesh Avatars

Interest is increasing in this potential project, which would allow baked textures – skins and wearble clothing layers – to be applied directly to mesh avatars via the baking service. This also has yet to be officially adopted by the Lab as a project, but there is considerable interest internally in the idea.

As I’ve previously reported, there is considerable interest in this idea, as it could greatly reduce the complexity of mesh avatar bodies by removing the need for them to be “onion skinned” with multiple layers. However, as I noted in that report, a sticking point is that currently, the baking service is limited to a maximum texture resolution of 512×512, whereas mesh bodies and parts (heads, feet, hands) can use 1024×1024.

These is concern that if the baking service isn’t updated to also support 1024×1024 textures, it would not be used as skins and wearable using it would appear to be of lower resolution quality than can be achieved when using applier systems on mesh bodies. Vir expressed doubt as to whether the detail within 1024×1024 textures is really being seen unless people  are zoomed right into other avatars, which for most of the time we’re going about our SL times and doing things, isn’t the case.

This lead to a lengthy mixed text / voice discussion on texture resolution and extending the baking service to support mesh avatars (were it to go ahead), which essentially came down to two elements:

• The technical aspects of whether or not we actually get to see the greater detail in 1024×1024 textures most of the time we’re in world and in re-working the baking service to supporting 1024×1204 across all wearable layers from skin up through to jacket.
• The sociological aspect of whether or not people would actually use the baking service route with mesh avatars front , if the texture resolution were left at 512×512, because of the perceived loss of detail involved.

Various compromises were put forward to try to work around the additional impact of updating the baking service to support 1024×1024 textures. One of these was that body creators might provide two versions of their products if they wish: one utilising appliers and 1024×1024 textures as is the case now, and the other supporting the baking service and system layers at 512×512, then leave it to users to decide what they want to use / buy. Another was a suggestion that baking service support could be initially rolled out at 512×512 and then updated to 1024×1024 support if there was a demand.

None of the alternative suggestions were ideal (in the two above, for example, creators are left having to support two product ranges, which could discourage them; while the idea of leaving the baking service at 512×512 falls into the sociological aspect of non-use mentioned previously). Currently, Vir appears to be perhaps leaning more towards updating the baking service to 1024×1024 were the project to be adopted but, the overheads in doing so still need to be investigated and understood.

Other Items

.ANIM Exporter for Maya

Cathy Foil indicated that Aura Linden has almost finished working on the .ANIM exporter she’s being developing for Maya. The hope is that the work will be completed in the next week or so. She also indicated that, in keeping with Medhue Simoni’s advice from a few weeks ago (see .BVH Animations and Animation Playback), she was able to overcome some of the issues being experienced with fine-tuning .BVH animation playback, although there are still problems.

The .ANIM exporter will be available for anyone using Maya, and is not something dependent upon Mayastar.

Avastar 2.0 in RC

The upcoming fully Bento compliant version of Avastar is now available as a release candidate.

IK Constraints

Tapple Gao has been looking at IK (Inverse Kinematics) constraints within Second Life. These aren’t widely used within existing animations – although up to about eight constraints can be defined – largely because the documentation doesn’t appear to be too clear. Tapple hopes to improve this through investigation and then updating the SL wiki.

Next Meeting

The next content Creation meeting will be in two weeks, on Thursday, March 9th, at 13:00 SLT.