Creator Education Center

Furniture Introduction A BIG THANK YOU goes out to TrakahanTiTeutonia for translating this tutorial into Italian. Molto grazie! (We're leaving this part of the tutorial in place as the links are important and this first paragraph has not been translated yet.) If you are just beginning to contemplate creating 3D products for IMVU, then Furniture Products is a great place to start. Without the complex rigging of the avatar, or the tons of nodes you have to deal with in Room products, Furniture is about as basic as it gets. You will still need to understand the fundamentals of building a mesh in 3D, and you will need to learn the steps necessary to tech your 3D model, export it from your 3D application, and import it into the IMVU Previewer. Se state iniziando a valutare di iniziare a creare prodotti 3D per IMVU, allora il mobilio (Furniture Products) sono in ottimo modo per cominciare! Senza la complessa ossatura degli Avatar, o le tonnellate di nodi con cui combattere per creare una Stanza (Room product), le Forniture sono la base da cui partire. Dovete intanto comprendere i fondamentali necessari per costruire un modello (mesh) in 3D, dovete imparare i passaggi necessari per realizzare i vostri modelli 3D, esportandoli dall’applicazione 3D con cui li avete realizzati ed importandoli nell’IMVU Previewer. La definizione di “Forniture Product” è la seguente: “In IMVU una “Forniture” è qualsiasi prodotto che può essere piazzato in una scena 3D, e che solitamente è reperibile nella sezione “Furnitures” del catalogo di IMVU. Una Forniture può essere qualsiasi cosa voi, i developer, possiate immaginare. Che sia un semplice cubo o una ruota da mulino con un’animazione di un avatar che corre, potere realizzarlo e venderlo su IMVU. La limitazione maggiore alla creazione di Furniture su IMVU è la vostra immaginazione. E’ importante notare ce una Forniture è differente dalla Room 3D dove viene eventualmente posizionato. Nonostante possano condividere molti degli aspetti tecnici, la Forniture è ufficialmente un prodotto che può essere aggiunto e posizionato in una scena 3D.” Per costruire una Forniture dovete conoscere alcune aree specifiche: 1. Costruire uno Scheletro, un Modello 3Ded aggiungere un Materiale (texture) alla tua Furniture Esportare tutti questi elementi nel giusto formato in un file Cal3D Assemblare tutti gli elementi nell IMVU Previewer 4. Inviarela tua Furniture nel catalogo di IMVU Catalog Dopo aver sperimentato tutti i tutorial necessari per realizzare un prodotto finito, avrai imparato molti dei passi fondamentali necessari per importare i tuoi lavori in 3D su IMVU, questo significa che sei sulla strada giusta per creare Stanze, Accessori ed eventualmente nuovi Avatar! Files necessari per iniziare: Abbiamo preparato acuni files esemplificativi da farti vedere, così che tu possa prendere familiarità con la creazione di una Furniture. Per le spiegazioni di questi tutorial prenderemo come riferimento 3D Studio Max 7 come programma di editing 3D. Product12906_Furniture_window01.zip Product12907_Furniture_couch01.zip Product12908_Furniture_chair01.zip Product12909_Furniture_bar01.zip Esempi di Furniture: Esempio di sedia Esempio di divano Esempio di bar Esempio di finestra Ogni file ZIP contiene le texture e lo scheletro del prodotto, ed il file CFL. Hai bisogno di tutti questi elementi per creare la tua prima Furniture nel Previewer. Ogni file MAX di esempio contiene vari oggetti necessari a trasformare le tue idee in realtà su IMVU. Troverai inclusi uno o più Modelli (mesh), un Materiale Compositoed un nodo Root. Una Furniture su cui un avatar può sedersi contiene unnodo di seat, una coppia di Catcher e Pitcher, un nodo di handle ed un avatar di posizionamento. NOTA: Salva questo file con un nuovo nome, se dovessi aver bisogno di unire parti del file originale con il tuo modello per correggere un errore. NOTA: Noi all’ IMVU inc non mettiamo limiti alla dimensione di ogni Forniture. In ogni caso abbiamo limitato la dimensione del file CFL finale a 2 Megabyte (GIGANTESCO!). Il download ed il runtime sono due cose che dovreste sempre tenere in mente quando realizzate prodotti per IMVU. Se le dimensioni dei file del tuo prodotto sono troppo grandi sarà poco piacevole da acquistare e scaricare per i tuoi potenziali clienti. E’ una buona abitudine cercare di mantenere al minimo la dimensione delle tue texture, il numero di poligoni e vertici del modello e la lunghezza delle animazioni. Non c’è ragione di usare una texture di 256x256 texture su una porzione microscopica delle vostre scene: semplicemente non si vedrà bene. Infatti abbiamo scoperto che più piccole sono le texture, MIGLIORE sarà la resa su IMVU.

