Bento is Live on the Second Life Viewer!
Project Bento is now finally live in the main Second Life default viewer. Since Linden Lab announced this yesterday, I have seen numerous people asking what Bento is and where they can pick up some Bento items. I’m going to try to cover that in this post and video.
- 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. On December 5th, 2016 Linden Lab announced that Bento is now live on the main Second Life default viewer. You can download the default viewer at this link.
- Firestorm Bento Alpha Viewer – Firestorm has an alpha version of their Bento viewer available for download, however, you must join their group to get access to it because right now they are in the testing phase and they are requesting people join their Phoenix-Firestorm Preview Group inworld then check the notices for a notecard that will have the download link in it.
- 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.
I’ve done a video showing some Bento items that are on the market now: https://youtu.be/T-0xvawCSGs
Here are links to some of the Bento items I mentioned in the video:
- Vista Animations Bento Mesh Hands – I’ve blogged these hands before but now I’ve shown how you can manipulate them even more in the video. They are available on marketplace as well as the Vista Animations mainstore.
- Vista Dance and other animations – The little Bento dance I showed in the video along with some of the animations will be available at the Vista mainstore very soon.
- Pink Hustler Static Heart Poses for Bento Mesh Hands – The static heart poses I showed in the video were from Pink Hustler and they will work with any Bento rigged mesh hands, such as the Vista ones above. These static poses are available at the Pink Hustler mainstore.
- FATE Hand Poser HUD (For Bento Hands) – The Fate Hand Pose HUD can be used to pose bento rigged mesh hands into any pose that you prefer. This is seriously a game changer! I really love the versatility that this HUD offers. I am hoping for an update to this HUD that will also let us pose other people’s bento rigged hands too. (hint hint Mr. Damien Fate :P) Some other Bento items that Mr. Fate has released are: FATEplay-Animated-Cloak and FATEplay Animated Wings. I blogged the wings at this link.
- Catwa Catya Bento Add-ons – I talked about a few add-ons that you can purchase for your Catwa Catya Bento Mesh Head, here are links to them: Tongue Animation, Rotate Ears Lock HUD, New Bento Animations & Expressions, and Bento Gum coming soon.
- My Shape for Catwa Catya Bento – The shape I’m wearing in this video is available in my marketplace store and in the video I talked about how you can reset the skeleton using one of the gestures that come with the Catya head if your shape doesn’t look like mine does. This happens to me every time I change any shape with this head or login or logout. Not sure what the glitch is, but hopefully it will be sorted out soon.
Here is a list of Bento Mesh Heads that have already been released or will be soon:
- Akeruka – Akeruka has released numerous Bento mesh heads, for both males and females. You can check out my blog posts for some of them in my Akeruka tag on my blog.
- Altamura – Altamura has released one bento head so far named Aggie and I blogged about it at this link.
- Atelier Pepe – Shared in my comments below, Atelier Pepe is about to release a Bento Mesh Head too!
- Catwa – Catwa‘s released one Bento head so far named Catya and I blogged about it at this link. I heard she is working on a male bento head now too.
- Genesis Lab – Genesis Lab is about to release a Bento Head named Eva very soon!
- LeLutka – LeLutka is about to release a bento version of their Simone mesh head, very soon!
Those are all the Bento mesh heads I’ve noticed so far. If you know of any other bento mesh heads on the market, please leave a link to them in the comments!
UPDATE: I just found out that Daiz Papp has also released some bento mesh hands and has put them on marketplace for free so you guys can give them a try also.
I think that about covers all of the Bento information that I have. I hope my video and post help you understand Bento a bit better and give you an idea of what things you’d like to possibly play around with once you update your viewers. I have been looking forward to Bento for a year now and so far it has met all of my expectations; so a big shout-out to Linden Lab for continuing to offer us a brilliant platform where we can get creative with our imaginations, thanks guys!
What I’m wearing:
Shape: StrawberrySingh.com Catya Shape by Strawberry Singh
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V3.5 by Onyx LeShelle
*Mesh Head: CATWA HEAD Catya v1.04 by Catwa Clip
*Skin Applier: Glam Affair Kelly by Aida Ewing (flickr)
*Eyes: Catwa Mesh Eyes by Catwa Clip
*Bento Hands: VISTA BENTO PROHANDS FEM-V.2BETA by Vista Barnes
*Mesh Ears: [MANDALA]STEKING_EARS_Season5 by kikunosuke Eel
*Hair: NO.MATCH_NO.SOLUTION.female by n0match (@ Hairology soon)
*Jacket, Shirt & Necklace: Addams new release (flickr)
*Jeans: erratic / swift – jeans by erratic rain
*Shoes: #EMPIRE – Primrose by QUEENshop
Location: Virtual Decay
“Basically what they are doing is adding additional bones to the Second Life avatar skeleton to support both rigging and animation.”
