The Mesh Investigation Redux - Has Fitted Solved the problems?

Over the last 4 months, I have been settling myself in to getting Fitted Mesh pinned down. Its never an easy process learning, and ultimately finding out what the restrictions and limitations of new technologies are.

In a way this is very akin to my initial investigations in to Rigged Mesh back in 2011 where I spent a very long time learning about Rigging, and what it could, and couldn’t do – with more emphasis on what it couldn’t do.

Fitted Mesh is a very positive progression from Rigging, and finally I have to admit, the idea of utilising rigging is a far more positive proposition.

The ultimate goal here is to lock, stock and barrel, replace the stock avatar with a new one and fitted does make this possible to a degree, but there are still too many draw backs in my books for Fitted to become a new standard.

Fitted Mesh – what is it really?

This is a serious problem really, because like it or not, Linden Labs really don’t have that much of a clue how we use Second Life as designers. Its nothing against them, but truth is, they don’t understand.

From our Perspective, Fitted Mesh should be a swiss army knife. It should do everything. Bodies, clothing, hair, banana ears, tails – the list could go on. The short version is, even if I am being tongue in cheek, the tool should be representative of what our imaginations are capable of, and that’s a tall order.

From Linden Labs point of view, this wasn’t a practical problem of how can they do “this or that”. It was half an ear listening to the needs of the designers, briefly passing over the forum comments and maybe an occasional conversation with someone in world.

I am not being disrespectful there. I understand that if someone was to sit down, and try to take all of what was needed onboard, it would be the scene from the Exorcist watching their heads spin round as they tried to grasp what was being asked.

Going back to the Lab’s point of view though. Fitted Mesh was simply a way of getting mesh clothing to fit better. That’s it – nothing more.

And before they even got it on the grid, loonies like myself were really pushing it beyond their scope.

So... How does fitted mesh work, and why does it work like that?

The first thing to understand about this is that Fitted Mesh isn’t based on the same system as the Avatar is.

The avatar uses groups of Vertices that move, stretch and deform in to different shapes – overall this creates the different shape files.

Fitted Mesh, while based on a part of the avatars skeleton, is different in that all it is, is a series of balloons under the skin that inflate and deflate when you use the shape sliders – putting in simplistic terms.

That means Fitted Mesh is an Emulator, not a like for like system. Those that know this, the Mesh Deformer project was in fact the like for like system, and that for all intent and purpose is dead in the water now.

The biggest issue with the fact Fitted Mesh is designed to Emulate what the avatar does, means that with the complex series of variable available to the avatar, while it does a good job, there are limits.

 New Mesh, same flaws

I have just spent some time reading through my original mesh investigation documents (they are on the site – just got to the earliest blogs).

Since I originally wrote that things have changed not just with fitted mesh but other areas too.

Removing the Physics, and the shape Sliders, and the Appliers (as ADV is now available and I did finally solve the applier system problems) you are still left with some pretty heady issues.

Fitted Mesh is a far more versatile solution with more configurational options and physics. But this isn’t perfect – there are still limitations and bugs simply down to the fact its an emulator.

Multiple clothing layers. Now, this is the show stopper in my books. Some years back I said the best thing to do would be to use the baked textures from the avatar and using scripting, let people apply those textures automatically to rigged / fitted mesh parts. The works already been done.

However as far as I know, this isn’t on the table at the moment. Why – no idea as it really shouldn’t be that complex to do really.

This way, all you have to do to change your skin, clothing etc, is wear the item, and let the bake files do the rest. In theory, this could even solve the problem over alpha masking too by using a mesh hide system or a unique mask for running with fitted mesh.

That said though, I know from all my experiments and testing, that the SL body texture system isn’t capable of handling everything, and the more extreme you push, the worse the system behaves. Not a good thing as you end up with warped, stretched and distorted textures.

Oh, and this could get worse, as SL bakes its files at 512, not 1024 so those distortions will get worse.