Super Furniture Tutorial When I want to learn how something works I like to just take the dang thing apart and see how it ticks! This is the very reason we created the Super Furniture Product. Although fairly useless as Furniture items go, it does include one of every potential settings and effect you might want to use in your own Furniture product creation. In this tutorial we will break down each of the features used and point you to other tutorials that will help you better understand how to do this yourself. It is worth noting that this only scratches the surface of what is possible and we look forward to you surprising us with your own unique combinations of these effects and techniques. To help you along, we recommend that you check out the Super Furniture Product itself by clicking on the Derive from this Product link at the bottom of the product's catalog page, here: Super Furniture Product Standing & Seated Nodes Starting from the far right and working ourselves to the left, we have included the standard Standing & Sitting avatar seat locations. These are as basic as it get, but worth mentioning. The standard Seat Nodes include an appropriately named Root node, a Catcher & Pitcher node, and in the case of the Seated avatar, a Handle node. All avatar animations that are displayed in these locations are the default seat and standing Idle Animations built into the IMVU Client. To create your own poses and animations you will need to do a little more work... which we will cover below. For more information about Standing & Seated Nodes, check out the following Tutorials: Nodes for Furniture Catcher & Pitcher Nodes Handle Nodes Seat Naming Convention Note: The Catcher & Pitcher nodes are place in the depicted way to keep cooperative animations from intersecting the model platform. Animated Textures There are a lot of ways to create movement in your Furniture and Room models without necessarily having to build it into the geometry. These include both Scrolling and Cycling Texture Animations. Both are achieved through settings in the Previewer and need a little preparation in the textures that you use. Scrolling Texture The lower meter effect is created using a single texture that "scrolls" from right to left. To achieve this I built a texture that could Tile horizontally. This means that as the texture scrolls you are unable to see a seam that would otherwise give away the effect of moving from one image to the next. In the Previewer I used the below settings to create the animated effect: Note that the Texture Animations Parameters is checked ON, the Mode is set to Scrolling, and the Direction is along the X Axis at "-1" (speed) Cycling Animation For the monitor that includes thewire frame rotating chair, I used a simple Cycling Texture Animation consisting of for frames. All four frames live on the same texture and are applied to the Mesh so that all of the frames are visible. Once in the Previewer you can set each part of the texture to be displayed separately, over an adjustable length of time. In the Previewer I used the below settings to create this animated effect: Note that the Texture Animation Parameters is checked ON, the Mode is set to Cycling, and the Frame/Cell set to 12. The Cell Width and Height tells the Previewer the size of each frame of animation, the Start Cell begins with 0 to indicate the first frame, and the Number how many cells are in your texture.   For more information on how to apply and animate textures, check out the following Tutorials: Introduction to Textures Mapping Materials Previewer - Materials TAB Particle Effect Another effect that can be added to a Furniture Product is Particle Effects. These can be as simple as a puff of smoke, or splash from a fountain, or engulf your entire product in flames. Particle Effects are still an ALPHA feature and will be going through an evolution of enhancements over time, but you can start playing with them now in the latest version of the Previewer. The many options for how a particle is displayed and reacts can be daunting, so we suggest you try building your furniture product from one of the several beginning Particle products we have created for that purpose. You can find links to these products here. The settings for this particular effect include a Source Rule and a KillOld Rule. The main Particles TAB allows you to influence the Gravity effect, load a .PNG texture file, and choose which Rules will influence how your particles will behave. The Source Rule determines how many particles appear per second and how they are created. The KillOld Rule determines the life of a particle on screen. The smaller the number the shorter the life of the particle. For more information about Particle Effects, be sure to visit the Particle Effects ALPHA Tutorial Animated Avatar For the control panel, I did a simple avatar animation or "action". Like the Seat Nodes, I created a unique avatar seat that loads an avatar action I created using the Rigged Avatar. The Rigged Avatar file allows you to load up all the tools you need to pose or animate your avatar. In the case of the avatar pressing buttons on my control panel, I have only animated those bones that control the arms, shoulders, and hips. The rest of the avatar, including the hands, are in a static pose position that is all I need to create the action I want. The head is free to look around, and when another avatar sits in the animated chair the two avatars appear to be looking at each other as they go through their motions. For more information on how to create an animated avatar Pose or Action, check out these tutorials: Rigged Avatar Tutorial Avatar Animation Files Avatar Skeletal Animations Avatar Animations for Furniture & Rooms Avatar Statue For the animated chair I wanted an avatar pose that was different than what is offered with the standard Seat Nodes. To do this I created a static pose and an Avatar Statue to help me correctly place my new pose within my Mesh while I built it. To achieve this, I applied the same technique used to create my animated avatar at the control panel, but I did not include movement. I did however still need to export a animation file (.xaf) to tell the avatar to assume the pose when seated in my chair. I left the head free to look around to add a sense of connectedness to the environment and periodic eye contact with the avatar at the controls, or anywhere nearby for that matter. To learn more about creating Poses or Avatar Statues check out the following tutorials: Avatar Statue Avatar Actions Chat Triggered Animated Chair The final element is the animated chair who's animation is triggered by the avatar typing the word "Go" into a chat balloon. Note in the video to the right that the movement of the Mesh is dictated by an Animation Node (green cube) that the chair is Weighted to. The secret behind animating any Furniture or Room element is the Animation Node and how the Mesh relates to it. It is also important to note that the Seat Node and Avatar Statue are Linked to the Animation Node. In the Hierarchy chart to the left you will see the Root Node (.xsf), with the Animation Node (CaptainsChair.animation) Linked to it. The Handle Node and Seat Node are then Linked to the Animation Node, and finally, the Avatar Placeholder (Avatar Statue) is Linked to the Seat Node. Finally the Mesh (CaptainsChair.mesh) is Weighted to the Animation Node. This allows for the Mesh to animate with the Animation Node, and the Avatar to follow right along. To create a word trigger to start the animation I placed the word "go" into the Trigger field under the Actions TAB in the IMVU Previewer: For more information about Furniture Animation check out these tutorials: Animating Nodes Furniture & Room Animation Exporting Animations .XAF