…but what I’ve been told is that it will require third party mesh hands, etc in order to be useful, so what’s the point? I was really looking forward to this, but that I cannot be *me* in SL and use SL to its fullest, then what’s the point?
Always love your blogs, started my own because of it! I love the Bento hand gestures is this Bento project going to cross over into firestorm? Keep Bloggin!
I hope Catwa does a bento version of Jessica. It’s my favorite and it would be great if I could change just a few things with bento.
Atelier Pepe is about ready to release a bento head too. Very exciting!
Marianne
The mesh hands that are currently provided with mesh bodies such as SLink and Maitreya etc have not been updated to Bento yet.
It’s still early days. Stay tuned!
Mad
I am sure, just by tweaking sliders, you can get very close to Jessica, Annie or Gwen’s facial features with the Catya Bento Head
This amazing!! Did anyone make a body yet ?
There’s a bento head on the marketplace from Lightstar. It’s quite cheap compared to others, and with lesser options to play with ofc, but it could be an option for other people maybe.
Nehem
Most of the Bento bodies will be four legged creatures with tails and/or wings. Some prototypes I have seen when I was hanging out on Aditi Beta Test Grid
Now that Bento has gone official there will be some released soon.
There are wings by FATEplay
Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts and comments. <3
Celeb, always love it when you show up and leave me comments out of the blue, miss you! <3 Thank you for telling me about Atelier Pepe, added them to the list!
Abigale, I searched marketplace and as far as I can see, Lightstar doesn't have actual Bento mesh heads, their mesh heads are just regular mesh heads so I don't believe they can be adjusted with the sliders. What I do see that is bento related on her marketplace are the bento animations that go with her head: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/LightStar-Expressions-Pack1/10298052
Maybe I am missing it or misunderstanding it. Please share a link to the bento heads if you can so I can add them to my list, thank you!
Sounds very exciting 🙂
It’s going to be great once its goes official on the Firestorm Viewer and on other third party viewers.
Raw footage from Project Bento Casting Call on Aditi – Jan 19, 2016
Enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEgZYscyT9s
Hint: Keep a close eye on any of the mesh designers and animators that were chosen to work with Linden Labs on the Bento Project.
Hey Berry
For deformed bento heads you dont have to reset it from catwa gesture all the time.
LL viewer has the option to reset skeleton. You right click on face, from appearance there is option to reset skeleton
It can help non catwa head users more 🙂
Bento could be nice, but I’m already hearing horror stories from people who’ve bought “bento heads” which don’t come animated – you have to buy the facial animations separately.
That ain’t gonna fly for Aunt Patty, who has decent animation free of charge with her system head – and after almost six years has it tweaked about where she wants it. Even Maitreya throws undies in with the Lara.
.
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I need to better understand how shapes work with Bento. For example, why does my head look so terrible with my own head shape? Am I required to buy/make a new shape? I really have never wanted or needed to buy a shape but is it really required here?
Gillian, the way the mesh heads are rigged, you can’t just use your old system head shapes, you will need to adjust them to affect the bones on the head. That means they may just look very odd with our system heads. You are not required to buy a shape but you will probably have to make one or use the shape that the head comes with and then move the sliders to your liking if you want.
Hi, I know this is a couple months old but I recently stumbled upon this post and just want to clarify:
I’m the owner of *LightStar, and the mesh heads I have available are and always have been Bento enabled. The sliders work really well on them, you can check out a demo at my shop in world or on the marketplace! http://lightstarstudios.blogspot.com/2017/02/bento-mesh-heads-update-v13.html
I’m also very open to feedback or suggestions, feel free to contact me in world any time 🙂
Oh wow, didn’t know that Krystal, great news! Thank you for letting me know, will find some time to try them out.
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Ugh, I have been gone from SL for so long. I came back recently and I am so, so lost with all this. I don’t even know where to begin. I was all proud of myself for having Slink hands and feet! Do I start with a head and then get a mesh body? Do I have Bento bones now if I have the latest viewer or do I have to do something. *puts head down and sighs*