Your dream sculpty program?

Yeah, it's not the same as curve deformations which I can already do in Blender. It's the only thing I think would give me problems coding myself I can see numerous technical problems in doing something like that for sculpties, but you asked for dream features so I threw it out there

Added: There's a lot of features in Blender that I like, I got the impression that it was above and beyond stuff you were asking for, but if it's day to day stuff then there's a lot to add. You'd need to have clicked with the Blender UI to understand a lot of it, but key points (above checking off all the stuff Blender already does ( same as Chosen ticked for Maya)) are spending more time looking at my work than the UI, easy to remember keyboard shortcuts, minimum time holding mouse buttons and the, always nice to have, extensibility through Python scripting.

I'm sorry Chosen, but I can't seem to find LibSL Uploader anywhere. You know where I can get it?

http://www.qarl.com/qLab/?p=50
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Importprimscript

And yeah, as Daniel said, don't use it in a sandbox. For some reason I don't understand, it creates the prims with full perms and with Allow Anyone To Copy turned on. Use it in only on your own land, and turn off public access when you do.

Anyway, as I said, I'd really love it if someone could put together a GUI for this so I don't have to keep fiddling with command lines. Seems to me, all you need is a simple window with three sections: 1. Fileds for login location, local sculpt map directory, and local primscript directory; 2. A button for Run; 3. A feedback pane to report what the bot is doing as the program runs.

Apart from the usual ... simple intuitive gui ... realtime preview at multiple LOD ... texture baking ... I would add a vertex spreadsheet (XL plugin?) that allows the mathematical generation of shapes. ALL (nearly) FREE PLEASE.

i want the one inside the client like the lindens SAID was going to be

None of the above - I want a way to import meshes from 3dsmax or the option to manipulate prims the same way max does.

I can't believe no one did a google search and then commented on MoI.

OMG It rocks! and after years of using autocad, it is both familiar to me but easy enough for anyone. It flat out puts any of the ones listed so far to shame when it comes to useability(Except for PlopSL).

TY Strife.

Since you asked, all I want is for a sculpty program to render a single prim shoe. I want to take the side profile of a sneaker that I have made (or a photo of a rl sneaker) and have it render it and texture map it.
A boot is an L shape.
A sneaker is not quite a oval not quite a sphere.
I would also want to it handle jpg, bmp, png and Tga, with the alpha channels be able to save in each.
Move vertex as needed or import image.

Command line is all well and good, but can someone make a GUI for this? eh?

The only priority with sculpty usability at this point should be simplicity of use to the general SL userbase.

Suposedly, LL developed and implemented this feature into SL for all residents to enjoy. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Look around ... rare is the occasion that one even sees the use of a sculpty in-world. And those sculpty creations that are seen in-world are the by product of those few residents who have had the benefit of years of training with expensive and complicated programs.

One need only look at this forum to get an idea of the magnitude by which this feature is being used. The average topic about sculpties in this forum has single digit replies and not that many more views. And those threads that are longer are generally back and forth banter between those same handful of contributors with extensive knowledge and experience with sculpties and these outside programs.

I know some have expressed their views about the disadvantages of having a sculpty program integrated into the SL bulding tools. Although I understand that view, I disagree that the integration of a basic sculpty creating tool into the SL building tools, that is compatible with the current SL building tools, would be a bad thing. A simple tool capable of creating sculpties of reasonable quality would suffice. Those residents seeking more complicated builds can always resort to the available outside programs currently being used now.

The point being, how about getting the rest of the SL population involved with this feature. What good does it do to implement a feature into a virtual world platform available to the masses that the masses can not understand much less enjoy.

Dumbfounding

Cheyenne I agree that a in world sculpty creation tool would be of huge benefit - the problem is, its also a huge undertaking. Consider that none of the build tools currently are based on direct vertex editing, for example. What would an in-world interface look like? What sorts of modeling functions would it have?

Something like Plopp would be great for inclusion into SL because its very simple to use, but if people want more advanced results, you're back to excluding the casual user again...

