Project Bento Updates in Second Life
On September 14th Linden Lab released the Bento Release Candidate viewer so what does it mean that Bento is now a release candidate viewer? Well it basically means that it is in the last stage of becoming the default viewer, which can take about another month or so. However, since it has become a release candidate viewer, that means third party viewers, like Firestorm (which is my viewer of choice), are free to add it to their viewers at any time so hopefully we will see Bento in other viewers like Firestorm in a matter of weeks.
In this blog post I am wearing two Bento items, the Bento preview head from Catwa (which is not available for purchase as of yet) as well as the Bento custom wings from FATEplay, which have already been released as a template so you can add your own custom textures to them.
To view both of these items, you must use the Bento release candidate viewer until Bento comes to the official viewer, then you should be able to see and use these items with the updated viewer as well.
In the first video I am going to focus on the wings from FATEplay. Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/s_XBCABQJFk
These wings are customizable, so you can replace the texture with your own. In the package you will find a full permissions copy of the default wing texture as a guide. The wings come in two different versions. One version is the ‘always on’ version which will always stay on you when you wear them. The other version is the ‘flying only’ version which disappear once you stop flying. You must wear the wings animator with both versions to make the wings animate when you walk or fly. The wings are rigged to the Bento bones so they use the Bento skeleton to animate and move around smoothly.
In the second video I am going to focus on the Catwa Catya Bento Preview mesh head. Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-IqFc_XxsFs
The preview head is not yet available for sale, I am not sure when it will be. I am guessing once Bento hits the main viewer it should be available then. In the video I just showed how the head animates, then I played with all of the sliders that are affected since this head is rigged to the Bento skeleton and finally I showed the head in a few different skins. Here is the list of skins I showed in the video:
> L’Etre Misato
> Bold & Beauty Polina
> Insol Mia
> YSYS Lucinda
> Glam Affair Gio
If you are not familiar with Bento, here is some information and links that will explain it in detail:
- What is Bento? – On December 15th, 2015, Linden Lab announced a new project called Bento. Basically what they are doing is adding additional bones to the Second Life avatar skeleton to support both rigging and animation.
- Weekly Meetings – Linden Lab has been having weekly meetings about Bento, which everyone is invited to. They announce them on the Bento User Group wikipage every week.
- Second Life Bento Release Candidate Viewer – You need to download the Second Life Bento Release Candidate Viewer in order to use or see any items rigged to the Bento Skeleton.
- My Project Bento tag on my blog – Keep an eye on my Project Bento tag on my blog for all posts I make about Bento.
- My Project Bento YouTube PlayLists – Keep an eye on my Project Bento YouTube Playlist for all videos I make about Bento.
Hopefully you are just as excited as I am about Bento hitting the main viewer soon so we can all get adjustable mesh heads and animated wings. Let me know if you guys see other cool Bento items coming out soon and I’ll try and cover them on the blog!
Style Credits:
Shape: StrawberrySingh.com Zara Shape by Strawberry Singh
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V3.5 by Onyx LeShelle
*Mesh Head: CATWA HEAD Catya Bento Preview by Catwa Clip (not yet released)
*Wings: FATEplay – Custom Animated Bento Wings by Damien Fate
Hair: booN Lab.009 hair by boo Nakamura
Hairbase: Just Magnetized – Basic Hairbase – set 03 for CATWA by Justyna Magne
*Earrings: RealEvil Industries Miriam Ear Piercings by crashnoww (@ Shiny Shabby)
*Outfit+Shoes: Blueberry – Mykonos by Blueberryxx (@ Arcade)
AO poses in video: Vista breathing animations by Vista Barnes
Location: The Outer Garden
on the head, you changed the eye depth, but I thought that Catwa heads all had to have eye depth at 0?
Awesome video, i’m really looking forward to the Bento release! Xx
Loved the preview for Catwa! If you could, can you do a video on attachment points?
I noticed with Akeruka that there is a disclaimer in their regular heads about the animation hud and how it affects different attachment points (and trust me…it does…quite hilariously).
I’m wondering if this is something they’ll address with the bento updates and possibly give lists of what the recommended attachment points will be for items we already own so that we can wear them with their heads?
Thanks Berry! <3
where did you get the eyes
Debs, I think with Bento that won’t be the case anymore as the eyes are rigged along with the head.
Pink, me too!
Kilolo, I am not sure what attachment points are triggered by animations with the current Akeruka heads, but I am assuming with Bento that won’t be the case because there will be more bones in the skeleton to attach the animations to so we won’t have that conflicting issue. I’ll look into it more and see if I can write something about it though, thanks for the suggestion.
Nice! I play with a variety of mesh heads as well as my regular avatar and it’s a pain to have to make the adjustments each time. I know, I could keep a copy in each folder, BUT, I also sometimes tweak my avatar so it would mean finding and tweaking them all. I’m thrilled that this means my mesh head in Bento will look closer to my original avatar but have all the things I like mesh for! I’m excited to see all the changes coming!
The Black Dragon third party viewer has it! And it’s AWESOME!
Easier than the SL candidate.
I do hope that firestorm gets it soon, and I do hope that Black Dragon gets some extra features, like when clicking the avie, the camera doesn’t reset but, all in all…. YAY
I cannot WAIT to get my hands on Catwa’s bento mesh head! Of all the mesh heads on the market Catwa is my favorite by far and I got really excited when I saw that she was working on this. I did grab the Akeruka bento head and played with it a little, and it’s lovely, but to be honest I’m just a Catwa fangirl I think lol.
I really enjoyed your video, thanks for that! 🙂
where did you get the eyes???
eyedunno, the eyes come with the head. If you watch the video you will hear and see me saying and showing that.
I did hear you say this, Berry, but it confused me to see them as well since all the Catwa heads I’ve purchased come with one pair of brown eyes and yours in the video are a lovely green. speaking of which, I wish Catwa would give either an eye hud or choice of eyes or even eyes we can purchase in their store.
i dont watch videos
I downloaded thebento release candidate viewer, but the only thing i can adjust on the Catwa mesh head is the head size. is there a trick i don’t know about? 🙂
Bettina, as I said in my post, this Catwa Bento head has not been released as of yet so there is no Catwa Bento head available to the public to play with yet, unless Catwa sent it to you herself. If she did send it to you herself and it’s not working in your Bento viewer, then please contact her for customer service as I didn’t have any issues with the Bento head she sent me.
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Will this head shape be available to purchase?