Export Introduction First of all... what IS an Exporter? To create 3D assets for sale in the IMVU Catalog, you need a way to get them from your chosen 3D Application to the Cal3D format that will work inside the IMVU Client. To do this we have created an Exporter that will work with 3D Studio Max 7 (and soon to support other applications). The Exporter will be automatically loaded into your 3D Studio Max Export Plug-ins directory and appear when it is time for you to export your models. Once you have created all of your assets... your model is finished and textured, your Nodes are Linked and Mesh Weighted, you are ready to start Exporting your files for the Previewer. As part of the Previewer Install process, you should also have received the Cal3D Exporter files and placed them appropriately in your 3D Max PlugIns directory*. When it is time to Export it will be these specific file formats that you will be using most. NOTE: In the case of ALL of these file formats, you will need to MANUALLY type in the suffix (i.e. .xsf etc.) for each Exported file. If you do not then the Exported file will not work in the IMVU Previewer. These are the file formates the 3D Max Export window should offer you if you have correctly installed the Cal3D Export Plug-ins XSF When you Export your Skeleton or Root, with all of its Linked Nodes, you will be Exporting it as a Skeleton File, or .XSF XMF All of your Meshes will be Exported as Mesh Files, or .XMF. Remember that your Mesh cannot be exported until it has been properly Weighted to either the Root/Skeleton Node, or to a Node linked to the Root/Skeleton. It is also important to remember to always export your Skeleton .XSF file FIRST, before exporting your Mesh files. This is also true if you make any changes to either your Node placements, or even a single vertex in your product. When making any change, it is safest to re-Export everything, starting with the .XSF file. XRF Each Sub-Material you have used in your model will need to be Exported separately as its own .XRF file. XAF This is the file format for Skeleton (Node) Animations (and the Meshes Weighted to them) that add movement your model. XPF This is the file format for Exporting Morph Animations that alter or deform the Mesh in any way. Each Export type is described in depth in their own tutorials, so we highly recommend you review these as you work your way through the process of bringing your design from your 3D application to the IMVU Previewer and Catalog. * PlugIn Exporters for other 3D applications are in the works, as well as Member created Exporters for programs like Blender.  

Export Animation   We define an Animation in IMVU is anything that moves or distorts a Mesh. Although you can also animate textures along the surface of a Mesh, Exporting Animations are specific to models where parts of the Mesh physically move through space. Example shows the animation export window displaying the Root hierarchy, here you see that only those Nodes needed to animate the Mesh are checked. All others are unchecked. The animation file needs to be exported AFTER the skeleton file as the skeleton is referenced in the Animation export process.   Exporting a Furniture or Room Animation In order to export your Animation file, select Root and choose Export in the file menu. Scroll to the .xaf file format, name your file (remembering to manually type in the .xaf at the end of the name) and click Save. In the Cal3D window that appears, you will be prompted to supply a skeleton/.xsf file. If this file is not automatically placed, browse to the skeleton file you just created and then click next. The Cal3D window will then show you a list of all of the Nodes in the scene with check boxes next to them. You only need to export the Nodes that actually animate so uncheck those that are unnecessary. For example, you will never need to include the avatar meshes in your animations as they actually don't animate based on the Scene (the seat nodes may) so uncheck the boxes next to the avatars. The third window in the Cal3D animation export process is where you verify the actual time values of the animation. Check that the start and end frame numbers match what you intended to export, and make sure the frames per second is set to 30. Click finish. You just exported an animation file! NOTE: In order to have multiple skeletal and/or morph animations in your Accessory, you can optionally export only those bones that will animate the desired mesh. Exporting an Avatar Accessory Animation In order to export your Animation file, select AttachmentRoot and choose Export in the file menu. Scroll to the .xaf file format, name your file (remembering to manually type in the .xaf at the end of the name) and click Save. In the Cal3D window that appears, you will be prompted to supply a skeleton/.xsf file. Browse to the skeleton file you just created and then click next. The Cal3D window will then show you a list of all of the Nodes in the scene with check boxes next to them. You only need to export the Nodes that actually animate so uncheck those that are unnecessary. The third window in the Cal3D animation export process is where you verify the actual time values of the animation. Check that the start and end frame numbers match what you intended to export (they usually do), and make sure the frames per second is set to 30 (it usually is). Click finish. You just exported an animation file! Exporting an Avatar Action If you are creating an animation that specifically moves the Avatar, either within a Furniture or Room product, or as an Avatar Pose or Action (as in dancing, etc.) then the Export process is slightly different In order to Export your Avatar Animation file, select the Master Root Node (this is the highest bone in the skeletal hierarchy) and choose Export in the file menu. Scroll to the .xaf file format, name your file (remembering to manually type in the .xaf at the end of the name) and click Save. In the Cal3D window that appears, you will be prompted to supply a skeleton/.xsf file. Browse to the skeleton file you want your animation to work on. This must be the skeleton of the avatar you are animating in MAX. The Girl and Guy avatar skeleton is called Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.xsf and comes with ZIP files. If you want, you can export only portions of the skeleton. For example, if you want to have the avatar do a wave animation, you only have to export the bones affected in the wave. For example -the arm, clavicle and, maybe, Spine04. This approach frees the rest of the skeleton up to be driven by the avatar Idle animations (like changing posture while standing) and looks very natural. There are several ways to choose a subset of the bones in the skeleton when exporting. 1. You can simply check the boxes next to the bones you actually want to export. This means actually unchecking everything else in the list. To do so, you can click the Uncheck All button and then go in and check the bones you want to export. 2. You can select the bones you want to export in MAX, then choose to export an .xaf file, and then click the Choose Selected button in the skeleton hierarchy section of the exporter. The third step of the Cal3D animation export process is where you verify the actual time values of the animation. Check that the start and end frame numbers match what you intended to export, and make sure the frames per second is set to 30. Click finish.  

