Wilds Of Organica – Page 2 – Organica & The Wilds

Corgi Updates!

Greetings!

I’m recovering from a couple of setbacks this week. I have been recovering from a bit of a cold – the weather here is warming up slightly, which always means more colds and flu floating around. That said, I figured I’d update you of my progress on the corgi.

Animation has been progressing well. Our corgi can now walk, run, jump, swim, crouch, sneak, and has some limited ground sits. I’ll be working on some object sits soon. At this time, I’d say the animations are around 70% done, although I’d like to do some more specific animations that will also take advantage of sounds and keystrokes via SL’s gesture assets.

Textures have also been dialed in a bit from previous posts, with the help of Substance Painter (which underwent a major UI change recently). It’s been interesting to make use of their texture resize feature, which allows for quicker brush stroke application at lower resolutions but which preserves the type of brush stroke if you need to flip up to higher resolutions, allowing for the higher detail to be preserved as one sizes up.

Predictably, all of this brush stroke recording does become a bit memory intensive, so I predict that some export to Photoshop at some point will be necessary for me as I begin to work in some of the other coats I want to work on.

Fantasy Faire arrives soon (next month – runs April 19-29) so moving forward, I’d like to tie this up and revisit the wyvern for use as an avatar before addressing some other Fantasy Faire exclusive editions for certain items. Additionally, you can look forward to some Organica content soon at Bloom (also next month – Runs April 15-30).

It’s still unknown as to whether Animesh will be made available on the main grid by Fantasy Faire – In all likelihood, I doubt it. Linden Lab has always been reticent to put out a specific deadline for releases like this and as of the most recent meeting, true testing for final LI accounting and poly-count limits has not yet concluded.

It’s for that reason that I’ll be mostly concentrating on avatar-related releases for this year’s Fantasy Faire – and if the opportunity for Animesh arrives subsequent to that, I’ll deal with Animesh kits as the need arises.

With that said, what kind of animations and functionality would you like to see out of a pet corgi?

Leave comments below or message me directly in-world at Aki Shichiroji.

See you next week!

If you enjoy what I’m doing here or think someone else might also find it of use, please feel free to share this blog with them. If you’d like to keep up to date with posts, the RSS for this blog is here, I can also be found on Twitter and Plurk. The Discord server is here.

If you really like my stuff, perhaps consider donating to my Patreon? Your continued support helps to produce weekly content (written, modelled, animated or otherwise) and helps to keep original content creation in Second Life!

Thanks for your support!

Corgi Week 2: Using Blender 2.79+ & Avastar 2.X, Part 1

Just a note! Apologies for the late post. Due to some unforeseen local circumstances, I’ve been really occupied this week prepping proposals at work and dealing with RL circumstances. With that said, this article is gonna run long, so I’m splitting it in two more manageable sections.

Let’s begin!

Repositioning joints

The joint editing process has been refined a bunch lately – particularly with the most recent iteration of Avastar’s 2.X plugin, which now only works with Blender 2.79 and above.

Of note, the folks behind Avastar were able to iron out pretty much all of the kinks when it comes to ‘snapping’ one set of armature bones to the other and vice-versa. Whereas previously there were some issues with spine bones not translating properly, they seem to work well now. I can’t say that I’ve tried doing any significant constraint editing yet (such as in previous cases with the weeping willow and drider rigs) but I’m happy to see this functionality relatively stable now.

With the current setup, you can select your Avastar armature in Object mode, then switch to edit mode and either select Animation bone groups or Deform bone groups to work with from the Avastar tab menu on the left-hand side.

Joints can be repositioned by selection and translation, just as you would a vertex, edge or face.

If you are significantly changing the position of the hip and shoulder joints, also be sure to click ‘Enable’ next to ‘Structure’ on the Rig Config menu to allow structural joints in those areas to move, otherwise you’ll have a hard time moving the heads of mCollar/Collar and mHip/Hip bones. Additionally, somewhere along the way, Blender did finally fix X-mirroring for armatures, so you should definitely make use of this tool (found in the ‘Options’ tab when you’re in Edit Mode for your armature) in cases where you would like to maintain symmetry across your armature.

Here, I referenced dog skeletons and bone placement for general positioning. It might seem like the outer shape is what one should pay attention to when rigging, but It’s important to pay attention to analogous joint positions in your critter’s real-life counterpart and to position your own to similar positions. This will help to keep your animations as natural as possible later.

