Sculpty exporter for Wings 3D

well I rashly said i could view the saved wings sl export file in photo shop..well what I see is just a rainbow sqaure palette...is this the way things should be?

I am sure the swirling mists with clear shortly,

any help would be gratefully recieved,

regards,

Bibi

I have the same problem. The instructions say where the plug in goes but where do we put the other file. What does the sculpty export menu line say and what is the suffix, .bmp or.jpg?

In Photoshop, it is called "nearest neighbor".

Yes. Storing a shape as a texture is unconventional, and the result when viewed as an image isn't easy to interpret. See http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims:_Technical_Explanation if you want to know more.

You don't need to do anything with the .erl file. It's the source file for the plug-in, and is included only for those who might want to enhance the plug-in, or see how it works.

Once installed, the exporter command will be

Second Life Sculpty (.bmp) ...

in the File/Export menu.

many thanks for all the help regarding photo shop etc.

I have realised I am not sure what to do with the texture.bmp in SL.

I saw a tute that said to get a cube select sculpture and assign ur texture.bmp

to the Sl apple shaped sculture and ur wings design will be ralised in SL.

well i have tried this ..at first with perhaps a little succes( not sure now as the shape was so bumpy) but now nothing..the apple remains an apple instead of an egg.

Am I doing this part correctly?

thanks for ur help so far...feel I am getting closer to a result,

kind regards,

Bibi

Hi follks, sorry for the very dumb question...how am I ment to edit the mesh size...it keeps coming up with "Unsupported Mesh Size" when I go to export..... am I being blonde? hehe
Im trying to do lettering...
Thanks!

You have to start with a certain amount of faces. For example start with a sphere of 64*63. You can't create new faces (so don't use "Extract", only deform the existing ones.

I am having an annoying problem with the scultpies exported from wings. In the areas where the vertices are close together the sculptie looks really bad in SL. A nice round and smooth shape suddenly is not round but rough and starshaped. I wished I could show a picture here.

Futher explaination. I was trying to make an animal with a curly tail. The body of the animal is fine, but the tail is not. It looks fine in wings though.

There a number of issues that hurt detail. See the threads titled Accurate Sculpting and Surfaces deformed on curved sculpties for ideas. You may want to just use a second sculpty for the tail.

Yes finally gettting very good results and so far have not gone through the photo shop stage.
I think where I was going wrong was not setting the graphic slider preferences correctly. There r 3, not sure at the moment which one..set them all in the middle if in doubt.

And I was also exporting from wings as"Export Selected" when I should have just used
Export.

Thanks again to Omei fro the terrific help,

Bibi

If you use Wings3D to create the 64x63 sphere and then use that in your favorite modeler, you can use your favorite modeler to export the sphere as a OBJ file and import directly into Second Life

How?

Vote here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1110

This gained like 6 votes since yesterday! Everybody tell your friends because I'm going to go ahead and set aside some of my other projects to personally work on this!

Tell your friends to vote!!!


If get more votes -- I'll make the binary available for anybody to download -- ASAP!

I just now jumping into this thread after being in a couple of others. I worked with Blender and Wings. Wings is a more suitable program because less confusion over the bells and whistles.

I am using the exporter Omei made..great job.

One question that may have been asked, but I 'll ask again for newcomers to this thread. Sometimes I feel comfortable just uploading to SL, but other times I wish i had a previewer. I read where someone was using one, but he didn't mention where he got it.

Any help would be great. Thanks
Justin

Since I got votes for the in-world OBJ importer, here is a binary to try it out:

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/oslcc/slviewer-1.17.0.12.VWR-1110.zip?use_mirror=osdn

It currently works with 64x63 mesh spheres created by any modeler exported as an OBJ file. Here are the instructions for Windows:

1) Copy C:\Program Files\SecondLife to you Desktop
2) Put the SecondLife-1.17.0.12.VWR-1110.exe into the SecondLife folder you just put on the desktop.
3) Put the file "Beta Test SecondLife-1.17.0.12.VWR-1110.exe" into the same SecondLife folder.
4) Click on the shortcut (you just moved) in the same SecondLife folder
5) Log In
6) Click on File->Upload Image
7) Find an OBJ file made by your modeler
Select it
9) If it converted fine, you will see the sculpt map.
10) Select "Sculpted Prim" to preview

Are you asking about previewing the sculpty itself? Or previewing a texture applied to the sculpty?

