Yet Another 3D Modeler Thread

It has been brought up numerous times that people want an offline modeler or to be able to import from their favorite modeler. I am on the side that all ingame is best. I think it is really what makes SL unique. So here is the topic for this thread: Basically I'm saying, what is it that Maya or whatever can do that makes you want to use it instead of the in game modeler?

In order to avoid too much redundancy I would like to open this to the Script Editor too. (Also because I'm more a scripter than a modeler).

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For the modeler I mostly miss my orthoginal views. Screen space is limited since there is a world going on around you at all times so I wouldn't want all the windows open at the same time. However having 3 buttons in the edit tool - X- Axis, Y - Axis, Z-Axis that each opened a resizable orthoganal view window would be great.


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For the text editor I really wish there was some multi-document interface. Either by list of open scripts in a subwindow on the left or tabs along the top or bottom. Really screen space is at a premium but I am very used to having more than one file open at a time.

We also need a texture creator in SL. Having to go out of game to create a texture is very annoying. Hopefully the PC I am working on (See my thread in projects) will allow you to print out simple text signs.

One thing I think the SLs modeling system needs is triangles and planes. If it had that someone could possibly make an importer/exporter that didn’t require so many pims or at least the unseen faces of a prim. They don’t even need to be 1 sided.

One thing I have gotten used to recently is a by-polygon modeling method. Even if I had to do it in SL it still works since it has the skew and size and scale functions.

If they where implemented expressly for the purpose of an exporter people could still use them for other things like pictures or the side panels of cars that have alpha maps that cover up the other 5 faces…. That’s a waste of geometry!

I also miss the SNAP and PIVOT functions. I hate making walls when they don’t match up. And I hate compensating for rotations that are WAY outside where I want them.

I don’t know how they could possibly include the pivot correction but I can dream.

I use maya and modeling by face can be faster than box modeling or quite simply… modeling with boxes /shutters/ …

Good news on that front... Take a look at the top-right of the build panel for grid options.

When you move/size an object, while dragging, move your cursor out of the middle channel that appears and onto the graduated marking - you'll fing that the cursor now snaps to each marking.

When you rotate an item, similar marking appear.

If you minimize the script window it turns into a tab along the bottom of your screen.

Isn't there a statute of limitations on posts over 3 years old?

Argent: Yes, you can do that. No, that is not any form of a 'multiple document interface'. At this point I have become very accustomed to the tabbed page concept of both MS VS and Firefox. However I also use Textpad which has a list of open documents on the left.

I would like to be able to do Booleans with prims, ie, subtract a circle from a cube, etc. That would greatly expand the modeling possibilities without taxing servers much.

Also, I would love to be able to align and distribute objects like you can do in Illustrator. Doing it by eye is annoying (especially without the orthogonal views already mentioned), and doing it with the numbers is tedious.

Eh? That's exactly how a standard Microsoft MDI works, unless you maximize the internal window. You have multiple overlapping windows inside the application window, and they get minimized to little boxes down at the bottom. Second Life is pretty close to being a classic MDI application, except for the lack of maximized internal windows.

Tabbed windows are kind of a compromise between MDI and traditional one-window-per-document interfaces, letting you have multiple windows and multiple tabs inside them. I prefer them, and it sounds like you do too, which is good... I never really understood the attraction of MDI in the first place.