Export Materials   The Material files in the IMVU process are not textures themselves. They are the link between the texture and the Mesh that live in your final CFL product. Basically, the Material file tells the Mesh that a specific texture (or textures) is meant to be applied to the material ID number embedded in the mesh. This material ID number should be included in the sub-material name in MAX. The Material files can be exported at any time. In order to Export the Material files, make sure you have nothing selected, choose export from the file menu, name the file (remembering to manually type in the .xrf at the end of the name) and click Save. The Cal3D window that appears shows you a list of the materials and sub-materials in the scene - including the sub-materials you had named back when you were building. Choose your sub-material name from this list and then click next. The following Cal3D window is your opportunity to verify that this Material does indeed contain the texture(s) you wish to export. Once verified, click Finish. Cal3D Export window allows you to confirm which materials your Export corresponds to, You need to repeat this process for every multi-sub in your MAX material. This means that for every material you want to actually have show up in IMVU, you need a corresponding .xrf, or Material, file.

Introduction to Avatar Accessories In IMVU, you can create Avatar Accessories. Accessories are products that can attach themselves to a bone in an avatar's skeleton. This means that you have the power to make watches, halos, wings, PETS. Anything! The power is in your hands. Just like Furniture products can be added to Room products, Accessories can be added to Avatars. Building an Accessory from scratch is not easy. However, it can be much easier than building avatar clothing from scratch. This is because you need to know how to model and map in 3D as well as weight meshes. Should that deter you? No! Of course not. Thousands of people have built their own accessory products and so can you. Before diving into building an accessory, please read the Introduction to Mesh Building Tutorial. In addition, some things to note up front: There is a run time Accessory limit per bone in IMVU. You may wear multiple Accessories at one time but may only wear three Accessories per attachment node at one time. This means that you could be wearing your sunglasses, halo and antennae on your head AND be wearing your shoulder pads, wings and sheathed sword on Spine4 at the same time. Pretty cool. Also, while it is true that Accessories can move with the one bone in the avatar skeleton to which they are attached, Accessories can not be made to move with more than one bone in the avatar body. So, although you can make incredible Accessories like Pets and morphy wobbly things, it is safe to assume that most Accessories will be rigid in IMVU. Accessory Basics An Accessory product is just like any other base 3D product in IMVU in that it contains its own skeleton, its own geometry, its own materials and its own textures. Since Accessories contain their own skeleton, they can also contain their own animations. This comes in very handy when turning an accessory into....a pet! Get the weighting files The avatar weighting MAX filess that IMVU, inc. has created contain an example Accessory set up exactly the way it needs to be in order to be exported. So, the first thing you need to do is download the weighting MAX files. Female Weighting File Male Weighting File For Position Only You will NOT actually use or export any piece of the original base avatar mesh or embedded avatar skeleton. You are building a separate Accessory product which means you are building a product that contains its own skeletons, meshes and materials. The reason you need the avatar mesh and embedded avatar skeleton is only for the placement/alignment of your Accessory product. The Embedded Accessory Skeleton An Accessory skeleton can be very simple. The most simple Accessory skeleton must contain two bones/nodes. These bones/nodes can be called anything you like. One will be your master bone (or, the top of the hierarchy) and one will be the bone you actually weight the mesh to. IMVU has called the master bone AttachmentRoot and called the second bone AttachmentNode. You will note that AttachmentRoot and AttachmentNode are both in the exact same location. You will also note that the AttachmentNode bone is parented to the AttachmentRoot bone. This is how these two bones should be set up regardless of how many other bones you may add in more complex products. Skeleton Placement All you need do is align the AttachmentRoot bone to the avatar bone with which you want your attachment to move. For example, if you want to build a bracelet, you would not align your AttachmentRoot bone/node to the avatar's Head bone because then you would have a bracelet that moved when the head moved. Instead, you would align the AttachmentRoot to one of the wrist bones. In the image example to the right, the glasses accessory mesh found in the avatar weighting file has been scaled larger for legibility. The glasses mesh is weighted to the AccessoryNode bone. So, if the AccessoryRoot bone (the parent of AccessoryNode) is moved to the location of the rtWrist bone (using the align tool), the glasses move with it. The orientation of all of the bones in the avatar skeleton is not the same. This means that a pair of glasses moved to, say, the ltCalf bone will not point forward the way they do on the Head or rtWrist bones. This is why it is important to align your skeleton to the intended bone location *before* building your mesh. That way, you will guarantee that the mesh will actually show up in IMVU the way you see it in your 3D program. Can I Make My Own Skeleton? Of course you can. However, remember that you may always use the embedded AttachmentRoot/Node for your Accessory skeleton. Building a skeleton for an Accessory product works just the same as building a skeleton for any other IMVU product. You need a root bone (AttachmentRoot) and a secondary bone (AttachmentNode) as your basis. So, with those two bones created, link the AttachmentNode bone to the AttachmentRoot bone using the link tool. Now align AttachmentRoot to the avatar bone you wish your accessory to attach to. THEN, either align AttachmentNode to