Just a quite note ....
Snatched have now started a facebook page, Feel free to contribute etc
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Snatched-Apparel/267830709991884
Thankies
Bray
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Gor and Mesh .... whats it all about.
Ok .... I've been loitering about SL since early 2006 so I've seen many changes during my time here, from flexies, all the way through to mesh. and on each generation theres the pro and con camps. Most of SL has adopted Mesh with open arms, I know that to the most part there are issues , with sizing etc. but ive heard some various funny statements especially recently So i thought i would put some of those to bed so to speak. Of course some of what im saying could be wrong , but from the information ive gleaned through various sources .. this is what i know
Mesh is laggy.
Ok .. this one I find the most preposterous statement ive ever heard of, lets look at how things work in SL,
Second Life essentially is allready all mesh , even the humble prim consists of a mesh item if you press Ctrl Shift R you can see what Sl sees, even the SL Primitive Cube has 16 vertices per side and 18 triangle " faces" on that side
As you can see from this picture... Its really a mesh , just one that your viewer is pre-instructed to display, so LL says render a cube .. your viewer pulls it out of stock so to speak.
Now ... with this in mind, the two VERY laggiest things in the render engine is Alpha channel and Flexies, despite them being on the viewer side of things , they will slow you down significantly.
Of course those 250 sculptie boots you might be wearing when you consider that just a single sculpty is 1024 vertices thats 256,000 vertices you have on just ONE FOOT!!! couple that with the flexy hair or flexy skirt/kilt you have one ... and then you add an AO, with various script times, Weapons that dont JUST fire an arrow, they also can virtually fire themselves and generate reports for all manner of hits, now that data floods a sim with internal messages on a channel. You may tell people they have to have low personal script times yet you fill the sim with trees , poseballed furniture etc, all of which have render values that possibly are through the roof .... A mesh item thats 3 prims and 2000 vertices most definately is far less intesive on the render engine than that 256,000 vertices boot.
Mesh doesnt fit right
OK ... how can i put this nicely ......... when has ANY item of clothing ever fitted right in SL, even your default AV is a rather ugly mesh, and the way we texture meshes is something called unwrapping, the Sl av is unwrapped in such a way that it can be laid flat so the average developer can texture it easily, yet in order to do that, a large amount of distortion is generated in places like the shoulders, the crotch etc. Even if we put that aside, we have gotten used to things being a certain leval of unacceptable tolerance. A perfect example is textures distorting, or not matching up and sculpties poing through or into your body, flexy skirts dropping through chair seats exposing your legs etc. We have gotten used to these problems as being part of the experience. And through that we have had the anti flexies,. the anti sculpties ... and now the anti MESH ... Mesh doesnt fix everything , it can create with less prims, it can give better results for texturing , and moves when the AV moves .. rather than the " wind tunnel " hair and skirt when you walk.
Of course with the deformer project comming to light .. their willb e more availability to recitify a lot of these issues, but making 6 standard sizes isnt the way , as I make clothes ... and 96% of my clothes FIT!!! because i bothered to know my business, and e.g Gorean men come into two factors .... Hulk ... and Bruce Banner, Woman tend to be harder .. as even though the looks untill recently were either of woman ... or 12 year old girls, there was always things like boobs and bums.. and after all , if we just do basic maths .. if we have 5 sizes for bums and 5 sizes for boobs, and each item needs to be in relation to another, it becomes so completely cost prohibitive, its virtually impossible to cater for everybody and some alteration has always been necessary, yet we do try as you are important to us.
Conclusion.
Mesh is here to stay , that's for certain, its not laggy , and groups like Primus have done extensive testing on its mesh weapons to show its usefulness and proving by filling a sim with mesh arrows with over 60 people firing , and still not touching the lag that prim arrows cause. We understand the concern and fear , but also understand that the fear maybe due to certain factors such as
1. I cant build in mesh, so i will tell everyone its laggy to extend my business
2. I heard somewhere its laggy ..... so it MUST be true
3. Mesh doesn't fit my AV and i refuse to alter to suit.
I believe that unless we are all prepared to stand there .. in simpsons skin, Linden Hair, no sculpties or flexies .. nothing scripted etc and no alphas .. we will ultimately put away our fears and start enjoying those new facilities that are available to us.
