Blender Sculptie Importer - Attached

Well, yes, I was hoping it was all inclusive. At least now I can stop wondering.
BT

What exactly are you expecting to be included that isn't? If it's a sculptie.tga file, you are missing the point of that feature. I think Add - Mesh - Sculpt Mesh is where you will find what you are expecting the import to do.

Hey, I finally got back to this today. I have a path to the scripts, and when look at file > import, I can see the secondlife entry. However, if I look in the Mesh selection for a Sculpty Mesh, I don't have one. So, I suppose there is a .tga sculpty mesh somewhere that I can download? That wold be very helpful, how have I missed it? I have this new book Blender fro Dummies and it is very helpful, but there is nothing in it about SecondLife.
BT

No the Add - Mesh - Sculpt Mesh option is entirely script driven, it doesn't need anything else. Are you using the RC scripts or a snapshot? The snapshot isn't for first time users, it's under heavy development and various feature may be broken at any point. It's there for experienced users who want to help test this major rewrite.

If you are using the RC scripts, then try unsetting and reseting the user python path to force a menu refresh.

The import option is for importing a sculptie image that you *already have*...if you dont have any you obviously cant do this.
In SL open a sculptie image, immediately (without selecting anything else) go to file > save texture.... then try importing this file from your local drive into blender.
\:|

Hi BETLOG,

I think the problem is the Add - Mesh - Sculpt Mesh option isn't appearing in his menu. I've had two reports of similar problems just with Ubuntu 9.04 64 bit and git snapshot releases. Unfortunately ATI removed my graphics card fom the latest Catalyst drivers so I can't update to test this myself until the open source ATI drivers have decent 3D acceleration.

I spent quite awhile confused by the way the problem was phrased, but I think it's missing menu entries rather than anything else that's the issue.

Hi Maris,

Could you grab a new snapshot and see if this problem is fixed for your files?

http://dominodesigns.info/second_life/blender_scripts_git.html

The long standing issue of objects moving after baking should be fixed too

Cheers,
Domino

Seems to be, but/and it's transform is in the undo buffer. (so can be redone by undoing after bake... not that we'd want to, but somethng to be aware of I guess)

I think undo here is a feature rather than a problem. I'd be pretty annoyed if I forgot to tick "Keep Center" and had to re-edit rather than undo

I'm trying to test out a standalone python sculpty viewer I'm writing.

To do that, I've taken the basic forms (plane, sphere, torus, cylinder) in blender, setup the uv mesh image at 32x32 and then baked and saved. The resulting TGA files look fine, but my importer is having some issues. Which I expected, since it's not done yet

So, I figured I would import them back into blender and see if what I was drawing matched what blender would draw.

Boing! It seems that blenders sculpt importer assumes that the double sized numbers are used (e.g. normal sized sculpt is 64x64). The result is that I get a 16x16 (sort of?) mesh instead of the expected 32x32 mesh.

Try this to repeat (hopefully...):

Create a plane mesh with standard parameters. Eliminate the subsurf/multires. Then, go into edit mode, select all verticies, make a new image that is 32x32. Bake the texture, save the image, then re-import the sculpt into blender. Viola! Confusion!

Am I doomed, or is this a bug?

Thanks in advance! Also, I'd love to attach an image or something, but I can *never ever ever* get those to work on these half-baked forums. Any suggestions?

As far as i can see the sculptie importer does exactly what the SL RC-Viewer does: If you import an image of 32*32 pixels then the SL-Viewer will also make a 16*16 sculptie out of that. Which is exactly what the blender-importer also does. So what you see is the wanted behaviour. With other words: If you like to have a 32*32 sculptie, then always use a 64*64 image. That is the recommended way to go since day one of sculpties.

Note that before multiple sculptmap sizes where supported, the SL-viewer always mapped any image-map to a 32*32 sculptmap. Maybe that is what leads to confusion ? And maybe the behaviour of the RC-viewer is different compared to the standard-Viewer (because the standard viewer possibly does not yet support multiple sculptmap-sizes?)

i hope, that helps a bit ?
cheers,
Gaia

Support for image upload apparently has been silently dropped at least 6 months ago. Since then it looks as if only the IMG tag allows to embed images into your thread: Place your image somewhere on the web. Then link your image into your forum-thread by enclosing it with the IMG /IMG tag (similar as you use the URL Tag to reference other pages.)

Thanks Gaia, I was going to guess it was something like that.

I have recently tested with the current viewer as of this date, that in fact the viewer still doesn't properly handle any sculpt sizes other than 64x64

I was so disappointed, I had made a very small sculpt map with precise edges, and then uploaded it. The result in the current viewer was quite disappointing

Maybe this thread is of interest. It concerns the RC-candidate viewer!!

