Snatched Vanguard Outfit - Sneak Peek

Its not quite ready for release, but I thought i would give a little sneek peek video


Hope you enjoy


Bray

Well  i was hoping to get this out this weekend,  but due to issues with weighting im having to scrap the skeleton and resize and re-weight it  all ,  so the chances of it being done this weekend are virtually zero...  you never know,  could be lucky


HOKAYS!!!!!


Done most of it ,  for those of you like my friend Randal Gloom and Crix Rain who have been waiting ,  its on track for tommorow as long as nothing serious throws it into the trash.
so one day late ...  but its worth waiting for.


Bray

New Tutorial - Sofa

Well .....  here we go ,  heres another tutorial ,  after the initial blender 101,  I've decided to do one for a sofa,  There are a few mistakes i know ...  but mainly as i dont have a script ,  and I dont edit it ,  so its all done live as it is modelled. So any mistakes or changes in track ..  are all seen as and when,  I hope in me leaving those mistakes in ,  you can see that I am human ,  and that its not an exact science.

Anyway .....  i hope you enjoy

Bray

ps .....  the better rez versions of these videos are available on my you tube channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/BraydonRandt?feature=watch

Part 1 - Blocking out,  Seat Base,  Mirroring and starting the arms

Part 2 - Filling in the arms,  detailing the cushion and creating the back cushion

Part 3 - Finishing modelling and checking for issues

Part 4 -  marking seams and Unwrapping

Part 5 - Texturing

remember you can see these videos in a better resolution on our YouTube channel. But that's the sofa completed,  its not as nice as the one I released free on the marketplace as the time allocation isn't the same but the methods and processes are the same and only you can decide to what detail you would like.  That's it finished .. and i will be looking at clothing very very soon

market place shninanigans

So was looking around the marketplace today and as you do  I put in my search words,  and what should come up ..  but pages and pages of Sn@tch stuff, now those of you who have known me a long time know the run in I had with Ivy ,  as I am the owner of the Snatch group,  and was also the owner of most of the snatch domain names.  yet Ivy griefed  ..  yes griefed my old store by buying the land around it and blockading my store ,  joined my group and harrassed my members till eventually I changed the name to "Snatched" this of course was a long time ago ...  I can understand why her meta data would include "snatch" but can anybody tell me how her search meta data can contain the likes of not only snatched ....  but also Luck Inc,  another maker ..  seams that ivy is still continuing her nasty tricks

and just for your enjoyment ....  heres the screen shot of her meta data

Blender - A lesson in self abuse

So as promised,  I have created a small tutorial for setting up blender for SL ,  this is only the first one ,  so I will do more and more as time goes on.  But I hope you like it as there is more to follow.

Im feeling very productive today ,  so ive thrown together the second part of blender fundamentals,  Sorry if my style seams a little bit unusual,  but i like to do things as they would be used,  rather than creating a script ,  and going through stages.  so heres the final part of the 101 tutorial and it will be covering loop cuts and extrusions.


Enjoy

NOW WHAT!!!!

I was looking at making a viking outfit , as for quite a while its something that came of some interest ,  I found quite a nice reference which i found to be not really viking but certainly a very rough and ready warrior,  I wont post the image here ...  as well ...  I dont want to pre-empt what might be the death of me  modelling wise ,  but its gonna be a push ,  so I will post lots here as I do ,  and if possible i will post some videos up of the process, but as I tend to have a strange workflow  process,  its just about my limit posting development pictures,  anyway .......  so it has started


Ive exported a taller AV from SL and loaded it into Blender,  Ive roughed out the pants so  far but its the rest that is the difficult part but here goes.

So anyway ,  latest update ...  ive done a lot on this ,  but again ,  its early  and its not going to be a lightweight outfit.,  I know most people are more interestest in tutorials  than WIP,  and i do have some tutorials comming soon 

Ive done a little bit of Zbrush work on this outfit,  to the most part im not over confident with the texture work as yet ,  as it all seams a little bit too clean and harsh ,  but that will soon be over come,  anyway ...  this is it so far

okey dokies,  my latest outfit is progressing quite well really ,  my workflow ..  is essentially  model it in Blender,  then export the OBJ  into zbrush  to do the detailing,  then create a normal map  for blender.  I know it seams convoluted ,  but it does work  ok ,  i will do a workflow tutorial at some point

anyway ..  heres the latest WIP pic

Latest WIP

Facebook

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

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