Now, realistically this is a shorter list than before, and at least one item on there is possible.

 Have things actually got worse because of fitted mesh?

Well, in one way, they have.

For years now there has been talk and even official JIRA about the AV2 project. A whole new avatar that would be theoretically based on the current SL clothing and skins.

However it would be radically cleaned up, much more configurable, and much higher quality.

However those kind of changes would require a whole new Avatar skeleton, mesh and Slider options. Which means... Rigged / Fitted Mesh items designed for AV1 wouldnt work.

After learning first hand how the SL textures behave with more shapely bodies I think they may even have to redesign the avatars textures too to be more adaptable on extreme areas.

So, in theory, the investment in fitted mesh, may have scuppered the whole AV2 project, although that hasn’t stopped Linden Labs in the past.

Finally, and I may be wrong here, but I was asked “Will Fitted Mesh work with Micro / Macro Avatar Bodies?”

Well... I have experimented, tested etc and even though I have not done this since I worked last on Blender 2.49, I can confirm that sadly, it doesn’t work.

In fact trying to do fitted Micro or macros causes all hell to break loose in world to the degree that on one worn session I had to relog to clear a major viewer error.

Fitted for a Straight Jacket?

Yesterday, I was chomping at the bit, eager to get to grips with Fitted Mesh, and even though I said briefly that I wasnt going to start farting around with this until something was in RC, I decided... stupidly... to start farting around with it.

My process of learning is a fairly straight forward method - I sit down, research a subject, play around and test for time, and slowly I get to grips with how something is supposed to work.
I dont have a tutor, I dont have people to help me. And honestly, this has served me well over the years. Learn from example and its fair to say while I am not a guru on Mesh and rigged mesh, I know enough to be compentant over how it works and how to get things to behave themselves.

So... surely Fitted Mesh should just be learning a new series of tools and workflows based on what came in the original Rigged Mesh.

I will quote from the Second Life Wiki on Fitted Mesh.

"What is Fitted Mesh?
Fitted Mesh is a technique in which an avatar's collision bones are used to add further deformation detail to an avatar or clothing. The benefit of this technique is that it allows Mesh Clothing and avatars to be adjusted using an avatar's Body Shape sliders in the Appearance Editor. This results in clothing that can adjust and fit to your avatar's own personal body shape and style.
For content creators, the key difference between a Fitted Mesh skeleton and the previous standard skeleton is that a Fitted Mesh skeleton has more bones. The rigging workflow is the same except that the additional collision bones are also included in the skinning/binding process. Note that unlike the mBones, you do not need to include all of the collision bones, rather only the ones you wish to use."

That is a straight forward introduction there. The one key phrase included should answer my question about learning the new tools.
"The rigging workflow is the same except that the additional collision bones are also included in the skinning/binding process."

 Also included on the page is a download ZIP which includes relevant files to use as examples.

When you are learning, information is key to what you are doing and its fair to say correct information, not half arsed, half baked information.

So what other information can be found in this page?
1/ A list of the Collision bones... literately, thats it.
2/ Rigging using the Fitted Mesh technique - all this contains is a copy / paste job on how to upload a rigged mesh, with a few words changed.
3/ Additional Resources - a list of links to stuff not actually directly related to Fitted Mesh.

What's the definition of half arsed again?
This page has two potentially useful pieces on it. The first is the downloadable file which should be a accuate guide to the weights and how to create weighted mesh correct for Fitted. The second is that the workflow is almost the same but with more bones.

At this point you take your available information, and move to the playing around stage. Often I call this "hitting something with a big hammer until it works.

First job - grab a standard boot from my inventory, copy the weight values from the Linden Labs mesh to the boot - check the weights over... upload.

The boot I was trying to replicate was one of my Vipers but with Fitted weighting - they should look like this

And this is what happens when you apply fitted Mesh weighting

Not so much a boot, but a Number 7 Iron.
From what I can see, the mesh has collapsed in on itself and is warping out of shape.
I then experimented with it, to try and find out what I was doing wrong, and doubled the weighting up adding in both collsion and mbones and got this result

Okay... I've got nothing. I followed the work flow for rigging with the extra bones, and unless you are a stick insect, that doesnt work.

