Body Part Deformers?

[Amity Slade]

I don't have a mesh body yet, but every now and then I demo some to see if I can find one I'd like. My biggest problem is that they are all too young and perky and perfect.

I have recently seen a category of products called body part deformers, for example this one which is a breast deformer: Second Life Marketplace - Breast Deformer - Pack A

I have demoed a few, and they kinda sorta seem to work but have bizarre results when I take them off or swap them. I was wondering if anyone else has experience using them.

I am also wondering how they work from a technical standpoint- that is, exactly how do they achieve the deformation?

 

[Wesleytron]

hey kinda sorta seem to work but have bizarre results when I take them off or swap them.

When you take one off you often need reset your avatar skeleton and animations.

In Firestorm it's on the right-click menu in our avatar. "Reset Skeleton and Animations"

(There's an option to just pick Reset Skeleton, but in the past I'm sure resetting animations as well worked more effectively for me)

Edit: there's also an option in the Avatar > Avatar Health menu to Undeform Avatar, but again I think I've found that to be less effective than the above.

 

[Romana]

I don't have a mesh body yet, but every now and then I demo some to see if I can find one I'd like. My biggest problem is that they are all too young and perky and perfect.

I have recently seen a category of products called body part deformers, for example this one which is a breast deformer: Second Life Marketplace - Breast Deformer - Pack A

I have demoed a few, and they kinda sorta seem to work but have bizarre results when I take them off or swap them. I was wondering if anyone else has experience using them.

I am also wondering how they work from a technical standpoint- that is, exactly how do they achieve the deformation?

Have you looked at the Kalhene body? From the pictures, it looks like it can do what you want.

 

[Amity Slade]

When you take one off you often need reset your avatar skeleton and animations.

In Firestorm it's on the right-click menu in our avatar. "Reset Skeleton and Animations"

(There's an option to just pick Reset Skeleton, but in the past I'm sure resetting animations as well worked more effectively for me)

Edit: there's also an option in the Avatar > Avatar Health menu to Undeform Avatar, but again I think I've found that to be less effective than the above.

I'm using the LL viewer, but I have seen the Reset Skeleton option.

So I take it that the deformers work like animations, but on the shaping bones and not the regular animation bones?

 

[Amity Slade]

Have you looked at the Kalhene body? From the pictures, it looks like it can do what you want.

I did look at Kalhene, and that body might be a consideration, with deformers added to it.

 

[Wesleytron]

So I take it that the deformers work like animations, but on the shaping bones and not the regular animation bones?

I believe they can work on ALL bones - both shaping and animation. Deformers were around before there were any shaping bones. You used to have to log out and then back in again to fully remove their effects!

 

[Amity Slade]

I believe they can work on ALL bones - both shaping and animation. Deformers were around before there were any shaping bones. You used to have to log out and then back in again to fully remove their effects!

So I can actually make my own deformer, I think.

 

[Soen Eber]

So I can actually make my own deformer, I think.

Yeah, you do it by hacking with the bvh animation. There's a freebie (I think called bvhviewer but ... not sure, bvh is part of the name though that lets you do it). It's not an SL thing, you need a bvh animation program that exposes that ability, and (most?) don't.

 

[Sean Gorham]

Deformers will have very different results depending on the body they're attached to. Like with any mesh-related product, demo demo demo.

I use several different deformers with my mesh bodies.

So sorry to keep you waiting. We'll be right back!

These give the breasts lift/sag and varying amounts of cleavage or separation. They also push the breasts into the body a bit, toward the spine. That effect is more pronounced with larger breast sizes, reducing what I like to call the "stretched out and floating" effect you can get with some mesh bodies and large breast sizes.

So sorry to keep you waiting. We'll be right back!

These rotate the breasts downward. Great if you don't like your nipples pointing at the ceiling.

So sorry to keep you waiting. We'll be right back!

There's a bunch of different deformers in this kit, but I use it to push my av's belly in a bit. Bellies look strange when you've got the fat/thickness sliders up fairly high, even with a Belly setting of zero.

So sorry to keep you waiting. We'll be right back!

I don't use this one as often - mostly with Maitreya and Hourglass. It lifts the butt up somewhat.

 

[Noodles]

I have tried a variety of deformers with mixed results. And in at least one case, another person claimed they could not see the effect.

Also, maybe I needed to play with it a bit more but some of the breast deformers get weird. Like you are taking a water balloon and stretching it weird, instead of creating a more natural "sag". It seems more like it's rotating things and not really properly deforming, hard to describe exactly, it just struck me as off.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I've been using deformers for non-human avatars for over a decade. I just got used to relogging after taking them off. I'll see how the Firefox reset skeleton option works, thanks for the info.

 

[Amity Slade]

Yeah, you do it by hacking with the bvh animation. There's a freebie (I think called bvhviewer but ... not sure, bvh is part of the name though that lets you do it). It's not an SL thing, you need a bvh animation program that exposes that ability, and (most?) don't.

I'd love to try to make my own, if I knew the specifics. I've opened bvh files in a text editor before, I understand the structure if I had to manually edit it, and I do have bvhacker though I haven't used it much. I also have an outdated version of Avastar that I use solely to convert bvh files to anim before uploading. I bet if I look closely, Avastar would be able to help.

My assumption is that deformers are primarily using bone translation to do things that can't be done with shape sliders and physics.

 

[Amity Slade]

I have tried a variety of deformers with mixed results. And in at least one case, another person claimed they could not see the effect.

Also, maybe I needed to play with it a bit more but some of the breast deformers get weird. Like you are taking a water balloon and stretching it weird, instead of creating a more natural "sag". It seems more like it's rotating things and not really properly deforming, hard to describe exactly, it just struck me as off.

I will have to remember that when I am demoing deformers, I need to be sure to have some friends over to look at my breasts and tell me what they see.

 

[Conifer Dada]

I still use a system avatar which I'm happy with but the one deformer I would be interested in is one which makes the thighs slightly shorter in comparison to the lower legs. In effect moving the knees up the legs. I did find one that makes the lower legs longer but that messes with shoes, so I'd prefer one that works on the thighs, where it wouldn't interfere with other parts.

Does anyone know if such a thing exists?

 

[Amelia Freund]

I'm currently using this breast deformer with my Kupra body to try and give more sag :https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Breast-Deformer-Pack-C/21408026
However the breast seem more to be sagging in a diagonally downward direction rather than downward with natural gravity. The breasts would still definitely pass the RL pencil test if you know what I'm talking about. I already have the gravity breast slider at 100 (as I do with every shape I make).
It's not the sag I want though, I just want to breasts to sit at a more proportionate height on the chest.
From the front it looks like what I want, but from the side....

 

[Cristalle]

What you need is better physics with more mass, gravity and drag to pull the breasts down. So once you find a generally agreeable shape, use better physics to add weight and gravity. And start with your shape at 100 gravity to begin with.