Thanks for your time on this extensive read.
Bray
Mesh is laggy.
Ok .. this one I find the most preposterous statement ive ever heard of, lets look at how things work in SL,
Second Life essentially is allready all mesh , even the humble prim consists of a mesh item if you press Ctrl Shift R you can see what Sl sees, even the SL Primitive Cube has 16 vertices per side and 18 triangle " faces" on that side
Now ... with this in mind, the two VERY laggiest things in the render engine is Alpha channel and Flexies, despite them being on the viewer side of things , they will slow you down significantly.
Of course those 250 sculptie boots you might be wearing when you consider that just a single sculpty is 1024 vertices thats 256,000 vertices you have on just ONE FOOT!!! couple that with the flexy hair or flexy skirt/kilt you have one ... and then you add an AO, with various script times, Weapons that dont JUST fire an arrow, they also can virtually fire themselves and generate reports for all manner of hits, now that data floods a sim with internal messages on a channel. You may tell people they have to have low personal script times yet you fill the sim with trees , poseballed furniture etc, all of which have render values that possibly are through the roof .... A mesh item thats 3 prims and 2000 vertices most definately is far less intesive on the render engine than that 256,000 vertices boot.
Mesh doesnt fit right
OK ... how can i put this nicely ......... when has ANY item of clothing ever fitted right in SL, even your default AV is a rather ugly mesh, and the way we texture meshes is something called unwrapping, the Sl av is unwrapped in such a way that it can be laid flat so the average developer can texture it easily, yet in order to do that, a large amount of distortion is generated in places like the shoulders, the crotch etc. Even if we put that aside, we have gotten used to things being a certain leval of unacceptable tolerance. A perfect example is textures distorting, or not matching up and sculpties poing through or into your body, flexy skirts dropping through chair seats exposing your legs etc. We have gotten used to these problems as being part of the experience. And through that we have had the anti flexies,. the anti sculpties ... and now the anti MESH ... Mesh doesnt fix everything , it can create with less prims, it can give better results for texturing , and moves when the AV moves .. rather than the " wind tunnel " hair and skirt when you walk.
Of course with the deformer project comming to light .. their willb e more availability to recitify a lot of these issues, but making 6 standard sizes isnt the way , as I make clothes ... and 96% of my clothes FIT!!! because i bothered to know my business, and e.g Gorean men come into two factors .... Hulk ... and Bruce Banner, Woman tend to be harder .. as even though the looks untill recently were either of woman ... or 12 year old girls, there was always things like boobs and bums.. and after all , if we just do basic maths .. if we have 5 sizes for bums and 5 sizes for boobs, and each item needs to be in relation to another, it becomes so completely cost prohibitive, its virtually impossible to cater for everybody and some alteration has always been necessary, yet we do try as you are important to us.
Conclusion.
Mesh is here to stay , that's for certain, its not laggy , and groups like Primus have done extensive testing on its mesh weapons to show its usefulness and proving by filling a sim with mesh arrows with over 60 people firing , and still not touching the lag that prim arrows cause. We understand the concern and fear , but also understand that the fear maybe due to certain factors such as
1. I cant build in mesh, so i will tell everyone its laggy to extend my business
2. I heard somewhere its laggy ..... so it MUST be true
3. Mesh doesn't fit my AV and i refuse to alter to suit.
I believe that unless we are all prepared to stand there .. in simpsons skin, Linden Hair, no sculpties or flexies .. nothing scripted etc and no alphas .. we will ultimately put away our fears and start enjoying those new facilities that are available to us.
Thanks for your time on this extensive read.