So, whats the problem? If you fail, its best to check the source of the information - go back to basics before you move on.
And as basic as it is, the original file is the one that should provide the information required for the meshes above, so its worth checking that out before you move on.

Using Blender 2.69 - latest model, you open the original, unaltered Blender file from Linden Labs, select the mesh, and export. Upload is via the experimental Fitted Viewer.
The expected result should in world, be what you see in Blender.
This is actually the result

On the left, is the standard SL body as uploaded and rezzed out in world (unrigged because its rezzed).
On the right, is the same mesh, but worn and instantly, you can see there are serious problems with the mesh effectively collapsing in on itself.
In fact I could almost theorise, the mesh isnt collapsing, but is fitting itself not to SL body, but the skeleton itself.

Now, either I am missing something so blantantly obvious its silly.
Or with their usual flair, the two useful pieces of information in the desert of their Fitted Mesh page and incorrect and broken! The Blender (and Collada file too - I tested that as well) as both acting up in the most terrible way, and / or the Workflow isnt the same as rigged mesh.

Needless to say, as usual when it comes to these things I have wasted a whole day.

Next in line for the Straight Jacket please...

- - - - - -
Addendum
I was just musing while cleaning up the house and doing my dishes why the mesh seemed to be collapsing effectively to the skeleton, and I couldnt work it out until I had a vague thought that perhaps my working methodology workflow was wrong.
The issue I had coming to mind, was what I said earlier - the mesh seemed to be rigging to the skeleton, rahter than looking as it should. I have a vague theory that rather than following the workflow used to rig with (new mesh & Prerigged mesh > Bone Weight copy one to other > select new mesh and skeleton > Parent), that I should be for some reason making the base file as the parent to the new object - in other words the SL avatar base.
I honestly dont have a clue what the answer is. I guess I will just have to wait and pray that someone out there will be good enough to share this, as I dont expect such kindness from Linden Labs.

Chomping at the bit

In early November, I ended up having a nice lunch of my words when Linden Labs in a shock move announced their "fitted mesh" project. Seriously - Fitted Mesh. I liked Liquid Mesh better, but Spiffing Mesh would be just as good. Fitted sounds soooo dull.

November and December have now been and gone, and I have been waiting with baited breath for further news on this project.
From an official stand point, in the usual way Linden Labs works, their last news was the initial announcement (helpful as always), so you are forced to dig through the official JIRA on the project to get any information.
The first disappointment, considering the vast majority of designers in SL use Blender, is that for the first two months of testing, Linden Labs didnt release either a DAE or Blender version of their new skeleton to test with so only people with other supported packages could really test.
You could of course get a copy of the blender file from good and wise people who have been kind enough to create a version but as always Linden Labs utter contempt for its userbase really should be addressed.

RTFM...
Those that arnt familiar with that term it means Read The F***ing Manual and this is the second area that really should be addressed by Linden Labs.
On the Wiki pages for SL, you can find lots of useful information... nah... you cant. Its effectively a "here it is, sod off and do it yourself".
Any information that is often on the wiki comes from users, with very little technical details actually being posted by Linden Labs.

With Fitted Mesh though, it seems even the wise and the good are struggling with it, as am I. Having downloaded the official LL's file, I was confused by the fact, and after reading other people research, that the main skeleton didnt have any bone weights on the included mesh.
From the dozen or so resources I had found, everyone seemed to be convinced that Fitted Mesh was going to cause a massive headache. I will try to explain.
According to what we know, 1 face can hold 4 weights. Most of the time on the SL body, thats not a problem however you get to a cross over point on multiple areas, you can get 3 weights. Shoulders / Chest / Upper arms are one such zone.
With Fitted Mesh, you are utilising the second skeleton on the avatar - the collision skeleton.
And from everything I had read so far, this is an additional to the SL skeleton, hence you double your weights up. Fine if an area has 2 weights, as doubling up, means 4. But in those cross over zones, you end up with 6 which... well, it doesnt work.