Once the joint positions are roughly where they need to be with the Animation bone group, ensure that the corresponding Deformation bone group positions are in place by clicking ‘Cleanup Rig’ with ‘Target Animation Bone Group (green bones) selected in the following menu.

The alternative is to simply show both the Animation AND Deformation bone groups while in Edit mode and to adjust their joints concurrently.

You can check that the effect has been applied correctly by toggling visibility of said bone groups and ensuring that they match and overlap precisely. Once you have ensured that this is the case, it’s time to parent the avatar mesh to the skeleton.

The next post will be up in the next couple of days – in the mean time, If you like what you see but don’t think it’s quite right for you, perhaps consider donating to my Patreon? Your continued support helps to produce weekly content (written, modelled, animated or otherwise) and helps to keep original content creation in Second Life!

Corgi Week 1: Working with modifiers in Blender to help visualize advanced geometry efficiently

This week I figured I’d get started on some Wilds of Organica-related items, since the last couple weeks have been pretty landscaping and decor-heavy.

Linden Lab have taken the past few weeks off, as far as Content Creation user group meetings – they will resume tomorrow (Feb 15, 2018) at 1PM SLT, on Animesh 1 region (on ADITI grid).

It’s hard to gauge how much longer the testing period will take. When we last met, it seemed like development was ongoing, but felt like we were moving a bit closer toward final performance and animesh limits testing. There has been some push in terms of increasing the triangle limit, however I’m still of the opinion that 50K is far more than enough.

With that said, I’ve begun development on a new WoO product this week that would likely see use as either an avatar, animesh, or both. We’ll see how development goes moving forward – I’m excited to see just how well it can be implemented, given the positive experience I’ve had popping in animations and some basic scripts for existing content thus far.

When I’ve chosen a real-world subject, typically I’ll look up some basic reference material to get the proportions down. In this case, it’s mostly been looking up corgis on Google Image search. It’s easy to get caught up researching cute critters and your search results are likely to be the same as mine, so suffice it to say that I use such references as a touchstone to develop an idea of what age and proportion I want my avatar to be.

My preference, from a stylistic point of view, is to avoid being photorealistic in my translation of a real dog to SL dog. I don’t really enjoy the uncanny-valley look that often comes from taking references completely from photograph to projected final texture, so usually these references become proportional and very general references later on when I paint my fur textures manually.

In this case, I was going for non-puppy, but still on the young side, just to get a nice balance between lovable huge ears and adorable elongated & lowered carriage. I’ve also elected to go the non-docked route, although a bobtail option might be in the cards at some point.

The early hours of my avatar making process usually start with something very simple – like a box with some very simple extruded faces, to block out limbs, head, etc. Once I feel i have the main proportions down, I will usually toss on a few modifiers to help me get a clear idea of what the final product will look like, even if i might not apply all of these modifiers by the end of the project.

By using a SubSurf modifier, I can non-destructively visualize how my geometry might look if i were to subdivide and smooth. I don’t typically ever apply this modifier permanently because it’s too easy to just apply it and call it a day, without addressing some of the geometry problems that it introduces.

In particular, SubSurf tends to cause geometry to form vertices which either branch off in three or five directions, which is not ideal from an edge-flow perspective. Also, it’s typically a lot more efficient to add edge loops and rings in areas where necessary, as opposed to allowing a modifier to add them all over your model.

I tend to add some edge loops and rings to some degree at this stage, to get the basic silhouette established, but do tend to add more later on, during the rigging stage, for added flexibility and attention to specific bone weights. One might conceivably use the ‘simple’ subdivision method rather than Catmull-Clark, however that subdivision method will not apply any vertex to vertex smoothing calculation and, at least for this use case, does little to add to this workflow.

I will typically mix the SubSurf modifier along with a Mirror and EdgeSplit modifier.

The Mirror modifier allows me to model on one side-only and have those changes propagate symmetrically.

I usually add an EdgeSplit modifier to help visualize the edge-flow of my model – in this case to help define key features in the surface as well as to give some definition to the fur.

I usually turn off angle calculations for this modifier, opting instead to define my sharp edges manually by right-clicking a sequence of edges, hitting Control E, then selecting ‘Mark Sharp’. Basically I want to adjust the geometry based on shapes I want to add to it, rather than adjusting the geometry based on what I have so far.

