[...] {Update: Here’s some additional information posted in comments on Raph Koster’s blog (Link): [...]

[...] I know Raph Koster, among others, were surprised to hear you were working with the Areae [...]

actually we mentioned areae because it is a virtual world that will be rolling out at some point. we have never said that we know anything about how areae is going to texture map their avatars. so for the record: this is not information metacrasher claims to know or claims to have any insight into.

you might ask: well why do you mention it on your site?
the answer is: we mentioned a number of virtual world projects on our site as our goal is to try and bridge them. we are showing an example of what would be possible

avatars and most all 3d characters usually have textures. second life has 3 to be exact. for the textures to be placed on an object UV mapping is required. now what if i want to take the texture that i worked really hard on in second life to a different avatar that has different uv texture mapping i would require a tool to do that. a tool to do that does not require proprietary info. of course the user or the world designer in this case Raph would have to tell us”this is how my avatars display textures using this type of mapping” and then we would put it into the system.

most 3d artists can do this, if they have the mesh for the avatar and the texture and even better the uv mapping info. we are simply making it a process that is automated. we show an example of what this tool looks like and mention the different worlds out of respect and the fact that they exist.

of course we don’t know outback onlines format yet or aerae’s. someone would have to submit it. but the fact remains that if an av has user made textures, it’s format can be mapped onto different meshes if done correctly. that’s what the tool is for.