Every article I have read so far agrees with that which brings me back to RTFM.

Having downloaded the official blender file, I found a strange issue. The collision skeleton was fully weighted on the mesh, but, the primary skeleton which we have used to rig with since mesh arrived... that wasnt weighted at all.
What is odd though, is even without those weights, you run the skeleton through a series of poses, it behaves 100% as it should do. Move the primary skeleton leg, the leg moves without issue and this got me questioning things. After all it did seem rather silly for Linden Labs to release technology that is flawed - they could have done that years ago!
Hence I went back to my research, trying to find out more information... as usual, the Wiki was a waste of time nothing more than the usual here it is, sod off.
Everything I read, was still arguing the same points about double weighting with some people complaining bitterly about how painful the process was.
Until I scrolled further down to find one person making a well balanced comment on one posting, saying what I was trying to confirm.
Fitted Mesh uses Collision skeleton weights only, as they are interconnected to the main skeleton. As long as the vertice groups use the skeleton, everything else is fine.
This was a revalation only backed up by bitter realisation that this is once again a case where Linden Labs, in 3 or 4 paragraphs, could have told us this.
And yet they are simply giving us the "thingamabobby" tool, and we are having to learn what it does ourselves through experimentation and then end up ranting about it on the internet.

However... even I cant confirm this is the case. Why? I haven't tested it yet as I have two issues.
1/ Until this is in RC beta, I wont spend time on it as things can and often do change at the drop of a hat, and I have other projects to get on with.
2/ I wont touch the test Viewer... I already have enough issues using viewer 3, without adding another migrane to it.

I may however do a classic Liquid mesh test to see if that works - by that, I mean strip out the extra weight groups added to the Fitted Mesh project and see what happens - I will addendum this with what I find out.

I just wish Linden Labs would do two things though. Hurry up... and please, for the love of god, put up some more detailed information on how things work.

__________________________________________

Addendum

First time I read up on this subject, I had a very specific reaction to how it works... I will come to that in a while.

Short version as this has been going now for near enough 5 hours in actual testing mode.
All I seem to be able to get Liquid mesh to do, is explode really.
I started off trying to make a set of prototype boots work... failed. They started off as shrunken sticks, and the more I tested playing with weights and multiple weights, it just got worse.
I thought it was me being daft to be honest...
Downloaded the "project viewer"... that didnt work.
Reweighted it all... that didnt work...
Thought it may have been a version issue (I use blender 2.49... oh hush... I am used to it)... 2.66 didnt make any difference
I then... in desparation, tried to upload the SL out of the box rigged model to test with.

That didnt work... so right now, all I have is a migrane and I am no closer to understand what or how fitted rigged mesh works.

Hence... my initital reaction to this was...

Being a perfectionist on SL is hard work

When I first joined SL it was like a giant creative playground for me and using the limited technology available, I am pleased to say I did some pretty amazing things.

However during the time I had many friends say to me that Linden Labs were ruining SL.

I never really understood what they mean but today I kind of get what they mean.

Mesh behaving badly part 2

I am quite stubborn when it comes to things, and even though I effectively went in a circle in my last post, I didn’t give up, working on new theories to see if I could get rigged mesh to behave itself.

After lots of brain storming, some inspired ideas and thinking outside of the box I carried on testing all sorts of weird and wonderful  methods.

The result though, as usual, was crap.

Experiment  one was extending the mesh upwards to include part of the upper body.

The result was no change. I thought that just using the lower body had created a cut off angle for shading – an absolute cliff to fall off. Sadly though, it wasn’t that.

I then realised while local lighting was causing issues, it could also solve them too. So I built a body light system and brilliant part... it worked. Right up to the moment you put ALM on and the world washed out in an over exposed flash of brilliance.

