editing software

Hi there.
Is it possible to use "Google Sketch up" as an editing program to design and upload my own stuff, as opposed to paying out for expensive software such as Photo shop

No.

Sketchup is a 3d design program that creates files that are in no way compatible, or usable in SL.

Also, ANY sort of file you bring into the game is going to cost you 10 lindens.

And the files created by Photoshop as compared to the files created by Sketchup are wildly different and incompatible to each other--barring some sort of Photoshop plug in that i'm aware of.

If your goal is a free draw and paint program for texture creation, you might consider Paint.net. (Windows only.)

I was under the impression that SketchUp could export to .obj.

If this is true, you could use obj2sculpt.exe to convert said .obj to a sculpt map, though it may not be all that accurate. Also, some iterations of Photoshop are capable of painting onto 3d models, so I would assume they can handle .obj files as well, so it's not exactly 'incompatible'.

Well Sketchup is a type of modeling program and Photoshop is mostly a 2d graphics editor.

But to answer your question, No, to my knowledge you cannot use Sketchup.

You can use various yet very specific modeling programs to create and upload sculpt maps to make sculpted prims with.

As far as creating your builds offline and importing them into SL the answer used to be no.
But a guy named Shack Dougall made a tool called "prim composer" that will allow you to create an entire build offline and upload it to SL......However, you need to own a copy of Maya
which is a full featured professional 3d solution tool that is alot more expensive than Photoshop.

This is the only known method of uploading "normal" sl type prims that I currently know of.

prim composer

SL does not currently allow the upload of the usual 3d object formats. For the most part you can only upload certain formats of graphics files, sound files and animation files.

However there is a Jira on the propect of the ability to upload 3d objects out there but I forget the name of that particular Jira atm.

In respect to Sculpt maps and Prim Composer these are very specific non trivial solutions
that are an art form in themselves. In reference to those there is a definite learning curve
involved.

If your interested you can search this forum for more info on sculpt maps, sculpties, prim composer, etc.

Infiniview, your typo had me so excited, I about had a heart attack. I rushed over to the website to download this new version of Prim Composer for Maya, but of course, it's not there. Prim Composer is still just for 3DS Max, not for Maya, just like it's always been.

Don't toy with my emotions like that!

Actually, there IS a free solution for normal-prim SL builds while outside of SL. I discovered a few days ago that Blender has an equivalent script, Prim.Blender.


Too bad I didn't know this a couple days earlier, as someone in one of my groups asked if there was one for Blender, and got a large no. But there is! Huzzah!

http://www.3pointd.com/20060602/create-sl-objects-in-blender-if-you-dare/

Prim.Blender was actually the first one. Jeffrey first published the beta almost three years ago.

/8/64/110607/1.html (for the history buffs)

Oh, Chosen, you and your knowledge. How I adore thee.

It still seems like it was harder to find than it should be. I can't even recall how I found it, but I think it was by accident, after having looked for it beforehand.

The only thing I have successfully used SketchUp for was to rough in a Heightmap for a sim. The collaborative nature of SketchUp made it easy for the client and I to note the rough elevations, and I was then able to add greyscale values to the tops of each surface. Taking a top-down snapshot of that gave me a VERY rough starting point for continued work in Photoshop...