Archipelis 3D Software

http://www.archipelis.com/product.php

Anyone aware of this or using it? Opinions?

It looks like an advanced version of the Plopp concept, ya know for kids.
http://www.planet-plopp.com/en/biggerkids.html

It still looked a bit interesting to me until I saw the price. 30 Euro, that is probably going to be
about 70$ US with taxes or so isnt it?
I would definitely shop around if I were you, many other programs are either free or can be had in a similar price range. One benefit is that they usually do other things besides sculpts, like
actual 3d modeling. The catch is that most of them will probably require a bit more effort.
AC3D costs about the same and is also a 3d modeler for beginners and it comes with a built in
SL sculpt exporter. When I tried it I noticed that it handled the sculpt UV maps very well.

The texturing for Archipelis is simplified by virtue of the method of modeling but that is because
its method of modeling is similar to attaching various shaped balloons together. Which will
cause whatever you make with it to appear less than realistic compared to other alternatives.
But I am biassed.

Good Luck!

I asked because of the apparent simplicity- So far sculpts have eaten me up and spit me back out- Plop really was too simple and I didn't keep it but the others have been too hard- was hoping for a middle of the road. I did download the demo and will at least give it a looksee- thanks for the input.

I used to use Archipelis all the time. I'd create the basic outline and texture in Archipelis, then clean up the sculpt in Wings3D (a bit awkward to import--Archipelis exports to SL in BMP, so you have to rescale the map in photoshop, then import to Wings). Usually the "falloff" section on the texture needed to be cleaned up as well.

It's good for making organic, essentially symmetrical shapes. I don't think the price is that bad for what you get--it's about on par with Hexagon (for example). I can make a simple animal in about 15 minutes with it. I've since moved to primarily using Zbrush, but that's a $600 program.

Both of these were made with Archipelis. The horse required a bit of clean up and tweaking (as well as some added prims), the fish is a direct import.

Wow nice horse Virginia!

I guess it can do a bit more than I thought. Since you mention it tho Hexagon is also an
excellent choice.
Hexagon Overview
Also has a built in SL exporter and you can use quite a few of the modeling tools on the SL
primitives it provides. In addition for the money you get mass more functionality that is if you
want to do some 3D modeling as well. The sculpties are pretty straight forward.
But it is quite a bit more advanced than AC3D so the learning curve will be higher.

Well- I guess I need remedial 3-D stuff - I downloaded the demo and played with the enclosed squirrel. The tools are not real easy to figure out it seemed to me. I admit, I am one of those that does not want to RTFM - I could be looking at it from a limited view point since I know I have not been exposed to a very great majority of the 3-d software and even regular graphix stuff out there, so maybe these tools and their representation are the norm, but damn that is just not an intuitive interface!
I will try it again but before I invest so much as $1.00 I want to be sure I will grasp the concepts. Not being tight so much as realistic. It took me forever to get the hang of Gimp and I know there is more for me to discover there - but at least with Gimp having known other graphix programs, I recognized the interface and just had to adjust m use of it. For those of u that already do 3-d and have experience with Archipelis... is the interface comparable to the others? Although I can't see me laying out a few hundred US to try and learn a program, the cost of Archipelis is far from prohibitive. Virrginia did a fantastic horse and i am not looking to get into the business, I was just curious - so my investment - time and money - will not be balanced out by likely profits - do you more experienced folk believe it is semi attainable by someone with graphix skills but no 3-d skills?
(this all started because i wanted a deer for the lawn and haven't found the one i like in sl)

I would say that Archipelis' interface isn't much like any other program I know of, aside from Plopp SL. I started using it because for whatever neurological reason, it made obvious and intuitive sense to me--you just traced the shapes you wanted (works really well with a tablet), then adjusted their inflation and offset. If you traced a shape over an imported texture, it mapped that texture onto the shape. After you're done tracing, click export. To import into SL, you just dragged the file onto the SL exporter icon on your desktop.

Again, it's good for organic round shapes, so your deer could be fairly easily made. But it wouldn't be my first choice for making mechanical shapes that might need some flat surfaces.

But no worries if it doesn't work for you. I'm a fairly right brained sort, so I have to work to use programs like Wings 3D and Maya with their grids and engineering-ish appearance. I prefer just sketching/sculpting.

If you want to find out more about Archipelis, there's a Yahoo group ("archipelis"--the designers are fairly good about answering questions on it.

Thanks much- i will look it up.