Finally. I thought Face alignment issues could be the root cause. One thing I had spotted was the tummy seam wasn’t causing problems. However after straightening out , smoothing and realigning the stomach and back joints to be equal in angle, the test again proved pointless – the seam was sticking out like a store thumb.

My aim here was to find a “fool” way to make the texture seamlessly blend that would work no matter who was looking at you and available from Mid Graphics setting upwards.

The result is its possible. However its flawed in sooo many bad way that its not practical.

The fact of the matter is, Rigged mesh does not behave like the avatar body with Windlight. And that creates the tone differences.

No matter how good your repertoire of tricks is, the result is, fail.

The only way this can be solved is to make rigged mesh behave in the same way the avatars body does.

However, as many mesh creators know, this issue isn’t the only problem with rigged mesh.

Soft deformers not working, Liquid Mesh still in limbo, LL’s hinting that they are again working on some kind of soft deformer project.

Add that to the huge issues with texturing, clothing, appearance, etc etc and you get back to a conclusion I reached in late 2011.

Rigged mesh is effectively useless. Its not fit for purpose. Its bugged, half built and doesn’t do what it should have done from the start. And while designers are still sitting here waiting for something innovative to pop up to the solve the problems, its not happening. In fact in the last 2 years, I have not seen one single improvement or change to production mesh for rigging.

Static Mesh, as I concluded before, is fit for purpose.

Rigged Mesh though is not fit for purpose, its half built and while I am gagging for the day its going to work right, its slowly dawning on me that its not going to happen.

Which then brings me back to another wonderful invention that is starting to bleed its way in to the viewers at the moment.

The Long awaited Materials system.

Wow... now this has been on the wish list for years. We all wanted it. Advanced Shine, Bump maps etc. Finally we can do surface texturing that actually matches what we see in other 3D packages.

And its here now! Woo hoo!

Okay... no its not. As always there is a catch.

In order to use Materials, you have to have the Advanced Lighting model running.

All due respect, I still get customers today contacting me about their VSX products not displaying the particle functions. In fact usually 2 people a month, and lord knows how many read my explanation over it and fixed it themselves.

What I am hinting at here, is the fact the only reason particles are turned off in a customers viewer, is they are on the Low Graphics setting.

Seriously.

Over the last few years, SL has been advancing at a rapid rate, with new features being added.

However as you add more features, you also add to the graphics load to the point you are at 4 FPS and wondering why you seem to be watching a 1920’s film.

From what I can see, and from straw polls I have done with friends and customers, only 20% roughly of people are running the Advanced Lighting Model.

In fact I don’t run the ALM on my system as it taxes the system too much for building.

So, we are back to the problem here of being “fit for purpose”.

Materials – brilliant.

Commercially viable – is it heck.

A Scenario. I build some sparkly new product using all the features of the Materials system.

I put it up for sale, with marketing showing the effect Materials is having on the sparkly new product.

Customers see it goes “wow” and buys it, unpacks it and wears it.

However when they look at it, and then look at the marketing they don’t look the same.

This then comes back to lots of shouting at me from customers.

“Your product doesn’t look anything like it does on the box.”

Unless they have the ALM running, they see the flat version, which doesn’t look like the ALM Materials version.

It gets worse. Even if they buy it and they do have ALM running, 80% of people on SL are not using ALM, so they don’t look right to them. And thats not a good advertisement for a designer.

So. Materials get a big thumbs up from me. Shame its a waste of time and effort because its not fit for commercial purposes.

This brings me back to what I originally said about my friends comments.

The thing I am mostly seeing from Linden Labs with Second Life is positive. New technologies are the life blood of the system, however with so much happening at such a pace, there really needs to be a someone to do a “sense check”.

I have listed just two examples of excellent technologies that epically fail to deliver on their promise.

Creators are the life blood of Second Life, and without us, SL would be a yet another empty grid, with no products and ultimately nobody to buy them, as people would leave.

