Project Bento Resources and Information

Welcome to Project Bento! As we mentioned in our announcement, Project Bento is adding new bones and attachment points to the avatar skeleton. Bento is now ready for testing!

What is the test period for? How long will it last?

The testing period is designed to validate the viewer and the new skeleton, and will continue until we are confident that we have a solid release candidate, at least a few weeks.

During the course of testing, we will continue working on the Bento project viewer, fixing bugs and addressing other issues encountered during testing. We do not anticipate making further changes to the skeleton or attachments at this point.

At the end of the test period, Bento will become a viewer release candidate. Hopefully not long after that, the Bento viewer will be released as the default viewer.

Where can I find the required test viewer?

You'll need the latest project viewer for Bento. It is available on the Alternate Viewers wiki page.

Where can we test Bento?

Bento testing is happening on the main Second Life grid and the Aditi Beta Test Grid, which is completely separate from the Agni "Main Grid".

Testing Bento will require uploading and using meshes and animations that take advantage of new joints. It will also allow you to take advantage of new attachment points associated with some of the new joints.

How can we test Bento?

There are two ways to help with testing Bento:

• If you are a content creator, please help us exercise the new skeleton. Create your own meshes and animations for facial animation, hand gestures, wings, tails, and so on! Let us know about any problems you encounter, and share your experiences with other creators in the Creation Forum Thread
• If you are a mesh user, help us test the viewer. Try uploading and using some of the test content. Are there any problems displaying or using it on your system? Do you see a significant impact on performance when using the new skeleton?

Current Test Content

Models

Note: to add new test content to the wiki, you can first attach it to BUG-10981, then post a link to that attachment in the wiki. The wiki does not allow attaching most file formats directly.

Collada (dae) files:

The following model files are compatible with the current project viewer, as of 2016-07-14, and should work with currently implemented sliders. Includes weighting to the new mFaceJawShaper bone.

• human female (August 5, 2016)
• human male (August 5, 2016)
• angel (August 5, 2016)

Maya (ma) files:

These are also current with the skeleton of July 14, 2016:

• maya human female (August 17, 2016)

(NOTE: Standard Skeleton with bone located in standard positions determined by the avatar_skeleton.xml file.)

• maya human male (August 17, 2016)

(NOTE: Standard Skeleton with bone located in standard positions determined by the avatar_skeleton.xml file.)

FBX files:

• fbx human female (August 17, 2016)
• fbx human male (August 17, 2016)

These are based on the Maya files above.

3ds Max (max) files

All files are saved as 3dsmax2012 files, if your version predates this, they probably won't load.

"Basic" skeleton files contain no additional nodes and will not work for advanced control rigs and animation export, but are simpler, contain less clutter and might be ideal for simple rigging&skinning work. However bone rotation axis will not behave ideally for animations.

Normal Rigs have additional nodes for ease of use with animations, but animation must be done on "mBoneName_DRV" point helper nodes instead of the bones directly.

For both skeletons the mesh skinning and rigging should be done to the mBoneName or "collision volume" (fitmesh) bones / dummies only.

• basic skeleton bone nodes (August 31, 2016)
• basic skeleton dummy nodes (August 31, 2016)
• skeleton bone nodes (August 31, 2016)
• skeleton dummy nodes (August 31, 2016)

Animations

• scramble the positions of all bones and attachments
• reset the positions of all bones and attachments to the default.

Tools

• Maya BVH exporter - mel script
• Maya BVH exporter instructions - text file

Reference

• Some helpful models to show the locations of various types of bones can be found at https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Avatar-Testing-and-Visualization-Kit/9842033

I found a problem? How can I give feedback?

1. Submit bugs in Jira in the BUG project: please put [Bento] in the summary line.

If you have a display problem, please try with hardware skinning enabled and disabled

Me->Preferences->Graphics->Advanced->Avatar Rendering->Hardware skinning checkbox

Does changing that setting affect the display?