Wings3d UVMapped Spheres for Download

hey is there a way to use your method to texture already existing models without having to upload your spheres....I'm not familiar enough with wings to be able to get those textures and materials into my existing meshes, and I don't want to rebuild anything or always have to start out with your template...

thanks for looking into it though!,

If Wings has a way to simply import an external UV map, I haven't found it yet. But here is a way that does work.

* Export your model from Wings as an .OBJ file.

* Apply the appropriate .UVS file from Hypatia's zip file (first post of this thread) to the .OBJ file. On Windows, you can use the free UVMapper Classic (http://www.uvmapper.com/downloads.html[url].) On a Mac or Linux, I don't know the easiest way.

* Use the procedure I outlined in post #5 of this thread on the resulting .OBJ file.

Let us know how that works for you.

You can only apply uvmapping with my obj file in UVMapper to objects that are exactly matching the vertex count of the sphere. Which means it had to start out life in Wings as the same exact model.

You can start with my obj in the program of your choice - I personally don't use Wings to model anything, rather Silo and Zbrush. I simply use the uvmapped sphere in those apps. You will simply have to model the sphere to be approximately like your old meshes. There's ways to transfer mesh details using Max and Zbrush, but that gets into the technical aspects of those softwares and its not always very accurate.

That is really strange because I made it in Wings3d and used the exporter to export it. Otherwise I wouldn't posted it.

The exporter only supports up to 64/63 spheres, I doublechecked it.

8 sections and 7 slices (will create an 8 x 8 bitmap)
16 sections and 15 slices (will create a 16 x 16 bitmap)
32 sections and 31 slices (will create a 32 x 32 bitmap)
64 sections and 63 slices (will create a 64 x 64 bitmap)

There is no support for what you're talking about, unless you're using another mod of the exporter - maybe Strife's does as it supports arbitrary spheres (sometimes not very stable however), but not Omei's. Also very slow to work with in Wings at that size. That size sphere crashes my sculpt exporter. You want as small a sphere as you can get away with for your mesh. 64 is even a bit too big - but we're stuck till we have an exporter that can arbitrarily size the texture map. Making the sphere larger is really not the answer, because the model in SL is only 32x32 at maximum LOD.

I'm getting a little tired of reexplaining it. I'd rather that the spheres be in one place on the first post, instead of having to dig for them every time I have to update something. Plus I can't fix things that others do. I get enough questions about these things as it is, don't post things that don't work for people.

Here are obj files with what I propose as the Wings "standard" triangulated spheres. (This is the vertex/face ordering that will be produced if you import a sculpty bitmap.)

hi, got them Omei, thanks.

I haven't had time to test them, but I will in some days, unfortunately real life, family and stuff will keep me a bit busy in RL till next week

Hey I just realized what you were talking about when you mentioned zbrush,..I also use Zbrush just not in SL. what that meant to me is that you use wings to get the right sculpted prim legal shape..than just bring that into zbrush to edit the mesh.

Also if im uploading to SL from wings of course im starting out with one of those spheres, (64/63 typically).

so yeah, figuring it out I think...slowly but surely.

thanks everyone for helping out in the forums, some of us rely on this quite a bit.

Anyone else experiencing an error when attempting to export these UV'd meshes to SL sculptie? (using Strife Onizuka's plugin)

Exporter crashed: function_clause
[{lists,nth,[1,[]]},
{wpc_sculpty,'-similarFsLoop/3-lc$^0/1-0-',4},
{wpc_sculpty,'-similarFsLoop/3-lc$^0/1-0-',4},
{wpc_sculpty,similarFsLoop,3},
{wpc_sculpty,export,2},
{wings_export,export,4},
{wings_file,'-export_filename/2-fin-0-',3},
{wp8_file,file_dialog_event,1}]

I don't use Strife's plugin so I can't help you there, sorry I'm using Omei's, they work fine in his.

I'll be doing some further testing with the ones Omei has posted, so there will be movement on this front this week.

could you send me a copy of what you are trying to export? (attachment to a PM is fine)
ERLang error messages are pretty useless.

Thanks to Omei I have my building up and going. Can I ask what figure, detail or object would you like to see?

I'm going to use 64x63 for more complicated work, of course you know, the more mesh, the longer it will take.

I believe it's possible to make a 1 prim 3D Avatar. But what use would anyone have for it.

Amin8or, is anyone familiar with that program and could it use your plug in Omei?

Thanks

There is a common mis-conception that the greater detail you can construct with a 64x63 mesh will actually get carried over into SL. It wont. Of all the extra vertices that are created in a 64x63 mesh, only half of those in the small ring immediately adjacent to the south pole (or is it the north pole?) will have any contribution. This is simply the way SL works; it has nothing to do with Wings or its exporter.