the same bone in the avatar skeleton OR align it to AttachmentRoot. Either way, AttachmentNode will end up in the same spot. Now you can weight the mesh to your heart's content. Or....if you have the need of more bones, you can add more bones as you see fit. To learn more about skeletons, please go to the Introduction to Skeletons Tutorial. Pets Since an Accessory can be attached to any bone in the avatar skeleton, that means it can be attached to the avatar root node. This bone is called Female03MasterRoot. The benefit of attaching your Accessory to the avatar's master root is that the Accessory will not move with the avatar's idle animations. This has the wonderful side effect of allowing the Accessory to behave independantly of the avatar. In other words: you can make a Pet. Making a Pet is harder to do than, say, a pair of glasses as the overall set up requires more planning and the execution time is longer. The skeleton and the weighting are just more complex on a pet than your average Accessory. That said, the basic set up is the same. A Pet Accessory needs a skeleton, a mesh, materials with textures and, if you like, animations. However, your Pet Accessory product can be quite complex and utilize most of the behavioral animations IMVU has embedded in the avatars. For example, you can build Idle animations for stance.Standing and stance.Sitting or any other stance you would like to employ. You can also build triggered animations for any trigger that effects the avatar. LoL, cry, flip - your pet can do them all when your avatar does. This obviously makes the Pet a more important piece to any avatar's outfit. To learn more about building a Pet, please go to the Pets Tutorial Build the mesh: Accessory skeleton location The first thing to realize about building an Accessory mesh is that the location of the Accessory skeleton master root matters *A LOT*. If you want your glasses to show up on the avatar's head in IMVU, you need to have your Accessory skeleton master root bone aligned to the avatar's head bone before you weight your glasses. So, to recap: 1. Align your Accessory master root bone to the bone in the avatar skeleton that you want to influence the Accessory. 2. THEN weight your mesh to the Accessory skeleton. Build the Mesh:Accessories for Avatar heads If you are building an Accessory for an avatar head (glasses, earrings, unicorn horns, etc.), there are a few things to keep in mind. The current IMVU head products are all built around the same basic head shape for Male or Female products. The only difference in all of the heads built by IMVU is only found in the shape of the face. Head size is dictated at run time in the IMVU messenger. (To learn more about head sizing, please go to the Previewer - Mesh Scale Tutorial. Specifically, the cranium, the bridge of the nose and the position of the ears do not move position from head design to head design (built by IMVU). This allows each human head product IMVU has made to use all of the pre-existing Accessories without any glaring aesthetic bugs. However, this means that things like facial jewelry, beards, mustaches, fangs, etc. will not look right from head to head (because Accessory products do not animate when avatar facial animations are playing.) Build the Mesh:Z-fighting The mesh for your Accessory can end up being very close to the mesh for the avatar asin the case of earrings, glasses and watches. However, if they are too close you may get Z fighting (or shimmering) in IMVU. It is worth testing in the previewer. If you see Z fighting in the previewer, you will see it in IMVU. To correct that shimmering effect, you ought to pull your Accessory goemetry away from the avatar mesh. I typically do this in edit geometry: vertex mode so that I only need to adjust the vertices that are actually causing the problem. Build the Mesh:Weight the Mesh To learn more about how to weight any mesh, please go to the Mesh Weighting Tutorial. There are some tips specific to Accessories that could help you. The first is that if you are building something that is meant to move with one bone only (Glasses, Earrings, etc.), weight all of your vertices to that bone in the ACCESSORY SKELETON. Remember, if you are weighting all of your verts to one bone, then you can use the Skin weighting modifier (which is much easier to use than the Physique weighting modifier.) The second tip is that your Accessory mesh should never be weighted to any bones in the avatar skeleton. Your Accessory has its own skeleton (which you just created). If you weight your accessory to anything but the accessory skeleton, it will not work. Map the mesh To learn more about how to apply mapping coordinates to your mesh, please go to the Mapping Materials Tutorial. Although an Accessory can use as many Materials as necessary, remember to keep your textures as small as possible. Accessory Animations Since Accessories contain their own skeletons, they can have animations. Even more, since they also contain meshes, they can also contain morph animations. To learn more about how to animate any skeletal animation, please go to the Animating in 3D MAX Tutorial. Also, to learn more about how to make morph animations, please go to the Morph Targets Tutorial. It should be noted, though, that "under the hood" an Accessory product is really an "Avatar Attachment". This means that the Accessory is linked to Avatar in a few ways. The first is the most obvious: as your avatar moves around a 3D scene, any accessories worn will also move with that avatar. The second link has to do with animations. An accessory can utilize the same system that calls animations triggered by the IMVU avatar. Avatar Animation System? An Accessory can "utilize the system that calls animations triggered by the IMVU avatar"?!! How does that work? Well, the IMVU avatar can play three classes of Actions: 1. Idle Actions 2. Stance Actions 3. Triggered Actions The first two are very close in definition but #1 has the addition of having a hard coded instruction for blinking. A stance animation is dictated by a room or furniture seat node. For example, if a seat node is named seat01.FloatinInWater, then the IMVU code wants to play an animation called stance.FloatingInWater. If an Action with the same name exists in either the avatar product or within the Room or Furniture product, that