3. Add a pink group
It is good practice to group different build nodes together to help us navigate in the scene tree. GroupBuild nodes are used for grouping the build nodes.To add a GroupBuild, drag a new GroupBuild from the new node bar to the right of the Seamless
node:
To easily distinguish the build nodes that will be contained in the GroupBuild node, select the GroupBuild node:
and set it's marker field to:
This will result in the background colour for the nodes contained in this group, to be a light pink color. This has no influence over the model in the 3d window, this serves only to help us locate this group in the scene tree.
4. Build the pelvis
Select the part
named pelvis & click 
(from the horizontal toolbar)This causes a NurbsLathe
node to be added to our pink group (because the pink group is open) with it referencing
our pelvis part:
Because our NurbsLathe references our pelvis part, our NurbsLathe
builds the triangles for our pelvis part
.
Note we could have clicked
instead of
to add a NurbsLathe node. Both buttons add a NurbsLathe but
adds a NurbsLathe set up with control points that are more conveniently arranged
to begin with for creating a shape for an avatar's part.After adding the lathe use the BuildLathe's translation field to move the lathe's triangles.
To shape our lathe to be more suitable for a torso we simply drag the control points in the 3d window:
To insert a new control point click the point's length button:
This will insert a new control point between the selected control point and the next control point (in order by its index) unless the selected control point is the last. If the selected control point is the last, the new control point will be inserted between the last and second last control points.
Because the first and last control points for the torso end closed, the x values (the left values) for the first and last control points should be 0. The x value for a control point can be set to 0 by selecting the control point:
, then highlighting the x value in the NurbsLathe's control panel (to highlight hold down the shift key and drag from the left of the value to the right of it):
and then typing 0
If the x component is left with a value that is slightly negative (like shown above) our end point will suffer a dark discolouration:
The nurbs lathe is scaled in the z dimension to make it thinner by setting the last value for the scale field to .7
This should be done while looking at the torso side on. To vew the torso side on, click
5. Build the neck
Add a new NurbsLathe to build the neck. The NurbsLathe's scale field can be used to entirely shape the neck. Use the NurbsLathe rotation field to rotate the neck on the X axis to make the neck point slightly forward.
If we mess up the orientation and wish to reset the rotation back to where we began, highlight all of the rotation values by dragging with the mouse from left to right:
and type in 1
1 will automatically be converted to 1 0 0 0 which is a non rotation value.
Note: 0 1 0 0 and 0 0 1 0 are also non rotation values.
6. Build the head
7. Build the left eye
Select the l_eyeball part and click
For this simple avtar that will have black eyes it is not very important but for eyes in general it is better to have the vertex rings circular (when viewed front on):
rather than horizontal:
To change the rings to being circular when viewed front on, set the view to being side on
and while holding down the control key, click the SphereBuild's rotation's decrement button once for the X axis:
Use the SphereBuild's radius to change the size and the SphereBuild's translation to change the position of the eye.
8. Copy the left eye to the right
We could create the right eye the same way we made the left but it is much less work to copy the tringles from the l_eyeball part to the r_eyeball part.To do this select the l_eyeball and then while holding down the shift key, press the arrow down key once so that the two eyeball parts are highlighted:
With the 2 parts highlighted, click
from the horizontal toolbar (not from the new node bar).This will add a CopyPart node with it referencing the l_eyeball for the source and the r_eyeball for the destination:
The source part is indicated by the blue dot.
To make the r_eyeball mirror the l_eyeball, tick the CopyPart's mirrorX field:
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