Rig Transfer Tool

The Rig Transfer tool has been added as a convenience tool for users who have to reopen old Projects with newer Avastar versions. Also users who want to migrate from the simple SL rig to the Avastar Rig find this tool helpful. And finally Creators who use mesh templates (SDK’s) from other creators may find this tool of value. The tool has 3 usage modes:

Convert non Avastar rig to Avastar

This mode is entered when you have selected an arbitrary (not Avastar) Armature or one or more mesh Objects which are bound to an armature. In that case the conversion tool offers to Convert the Armature “in place”:

The original Armature will be deleted
A new Avastar Armature will be created
The assigned mesh objects will be moved to the new Avastar.
For the additional options see below

Note: The Option Transfer Joints is critical. Please read below

This tool makes it also possible to integrate Mesh development kits from other creators into the Avastar Rig. Please watch the Demo video to see this option in action

Converting the Belleza Development Mesh (Avastar 1.7-3)

The Belleza Developer Dummy can be easily converted with the Avastar Conversion tool. Below you find a brief tutorial. For other development kits the procedure might be similar.

Load the Belleza Meshes

Open the Collada Importer by using:
```
File -> Import -> Collada
```
Take care the all import options are enabled
Import the Belleza Rig
Take care that the Belleza Armature is selected in OBJECT mode

Note: For older Blender release not all options might be available. But don’t worry, that is fine.

Set the Conversion options

Open the Avastar Toolshelf
Locate the Tool Panel
Take care that Attach Sliders are disabled
Take care that Transfer Joints is enabled!
Finally hit the button Convert to Avastar

After a short while a new Avastar Armature appears and the Belleza Mesh gets attached to it.

Note: The armature is rotated by 90 degree. This is on purpose! And you may now want to set the 3D View to Front View.

Convert your Mesh to T-Pose

Select the Armature
Enter Pose mode
Now bend the arms by 45 degree upwards
Finally Select the Mesh in Object mode

Open the Modifier stack of the Mesh
In the Armature modifier enable Preserve Volume
Apply the Armature

Now you have converted the Belleza Mesh into a T posed Mesh. You can delete the Armature as we do not need it any longer. We must only keep the T posed Mesh for now.

Note: In principle you could even reuse the Avastar Armature for the next step. But lets make things in the most clean way first. You can later experiment on your own to improve this workflow.

Bind the T Posed Mesh to Avastar

Create a new Avastar Armature (Rig Only)
Open the Appearance Sliders
Click the white Stickman Icon to get the Armature into Restpose
Select the Armature and the Mesh

Open the Skinning Panel
Bind the Mesh with the Keep Weights option (see image)

Now the Appearance sliders should work and the Belleza Mesh is rigged to Avastar.

Update old Avastar Rig to newest version

This mode is entered, when you have selected an older version of an Avastar Armature (by opening an older project blend file for example) or you selected a mesh that is bound to an older Avastar Armature. In that case the conversion tool offers to Update the Armature “in place”

The original Armature will be deleted
A new Avastar Armature will be created
The assigned mesh objects will be moved to the new Avastar.
All possibly edited Bones (Joints) will be transferred.

Update an Old Avastar Rig to the newest Version (in Place)

Copy an Armature to an existing Avastar

This mode is entered, when you have selected 2 armatures, of which the active Armature is either an outdated Avastar armature or an arbitrary non Avastar Armature, and the other armature is a new Avastar Armature. In that case the conversion tool offers to Copy the Active Armature’s configuration to the other selected Armature:

Copy Avastar to Avastar

The original Armature will be kept
All possibly edited Bones (Joints) will be transferred
For the other options see below

Copy an (old) Avastar Rig to another Avastar Rig

Copy SL Compatible Rig to Avastar

The original Armature will be kept
The assigned mesh objects will be copied to the Avastar.
For the other options see below

Copy an SL compatible Rig to an Avastar Rig

Options

Dummies:
This option controls the Avastar Meshes in the Target Armature. Depending on the use case you will want Avastar to handle these meshes differently :

Keep: Use for Mesh Attachment creation
Hide: Use for Human Character Creation
Delete: Use for non Human character Creation

Transfer Joints (only in Copy Mode)
When your Armature has been edited, then you need to copy the modified bones to the Target Armature. Functionally all that is needed is to transfer the relative position of the bone joints.

This option only shows up when the Source Armature is not an Avastar Armature. The option is not necessary for Avastar to Avastar copies because for that case the joints are always adjusted automatically.

Transfer Meshes(only in Copy Mode)
You might want to only copy the Armature settings to the Target Armature

This option only shows up when the Source Armature is an Avastar Armature. The option is not necessary for Migration copies (from non Avastar Rigs to Avastar) because we assume for that case that all visible Meshes have to be migrated as well.