animation will be applied to the avatar. The three main Idle/Stance Actions names are stance.Idle, stance.Standing and stance.Sitting. So, if your pet contains Actions with those names, the system will play those Actions whenever the avatar joins a Standing or Sitting seat. Even better, if the system can't find, say, stance.FloatingInWater in your Accessory, it will try to default to stance.Idle or stance.Standing. In this way, your Accessory could always be playing an Idle animation. Cool. A triggered action is an action that plays once (or loops infinitely until removed) and then goes away. When you type LOL in IMVU, you 'trigger' the LOL animation to play on your avatar. This means that your Accessory could have an animation that is triggered by the word 'LOL'. This means that if you type LOL in a chat in IMVU, both the avatar animation and the Accessory animation will be triggered. Budgets Download and runtime file size is an issue that should be kept in mind whenever designing for IMVU. If your Accessory’s file size is too big, it is unlikely that your potential customer will purchase and download it and, if they do, there is a very high chance that they will review your product poorly and your sales will go down. Therefore, it is good practice to try to keep the texture size, vertex/face count of your meshes and animation length down to the bare minimum. There really is no reason to have a 256x256 texture for a button on a shirt: it just won’t be seen in the IMVU messenger. In fact, we have found that the smaller the texture, the BETTER it looks in IMVU. Go figure. Also, please know that IMVU automatically resizes assets that are too large or teched incorrectly. To learn more, please go to the Mapping Materials Tutorial. Export Time Now you must export all of the assets in the Accessory. 1. Export the skeleton .XSF file. To learn more, please go to the Export the Skeleton - .xsf Tutorial. 2. Then, export the mesh .xmf file. To learn more, check out the Export the Mesh - .xmf Tutorial.) Then, when prompted for the skeleton, browse to the .xsf skeleton file you just exported in step 1. 3. Once you have the skeleton .xsf exported, you can export any animation .xaf files you may need. To learn more, please go to the Export Animations - .xaf Tutorial. 4. You may export your material .xrf files any time you like. To learn more, please go to the Export Materials Tutorial. On to the Previewer With your Accessory assets built and exported, its time to put them all together in the Previewer. To learn more, please go to the Previewer Tutorial. There are some special parts of the Previewer, though, that are specific to Accessory products. Read on, oh Accessory maker... Previewer: Avatar Compatibility At the top of the Special Tab in the Previewer, you will see a field titled "Compatible Body Pattern Product ID". Add the avatar product number that you wish your Accessory to work with and then apply changes. The IMVU Body Pattern Products are named as follows: Female: product80 Male: product191 It is recommended that you include both avatars for Accessories that do not involve the avatar head. To do so, you would type "80, 191". Previewer: Attachment Node The second thing you will notice is the AttachmentNode box. Change this name to whatever avatar skeleton bone name you wish your accessory to attach to. For example, in the case of Glasses, type in "Head" or, in the case of a pet, type in "Female04MasterRoot". Remember to type in the EXACT name of the avatar skeleton bone you wish your Accessory to attach to. For the entire list of bones in the IMVU avatar skeleton, please go to the Avatar Skeleton Hierarchy Tutorial. Avoid attaching to the Avatar's Pelvis node. In the Previewer, you will tell your accessory skeleton which bone on the avatar it should attach to. Although you are allowed to attach your Accessory skeleton to any bone on the avatar, it is recommended that you do not attach it to the Pelvis node. You may be unhappy with the result.

Avatar Hair Introduction Ah, hair. Long, lustrous hair. Short, curly hair. Bouyant hair. Striking hair. Attitude. Style. Chickens. OK....not so much with the chickens. Hair is one of the most defining characteristics of an avatar. Arguably more so than any other characteristic (of human avatars, anyway). In IMVU, you have the power to create your own hairstyles - anything you can think of. Mohawks. Bobs. Crew cuts. Ponytails. Your only limitation is your imagination. Building beautiful hair is truly an art form. On top of that, there is some technical skill required. For example, you need to know how to build in 3D, build textures, map those textures and weight the mesh. Therefore, building hair should not be considered 'easy'. That said, once you do it a few times, you will see that it can be one of the easiest body parts to create. While many of the basics of hair construction are shared with other body part creation tutorials, there are enough specifics to warrant its own tutorial. This tutorial will walk you through the essentials of building Hair and Hats. For the purposes of this tutorial, we assume you have read the Avatar Body Parts Introduction, the Weighting in Phsyique Tutorial, the Export the Mesh - .xmf Tutorial, the Export Materials - .xrf Tutorial and the Previewer Introduction. Get the example files We assume you have already read the Avatar Body Parts Introduction and therefore know where to get the default weighting avatars. If for some CRAZY reason you didn't get them then, you can get the Female Weighting File here and the Male Weighting File here. With one of these files open, zoom into the avatar head and select the hair mesh. Remember: you can build your own mesh at any time during this tutorial. Build to the Head With the hair mesh selected, you can see how it conforms to the shape of the avatar head underneath. The default avatar heads in IMVU are of an enlarged, anime style. All of the accessories and hairstyles in the catalog have been built to fit these default heads. If you want your hair product to work across most of the IMVU avatar heads in the catalog, then your hair mesh should be built to fit the default avatar head embedded in the master weighting files. Basically, in MAX, your hair will look enormous in order for it to fit the original head. This is OK, though, as the size