Mesh, Rigging, Standards and Liquid Mesh

I think if you have read my harsh but rather frank review of mesh over the last few years, especially when it comes to rigging it should be obvious that I have been both excited and then rapidly disappointed by what is available, not to mention the almost apathetic situation that comes from Linden Labs over pushing mesh forward.

I have over the last few weeks, been working through some rigging ideas that have been begging for my attention now for ages and as per usual, I have hit the old problems with them leaving me frustrated and rather angry.

The problems centre around one thing.

Standards.

When you design something, you have to work from a bench mark model – a standard.

For example, when you are doing a texture for the SL avatar to use, you have a map to work from, which will put the right pixel in the right place. There is no point in the lips being on the bum is there.

This is a standard bench mark – things no matter what you do, if you follow the rules, will always be the same.

That is a hard fact of design – you need a bench mark standard to work from, otherwise you are shooting blind.

This is where the fundamental problem with rigged mesh comes in.

At its heart, it uses a standard – the so called “Ruth” avatar as its bench mark and assuming everyone used Ruth as their default that is fine.

However when you get the rigged mesh in world, things change.

Attached to the avatar is the appearance system. The so called Deformer system that allow you to quite aggressively change the avatars design.

This is then split in to two areas – Soft and Hard Deformers (I coined those terms myself but they work).

Hard Deformers actually change physical dimensions. For example Height, arm length, leg length etc.

Rigging and hard deformers work fine – adjustments you make to the avatar on the hard deformers are carried through in an almost predictable manner.

Rigging work by taking information from effectively a stick figure internal skeleton. You can make hard adjustments to that skeleton with the hard deformers.

Soft Deformers though are vastly more problematic. These change finer detailing – Breast size, waist size, lips, butt size etc. This is where rigging falls down.

Rigging as I said above, works from a Skeleton, and butt size has nothing to do with the skeleton.

The result of this is butt size breaks the bench mark, and as a result breaks Rigged mesh.

And this has been an ongoing argument and point of discussion for designers in SL since rigged mesh first arrived.

We have been desperate to get a “standard” established where rigged mesh would have a bench mark and this became known as the Deformer project.

The irony is, the Deformer projects birth didn’t actually come out of Linden Labs. It was an independently commissioned by users of SL project with the lead on it being one of Linden Labs ex-team members, Qarl.

The results of this project have been spotty. After doing some inspired work, they got a deformer system actually on the grid and in test phase. There were however errors and unpredictable issues popping up, which honestly should be expected, however independently it seemed Linden Labs had decided to work on their own version, and over a period of a few month, the commissioned project was “shuffled” off, and the Linden Labs model appeared.

This worked as good as more or less, the independent project.

However, that is as far as it went. A beta viewer model that was never released fully as it didn’t work perfectly.

It recently was confirmed by Linden Labs staff that the project was shelved and there was no more resources being put in to it. That could of course change in a matter of minutes with Linden Labs when the wind changes, but as it has been over a year since we last saw any movement on the Deformer project, its fair to assume they are too busy building more pointless addons to the viewer.

Correct me if I am wrong... please. I would love to hear about something that will improve SL.

(okay... I know that materials are coming, but that in itself is a flawed and commercially fraught with danger project that most designers will be very dubious about touching – I will rant away on that when it arrives)

So, the state of play with Rigged mesh.

Firstly, it was released broken and while still partly useable you had to perform backflips to get it to work right making it hard to impossible to work with unless you flood the grid with 10 different versions of each item you make to suit the various body styles, and even then, have to put a notecard in the box explain to users “sorry, but you will have to adjust your shape a little to get this to work right”.

Secondly, both the unofficial, and official projects at the moment seem to have ground to halt, and are in the “no more work being done” tray.

This of course, leave us back at the first point with no hope in sight.

Except, as it appears, there is hope. In fact a quirk of mesh was discovered by some designers that gives near enough 65% deformer action on the avatar and actually is there right now and useable – no new software is needed, or development work for that matter.

The term “Liquid Mesh” has been coined as its name.

This curiosity comes from the fact that Rigging works on using the SL skeleton as its rigging base. As described above, an internal stick figure.

Except, its not the only skeleton hiding in there. There is a secondary “Collision” Skeleton used by the physics engine.

A brief explanation of this. When you walk in to a wall or walk on the floor, there has to be a physics interaction. If there wasn’t you would simply pass straight through it. Although personally I haven’t used it, this is where the internal physics Collision skeleton comes in to it creating a physics representation of the avatar which can then interact with its surroundings. And it has to be a little more advanced than a stick figure for it to work right.

That said, this is no perfect system by a long shot. Breasts don’t work, and items like the head are nothing more than a block, but from what I have seen, for 80% of rigged mesh applications in SL, it will work 80% of the time.

That is far superior to what we have at the moment.

In the examples I have seen, and from tests I have seen performed the elements behave in an almost predictable way – its not a bench mark by a long shot, but its much better than what we have at the moment.

Except... It seems Linden Labs have been pushed on endorsing Liquid Mesh, and in a move that I think surprised most, they have refused to endorse this design technique.

That means that without warning, they could pull the functionality from SL at anytime, and as a result, the item being sold to customers could break without warning, leaving the designer with an absolute mess on their hands.

I have recently been reading up on what many of the mesh gurus in SL have been saying about Liquid Mesh, and why they think its a fantastic idea or in some surprises, a bad idea.

I have to say I am seeing both sides of the argument but what this really boils down to is this.

Linden Labs has to make a decision now over Liquid Mesh.

I am not saying Endorse it, but I am saying, if they know something thats not for public consumption and Liquid Mesh will cause a down the road issue, then pull the functionality for users on Liquid mesh now. Dont procrastinate over it, or be vague, or try to avoid this issue and leave the functionality there – either leave it be, or get rid of it.

There is an old saying. Either you make a decision, or the decision will make you.

Ultimately designers on SL are running a business. If you have a tool, endorsed or not, and it cures multiple operational problems for the designer and the user, then you use it.

If you don’t, your competitors will, and as Linden Labs have now confirmed that they have effectively shelved the Deformer project, then designers will use the only tool in their box to get around the many holes Rigged mesh has in it.

The net result is, the snowball has started rolling already and in six months, designers will flood towards using Liquid Mesh and if the decision isn’t made now, it may be too late to make that decision six months down the line, as the community backlash will be nothing short of epic, and worse, it will probably be the designers, not Linden Labs, who get the blame.

And to throw my hat in to the ring... Will I be doing liquid mesh?

Well, I am still on the fence, and the official line right now is, no.

But I am not stupid, and I will be thoroughly investigating Liquid mesh to see what it can and cant do. I will report back when I have some facts