Dzonatas, I certainly don't want to discourage your work on an importer. But posting announcements to multiple building threads is not good forum etiquette.

You are right, except I also have a reason to push a fix too. I wouldn't do it just for popularity. =)

I guess my answer would be both. If I can export into a .bmp file, I would like to See if it works prior to paying all the upload fees.

The importer is a good idea, I think people would benefit by having a choice. Unfortunately I wish there were only one thread to follow on this subject, but there isn't.

Newcomers (not newbies)to this 3D idea, like me are starving for information. But I'm finding myself going from one thread to the other and sometimes get taken in another direction.

I someone is developing a program and has to update it to take care of problems and bugs, I feel the benefit of being able to post in the forums that carry his or hers program should be allowed.

I myself find I'm stuck between Blender and Wings, both have benefits, but to export you work to what format is allowed by SL is a little shaky. I mean the information of the process. Like I said before, I don't want to pay an upload fee for what was suppose to be a bowl and turned out to be a weird looking beach ball.


Here's what I need and I'm sure everyone else would benefit by the info you can give.

1.Directions on how to export
Programs or plug in
2.Viewing the work before uploading
viewer
3. Explanation on why only spheres are the only shape

I would appreciated it be put in laymen terms. Dzonatas Sol program maybe on the right track. But some of us that aren't familiar on how to do what he is instructing, would pass up doing it because they would think it's hard to do. Might even get more votes.

Thanks, I hope this helps you guys out. I personally feel grateful to all your hard work.

Justin

Justin, before I try to answer your specific questions, let me give you some context. When the Lindens introduced sculpties, they didn't provide any way to actually create them (unless you had access to Maya, which costs mutiple thousands of dollars). They basically left it to the user community to create whatever tools it could.

Many people have taken up the challenge, using many different approaches. The plugin for Wings 3D (the nominal topic of this thread) is just one of many. (For the most part, each method being worked on has a forum thread of its own.) Everything about sculpties is in flux, not only the various methods being developed to produce them, but the treatment of sculpties in the Linden code. So anyone who wants to get involved in sculpties at this point is exploring a new frontier, and explorers don't have the luxury of having maps provided -- they get to make the maps.

I don't think there is any general answer your specific questions. But I'll address them specifically for Wings 3D.
See the first post of this thread.

The model in Wings _is_ your basic preview of the sculpty shape. However, it turns out that there are lots of different subtle reasons why what Second Life shows you may differ from what Wings (or any other external modeling application) shows you. Everybody (the tool makers and the Lindens) is working to understand the details and bring the two more closely in line. Stay tuned for developments.

As for previewing how textures will look on your sculpty, that is even murkier. There are ways to do it in Wings, but I myself am not clear on exactly what works and what doesn't (and why it doesn't). So I can't give you any simple explanation on that, yet. It seems that most people who are successful at that right now use a combination of tools

Because that is the only shape Second Life currently supports. To ask why that is is to question the mind of the gods.

Hope this helps. Not everybody wants to be an explorer. If you find the current muddle too frustrating, you may just want to wait for things to settle down and the maps have been created.

Almost sounds like Star trek.

Thanks for the response. Maybe I'm excited about this whole new world because I'm a builder and I can see an infinite amount of creations I could build using these programs.

In my early days before internet and having to have BBS (Europe calls in something else), we had to do alot of programing. Unfortunately I have lost those brain cells and can no longer jump into programing.

I spend almost all my time each day reading the forums and playing with what has already been provided. That's probably where my confusion come in. This woks for one but not the other, unless you do this or that, then you need something else and then the outcome may not be desirable.

That about sums up how I feel at the end of the day. I can see that alot of young minds are going into this project. I just hope they include good instructions.

Well for now, I guess I'll build rounds things

Omei, I came across a forum you were talking in about your exporter. It's outside SL and there wasn't too many responses. I feel your exporter is by far the best one out there.

But, you mentioned a tutorial for the people reading to watch. I don't think you ever posted anywhere else and I think it would benefit the greater if it were posted here. The man showed everything step by step including using your exporter. Just that video has put me so far ahead.

Here's the URL http://www.kewego.com/video/iLyROoaftQ2z.html,

I hope people will find it as useful as I did.. and I really want to thank him for it..

Thank you for your vote of confidence, Justin.

I thought I had gotten that URL from the Wings 3D SL Wiki page (http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Wings_3D). Looking at it now, I don't see it, though. So I am glad you posted it.

Speaking of the Wiki, it is certainly a resource you should be aware of, if you aren't already. The Wiki is a much better place than the forums to record knowledge that has become somewhat stable. I haven't personally made any contribution to it, just because I've been spending all my recent SL time trying to understand the finer details of sculpties, and incoporating that knowledge into the exporter. (I haven't even taken the time to make an aesthetically pleasing sculpty myself, yet. ) If you are at all inclined, I hope you will update the Wiki as things become clearer to you.

Happy sculpting!

Omei

Well this isn't much, but it's going to take me in the right direction.

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o55/doconnor13/3MUGS.jpg

Many thanks to you for that exporter. If you would in-world friend me and I'll send part of the earnings to you as an additional thanks


I only wish the bridge would work on these spheres.

I'm really upset at what I see on SLX in reference to sculpties. I don't know what there suppose to look like, but it's nothing practical and to sell it for alot of money.

I have updated the Wings 3D sculpty plugin. The new version is attached to the first post of this thread. This release focuses on making the model you see in Wings and the sculpty you see in SL match better. Here are the new features.

Initial templates: To create a model, start by opening one of the .wings template files from the plugin zip file. These templates are named according to the number of segments and slices, and whether faces are represented by triangles or quadrilaterals. For most models, 32x31tri.wings is a good choice. There is very little advantage to modeling with a 64x63 mesh, and there are significant disadvantages. Of the almost 3000 additional vertices in a 64x63 mesh, only 32 of them will actually have any effect on the sculpty in SL. Unless you know exactly which 32 vertices these are, you just risk being disapppointed because the details of your model rely on some of those 2950+ vertices that are going to be ignored once they get into SL. As for triangular vs. quadrilateral faces, the triangular faces allow Wings to better match the way SL will render your model. The only disadvantage of triangular faces is that it makes the model look a little "busier".

The big benefit of starting with one of the templates, rather than creating a sphere with the Wings command, is that the templates contain UV maps (provided by Hypatia Callisto -- thanks again, Hypatia) that allow you to create and preview sculpty textures using just Wings and any 2D paint program. (For more details, see below.)


Import/Export options: The exporter and importer now have a number of options that allow the SL sculpty to better match the Wings model (or vice versa). To access these options, click on the box on the right side of the File/Export/SL Sculpties menu. If you click anywhere to the left of the box, Wings will export with the default option values.

Exporter options are:

1) Bitmap size. The size of the sculpty bitmap is no longer tied to the size of the model. The main reason for this is that experience has shown that to minimize compression artifacts created by SL, it is necessary to create a 128x128 bitmap, with multiple copies of each vertex in the bitmap. Previously, you could do this only by bringing the sculpty bitmap into a 2D paint program and rescaling it. The exporter will now do this for you. The default value for the bitmap size is 128x128, and for most purposes, that is what you will want. Note that if you ask for a bitmap size smaller than the model size, it will be adjusted to match the model size.