Unless you know exactly what vertices are going to get used, and you really, really, really need those extra 32 points in your sculpty, there is nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by modeling with a 64x63 sphere.

I'm not familar with Amin8or, but I am quite sure the Wings exporter won't work directly with it. The Wings exporter won't work directly with anything other than Wings. But if Amin8or imports and exports in any of the common formats that Wings supports, there's a good chance that you can use the two together, i.e. start with a mesh the Wings exporter understands, transfer the model to Amin8or, do your modeling (as in Wings, you have to forsake any tools that add or subtract vertices), transfer the model back to Wings and export it from there.

That's why all the chatter back and forth.. I don't know the capabilities unless I either try or someone tells me it isn't going to work. I'm trying to attempt building different object to see if they do or don't work. Can't hurt to try except for time wasted..and I have plenty of time.

The Amin8tor I just ran across. Don't know that much about about it other then looks fairly easy to work with. That's why I ask questions. To get answers, even if there not the ones I want to hear....gg

I agree If using a 64/63 sphere that you know your going to have extra, then why use it, besides it could make it confusing along the way. If anyone takes on the challenge, make sure you have a design or blue print of what your trying to build. For the upload to SL and not getting what I originally had built, I haven't ran into that problem as yet.

Thanks Omei for the guidance

Just checking up, Hypatia, to see whether you had any feedback on the triangulated meshes. I'm ready to release a new exporter version that (among other things) can optionally triangulate the mesh when it imports sculpties. But I would like for there to be some way to get a UV map for them. If you have the time and are so inclined, I would love to use ones you have prepared. But if not, I understand, and will come up with some other way.

It's been nice collaborating on sculpty development. I hope we can keep it up.

yes sorry about being distracted in the last couple days, I don't see a problem with that. You're welcome to use them of course! That is what they are there for.

I'm about to replace the ones in the top of the thread with the ones you have suggested.

yep that is exactly it I use Zbrush to deform the mesh, as well as Silo, then use Wings as the exporter.

agh, they look really bad in Silo and Zbrush. Not smooth at all like the quad mesh is.

Working on something here... will check back in a bit.

Omei

oh I see, they are no longer uvmapped... ok what I did was I took the quad spheres into Zbrush and let it triangulate them. This preserved the uvmapping and also gave it the same winding direction for the triangulation as I have observed in SL. Try and see how these fare They look much smoother in the rendered previews now. They all work with the version of the exporter I have.

if all is well with them, I'll place them on the top post

They look good for doing texturing in Wings, as well. I don't understand why my .obj files (which have the faces generated by my Wings import) caused problems for Zbrush and Silo. But I think I'll not hold up a new plugin release while I figure that out. If you have any ideas, let me know.

I'm going to change the instructions for starting a sculpty in Wings. Instead of using the Wings command to create an appropriately sized sphere, the instructions will say to open a Wings template (.wings file) derived from your .obj files. May I include those .wings templates in the zip file along with the plugin? Or would you prefer I give them to you to post in this thread, and the instructions will say to get them here?

Thanks again for providing these!

I took your 32/31 sphere triangulated and made this square. Uploaded it to SL and keep most of the shape. Maybe it's not useful, but I wanted to see with the triangle I could get sharper edges.

Program Wings

Both .bmp & .obj here.

you're welcome

it's fine to include them with the plugin if you wish. The trouble with Silo and Zbrush was that the triangulated spheres of yours had somehow lost their uvmap, and something was amiss with how the smoothing of the normals was going on. That was fixed when I went back and exported the original quad uvmapped spheres as triangulated from Zbrush. All my other programs were winding the triangulation the wrong way from SL - only Zbrush for some reason did the triangulation right. They also reimport quite perfectly back into Zbrush, so all is well in the world there

My triangulatd spheres never had a UV map. I haven't figured out how to create the SL-specific UV map with the free tools I use. So that is your contribution to people who either model and/or texture in Wings.

It seems like we've got good inter-operability between Wings, Zbrush, Silo and SL now. Hurray! Is anyone out there using other tools in combination with any of these? If so, do Hypatia's template .OBJ files work well for you?

Hi All,

I'm getting error messages when I try to extract the UVMap files (Error: invalid compressed data to expand (inflate) the file).

I've tried all of the files listed, not just Hypatia's and they all give the same error. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm using a Windows box if that makes a difference.

Cosimo, this is an old thread and much has happened since it was active. (Including corruption of most of the forum archive files.) Your best bet is probably to export your own .OBJ files from one of the Wings sculpty templates. These are all UV mapped now.