This helps to give the mesh a more distinct silhouette and to give me a better idea of how the geometry will need to be broken down later from the standpoint of someone who needs to rig and animate. As with the SubSurf modifier, unless I actually need a very sharp edge in my final model, I usually don’t permanently apply this modifier permanently either, since the resulting edge-splits will cause duplicate vertices that are not always necessary.

Below, you can see the difference between my Mirrored model (with no other modifiers added, but faces rendered as smooth), my mirrored model with edge-split, and finally with SubSurface divisions.

Once I am happy with this edgeflow and overall shape, I will usually begin modifying the Avastar Extended Bento skeleton to fit the avatar.

We’ll cover this, along with rigging our corgi, next week.

If you like what you see but don’t think it’s quite right for you, perhaps consider donating to my Patreon? Your continued support helps to produce weekly content (written, modelled, animated or otherwise) and helps to keep original content creation in Second Life!

Kitten Avatar Update + New Coat Announcement!

Today, I’m glad to announce that the Kitten avatars are undergoing a long-awaited update, which includes additional Bento functionality plus a brand new animation override. This updated avatar is now available in shop, along with one completely new line – the Bicolour coat pattern!

If you already have one (or more) of either the Tabby or Cheshire avatars and purchased it off the Marketplace, you can expect an automatic delivery for each within the next twenty-four hours. A limited number of recent in-store purchases will also receive this automatic update. If you do not receive your update by Jan 17 2018 (EDT), please see below before contacting me by IM:

If you purchased in-store prior to Christmas and do not recieve an update automatically, please come to the main shop and rez your update token (found in your original Kitten package). There may be a delay but you should still get your update that way. If it times out, please contact me (Aki Shichiroji) directly by IM.

This new bicolour pattern is very much intended to reference the ‘tuxedo’ look that many bi-colour cats have. Five colours are available in this line and these new kittens will include Bento functionality, just like the updated originals!

Changes (2018/01/15):

– Facial and tail Bento support
– New Animation Overrider HUD featuring advanced facial animations specifically for this avatar
– Update system now also uses the blue circle exchanger system (Read the included notecard for full details).

Known issue: RFL Purple Cheshire has not been addressed in this update but will be within the week. Please stay tuned for further info.

Relevant inquiries:
Will the applier system used for several other recent releases also be used for the kitten avatar?
– While the possibility is not closed to this, the logistics are non-trivial. The Applier system will not be applied to the kitten avatars at this time.

Will dev-kits and/or clothing be made available for these avatars?
– Both are being taken in to consideration at this time and both are very likely. Again, the logistics of packaging and managing a growing number of coats for this avatar are something that I need to become accustomed to before I will have time to address either. Please IM me to let me know of your interest!

Will animesh support be provided with this avatar?
– It’s a bit early to comment, but animesh for this avatar is quite likely. In all likelihood, Animesh support will involve a customized kit that can be dropped in, but given that these details are rather abstract, the final execution may be somewhat different. There are also some non-mesh and non-rigged components which would need to be converted for use with Animesh should a conversion occur, so I would need to account for the additional time cost for this work.

Stay tuned to the Subscriber Kiosk or the in-world group notices for further news about this or other releases from Wilds of Organica! Join the Subscriber kiosk ( here ) or the in-world group ( here )!

Thank you for your ongoing support!

Two More Candy Fair 2017 Releases!

As promised, a number of other new items are now also available this week (thru Dec 1!) at Candy Fair!

Alongside the Cat Ears & Tails, there will also be the following:

Much like the Cat Ears & Tails, these Bento attachments come with the short ear & long tail AO, which is intended for layering over existing human AO animations. They come with lifetime updates and are optimized for use with viewers which use the Advanced Lighting Model. They are mod, copy, no transfer , with some no-mod scripts.

This Candy Fair edition of webbed wings is much like the original release, in that it includes both small and large mesh, as well as AO, for various body shapes. They come with lifetime updates and are optimized for use with viewers which use the Advanced Lighting Model. These, too, are mod, copy, no transfer, with some no-mod scripts.

You can pick up the Cat Ears & Tail, Mouse Ears & Tail & Candy Fair Edition Webbed Wings at Candy Fair here until December 1! (Some previous years’ Candy Fair gacha releases are also available again at the Gacha Gardens there too!)