Bray
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
ARGG Me Hearties ..... ITS FINISHED!!!!!
Well me shipmates, I can say finally that the Snatched Buccaneer is finally put out and is complete. What an outfit this was I can tell ya.
Of course you can see the process from the previous post in our blog .. its not been done lightly and is exceptionally well done even if i do say myself. Its high detail and everything is done by us, from textures to Meshes through any scripting and sculpting that's needed to be done.
So what's included in the pack, well there's three versions available
The Natural version.
The Natural version comes with pirate laced boots, leather pants, a sackcloth sash, belt, dirty laced cotton shirt, chest belt, sabre ( not weaponised but will be available through SWS soon) and a traditional Tricorner Hat (in 3 sizes to suit hair use). I have placed a rudimentary hair and beard in the package, I don't pertain to be a hair maker so its just a little extra so its a complete look bar skin.
The Red Version
I bet your thinking ... wait .. thats a blue shirt, well yes it is .... but a red Shirt would make you look like the pirate version of the flash ... and like superman .. what goes better together than blue with red pants eh?
Everything in the natural version is included in this version , just instead with red highlights and for those that are more into the popular culture pirating .. STRIPEY PANTS
and finally .......... The Blue Version
The Blue version is as highlighted with the other two .. however where was red ... is now blue, and the shirt is black rather than Blue.
I know many of you may want to chop and change , but I didn't want to push everything in to one pack .... but for those of you that subscribe to the blog .... just IM me in world with proof of purchase and I will happily send you one of the alternative shirts note however this offer is a SUBSCRIBER benefit and not available to the general public.
I hope you like it ... as I'm exceptional proud of this outfit and I think its turned out absolutely amazing.
Final Note....... I've tried my best to make sure this outfit reaches you in tip top condition with no temp textures etc. ... sometimes they leak through , so if you find something that isn't quite right ..... don't live with it .. tell me and every effort will be made to sort it out for you ( except sizing as alpha mask is supplied ).
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
And whats NEXT.... now its done .... this is HOW it was done
Well , just as Ive now learnt to keep progress on my blog and my builds, the next item im working on right now is something for you piraty folks out there, Heres a quick progress on it , so far ive started making the pants , the shirt, part of the belt, the head wrap and tricorn hat, but ive found that i may have to put some hair with this puppy , which i dont have much experience with , but dont worry , on release i will stuff in a version without the hair too.
Watch this space.....
ok , completed the basic hair, beard and moustach meshes, came out not too bad.
Today so far ....
Well today , I wanted a little break from modelling but not a big one , so I thought that I would do a skin to go with this outfit , so far ive only did the head, and the lighting is totally shyte on it when you bake ..... so im going to put with or without baking on it here today .. just for jollies, theres a lot to be done skin wise ... so please dont judge it yet
ok , completed the basic hair, beard and moustach meshes, came out not too bad.
Well today , I wanted a little break from modelling but not a big one , so I thought that I would do a skin to go with this outfit , so far ive only did the head, and the lighting is totally shyte on it when you bake ..... so im going to put with or without baking on it here today .. just for jollies, theres a lot to be done skin wise ... so please dont judge it yet
 |
| With Baking |
 |
| Without Baking |
Im currently working on the upper body skin .... so I should imagine thats going to take some time , im not texturing anything as a finanl part just yet ... so the beard etc is just placeholders and the skin has yet to have all its detail done, but this is it so far
Last update of the night, as im well tired.... skins i hate , I really dont like them, so i took a reak after trying for a few hours and decided to throw some placeholder textures on some parts .... but at least it will give you the idea on development
Last update of the night, as im well tired.... skins i hate , I really dont like them, so i took a reak after trying for a few hours and decided to throw some placeholder textures on some parts .... but at least it will give you the idea on development
till the morrow ...zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Im pretty certain nobody is watching the progress on my piratey thing, but its ok , i like to keep it updated, so heres an update , been working on the belt and sash , so got those fleshed out , before i start sculpting to generate normal maps etc .. anyway *grins* , heres the update
Its only baked in Ambient Occulsion at 20 samples, just to see how the shading is comming along, as i really hate " blender grey"
and so the sculpting begins .....
