Character llm files, xml files, targa files #2
Description
WOOT Kayaker has finished the data dumps for all of the llm files and they're up in this repo. I am digging into avatar_lad.xml more, so I can get a list of all of the "tweakable" slider morphs. To start with. There are other kinds of morphs: animatable, physics, the infamous "other" . So that I can build a topology that works. I have several drafts.
The topology has to be:
- better looking than the current SL/OS avatar
- modeled in Blender rather than Maya: cheaper, open source.
- approximately the same height as the current SL/OS avatar
- vertex weighted to the current SL/OS armature - maybe a version of avatar_skeleton.xml with the asymmetries and bone length issues fixed
- be compatible with the LOD parameters defined in the current llm and xml files: each lower LOD 1/2 the pixel width, so I assume 1/2 the verts of level above. There are between one and five LOD versions for each body part. Eye, eyelashes, hair, head, lower, skirt and upper.
- be capable of morphing to the current list of morphs - Female to Male, shape changes in the Appearance sliders, movement morphs such as finger poses and face expressions, physics morphs, skin, hair and eye color morphs. The morphs are a combination of armature changes, topology changes, and color palette changes using the targa maps also found in the viewer Character folder.
- Kayaker would strongly prefer (insists on, actually), at least to start with, that the topology UV mapping conform to the legacy SL UV map island edges. I'm more interested in forward compatibility to current standards in good UV mapping: a symmetrical UV map, and fewer body pieces to eliminate seams. Upgrade favorite legacy skins and clothing to a better UV map, rather tha distort our work into the old UV maps. But we'd need more programming help outside the Character folder to make that work.
- the topology of the body parts need to be compatible with the targa maps as referenced in avatar_lad.sml and genepool.xml. The targa files themselves should be revised by a good skin texture artist, and the color palette ranges redefined.
My next task is to figure out a way to compile the data in the llm and xml files to come up with a list of definitions for each of the morphs. Then rework my topology drafts to make the shape keys that reflect those morphs. Some of this is translating from Maya values to Blender compatible values, as I did while making armatures from avatar_skeleton.xml. A set of spreadsheets should do it.