Blender Sculptie Importer - Attached

I've just gone through 2 video and text tutorials on Gaia's site (or the site that she's involved with) and they were brilliant. I want to add a big thank you in this thread for the tutorials and to Domino for making Blender so much easier to make sculpties with than it was the last time I attempted it. I'll look in the site for more tutorials now

I am experemting isue with the oblong import, using the RC script from Domino s site.
The result mesh seam to have all the vertice present but a lot of faces are missing and the few (faces) it makes are totaly distorded (using wrong verts).

many test done with 256*16 (i set 257*17 vert for import rite?) sculpt map, blender 2.48 (and 2.45), WinXP.

Any one succeded in importing Oblong?

Bytheway i use to import for checking precision and fine tuning as the machinimatrix precision sculpty tuto, may i missed an other way?

=> Domino : a really great feature for sculpt modeling would be a more flexible axe snaping system, like different snaps scale on each axe, maybe a kind of easy UI could let you enter the sizes for X,Y,Z of your model and set the snaps according, or setting them directly, and an activate/deactivate snap toggle (non destructive modifier could be real cool )

I have asked Domino exactly this question about 6 weeks ago. But unfortunately he seems absent since that time and i never got an answer from him. Meanwhile i do realy miss this feature and when Domino does not show up again for another 2 weeks or so, i would try to add something like a sculptie snap-tool based on Domino's scripts as an add-on function (hoping not to vex? anybody...)

This is an amazing idea ... i guess, such a thing can be usefull in many more ways than only in sculptie making? The best thing would be to have it as true blender modifier, which allows to set the snap grid interactively. Hence you even could see how your sculptie will distort with different settings ... Thats realy a cool idea

But that would mean to program a modifier ... and that is c++ no ? I can ask someone from in the machinimatrix team for support ... Oh they will kick me out, they got enough to do

BTW: Does anybody have the most recent development status from Domino's git-site ? I have no access to it and maybe someone could post a zip file here ?

Hi everyone. Can't type much as my arm is still giving me a lot of pain. I'm two weeks into a six week physio therapy and to be honest, it's not helping. I'm in more pain than before. I've got to finish the course before going for MRI scans if it's no better.

Apologies to anyone waiting for me to answer questions. I'll catch up with the backlog when I'm able.

It's good to hear from you again Domino! I'm really sorry to hear you're in so much pain ;o; get well soon!

i cant log in, it says:
unable to connect to second life/
DNS could not resolve the host name.
please verify that you can not connect to the www.secondlife.com web site. If you can, but recieve this error, please go to the support section and report this problem.

I can log in to the web site....what must i do now?

git is offline for the moment. With not working, I couldn't afford to keep the dedicated host I had and the new shared host doesn't have git server stuff setup. I'll probably just set it up as a http based repository and put up instructions on how to change the source address for exisiting checkouts. Might be awhile.

Hey, Domino, all my best wishes to you for a quick reconvalescence. Take your time and take care of yourself first. Everything else can wait! And Cheer up!

Get well soon, Dom. Thinking about you and concerned. Take it easy - we'll just save up all the questions until you're fit.

I am getting an error in Blender when I try to import the SL sculpties. I have Blender 248.1 installed on my machine, and Python 2.5.4

I downloaded the files from Domino's site, and they do show up in Blender on the Import menu. When I select import, and click on the "Import sculpty" button, I get a Python Script Error:

http://img255.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pythonerrormessagefy7.jpg

That's a picture of the error message I get. Any advice or info will be appreciated.

THANKS!

I have seen similar errors, when i try to upload images in a file format, that is not supported by blender. In which format do you have the sculpties ? png ? tga ? something else ?

I guess I was assuming that the sculpties would already be there but now I realize I have to make them using add>mesh>sculpt mesh and save them before I can import them -- is that right?

ah... ok, you are going to make the sculpties with blender yes... when you are finished, you either directly store the sculptie map on disk or you "File -> export -> Second Life LSL" your work to a folder. You get the sculptmap plus an LSL script which helps you to redo the correct scaling in world.

take care to have the export folder created, because the scripts can not do that for you. They only export happily into an existing directory. It should warn you, but it silently fails and you get nothing from blender, if you export directory does not exist.

For more infos look at: http://blog.machinimatrix.org/video-tutorials

Here's a workaround for a bug in blender that can prevent you from baking your sculpties:

If you get the following python error message while trying to bake a sculptie, read on:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 480, in <module>
File "<string>", line 451, in main
File "<string>", line 330, in updateSculptieMap
RuntimeError: couldn't load image data in Blender

In the UV image editor, press N or go to View » Properties. You may see the same error message pop up, (couldn't load image data), except this time in the GUI, not the console. Check the complete path to the UV image that blender is trying to load. Most likely, it is pointing at a sculpt map that has since been moved away. Blender can't find the sculpt map, throws up the error and prevents the sculpt export script from completing. le sigh.

