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Blender and Rigging
_The objects in the Dev file do have vertex weighting. But no armature is included. That should be added in whatever is the most recent version of Blender at the time of use, with an Avastar plugin for the armature that will export Collada (.dae) files correctly. An armature that will be compatible with future versions of Blender, Avastar or Bento Buddy cannot be included as the requirements can change frequently.
Only the final cleaned up objects are contained in Ruth2v4Dev.blend, plus the text file where Ada Radius put licensing information. Ada left out armatures, custom properties, and anything that might snaggle the different kinds of uses designers might use the model for with future versions of Blender, Avastar, bento Buddy or other plugins. Ada suggests that anyone who wants to use the file will want to use it as a library: open a clean recent version of Blender, append the objects, text file and images from Ruth2v4Dev.blend, and add a new armature or whatever to get what you need done. This will avoid incompatibilities with future versions of Blender, the Avastar plugin, Bento Buddy, etc. The Collada (.dae) files are fine for importing to Second Life or OpenSim right now, but can come back into Blender with unneeded and possibly incompatible data.
Ruth2 > Contrib/Ada Radius/Ruth2v4Sources.blend shows where Ada got the models to create Ruth2 v4. That's for people who want to know what she did. It is available to provide continuity for anyone who wants to do a Ruth2 v5.
If anyone needs just the armature, there are three files at the GitHub RuthAndRoth repository: Reference > Ada Radius.
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avatar_skeleton.xml_armature.blend is the armature Ada Radius built from avatar_skeleton.xml - that's the file in the viewer Character folder that defines the default armature, before any morphs or bone editing.
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avatar_skeleton_with_custombonesettings.blend is a customised version of the above armature with the addition of bone custom properties for the "fitted" or volume bones, values also taken from avatar_skeleton.xml, with python language from Blender dev blog. Use for mesh body or clothing attachments rigged to the "fitted" bones
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male_2016_08_05.daeRebuilt.blend is the same information, more or less, with bone head positions adjusted to what can be deduced from the SLWiki downloads at their Bento resources page for the default avatar with male morph.
These two files have all of the mBones and VOLUME bones for the Bento armature, though not the attachment bones, and are fine for skinning and vertex weighting to a default sized avatar. If you need to rig to the volume (fitted) bones, you'll probably still need the Avastar exporter, because of the custom bone settings, unless you're good enough at python scripting to do it yourself. Ada has blogged about the volume bones and her analysis of the problem.
Vertex weights are stored in vertex groups and are essentially a property of each vertex, up to 4 weights per vert allowed in SL or OS. You can see the weights in the properties tab under Object Data Properties (triangle icon). It's context sensitive, you only see all the options in Edit or Weight Painting, Vertex Selection mode, at least in Blender 2.9. Or select one vert, go to the n panel under item, and you'll see what bones that particular vert is weighted to.
After you add an Avastar armature and you have skinned the Ruth or Roth body to the new armature (Preserve Weights), you can also skin your clothing mesh to the same armature, and copy weights from the Ruth or Roth bits to your clothing mesh. Depending on the clothing, you will still probably need to adjust the vertex weights by weight painting, because the clothing is further from the bones than the bodies, and cloth doesn't drape the same way as skin.
Avastar 2.8.xx is buggy and the export settings are not obvious. Under the Advanced tab, make sure you uncheck "Enforce Parent Hierarchy" - that has a throttle on bone count with a silent fail. Ada has used Avastar beta v 24 for male avatars and v35 for female avatars.
More information on the rigging process can be found on Ada Radius's blog: