AC3D and SL plugins.... any good?

Hi,

I've tried AC3D before (and my trial has run out) but they now have a bunch of SL plugins... so before I spend money on it/them -- has anyone used AC3D with the SL plugins in anger and if so .... are they any good? I'm most interested in the sculptie exporter... what are the limitations on that? Do you have other recommendations?

TIA for your help!

/esc

Wow, it's that good, hunh? HEHE I guess by the stunning silence this is probably not the way to go. LOL -- goes to check out wings3d...

Dunno, someone highly recommended it in the libsl channel the other day

I bought AC3D. I can say it works. As I've not had time to actually compare it with any other programs, I can't say how much better or worse than anything else it is. If you are familiar with AC3D and like using it, then the exporter will get those points into a sculpted map, that is certain.

AC3D with the SL Plugins isnt bad... If you like AC3D and know how to use it the learning curve on it for sculpts will prolly be less minimal then say 3ds max or maya or blender or a few other apps out there... I find it pretty intuitive but its really down to your tastes... How did you like using it?

I think AC3D is great for the price, I've been very pleased with what I've been able to do with it. IM me in-world sometime Escort, I'd be happy to show off

Thanks all for the comments - all useful!

Robby -- i'll ping you inworld

Sorry I missed your ping, I had fallen asleep by the time you sent me the IM

I sent you a version of my new sculpted katana, it is made primarily of sculpted prims made in AC3D. The curve of the blade and sheath were done in XSI Mod Tool (which is free, btw), just because I'm already used to curving objects in that environment, but all of the other modelling was done in AC3D.

If you do try AC3D, make sure you use the "Normalized Sculpted Prim" exporter, as the other (original) exporter has far less precision.

[Lemme know what you think of the sword, btw, I'd love feedback. But please keep in mind that it's not finished, it's a work in progress ]

.

That katana is wonderful, Robby!

OK, I tried Wings3d with the free importer/exporter but with that, while it is accurate and good, there is the limitation is that the mesh has to have the same number of vertices as the final sculptie map....

...does the AC3D exporter have that limitation too, or does it create the sculptie texture more intelligently?

Thanks for the compliment!

Well, it doesn't have the limitation that the model you are working with has to have the same number of vertices, though of course the final sculpt map will have that many vertices, so it's possible to be working on a model that won't look quite the same when it's exported. I think that last part is true of any sculpt method, though.

But I commonly work with models that have a slightly different number of vertices, depending on the desired results.

[EDIT] To be more clear, yes, the exporter is fairly intelligent.

hi,


I just began trying to learn how to use AC3D to make sculptie maps for SL..

And its rather confusing for me how to make the vertex or UV map and etc to be right ..to get the map to work with SL..


Would be nice if someone can enlighten me on tht..


And I would like to get some informatons on where to find good exporters and plugins for AC3D also...



TIA!

I have been using ac3d for a while and think it is a great program. Sadly you will only use a few of its functions for sculpties. However I do recommend this program as it gives you great control in shaping sculpties and exporting them to in world. Yes, Buy it!

Yes

Especially if your new to working in 3d programs, as AC3D is intended as a beginners program.
That being said you can still do quite alot in building some very cool 3d models.
As for sculpties it is worth the price of the program for those alone. It is very easy to quickly
create worthy shapes. And the exporter is what I was particularly impressed with. I only ended
up using it for the time of the trial so I am not famililar with the "normalized sculpt prim" exporter.
However using the built in exporter I was very happy with the results on the tests that I performed. The tools are easy and quick, and the built in exporter completely eliminates
the prep time you will have to commit to with many of the other programs and methods.
I am the type that likes to push the envelope and/ or try things that according to conventional
thinking (esp at the time) would have been expected to yield distasterous and indeed does
in certain other programs. Yet in AC3D there seemed to be some kind of optimizer in the exporter
that sort of rounded off errors. So even when I exported pretty whacked shapes I got surprisingly
good results. It has been on my list of programs to buy for quite awhile now. But that list is pretty long and it recently got pushed back again when I picked up CS 4.

A similar program in terms of it having a built in SL sculptie exporter is Hexagon 3D which is offered
by DAZ. I already had that 3d program which is actually a much more powerful modeler. Then
daz came out with an upgrade that had that SL exporter so I have been on that for quite awhile now, when I have time to sculpt that is. It takes more time to create the precise
shapes however it has more tools and options for creating the precise sculpt shapes.

But to answer your question AC3D is easily worth the money for what it can do with sculpties.
There is also a importer for bringing in your models as with an inworld assembler that will recreate your model with normal rectangular shaped prims.

http://www.inivis.com/secondlife.html

i've been using AC3D for quite a while now to create sculpties. When using the provided sculpts (found it on the official forum somwhere), you can create sculpties quite easily. Texturing can be a pain because it doesn't come with a baking function (yet). Another thing that takes time is to learn how to create sculpties that look like you want them in SL. For example creating hard edges takes some practise.

Overall i'm extremely satisfied with AC3D, and it does the job for me. I've tried Blender but somehow it didn't gave me the sculpties i wanted. I guess i gave up to soon but now AC3D is doing to job for me.