Workaround: place a copy of the missing sculpt map in the location where blender expects to find it, then bake your new sculpt map and save it wherever you like.

This seems to have happened to a few people in this thread.. hope this helps.

P.S. Get well soon, domino!

A little late, but Get well soon Domino!

-why

i have read that it is possible to do oblong textures of 16x64,8x128 and 4x254. However with the script of domino only work well 16x64. Theres is some way to do the others, changing something as size of the texture?. I have tried changing the size of the texture for 8x128 and i dont get a right sculpt in world.

i have other question. I have a sphere and a cylinder, then i want that a ring of the sphere is the same that a ring of the cylinder. then i joined both objects in one to entry at edit mode and to do the rings one. Then after i separate the objects causing that the cylinder is a sphere mesh. i dont know from where is the error but it seem that there is something bad doing that operation. Some other way to get this?

It sounds like you are using the new RC scripts from Domino ? When you join 2 sculptie-objects of different sculptie type, then later separate them again, there is indeed a problem:

All sculptie-related data (i.e. the sculptieType) is stored as properties on each object. Once you join the 2 sculpties into one object, this data gets mangled, i.e. only one of the 2 property-sets survives. Hence when you separate the 2 objects later, both get the same copy of the properties and thus the same sculptieType...

That is indeed a severe problem, when you work with multiple aligned sculpties...
The only workaround i can imagine with my (still very limited) knowledge about blender is to provide a joinScript which takes care on the datasets when joining the 2 objects, and a separateScript, which later restores the correct property values when the 2 meshes are ripped apart from each other later...

I've been trying to come to grips with the more recent technology in here but the thread is very long. I'm trying to understand why we do what's suggested to create a sculptie. For example, why is it important to manouver the nodes around to make the UV map go edge to edge?

Also, I think Domino's scripts have evolved over the course of this thread and that perhaps it's time to start a new one to aggregate the good stuff herein. In particular I think scripts can now be used to create a sculptie from an object, not necessarily derived from the sphere, torus etc originally distributed. In particular, I've created something using "spin dup", from a shape created from a script (not related to Domino's technology) - wheel shaped, lets say. Do I have a hope of getting this into SL as a sculptie?

Sorry but some of us are still catching up ... this might answer a query I had too. When I saw Domino manipulating Suzanne in a tutorial, I assumed it was the regular Suzanne, but it was a preprepared one eh?

So to do a more or less arbitrary object we need to work with Amanda L's basic techniques?

The stages where colours are mapped to x, y and z, I thought might be able to be scripted. Not so?

Is there any advance on Amanda's contrib anywhere for an arb object?

Hi Canis

it is possible to do an arbitrary unwrap, just very time consuming and the results are unpredictable.

There is a bunch of stuff you will need to know about making seams, unwrapping and pinning uv's that would need to happen before using the export scripts (Domino's bake sculptie). This is a course in 3d modelling in itself and if you are interested in this method i would suggest going to the Blender documentation, its typical fare over on the blenderartists forums and many other places.

One script that Domino has.. not sure if its still the same name.. EAC unwrap or equal area cylinder .. once you have made a seam, in front view it will do a pretty good job of unwrapping for you, you will then need to drag around the uv's, fill the holes etc.

I know of a couple folks who use this technique with good results.. some have posted in this thread

For my needs starting with the primitives still makes the most sense and produces better results for me when it comes to texturing.

As a side note, i would encourage anyone using these scripts to make a donation to Domino for his amazing work!

-w

Hi Whyroc, thanks for the input. OK, I'll make some seams and move the UV around (why do we do that? why edge to edge?) and use EAC unwrap to see what happens.

Yes and 3 cheers for Domino!

Let me try to write down a little tutorial. I hope it helps understanding the hidden secrets of sculpties. feedback wanted (as always


"The basics about UV-unwrapping for Sculpted prims"
===================================

The UV-unwrapping is a technique to map a 3D object surface (x,y,z) into a plane surface (u,v). Sculpties on the other hand are generated from a flat 2 dimensional image by interpreting the pixel colors as vectors, hence 33*33 vertices encoded in color pixels. (in fact we typically use 64*64 pixel maps, but this is only because the rendering engines love power of 2 textures, while they hate uneven pixel counts... So we use 64*64 images to encode 33*33 vertex points, but this is another story on itself)

The connection between UV-unwrapping and sculpted prims is: sculpted prims are in fact based on a very special uv-unwrap, lets call it the "perfect square unwrap" plus a matching color texture. The unwrap effectively creates a map, that defines which face on the 3D-object is mapped to which squared face on a corresponding flat 2D-image (called "UV-map". The uv-map is constructed as follows:

The UV-map
========
For sculpties we have 32 rows of 32 faces. all faces in a row are connected to each other on one edge. The faces between 2 rows are also connected to each other by one edge. All faces together are connected to each other like the squares on a checker board. This UV-unwrap pattern is STATIC, so all sculpties in the universe use the SAME! UV-map. Together with a different "seam-handling" depending on the available sculptieTypes "Sphere","Plane","Torus" and "Cylinder" the UV-map "gives life to sculpted prims" but does NOT define its shape!