Giving creators tools to make better things is great, but if the tools come with condition, bugs, flaws, and omissions that render them useless, then they do nothing for the Second Life.

At the moment, Linden Labs usually sees fit to “inform” the users and designers on SL of new technologies when they have actually finished the job. There seems to be no method from creators to give feedback and input. In fact its fair to say over the last two years the method that we did have to give feedback have been removed or limited.

The sad thing is though, without us being able to give the feedback, the result will always be new technologies that are not fit for purpose. Its great to get them, but without actually knowing how these technologies will be used by creators, then there is no way Linden Labs can make a product that will work.

So all said and done I am back to square one. A meshed up and no place left to go.

Mesh Behaving Badly & Bad Case of Wind : The age of chaos

Back in 2009, Violet Studios was the first SL company to offer breast implant skin specially designed to match up. Of course at the time I was very proud of what I did but it would never be perfect as for one little problem.

You had to set your Viewer to Midday permanently.

However I asked people to do that to make what I refer to as “the standard”.

And for years, it worked.

Rewind a little though. We need to look at why it worked.

Back then, the tools for environmental editing were almost a joke really. You could mess with the environmental setting manually, but you couldn’t permanently change them or even share them.

The choice back then was simple – you used the SL default windlight and the most you could change, was setting the time of day to what you wanted.

Slowly though over time, things started getting more complex.

Firstly TPV makers started to add in new features such as preset defaults from various creators of environmental settings. This was nice as now you and your friends could play with the environment, and actually be able to share the experience.

Next up came a major change to viewers, again thanks to TPV. You could now preset your parcels Windlight settings in the Parcel Description and the viewers working on the system could pick that up and automatically change it.

Finally came the biggest change, when Linden Labs adopted the technology fully, introducing a region windlight presetting. This was a massive change and gave sim owners the ability to create stunning sim effects, and share those effects with everyone.

Except, somewhere along the way someone forgot something. SL by default still uses the original SL default out of the box for environmentals.

There is a secondary item that was forgotten about too. Rigged Mesh and the way the original SL default behaves with it.

This brings us back full circle back to the point. A standard.

My implant work, originally was designed to work with what was available on SL, and back then, and for at least 3 years, that standard didn’t change, however with rigged mesh now becoming a standard, people are now being advised to swap to another windlight setting, and that of course throws the default SL standard out of the window. And dare I say this, Viewer effects are Local, not Global.

It seems now, thanks to Rigged mesh, there is a fight brewing between differing standard, and I will say with little reserve, both arguments are valid and needed.

I will start with my own argument.

For Implants, you need a standard. And by default, no questions asked, there already is one. The Standard SL Windlight setting, at midday. It does everything you want on the tin, and for the most part it behaves almost perfectly.

The Reason this has to be a standard is simple. It is what comes out of the box, for just about ALL viewers, regardless of Viewer 1, 2 or 3, or what ever they are calling it this week.

I see the world, you see the world the same as me. By manually overriding this to midday, its a simple setting and even on my own sims, I set up windlight to emulate the midday perm setting, using the standard SL Default.

The Rigged Mesh argument.

This is where a seriously large spanner gets thrown in the works. These days, alot of companies, including myself are working on, and releasing rigged mesh attachments. I have for over a year now, had a rigged mesh “bigbutt” system but I have had to face off to a serious problem that I have been so unhappy with, I refused to release it.

The joint where the upper body meets the lower body rigged mesh is ugly. It doesn’t match at all even though its the same texture.

Its not just me though – other products I have seen on the market suffer terribly from the same issue.

So... what’s causing it? Its our old friend, the SL Default Windlight settings. Due to the way they are configured, they are making an utter mess – the rigged mesh behave differently to the avatar body.

I was, once again, pretesting the rigging work again last night and I was utterly *censored* over the issue, so I started fiddling randomly with the phototools set up and rendering to see if there was a way I could cure it.