but thats it for today , as i have to get an early night .. * laughs* .. remember those pre SL.
ok little update on my outfit for today , at least so far. Ive finished sculpting the MC Hammer style Pirate Pants and the sash , I need to work out some way of doing the fringe on ends. but ive textured the belt too. will do the boots soon as well, but its a long process before i can even start with the defuse layers. the saving grace is that if Second Life ever decides to activate bump mapping, then i have all the maps for stuff for active shading.
Spent the evening tonight, sculpting the shirt and belt, so I thought i would throw up a quick pic....
Ive done the sculpting , created normal maps .... and so the texturing begins. Not really hard and fast textures yet, as i tend to just do base textures with normal maps , then i add the wear etc after. So these are just the basic renders
will carry on with this later..... but for now .. its bed time in the uk , well for me it is .. 3am
Little update, well ... Ive been working hard on this overall, but its starting to get away from me , as being the bloke that I am, I thought, well it needs to be in a few colours, and it should really have a saber , and considering i am also SWS weaponry , I made a saber, then I thought .. ahhh but i need to update my animations , so I started making more animations .. then thought I should make an AO ... yet i havnt even finished my texturing yet .... so I have pulled my ass back into gear and back on track , the saber is being textured as we speak but heres a picture update
YAY!!!!!! Its finished ... see post above for the final results.
Im pretty certain nobody is watching the progress on my piratey thing, but its ok , i like to keep it updated, so heres an update , been working on the belt and sash , so got those fleshed out , before i start sculpting to generate normal maps etc .. anyway *grins* , heres the update
Its only baked in Ambient Occulsion at 20 samples, just to see how the shading is comming along, as i really hate " blender grey"
and so the sculpting begins .....
ok little update on my outfit for today , at least so far. Ive finished sculpting the MC Hammer style Pirate Pants and the sash , I need to work out some way of doing the fringe on ends. but ive textured the belt too. will do the boots soon as well, but its a long process before i can even start with the defuse layers. the saving grace is that if Second Life ever decides to activate bump mapping, then i have all the maps for stuff for active shading.
Spent the evening tonight, sculpting the shirt and belt, so I thought i would throw up a quick pic....
Ive done the sculpting , created normal maps .... and so the texturing begins. Not really hard and fast textures yet, as i tend to just do base textures with normal maps , then i add the wear etc after. So these are just the basic renders
Little update, well ... Ive been working hard on this overall, but its starting to get away from me , as being the bloke that I am, I thought, well it needs to be in a few colours, and it should really have a saber , and considering i am also SWS weaponry , I made a saber, then I thought .. ahhh but i need to update my animations , so I started making more animations .. then thought I should make an AO ... yet i havnt even finished my texturing yet .... so I have pulled my ass back into gear and back on track , the saber is being textured as we speak but heres a picture update
YAY!!!!!! Its finished ... see post above for the final results.
Monday, May 14, 2012
OHHHH NO!!!! - not another new item
Yup with all this sofa fun that's gone on , its taken me a few extra days to release the new item from snatched, as we have been doing a lot of mesh items lately , it is of no surprise that its another mens item. I always liked the blacksmith outfit that i made a few months ago , but as mesh wasnt available at that time it heavily utilized sculpties, this time ... its all mesh , yes , rigged too. Now i know you guys out there now the situation with mesh, if its rigged , its locked to your skeleton, so things like hight etc will effect the mesh object , but your love handles , or belly .. or if you have an av like he-man, conan or the hulk , then you might have some problems. I have tried to average out the general man shape in the gor/medieval situations and other than the t shaped muscle bound chap... heres just an average shape. So ive tried to keep that in mind as the deformer should take care of the rest when it comes out , but until then ... there's an alpha mask.
