Tools of Today, 4th March 2014

Blender 2.69
http://www.blender.org/download/

blender_mmd_tools v0.4.4 (for blender 64bit)
https://github.com/sugiany/blender_mmd_tools/tags

Avastar-1-1(beta) (1.1.988 – testversion for Fitted Mesh)
http://blog.machinimatrix.org/avastar/
http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2013/12/22/avastar-1-1-coming-soon/

PMX Editor 0.2.2.1 (for Windows 64bit)
http://kkhk22.seesaa.net/category/14045227-1.html

MikuMikuDance v814x64 (v8.1.4 for Windows 64bit)
MikuMikuDance v814 (for DirectX9 32bit windows)
http://www.geocities.jp/higuchuu4/

MakeHuman 1.0 alpha 8 Release Candidate 3
http://www.makehuman.org/content/download.html
but I’ve used 1.0 alpha 7

Paint.NET v3.5.11
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html#download

gimp 2.8.10
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

mio-01 ver0.1
http://www6.atwiki.jp/vpvpwiki/pages/218.html#id_8e4d9a75

SNUMA/MMDBVHToSLBVH for Upper_body2 and 60sec motion extension
https://github.com/snumaw/MMDBVHToSLBVH/blob/master/MMDBVHToSLBVH.exe

Ukano-mitamano-kami
http://inarikonkon.jp/character/?page=uka

Challenge to setup rigged mesh

Still I need to understand something…

But I learned the following points from importing work…

• Before importing pmx, get rid of all joints and rigid bodies. You don’t need them and to be simple work in blender.
• Before importing pmx, you had better change Japanese material’s name to English. You could edit in blender but sometime uploading failed to secondlife (parse error).
• mmd_tools helps us for importing and editing pmx. We should add this on blender. https://github.com/sugiany/blender_mmd_tools
• Avastar helps not only secondlife born(armature) parenting but also exporting collada. If you would like to separate object and make seamless among them,  need “Weld Edge Normals” option in Avastar exporter. About weld edge normals, please see this post.  http://meshdolls.blogspot.jp/2013/04/avastar-weld-edge-normals.html
• One object should have 8 materials or less. You need to separate pmx mesh by “materials” with using mmd_tools “Separate by materials” in tool shelf. “Separate by materials” keeps armature modifier, materials, vertex group and shapekey information. No collapse meshes by shapekey (morph) incorrect data by this approach.
• In editing, you should always pay attention on shapekey. Basis! Basis! Basis!
• When you want to separate mesh more, don’t delete vertices. Create new material, assign vertices, copy material data from original to new one and “Separate by materials” in mmd_tools. If you just want to delete, you don’t need to copy material data to new one.
• When you want to copy mesh, Avastar custom mesh tool “Freeze Mesh” helps you. Getting rid of shapkeys but keeping morphed mesh, armature modifier, material (same name of original) and vertex group. To make facial expressions mesh, this freeze mesh is useful.
• When joining meshes to one, you should consider its materials naming. If you would like them to be different “side” in secondlife, you should differentiate material’s name. Don’t change its name directly. Make new material, assign all vertices and copy material’s data from original to new one.
• “Apply scale and rotation” – Avastar exporter does it by option but when pmx model scale and size changed for avastar or skelton base, apply them.
• Make T-Pose (rest pose) by using pmx born(armature) pose mode. You need to add armature modifier more and apply original one. Please see this page for how-to.  http://nixart.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/modifying-the-rest-pose-in-blender/
• PMX model has many “doubles” vertices. Mesh tools [Remove] [Remove Doubles] helps you reducing vertex count and getting rid of line on surface in the same material.
• PMX model doesn’t have lining faces backing for clothes therefore you should duplicate faces and invert normals of them. Please see this post. http://meshdolls.blogspot.jp/2013/01/making-liner-normals-inside.html
• Secondlife doesn’t support custom shapekey (morphing). We can’t export facial expressions by shapekeys to secondlife. So prepare facial expression meshes (materials) and control transparency by LSL(Linden Script Language). Please see this post. http://meshdolls.blogspot.jp/2013/04/avastar-weld-edge-normals.html
• Modify secondlife  born skeleton or avastar armature. Move armatures to same position of PMX armature. head, neck, collars, shoulders, elbows, wrists, chest, torso, pelvis, hips, knees and ankles are key armature points. Avastar armature is so special therefore see this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL4X1AlMtVU
• Don’t use Avastar parent tool [Rigging] [with Weight Copy] nor blender parent [With automatic weight]. PMX model already has weight data. For parenting to armature, you had better use blender parenting(Ctrl+P) and [With empty groups].
• Modifier “Vertex Weight Mix” can add PMX vertex group weight to secondlife armature vertex group. Especially for body parts, you can get so excellent weight from original model mesh/vertex groups.
• In uploading collada file to secondlife, use [with joint position] option for body, especially including elbows and knees. Because secondlife armature’s joint positions are changed by modified for PMX born style.
• Some parts should not be used the above [with joint position] option in uploading collada. For example, changing side’s alpha scripted objects like “face and eye”. I don’t know why but we see flick model in-world.
• About image (picture) file, you would need to convert files to JPEG. TGA and PNG has alpha channel and secondlife sometimes can’t handle them correctly.

In addition, it takes over 2 years to understand/learn the above by try and errors. Still I feel I don’t know blender and 3DCG thoroughly. I really appreciate that Avastar Gaia Clary youtube channel always gives me many hints https://www.youtube.com/user/gaiaclary and so many blender tutorial videos and blog posts also help me.

Thanks, Enjoy and good luck

Avastar “Weld Edge Normals”

Great news!
Avastar RC4-812 also provides us “Weld Edge Normals” option in Tools shelf [Other] section as collada export option, in order to avoid visual seems (line) between objects.

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2013/04/25/avastar1-rc4-812/

Visual seems? Yes, you can see “Line” between objects or doubles vertices in smooth shading.

Why we can see such a “line” even though we adopted “smooth” shading in blender?
Because vertices on the line are “doubles” and vertex normals are different.

Here is a great video to understand Normals and Smooth shading by Avastar’s creator, Gaia Clary. It’s Good Job!!!!

Face normals

Vertex normals and smooth shading

In order to hide/avoid visual seems, so far we use [Remove Doubles] in Tool Shelf in Blender. However [Remove Doubles] means merging vertices to one vertex. If you would like to keep separated objects, you could not avoid visual seems between objects by normal functions.

Keep separated? Yes, if you would like to have over 8 materials in one object, you should separate object for more materials under secondlife mesh limits.

See “Mesh” limits below link.
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Limits

Why we need more materials?

We need “faces” for each facial expressions. With like a flip cartoon  method, you can adopt facial expression to mesh head/face instead of morphing.

Eye part has 8 materials as 8 (prim) faces

Mouse part has 8 materials as 8 (prim) faces

Eye and Mouse part should be separated objects. It means we can see visual seems between Eye and Mouse parts.

But now we can erase it by Avastar “Weld Edge Normals” option in exporting collada.
See the video below

Enjoy!