Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer with a cult following among hardcore graphics fans (developer NiranV estimates about 3000+ downloads), has a new version available for download: "Animating Dragon".
As that suggests, the latest updates enables this: "The ability to use poses to animate not just yourself but also Animesh now. Previously I added posing for Animesh but you could still only animate either you or them [Animesh-based NPCs) and only one at a time," as he explains to me. "Now you can animate everyone independently and/or at the same time."
So basically, this is a major boon for machinima makers and fashionistas who want to take supermodel shots where they want to control the supermodel too. (Just for starters.)
Video of Animating Dragon in action below. More about it on NiranV's blog (where you can also get the download link).
Niran, by the way, has a Patreon for developing Black Dragon, and donations sure seem well-deserved. I mean, just look at what he's doing all by himself on his viewer:
"...where they want to control the supermodel too"
Niran's blog states...
"YOU CANNOT POSE OR ANIMATE OTHERS, THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN (Thanks to LL)."
Posted by: vwfan | Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 04:33 PM
@VWFan
Pretty sure he was referring to the fact that you can use Animesh to pose another "you" now.
He wasn't implying that you can pose other user-controlled avatars.
Posted by: NiranV Dean | Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 05:06 PM
Yes, thanks for the clarification!
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 10:41 AM
Animesh supermodels? I can hardly imagine the popular bodies having an animesh variant.
Posted by: vwfan | Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 10:52 AM
Given the fact that currently the polygon limit of Animesh is set to 100.000 polygons most of the popular mesh models can be used as Animesh and it is as simple as putting it on the ground and ticking the "Animated Mesh" checkbox in the build window.
Animesh can be basically anything as long as it follows this simple rule.
Posted by: NiranV Dean | Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 06:56 PM
Hmm ok. Well, few things to consider here... Most people would attach more than just the body component which excludes the feet, hands and head. So, you have the mesh head, bento hands, and feet. Just for example, the Maitreya body alone (no feet and hands) is 108K, not <=100K. I used your Avatar Complexity Dialog to see these numbers. In total, the complete body with head (no clothes, etc) is like 338K tris. You also have to consider the clothing and hair that would need to be attached which I'm not sure how that works out with animesh.
Posted by: vwfan | Wednesday, October 31, 2018 at 11:00 PM
Not at all then. Guess they are shit out of luck.
Lucky for us.
No Maitreya/Belleza shitshow animesh avatars lagging you to death.
Posted by: NiranV Dean | Thursday, November 01, 2018 at 10:04 AM