of the head varies across products due to the mesh scale feature. To learn more, please check out the Mesh Scale Tutorial. Ears & Neck If you are making a long hairstyle, that is meant to cover the ears & neck, then you can move on to the next section. If you need to wrap around the ears & neck for any reason, then read on. Although you are free to use your own shapes, the shape of the hair around the ears & neck typically fits snugly to the head mesh. This is really handy as this means you can avoid 'Z fighting' along those edges. Z Fighting? When two polygons live very close together in 3D space, rendering engines have a tough time deciding which to draw first. The result is an annoying, shimmering effect. This looks especially bad on products that interface with an avatar head as that is what most people are looking at when chatting. To avoid Z fighting, you can snap your hair verts to the same exact location as the head verts. Two Materials As you know from reading the Avatar Body Parts Introduction, one Body Part can contain multiple materials. For example, the avatar head contains both the head skin, eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes. Hair meshes can contain two materials: one for Hair and one for Hat. Obviously, you can use these two materials however you like on the body part that is meant to override the hair slot. Said another way, you could use the 'Hat' material for a hairclip...or antennae....or a helmet...or a chicken antennae hairclip helmet...thing. To see the materials in MAX, open the material editor and use the eyedropper to select the avatar's multi-sub material. The material ID for Hair is ID 5 [4] and the material ID for Hat is ID 11 [10]. To learn why I wrote the [brackets] above, please check out the Avatar Materials Tutorial Budgets Please remember to keep the polygon count of your hair down to as low as possible (while still looking like what you intended to build). One of the biggest complaints IMVU recieves is about the time it takes to load a scene that contains avatars with big hair (no Jersey jokes). IMVU will no doubt have to take action against such products in the future. Don't let your products get procedurally reduced! Please keep your hair products small. Hats Amore! Although a hair body part is made up of one body part ID, it can contain a hat as well. Think of it as one product that contains both hair and hat. This is handy for things like helmets as you can force the avatar to not wear the spikey mohawk when wearing the helmet. Mapping Once you have built your mesh, it is time to map it. To learn more, please go to the Avatar Materials and Texture Mapping Tutorial. There are some Hair-specific mapping points you should know as well. The most important is that it is a very, very good idea to spend time getting the mapping on your hair to be as highly customizable as possible. This means that the mapping on your hair is detailed and refined. You could apply a plaid texture to it and see each vertical and horizontal line evenly applied to the whole mesh. Giving your future derivers the ability to expand on the details in this way ensures a highly derived product and, therefore, more sales. Another important material-related thing you ought to know concerns opacity maps. To learn more, please go to the Opacity Maps Tutorial. To sum it all up, though, you must understand that if you use an opacity map on your Hair body part, then you run the risk of having that hair disappear in some circumstances due to an IMVU opacity bug. Weighting - Use 'Skin' for solid masses Once you hair mesh is built the way you like it and mapped to allow other creators to easily create textures for it, it is time to 'weight' it. For hairstyles that are meant to move entirely with the head, we recommend that you use the 'Skin' weighting modifier in MAX. To learn more, please go to the Weight a Mesh Tutorial. Weighting - Use 'Physique' for the Rest If your hair is meant to move partially with the head and partially with other parts of the body, you will need to use the 'Physique' weighting modifier in MAX. To learn more, please go to the Weighting in Phsyique Tutorial. Export .xmf Once you have a mapped and weighted mesh, you can export it. Choose the export option in the File menu, browse to the 'Cal3D Mesh File (*.CMF, *.XMF)' option and name your mesh. Remember: you must manually add the '.xmf' at the end of your asset name or you will end up exporting a useless .cmf file. In the Previewer - Body Part Override Open the Previewer and choose to derive from product 10866 for Female hair and product 344 for Male hair. As you no doubt remember from the Avatar Body Parts Introduction., the 'Special' tab in the Previewer contains the Clothing Override Body Part IDs panel. The body part to override in the Previewer is '1'. NOTE: You will not actually need to make any changes to this panel if you are deriving from an existing hair product. Previewer - Add Mesh In the 'Geometry' tab, browse for your newly exported .xmf file. and hit the Apply Changes button. Your new mesh should appear with the existing material applied to it. If this is the case, move on to the next step. If this is not the case, then something went wrong in the export process. If so, you will need to check: 1. the weighting in MAX (is the skin/physique modifier turned on? Are the vertices weighted?) 2. the skeleton .xsf file (did you use the 'Female04_Anime01_SkeletonMASTER.xsf' file supplied in the ZIP files?) 3. the exported asset's file type (it should be '.xmf' - not .cmf or anything else) Previewer - Add Textures In the 'Materials' tab, you can browse to add a new material .xrf file if you exported one. 99.99% of the time, you do not have to export your own material file as the one included in the default avatar should suffice. You really only want new textures to show up anyway so just click on the diffuse (color) texture to change it to your new texture. Remember: If you want to change the opacity map, you must click on the Opacity link in the 'Material Maps - Click to preview' panel. To learn more about opacity maps please go to the Opacity Maps Tutorial. Previewer - Save & Submit Save this product and submit it. Voila! You have created a skin tight composite mesh that can be derived from by thousands of painter Developers from around the world.