/8/61/320205/1.html

and here is the jira entry:

http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-8551

I guess, the problems have not yet been solved as the jira entry is still open and unassigned. I have made a turorial for small sculpties but i hold that back until the SL-Viewer actually can do what i guess all of us expect it to do and i can create the SL-part of the tutorial

cheers,
Gaia

The problem I encountered with Ubuntu not recognizing the scripts was a fairly simple workaround once I understood the problem. Ubuntu installs Blender via the root or super user, but the scripts that we install are done under our regular user profile, so the permissions are incorrect. Log in as root and find the scripts and change permissions so that all may read and execute.

I was finally able to find the Sculpt Mesh on my menu. After I loaded the scripts, I went to the scripts view and updated the menu...I think that is what I did. Anyway, the sculpt mesh is there and I can open it and at least get a sphere. However, now I have three windows on my screen and it seems to be the new default. I think the scripts window is staying open and even if I get it to close, the next time I open Blender, it is back again.

One more thing. I can not extrude a sculpt mesh, i get a message that says I can't extrude a multi res object. I can remove the multiresolution designation, but when I open a new mesh, its back again. Is this what is supposed to happen?

Thx

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Vitals/User_Preferences
right at the bottom "Saving your Preferences"

but i would strongly suggest you browse the entire manual contents,
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual
*particularly* the whole section on interface
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Interface
and windows
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Interface/Window_system
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Interface/Window_types
It will probably help you a lot.

No, you can't extrude a mesh with a modifier like subsurf on it, you either need to add progressive layers of other modifiers to allow such edits.. or better yet simply do it the way most of us probably do:
-edit the rough shape with subsurface control points
.....then when your 'sketch' is good, and you need fine control of all the points:
-collapse (apply) the subsurf/multirez so it becomes an integral and irreversible part of the mesh history. (personally I prefer subsurf)
...i duplicate the mesh at any point where applying/collapsing the modifiers will not be undo-able.. so if i change my mind i just pull the duplicate object off my 'safe' layer and start again from that point.

Yes, that is how multires works in Blender (it will change in Blender 2.50). I'd recommend watching the sculptie specific videos by Gaia Clary, Keira Wells, etc. Sculpties have a very specific mesh structure and UV map, which my scripts are automatically creating for you. Once you start using tools like extrude, you undo the work the scripts did for you and you'll also need to understand the sculpt map format and how to use the UV unwrapping tools in Blender to repair it. Extrudes are generally a bad idea anyway as explained here: /8/18/289217/1.html#post2191444

Script Ver blender_scripts_git(13-7-09 snapshot　& old snapshot)
An error is given at the time of Bake in the mesh which connected Vertex.
A problem does not have the file which is older than RC.
Will this problem be specifications?

Your script is really convenience.
thank you very much.

Glad the scripts save you time. Could you send a blend file that shows the problem to me for testing please? You can email it to domino at dominodesigns.info

Thanks for sending the .blend files. I've fixed the problem and a new snapshot release is available from http://dominodesigns.info/second_life/blender_scripts_git.html

wow
I was surprised at very early correspondence.
I succeeded in doing Bake of Blender File.
very very thank you.

Excuse this slightly off main topic query but I'm struggling to get my head round downloading via GIT.

I've downloaded GITand can run the GIT BASH command window but my comprehension ends there. It appears something like a regular MSDOS command window but the manual/help data is like Greek to me (apols to any Greek readers but lets just say it's not my native tongue) and I haven't managed to find how I navigate to where I want to nominate as the base directory to then follow the download instructions.

Could Domino or some other expert please advise in simple terms what command I would type to download the files to, say, C:\Apps\Blender\Extras?

Thanks for any help.

Carbon,

Here is a super quick guide for git:

1.) Create a directory anywhere you like.
2.) open the git Bash window and navigate to the just created directory
3.) Call git as follows:

git clone http: //dominodesigns.info/git/primstar.git

Please note that i have placed a space between http: and the rest of the URL. I did that only to avoid the generation of URL tags. So just write the URL as you would write it into your browser... Now you have a subfolder named primstar.
That is where the primstar-scripts are located.

If you want to update to newer versions of the scripts later, then

4.) navigate to the primstar folder
5.) Call git as follows:

git pull

That will update your folder with the newest available modifications.

Does that help you ?

Thanks for responding Gaia.

It's the 'navigate to the just created directory' commands I can't quite get.

If it was a MSDOS window, for example, I'd just type \cd to change to the root directory of the boot drive and then I'd type d: to change to D drive and then cd c:\apps to navigate to that directory.

I just can't understand what to type at the flashing cursor to do the navigate bit in GIT Bash from where it starts to the directory I created in D:\Apps\Blender\Addons.

Sorry if I'm being particularly dense.

Panic over!
I found a website that explained in words of one syllable the precise command process - I needed to add quotation marks around the required file path. Hopefully now I'll manage the rest.

And yes it worked!! - I'm now at the cutting edge of technology. It even worked without anything but the vaguest hint of comprehension on my part!