Friday 18 April 2014

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.