2D Applications Discussion Whether you are making a texture for a 3D model, a Sticker, or just customizing your Homepage, you will be using some sort of 2D application to create and manipulate your digital images. Although Photoshop is the acknowledged industry standard, it isn't necessarily your only choice. Photoshop is what we use here at IMVU, and is by far the most powerful image manipulation software out there, but if you have limited funds you might need to look for alternatives. Here we talk about some of those alternatives with the benefits and downfalls.   Adobe Photoshop There isn't a day that goes by that I don't have Photoshop open to work on some aspect of what we do here at IMVU. Whether I am building a 3D product textures, or just creating Ad images to sell that product, I use Photoshop to do the lion's share of the work for me. With its origins as photo manipulation software, Photoshop has grown into a standard tool for all digital artists, with many of them forgoing traditional mediums, like paint to create their work entirely in the computer. With each new update Photoshop gets bigger and more complex and at least monthly I uncover some new trick that would have saved me loads of time if I had only learned it earlier. Still, as an artist I can't imagine getting my work done without it. Photoshop's many advantages' are topped by the availability of Filters and Layers. Filters allow you to change the quality of all or a portion of an image. You can add texture to it, create shadows, glow, blur, or even liquefy a surface. Layers allow you to build your images one part at a time, each stacking on top of the other. This allows you infinite ways of manipulating even small portions of your image without altering the rest inadvertently. If you are serious about working on art in the computer then you will eventually own your own copy of Photoshop. Until then there are other options out there to try. http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/   Photoshop Elements Photoshop Elements used to be a cheaper alternative to the Professional version of Photoshop, so it consisted of many of the tools you would most often use when creating images for IMVU. Recently Adobe has drastically redesigned Photoshop Elements to focus more specifically on the amateur photo manipulation market and the two products are now unrecognizable as having come from the same origins. Many of the same tools are there, but using the new version of Elements may involve having to completely re-learn how to use Photoshop. We have not tried this version ourselves, but knowing Adobe, Elements will be powerful enough to get you started, and for under a $100. it beats the price tag of its older sibling. http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/   GIMP In the wild west world of Open Source applications, GIMP is the recognized free competitor to Adobe's Photoshop. With many of the same features, GIMP is a solid alternative to Photoshop, and who knows, you might actually like GIMP better? GIMP includes Layers, as does Photoshop, as well as a limited number of Filter options. http://www.gimp.org/   Although there are many more options out there, these three could easily get the job done. Like anything, the more you work with an application the better you are able to understand its possibilities. We recommend you dive right in, and be sure to search the Web for the many tutorials that are available out there to help you along.  

3D Applications Discussion At its core, IMVU is a 3D environment filled with 3D people and places. To create the 3D products that fill IMVU's Catalog, Developers have used a variety of applications and tools to take their designs from purely conceptual to purchasable. Best of all, these virtual products never run out of stock. In addition, with the ability to Derive from products, your seed of an idea might just inspire other Developers to build countless new products from yours, all of which you get a small cut from each sale. Currently IMVU only supports 3D Studio Max 7 as the “official” 3D application for building products. We are the first to acknowledge that this is nuts, and we are working to remedy that now. Still, this hasn't stopped industrious Developers from creating alternatives to building 3D content for IMVU. As IMVU grows so will the tools it supports, but for now these are the options available: 3D Studio Max Probably one of the most expensive options available, 3D Max is still an industry leader and the tool we use internally to build all of our products. Although there is a steep learning curve to mastering 3D Max, all the skills learned are applicable to the real world of 3D asset creation, for both the game and movie industries. Although we officially support 3D Max 7, many of our Developers have had luck with both Max 8 and 9 in Exporting most of their assets. Autodesk 3D Max here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=5659302&siteID=123112 Blender Another popular option is Blender. As an Open Source application Blender is free to use and has an ever growing community of dedicated users and contributors. Neo5842 has created a wonderful introduction to Blender with tutorials on how to use it for IMVU specific projects, and offers Blender specific Exporters for helping you get your designs into the Previewer. Get Blender here: http://www.blender.org/ Neo5842's Blender Exporter & Tutorials here: http://neo5842.starlithost.info/home%20page.html Google SketchUp As part of an earlier Beta test, we offer a SketchUp to IMVU Exporter that will allow you to create simple 3D Furniture products for the IMVU Catalog. This option is not free of bugs, but it has allowed Developers new to creating 3D products a chance to get their feet wet, while learning on a free and easy to grasp tool. Google SketchUp (free): http://sketchup.google.com/thankyou_win.html SketchUp to IMVU Exporter Tutorial & Files: http://www.imvu.com/catalog/web_images/how_to/sketchup_index.htm

Animating Nodes   Creating an animated Furniture or Room product is actually pretty straightforward. When you wish some element of your product to animate you are really animating a Node and weighting a Mesh to that animating Node. In this video example, you will see four elements: A Root Node, an Animation Node, a Mesh for the base of the candle mobile, and the animating central core or propeller of the candle mobile. The Root is no different than a typical Furniture Node, or Room Skeleton Node and it remains static. The non-moving candle base is Weighted to the Root Node, while the animating central core is weighted to the Animation Node. The Animation Node is Linked to the Root Node, so you should end up with a hierarchy for your model that looks something like this: After you have exported your Skeleton (.xsf), Meshes (.xmf), and Materials (.xrf), you can now safely export your Animation file. To do so, make sure to select the Root Node and export as an animation file (.xaf). You only need to export those nodes that actually animate. When exporting make sure that only those nodes that are animating are checked, all others should remain unchecked. More information on how to export animations in the Export Animations tutorial. NOTE: In regards to skeletal animation, the longer your animation, the larger your exported animation file will be and therefore the overall size of your Furniture will be higher. The same holds true for morph animation with the additional concern of the more morph targets you have in your exported file, the larger your file will be. Although you should not feel too contrained, it is always good to keep an eye on the final size of your model file, as a large file will effect the experience for those members that use your product. Further Note Although the example used in this tutorial shows the animating node aligned with the Root node, neither the avatar master root nor the seat node *need* to be aligned with the Root node of your Room or Furniture product. They *can* be but do not *need* to be. You can have hundreds of seats spread throughout your Room or Furniture product.