This is a complete outfit , so i havn't done too many variations of fitting , it is what it is , so you will find strangeness when the parts are worn separately , although the boots, leg wraps and apron are all OK , the shirt and pants will have shadows and alphas just to make them as well fitting as possible without parts sticking out with over twitchy Ao's
So i sincerely hope you enjoy another Snatched Original Item.
The Story of a Sofa.
Well ... a few months ago Tori asked me to help her with mesh , as she wanted to make a sofa and asked me to help , she was terrified , so she went online grabbed a pic of sofa and asked me how she could do it, In simple terms this was the pic she showed me
So I opened up Blender during my dinner , opened up Skype and started to throw together a mesh sofa. It really wasn't that difficult to make as any body who makes mesh can verify. Anyway .... I finished the sofa and tried to give it to Tori who said to me that she wasn't sure she was going to do mesh , but i should just give it out as a promo item, I wasn't overly sure as furniture isn't really my thing, but needless to say she animated it for me, and I put it out as a good will gesture free item. And there it sat for a while, on xstreet. I really dont mind helping folks and I'm not into the aggressive nature that some other builders and store owners are like.
Anyway .... this is the way it was for about a month or so , then over this last weekend I woke up on Sunday to a barrage of messages from various different people in world that Pamela Galli from La Galleria had accused me of blatant ... and i mean blatant theft through copybotting and had at least 2 threads running on the subject, I did read the threads before they were deleted however they were locked for comment, and almost everybody told Pamela that she was mistaken .. yet she would not budge on this issue saying " i know my work" shes proceeded to post libellous comments on every forum , blog, twitter account etc that she can find , yet other than her spoutings has give ZERO proof that her item was copied by me, but shes is neglecting various things in her posts, rather key points to be fair ... what she does say in her blog is this
"Notice anything? Now I am not saying they are identical because the mesh is not identical. But under copyright law, that really doesn't matter. If someone downloads my mesh, takes it into some 3D program, and changes it a bit -- or even changes it a lot -- it is still IP infringement."
cited from http://lagalleriasl.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sad-tale.html
Now this was posted last night after it had been proven through various means that she was incorrect. but just to cover all bases ... heres the screen shots for you guys
So what Pamela ha said in her blog ..... is that i took her sofa - and brought it into blender, I changed it from being 9 seperate parts and made it into 1 single part, and that i moved all the vertices about, removed rows ... added rows, changed the design slightly such as sloped the arms more, put the seat cushions in different places .. essentially .. remade the sofa, now her accusation seams silly ... as what she has said ...... is " you made a sofa" so Pamela .. you are absolutely correct i DID make this sofa , strangely ... i made it without using yours in any context. In fact it would have been 5 times more work to steal your sofa than the 1 -2 hours it took to make this from scratch.
I Made the leather texture that i used to texture the item .... hey .. no texture packs here or textures stolen from the interweb. I have UV maps, Diffuse Maps, Normal Maps, Blend Files I have EVERYTHING to show that I made this sofa.
Now Pamela has had to change tact from claiming that i literally stole her sofa to the point that its IP infringement, the only problem with that of course ... is that ive taken a common object from the internet , made an interpretation of it and released it free of charge on Xstreet. Im sure many of you know Pamela's store " la galleria" I didnt before this issue , only seeing her name on the forums , and I can say .. Pamela makes very nice " interpretations" of RL objects ... and uses textures on some items that are very good " interpretations" of the RL website pictures that house similar items, and she has " interpreted" a lot of rugs etc. Ive tried to be nice , ive tried to be the better man, ive not attacked her and i did ask her to stop being liablous only for her to seek even more suppot from her blog and twitter as her cries fell on deaf ears on the forums as everyone told her she was nuts , but if she felt that strongly she should complain and lodge a DMCA. thing is ...... she cant, because her FOUR SIMS are FILLED with DMCA dubious content, and the various people that have grabbed both sofas and did wire frame comparisons have told her that there's a similarity but no cigar. I have asked her to stop the defamation , but she just moves it around time and time again. I wont turn this post into a " im unemployed, my sons disabled and i need to SL to feed my kids" posts , as although that in fact is somewhat true , Snatched is something I enjoy doing, I love making things and I love helping people but i share a sim with 2 others ... its a homestead making specialised fantasy items... big difference in market there and big difference in content.