To my surprise, I quickly found that not only could I cure it, I could cure it so perfectly it was silly.

Opening the windlight environmental presets, you pick either

AnaLu *studio* 5 (this gives a nice bright midday setting)

AnaLu – outdoor city night (this gives a mid tone dark setting)

AnaLuetia  - (This gives a really dark setting)

AnaLuetia – Avatar Opt2 Whiter (this give s a very bright rendering)

AnaLuetia – STUDIO2 (this give a sunset style redder)

AnaLuetia – Studio Light (this give a nice, predawn setting)

All of the above settings effectively gets rid of the rigged mesh seaming issues – skin, is skin, and matches perfectly on the joint. I have even tried this with the previous issue I had with Chestplate implants misbehaving, and to my surprise, it works on them too – its a seamless integration – no silly “upside down” issues.

So, two ways of solving problems. In fact its fair to say for implants, the rigged mesh argument has massive merits too as now you can effectively get 99% matching with it.

So what solution should I use to get to where I should be.

Well, first up, thanks to the way this rigged mesh issue is causing problems, I may have to rethink the way I do implants – make a new standard.

This is of course, not a simple job – it means I will have to retint / create new textures  for all my current range.

And then, I have to put a note in basically telling people “for the best results, use these windlight settings”.

However, its never that simple.

As I stated earlier, Windlight settings on SL are set in a Local mode, not Global.

If I tell you to update your windlight settings to one of the above, then that great, but your friends, or other people who are viewing your avatar may very well be using windlight settings that are very aggressive towards rigged mesh or the way I have set the implants up to behave with a even 360 light source.

In addition, Sim owners under Linden Labs update to region settings, can preset their windlight settings to what they want, and it will override your settings.

And some viewers still don’t have the auto custom windlight parameters. They are using Stock SL windlight.

This means you may be a happy camper with your custom windlight settings, but to everyone else if the sims are not rigged mesh or Implant friendly, you will look like a dogs dinner at Christmas.

The problem is, going back to 2009, the standard.

Standard SL Windlight, night to day and back parameters – its the default rule, and in todays radically changed SL, its a rule that out of the box is NOT working anymore.

Linden Labs really need to reset that standard – without it, things will remain in their current Windlight Choas, with different people recommending different settings and people being under a misguided impression that their avatars look fantastic, when they don’t to everyone else.

As already proved by the AnaLuetia settings, you can create a night to day and back based around it, it wouldn’t really take that long to implement and finally people will view rigged mesh as it should be seen.

Sim owners could also set their windlight on the sims with more forethought to their visitors if they know the problems surrounding this.

And then...

I thought I would discuss my findings with my good friend, Adrina from AW Design.

Showed her the solutions I had come up with and I am kind of thankful that I did talk to her.

Turns out there was one... little setting I had forgot about.

Local Lighting.

I normally turn off local lighting in all my viewers – it makes life simpler for me when trying to get tinting right.

Put a local light source near the mesh lower body, and even with a mesh friendly Windlight setting, the seam line shows back up like a sore thumb.

So here we are, back where we started.

1/ Using the SL standard as “the standard” for Windlight, presetting to Midday, Breast implants will match up. Thats the standard, that was the best solution.

2/ Using SL Default Windlight regardless of time of day, borks any Rigged mesh or static mesh attachment up even if its using identical textures.

3/ Switching to an even 360 Windlight setting (as above) will cure that problem with rigged mesh or static mesh, however as my implants stand, they were designed for a totally different windlight setting and one that everyone uses to some degree or another. And of course swapping to that 360 Even windlight setting is a local job, not a global, so only you can see it and to everyone else, we see the messy seamlines.

4/ If you walk past any local lighting source, the mesh will again go out of phase and the seam line will then show up, and even if you switch off local lighting, other will still see it, and if you want to wear body or face lights... you’re borked again as either you don’t see it, or you see the ugly seam.

Now... anyone know any good hair restorers? I seem to be tearing mine out too much