See you there!

Coming Soon at Candy Faire

A few new items are in the works for Wilds of Organica’s debut at Candy Faire (previous years it was Organica Specialty Landscaping & Decor) – What I can talk about so far includes this new Ear and Tail release for those who appreciate the feline persuasion!These Bento-enabled and animated attachments take advantage of advanced materials to produce a realistic fluffy and furry texture.

Eight treat-themed colours are available and these attachments come with an AO HUD for layering over top normal human animations! (Please note – does not come with its own human anims).

Other items are also in the works, time permitting, but this is what I can talk about so far.

Candy Faire opens on November 17 and runs thru December 1st! This and other products will be exclusively available there during the event! (They’ll hit the main store and Marketplace afterward) Further info on this next week!

Did you know I have a Patreon account? If you enjoy this content, please consider becoming a Patron! It helps me create more like it and offers a variety of rewards. Alternatively, if you like the sorts of things that I make for Second Life, drop by my Marketplace listing or my in-world stores and check out what I have to offer!

Unless otherwise noted, I (Aki Shichiroji) and this blog are not sponsored in any way. My thoughts are my own and not indicative of endorsement by any associated or discussed product/service/company.

Drider 1.01 Updates

An update is now available to the Drider avatar as the result of feedback accumulated over the past week!

After a considerable amount of time spent testing various mesh body demos (both male and female), I was able to ascertain that the vast majority of mesh avatars fit the initial mesh body shape with minimal issue, assuming default male or female body shapes were used. A small number of mesh bodies did not fit this norm (or did not have sufficient alpha granularity). For these, a special version of the avatar mesh was made, featuring a wider and slightly deeper hip area.

There have been additional resources added to the main documentation, including a full list of bodies tested, whether they are compatible and, if so, what the appropriate alpha settings would be.

Additionally, after some feedback regarding attachment points, I was able to go back in to the avatar file and reposition a fair number of attachment points. Attachment points for the front legs should now all match up to their appropriate bones. Wing attachment points now match up with the second set of legs (lowest joint). Hind attachment points now match up with the third set of legs (lowest joint). Tail base and Tail tip were found to not be movable, so tail base fits the top of the right hind leg and tail tip moves to the top of the left hind leg.

Additional testing involved the most ideal attachment point for adding things to the abdomen – For this purpose, I recommend Pelvis. Spine is affected by the position of the torso, groin doesn’t play well with the bones being used for the spider thorax & abdomen.

Please note: One attachment point will give you up to five attachment slots to use at that one point. To use multiple attachments per point, simply ‘add’ instead of ‘wear’.

All vendors and marketplace listings have since been updated – to check if your package is up to date, please check the description field of your avatar’s box. If it predates 2017/10/21, please exchange your avatar at the Wilds of Organica Avatar Exchanger, which is currently located here (but which you can always find a SLURL for in Aki Shichiroji’s profile (under Picks> Gacha Exchange Policy and exchanger location).

Lastly – there have been some inquiries about a dev kit for the drider avatar. There are plans for this, but it is not available at this time. Interested parties should keep an eye on this blog, join the in-world group or the Discord server for announcements regarding applications and availability.

The Driders Are Here!

Just in time for Halloween, the Driders have made it to Wilds of Organica!

This avatar is a lower body, Bento-rigged attachment designed for use with both male and female shapes! Six coats are available and each package includes the avatar body mesh, an alpha layer, and animation overrider. The avatar is mod, copy, no trans, with some no-mod scripts for updates.

Full, most up-to-date documentation can be found here!

Please note! This avatar uses hind, wing, and tail bones! It may be incompatible with other Bento-enabled products – please try a demo first, as I cannot give refunds (other than for duplicate purchases).

Available in store or on the Marketplace!

Work in Progress: Drider Week 1

While away on vacation last week, I started thinking about ways in which the new Bento skeleton could be used to make a Drider – human/elf/spider hybrid – possible. As I’ve covered in the past, the Bento skeleton offers a great number of new possibilities, but has some limitations as well when it comes to repurposing some bone chains to be used elsewhere.

After sketching for a bit, I eventually came to a reasonable compromise that might test well and brought that in to Blender & rigged with Blender Avastar.

Next, I modelled something a bit more accurate, starting low-poly on just half, mirroring with a modifier (which was kept mostly unapplied until I needed to rig parts that were not standard to the existing Bento skeleton configuration).