The Sculpt-map
==========
While the UV-map tells statically, how the 1024 faces of a standard sculptie are related to each other, a secnd map (the rainbow like image) tells, WHERE the vertices are located in space. Hence each sculptie has got a unique color-texture aka "sculpt-map". The sculpt map "gives shape to sculpted prims".

And that is why Domino's scripts can create their UV-map right at the beginning. And since the uv-map is always the same, there is no need to import it to SL. It is predefined there. The only item we need to transport to SL is the sculpt-map. And this sculpt map is created during "baking" (guided by the static UV-map).

So we must unwrap into a perfect square, because this is how sculpted Prims are implemented. There is no other magic behind it.

Unwrapping "simple objects"
==================
Now how to get the UV-unwrap for arbitrary objects? The unwrap from a square plane is trivial of course, because every point on the plane can be associated to the "SAME" point in the UV-map.
Since the UV-map does not depend on the location of the faces, but only on their connection (as descibed above) it becomes clear now, that the UV-map of the plane does not change when we start bending it. This is true as long as we keep the face connections untouched and we do not add new faces to the object.

And this is the reason, why Sculpties are made out of planes, cylinders, spheres and toruses. These objects can be created out of a simple squared plane by bending and stretching only and all of them use essentially the same "square" UV-map.

Sidenote: Since (in blender?) NURBS are nothing else than "bended planes", it is equaly trivial to convert a blender-NURBS into a Sculptie (at least as long as you started from a sphere, donut or tube)

Unwrapping arbitrary objects
===================
When you want to unwrap arbitrary objects, you have to find a way to map these objects to planes, which is in fact essentially what you do while UV-unwrapping. And you need to find the square uv-unwrap to become "compatible" with sculpted prims... From what i have written above you can deduce that only objects without holes in them, can be reliably mapped to sculpties. (ok, one hole is permitted, if your object is effectively a deformed torus)

Arbitrary objects and LOD
=================
If that would be all about sculpties, life would be rather comfortable after understanding this concept. But there is also LOD (level of detail) and that makes sculptie artwork a bit more complicated (for the beginner at least) The main problem is that you are not free to place your vertices at arbitrary points in space. Well, you could do that, but the resulting sculptie would look correct only from the near. When you look from farer away, the sculpties suddenly start "jumping out of their shape". This is due to the fact, that sculpted prims (and standard prims too!) are rendered differently depending on their size and distance from the camera... So in general you do have far less vertices free for your sculpting as you expect. And when you are about to transform an arbitrary object to a sculpted prim, you have to keep LOD in mind. And this is neither trivial nor obvious in first place (that's why i mention it here too

==== End of tutorial ====

As long as your object is equivalent to "a bended plane" as i explained above, you have very good chances to get your work converted into a sculptie. But as others have pointed out, UV-unwrapping can be a very timeconsuming and error prone process. In many cases it is by far faster to redo your objects from scratch by using Domino's prepared objects and possibly use the shrinkwrap modifier ...

I hope, that helped to clearify a bit, how the mechanics behind the scenes works ?
Feel free to correct me, if i am wrong! Or ask if i am unclear ...

Gaia, you're one of the stars of sculpties. I must thank you for the detailed reply. It's the sort of detail I'd like to know. Automatic "handle turning" is fine until you wish to do something different. I'll try to take this knowledge on board.

Gaia, a followup question if I may, also based on Amanda's work. So a workflow in the best of cases (my wheel is like a torus so is probably OK) is

a) manipulate from straight Blender meshes in 3D view window and finish up by making sensible seam choices,
b) create UV map, using "EAC UNWRAP" (will other unwrap choices work as well?).
c) stretch and move around the UV map to go edge to edge
e) create 64x64 image for UV texture map, UV's->Snap to Pixels
d) create a material to represent a UV texture
f) add materails for the texture mapping x,y,z to red,green and blue respectively
g) bake the textures onto the UV image, and save as a tga file

Multiple use of "material" in different contexts is bad, but need to distinguish.

If this is correct, how much of this does D's bake sculptie script achieve? e) to g) perhaps?