In the past I've made GUI shells for command line graphics utilities (eg. PNG Crush.) I might do this tomorrow, it wouldn't take long. Of course, I've never used LibSL before (nor for that matter do I even know where to get it; link anyone?) so I don't know if it'll be tricky to work with. I doubt it'll present any problem, but you never know.

EDIT: Oh wait I just read the rest of the thread and found the link:
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Importprimscript
That's what you're wanting a GUI for right?

Hi Daniel, thanks for your quick reply. In regard to your huge undertaking concern, is it a matter of impossibility or a matter of simply major inconvenience?

Because if its impossible, then so be it. But if it is just a matter of inconvenience, then there is no question that it is a huge undertaking worth tackling. Once again, why introduce a feature into the platform that was going to be rarely used and of benefit to a very small minority of the population?

It seems to me that the rate of return on the investment into this project is very little and perhaps the time and finances used toward this endeavor could have been put to better use elsewhere. As it stands now, the implementation of this feature, if gauged against its overall worth to the SL population, can best be described as "unfinished."

Well, again I gotta ask - what do you want from an in-world sculpty editor?

I think there's a legitimate desire to have one, but beyond people wanting one, I haven't heard much in the way of suggestions on how this editor would look or work ...

If you add in a full featured, vertex level mesh editor like pro 3d tools into SL, then you don't need sculpties at all. Everything could be a progressive mesh primitive. So I imagine this is a case where the complexity of making it possible to build sculpties (beyond a novel interface like Plopp) ends up meaning you might as well go beyond sculpties altogether...

TBH Daniel, I don't have the sculpty knowledge and/or sculpty program technical expertise to be able to tell you what I would like in a sculpty editor, much less how it should work. And I can only venture to guess that the reason you don't hear more suggestions from other amateur like-minded residents as to how this editor would/should work is because ... they don't know either.

That is why I am on this forum attempting to reason with those that do, to have a little compassion for us "technically-challenged" residents to help in developing/implementing an in-world program/building tool that could be more user-friendly for the general SL user base.

As long as it can handle importing 3d models from other modeling packages (not just Maya! - Chosen. ) and the resulting ouput looks the same inworld, I'll be happy. If it could easly split up complex meshes into useable chunks I'd be doing the happy dance all day long.

The problem is that any inworld solution would be at least as challenging to learn as 3rd party modeling software, and it would not provide all of the functions that you need. Its not like the people designing 3d modeling software make it complicated to use because they enjoy tormenting their customers (except maybe Blender), there are a great many features that are required and that will make any program difficult to learn.

Imagine if there were inworld 2d graphics editing. Either you would end up with a program at least as complicated to learn as PhotoShop (but probably less powerful), or you would end up with a glorified version of MS Paint. Either way the client becomes more bloated, runs slower, and has that much more code for something to go wrong and crash. For all of that work and millions of dollars in development costs, you get an interface that is just as hard to learn as the 3rd party software and power that will never match up to industry standards.

I'll take a stab at this.

1. A bunch of pre-defined shapes (just like normal prim) that can easily be deformed (just like normal prim) in any direction. Grab a point (or group of points) and stretch them, rotate them, shrink them, color them, texture them, etc. Some shape ideas - face/head, tree, food, car, avatar, rock, steps, chair, private parts, hair, animal.

2. The ability to "model" something crudely with normal prim and then click a button to turn those 5 - 50 prim into 1 sculpted prim. That could then be tweaked as in 1. Something like SnurbO'Matic that actually worked.

3. The ability to paint on or texture parts of a sculpted prim. Let's say I (somehow) make a sculpted 1 prim pumpkin. I'd like to be able to paint the bottom orange and the stem green. In world. Select the part, apply the texture/color.

That's all my Monday morning brain can come up with for now.

Fun thread

Doug

The design philosophy for in-world tools should be to make it as easy as possible for a novice to do something useful and non-trivial. Of course, there will never be an in-world tool like Maya or Photoshop.

On the other hand, an in-world tool that creates a rectangle and has a simple text tool would be handy for a lot of users. Make a quick sign without learning Photoshop.

So, the idea above for an in-world tool that would create an object using 2-N prims into a sculpty seems like a reasonable request. The cpu cycles could come from the user's client.