Rig setup:

I elected to use both the wings and hind legs to articulate pairs of legs here, but also chose to split up the tail (6 bones >> 3 bones per leg) to rig the last pair of legs. This means one less joint articulated in that pair, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Of note: While it’s true you can’t ‘unparent’ bones within the SL skeleton to avoid animation issues involving bone hierarchy, you can to some degree modify Avastar’s control rig – you can turn off constraints, you can parent them to other control bones, you can even direct certain limbs to target newly introduced IK target bones. Avastar is even now sufficiently tolerant to take these non-standard target bones in to account when it comes time to export animations for use in Second Life.

In my case, Tail 4 thru 6 are no longer connected or inherit rotations from Tail 3. I also added two new pairs of IK targets to direct movement for leg pairs 2 & 4.

After a lot of jiggerypokery concerning knee IK targets (which I decided to do away with ultimately), I was able to get a mostly usable rig going.

A few notes on animations: I had to tinker with frame speed a bit to make the walk work well without ‘sliding’. Tapple Gao makes an excellent (and free) ‘Test Treadmill’ that helps to diagnose speed issues such as these. Also, more often than not, with avatars that use wonky rigs, you will need to export with bone translations. Under other circumstances it’s ideal not to, particularly if the intent is for the animation to have reuse with some other similar avatar; unfortunately when tinkering with rigs where bones have been parented in non-traditional ways, you MUST tell the SL rig to move those bones to (X) location, since they would otherwise just inherit their parents’ transformations.

As of this week, I have a basic walk, stand, fly & jump complete and look forward to getting more done soon. I’ve also been able to unwrap the mesh to create my UV layout, which is spread out across two layouts. This has allowed me to create additional textural details across diffuse, normal and specular maps that really create a greater sense of detail without adding significantly to the cost in geometry.

Further down the road, I hope to add some geometry to add the option for hair textures on the legs and body. I’ll also need to work on LOD optimization, additional animations and documentation overall.

Do you enjoy keeping up with my posts but find that my products are not quite for you? You can support my content creation in SL and other virtual worlds by becoming a patron on Patreon. Along with keeping up with new releases, you can keep up with personal and work project writeups, see sneak-peeks of upcoming content, be informed once new videos are up, access to Patreon-exclusive content, giveaways and more! Check out my Patreon page, here: (link)

Centaur Avatar Updates & New Coats

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Centaur avatar has been awaiting some pretty major updates as the new applier system has been in development.

The system wasn’t quite ready for prime time when they were first released, but over the past week or so we’ve had the opportunity to buckle down on all the necessary functionality and to offer additional coats while we’re at it.

What’s changed?

So let’s start off with the major changes – The new applier system shall allow third parties to easily & quickly offer new textures for the centaur body without having to worry about potential issues giving textures away.

To use the new appliers, all you’ll need to do is either wear or rez the applier in a script-enabled area (while wearing your avatar body) then click to apply. Once all aspects of the applier have been sent to your centaur body, the applier can either be detached or deleted.

What does that mean for people who’ve already bought the avatar?

Moving forward, the Bay coat will be the default coat that comes with the centaur body. All other coats will be made available separately using the new applier system.

In order to take advantage of the new appliers, all existing holders of the centaur avatar will need to update to the new version by rezzing a copy of their avatar body on the ground in the blue exchanger circle, located here: (link)

These packages will each include both one copy of the mesh body AND a copy of the appropriate applier.

Cool, but what happens to those people who bought multiple coats?

Each existing avatar holder is eligible to update their avatar and receive the appropriate applier via the exchange process. (Yes, even RFL edition avatar holders!) Additionally, appropriate refunds for the difference in cost between full body & applier shall be handled individually upon request (please be patient as there may be a sizable queue).

How do I create for this avatar?

Finally, as a reminder for interested content creators, applications for dev kits are now open – you can check out the full details in this recent post: (link)

Last but not least, here are four new coats offered as appliers!

Do you enjoy keeping up with my posts but find this product is not quite for you? You can otherwise support my content creation in SL and other virtual worlds by becoming a patron on Patreon. Along with keeping up with new releases, you can keep up with personal and work projects, see sneak-peeks of upcoming content, be informed once new videos are up, access to Patreon-exclusive content, giveaways and more! Check out my Patreon page, here: (link)