The Rig Converter

Applies to: not rigged Mesh that was made for the SL Restpose rig

This is the simplest situation where you need to do almost nothing to get the mesh development kit to work with Avastar.

• Create a new Avastar
  If your development kit contains a full character, then you probably want to create only the Rig.
  But you are free to create the Avastar meshes along with the Armature.
• In the Appearance panel locate the Shape presets. There you see 2 stickman icons, one orange, one white. Select the white icon.
• Check that the Avastar armature matches to the mesh.

The white Stickman icon puts the Armature into SL Restpose. This is what most Foreign Development kits support.

If the Mesh now matches to the armature, then

• Bind your mesh to the avastar rig with Keep weights
• And that’s all you need, your mesh character is now
  ready to use with Avastar.

If the Mesh does not match to the armature, then proceed below

Your Content

Applies to: not rigged Mesh that was made for a specific SL appearance Shape

Sometimes the Mesh development kit has been made with a slightly modified rig that does not match exactly to the SL Original rig but has been made for a specific Appearance Shape. In that case you need to adjust the Avastar Rig accordingly as follows:

Select the Avastar Armature in Pose mode. If you know for which appearance Shape the mesh was made, then you can import this shape to Avastar. If you not have the Shape available then you still can use the appearance sliders to adjust the bone length until the rig matches to the Mesh.

Add a new Preset by click on the white + sign right to the Shape preset popup

 

If the Mesh now matches to the armature, then

• Optional add a new Appearance Shape preset
• Bind your mesh to the avastar rig with Keep weights
• And that’s all you need, your mesh character is now
  ready to use with Avastar.

If the Mesh does not match to the armature, then proceed below

Applies to: not rigged Mesh that was made for a rig that used Bind Pose

Some Mesh Development kits do not use the SL Rig restpose (the T-Pose) but they use a bind pose. The good news is: Avastar-2 supports bind poses with only very little extra work on your side. But…

It is very popular to use A-Pose rigs, that is where the arms are bended downwards into an A-Pose. And sometimes also the legs are bended a bit outwards (see image).

for technicians: Blender does not support Bind poses. Therefore we must convert the original Bind pose (that was used by the mesh creator) into the new Avastar Restpose. And when we export the rig we must revert the conversion of the rig back into a T-Pose Rig. Avastar is ready to support all of this for you in the background.

A typical A-Posed Rig

If the Mesh now matches to the armature, then

• Bind your mesh to the avastar rig with Keep weights
• And that’s all you need, your mesh character is now
  ready to use with Avastar.

If the Mesh still does not match to the armature, then proceed below

Applies to: Not rigged Mesh that was prepared to be used on a modified rig

Sometimes the Mesh development kit uses a modified Rig with edited joints. This is almost always true with development kits for non human characters. But also some human character development kits come with edited joints. When in doubt then please ask the development kit creator if they have edited the joints and if they can add the modified rig to their development kit.

However, if all you have is the mesh itself, then you still can adjust the Avastar rig by editing the rig itself. In this case you need to do a bit of extra preparation to get Avastar to work properly

• Make sure the Avastar appearane sliders are set to the white stickman icon
• Select the Rig in object mode
• In the Settings panel select the “Bone Edit” Preset
• Now adjust the rig as you want
• When done with your editing, then open the Panel presets again and click the pose&animation button

See the Panel presets section in the Avastar Settings Panel

When the Mesh matches to the armature, then

• Bind your mesh to the avastar rig with Keep weights
• And that’s all you need, your mesh character is now
  ready to use with Avastar.

Applies to: Not rigged Mesh that was prepared to be used on a modified rig

Besides the direct editing of the rig – as described in the previous chapter – you also can use pose mode as an alternative way to edit your rig. Using Pose mode for adjusting the rig has the benefit that the attachment bones and the Collision Volume bones are automatically kept in the correct positions. Here is the brief workflow:

When the Mesh matches to the armature, then

• Bind your mesh to the avastar rig with Keep weights
• And that’s all you need, your mesh character is now
  ready to use with Avastar.