2) Allow recentering? Without this option set, if your model is not centered on the intersection of the major axes, accuracy can suffer due to quantization error as floating point values are mapped into the 8-bit integers required by SL. Recentering does not change your Wings model; it simply allows the exporter to choose a better coordinate system center for generating the sculpty. The default is to allow recentering, and there is little reason to not allow it.

3) Allow rescaling? Without this option set, models that are long and skinny are very prone to quantization error, so this is an important option for those models. However, the default value is for it to be disabled. This is because if it is enabled, the exporter will created a "deformed" sculpty, i.e. one whose length, width and height will all be equal. After the sculpty is rezzed in SL, you will have to stretch it back to its original shape. The extra step makes this an "advanced" technique, but the increased accuracy of the result makes it very worthwhile.

Importer options:

1) You now have a choice between creating triangular or quadrilateral faces. The default is triangles. As mentioned above, triangular faces allow Wings to better match the way the model will look in SL.


Texture previewing: If you start with one of the provided templates, you can use Wings in combination with any 2D paint program to texture your model. The steps to do this are:

1) From the Window menu on the Geometry window, select Outliner. The Outliner window shows you all the components of your model. Left-click on the item "Default Sculpty Texture". Release the mouse button, left-click on the texture line again and then drag and drop it onto the "Sculpty Material" line. When prompted, choose "Diffuse". (There is a quirk in the Outline window that requires separate actions for first selecting an item and then doing something with it.) Your model should now be wrapped with a pattern of black lines and colored squares labeled with letters. This is the default texture, with the required Sculpty UV map. The pattern will guide you as you are painting your texture.

2) Have Wings create a new file for the texture bitmap by right-clicking on the "Default Sculpty Texture" and choosing Make External. (Remember, when using the Outliner window, the context menu refers to the item that is selected, not the item your mouse is over. If the context menu doesn't contain the options you expect, it's probably because you forgot to first select the line with a left click.) Name the texture file whatever you want, but be sure to choose a name that distinguishes it from the sculpty bitmap file.

3) Open the file you just created in your favorite paint program. You should see the texture that is wrapped around your model in the Wings window. To help orient yourself, select your whole model in Wings and open the UV Editor window from the Windows menu. You should see the same texture bitmap you see in your paint program. Now put both the Wings Geometry and UV Editor windows in face selection mode. (That's the third icon of four in the middle of the icon bar at the top of the window.) Now, when you choose a face of your model in the geometry window, the corresponding area of the texture in the UV Editor Window will also be highlighted. Use this as a guide to where you should paint with your paint program. Proceed to paint your texture. Wings will not reflect your painting as you work, but when you want to update Wings' view, save your file in the paint program, right click on the texture line in Wings' Outliner window and choose Refresh.

4) When you are satisfied with the results, you export the sculpty bitmap file from Wings. The texture file you painted is ready for use; it is not processed by Wings.

Other changes in this release:

1) Export Selected: I've re-enabled this option, since it is useful if you have have multiple objects open in Wings at one time. In that case, select the one object you want to export and choose the Export Selected command instead of Export. Beware, though, that Wings will easily shift from the (commonly used) Export to the (rarely used) Export Selected if your mouse passes over the Export Selected line as you move to the Export sub-menu. If exporting gives you an "Unsupported mesh size" error when you know your mesh is OK, it's probably because you executed Export Selected by mistake.

2) Texture orientation in SL: I've rotated the sculpty bitmap so that you shouldn't have to rotate the texture in SL when you apply it to a newly created sculpty.

Any way for us lame-ohs with the 10.3.9 Mac OS to be able to use the plug-ins designed for Wings3D?

Nice job Omei! But I'm wondering how to get that export options menu to appear, I reinstalled the plug-in, which is from the beam file (its properties say it was created on June 19th, so it's the up-to-date one)

I click on File, and go to Export, but there's no box next to Second Life Sculpty (.bmp) option...

(EDIT) NEVERMIND, I figured it out, I had to close Wingd 3D and start it back up again