I dont want to fight with Pamela , shes a competant builder , and makes great stuff , really if you want Rl items .... shes fantastic, but ..... to accuse another builder who has done nothing wrong, and given evidence to show hes done nothing wrong , is asinine, its desperate and its just sad.
Yes .... its just sad, that she compairs her 9 prim sofa made out of parts to my 3 prim single mesh free sofa. That even when shes been so black and white proved shes wrong .... she tries to move it over to IP infringement .... yes folks .... you all owe Pamela Galli licence money for that sofa in your real life lounge. This is clutching at straws at some many levels because she is so arrogant she just cant admit that allthough there is similarity she is wrong, There is as much similarity in ANY item in her store ... to the Rl item.
So what do I ask of you ...
Actually I dont ask anything, dont boycott her store , as she makes nice stuff, dont berate her or attack her in forums ... just ask her to PROVE her accusations, just ask her to file a DMCA or alert the lindens just ask her to be honest with herself ... is she doing this to give creative assasination to another builder ? hey I dont know .... but what i do know .. is that i am GLAD that I made this sofa, and I am glad that I gave it out FOR FREE to other people. I dont hold any malice towards Pamela , but i will get her for liable if she carries on slagging me off on the internet and it will much the abuse report she has already lodged agaisnt her for harrasment.
But serious guys ... its your choice.... buy her sofa , or get mine I really dont mind as people who are innocent give things away as a thief is after personal gain , ive gained nothing from this .. in fact it was created to show somebody how to build in mesh , and given away as it was not something i normally do. All I've got ... is to be harassed, defamed and generally my business reputation ripped to bits.
Bray
So the update is now shes claiming substantial similarity, which is actually kinda shows her total ignorance of copy write, as anything that is of a utilitarian nature such as a sofa, cant be copy writed , and her items kind of hit to this
or maybe a 3 seater
but anyway .. heres a you tube video on how to model the sofa, it took me 40 minutes so is sped up a bit to fit.
if you cant be arsed to look at it here .... its on the snatched you tube channel here http://youtu.be/F49aUSWcScM
but please .. Pamela .. if you are watching ... just please stop it , its just hurting Sl creativity, ive told folks how great your stuff is .. and your legal quotes are rubbish, so just let it go.
ohhh and unlike you I don't sensor posts on my blog , and only have anonymous support
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Long Awaited Update
So I apparently have fallen down on my duties of getting the newest items out on the blog. With the addition of a number of RL responsibilities I have found my time quite bogged down with lots of this and that. I have added a giant postie on my wall above my computer to remind me of the need to get these things out there.
With no more roundabouts, let's get to the goods.
First off, Braydon has delved into the world of mesh. Creating an outfit for men that is rich in texture, the Forest Archer in mesh, is one you have to see to believe.
Of course there are three new outfits for the ladies. These are without mesh, but the sculpties are entirely custom created for the outfit and the textures, as always, are of the highest quality and detail. Each outfit comes with the kirtle, jacket, and boots.
With no more roundabouts, let's get to the goods.
First off, Braydon has delved into the world of mesh. Creating an outfit for men that is rich in texture, the Forest Archer in mesh, is one you have to see to believe.
Of course there are three new outfits for the ladies. These are without mesh, but the sculpties are entirely custom created for the outfit and the textures, as always, are of the highest quality and detail. Each outfit comes with the kirtle, jacket, and boots.
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