Take (non-flex) hair, for example. Trading 50 toruses for one or two sculpties would be a win, wouldn't it?

I also like an idea from further back in this thread. Think of a sculpty as a big blob of clay, and give a simple rotate/push/pull interface. Maya? No, but still fun to play with and possible useful.

Maybe eventutally, the philosophy of SL will be that content creators use high end professional tools, and consumers use no tools as all, but that is not the way I would like to see this all turn out.

Compare iPhoto to Photoshop. No comparison, right? PS has a zillion more tools and capabilities.

That doesn't make iPhoto useless by a long shot. It is free, and it does enough to make it useful for most people, crop, rotate, red-eye, contrast, brightness.

Alright, I whipped up a GUI for the Importprimscript:
http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/10/8/271989/sculptgui.zip

It's for Windows and works by putting the program in your importprimscript directory.

I haven't actually tested it to see if it works, I just wrote it based on the instructions on the wiki page. Someone test it and tell me if it actually works.

Cheyenne, you are missing a point here. Building is a talent. So is texturing/graphic design. AS is scripting, singing, performing etc.

I don't want a sculptie program in The client because it will way down the client on my machine.
The client's purpose is to see sl.
And who told you that Sculpties was for the masses. It was for the builders. If you aren't a builder or have that talent or training, I wouldn't expect you to use them.
I can't sing. So you won't ever see me DJ or performing .
That is what the diversity of SL is all about. Contributing what you are good at.
Builders are good at 3d cad and other design. They are CGI makers, the graphic artists etc.
There is on clothes designer who this is her RL profession and brings her RL designs in world.
I make clothes too but I am not upset by her.
So It isn't dumbfounding. It's obvious. If you are here for socialization, building tools mean nothing to you.
If you are here to contribute by building via clothes or prims, a basic sculptie set would be useless because it would be assumed that you invested in real tools like Photoshop, Wings3d , Maya, 3dmax, blender, Ac3d, Paint shop pro etc.
Making scultpies wasn't supposed to be easy. It isn't.
Neither is quality clothes making or sim building.

YEs! and what is PNG crush.

It is next to impossible because a: SL uses Parametric objects and all the other major tools use Non parametic objects (name escapes me) and B: You have to establish a UV to get the texture to set right.
Rokuro was made a week after Sculpties was launched. iT is simple and easy to use. It is the texturing that is the major problem.

And one final though since you seem to be missing it again. LL only runes SL. Its citizen builders build it. Without us there is a blank grid.
So to say "As it stands now, the implementation of this feature, if gauged against its overall worth to the SL population, can best be described as "unfinished."" is foolish because the only people who it has value are the builders. And it is as finished as it will get. We builders consider it to have great value. Yes we would have liked more. WE are thankful.
Causal users will be excluded because they are causal. You can't be a causal builder and more than you can be in rl. To build here requires commitment to learning. And that takes time. Lots of it. This isn't easy nor is it a game. It is an enviroment.
It is easier to move from level 50 to 60 in Wow that it is to achieve mastery in Building because it requires a talent that must possess first.

This somehow contradicts the very core of what SL is all about. The "viewer" has a building tool built it. Why? They could have removed that feature from the beginning and let builders upload objects from Maya, Max, Autocad and so on. It says somewhere on the SL website, that "creating anything" using an "easy to learn and yet powerful" building routine is one of the core aspects of SL (besides socialising and business). Look how primitive SL's building tools are compared to max's and so on. Internal building in SL is meant to be easy so you can build right away without reading through hundreds of pages of tutorials, taking courses etc. The purpose of the client is obviously more than just a browser. It has building capabilites made for the masses. To make sculpty design a part of the viewer would have several positive effects, most prominently it would reduce grid wide prim count.

You can not be serious!

Although building may well be a talent, the tools and skills required to harness that talent, are not. The method of acquiring tool knowledge and usage and applying said knowledge is a learned skill, not a talent. In other words, there may be many potentially talented builders currently in SL fully capable of creating beautiful and inspiring sculpty creations, but without the knowledge or skill required to use those tools, their talent will never come to fruition.

There is a big difference between skill and talent. One is taught/learned, the other is a gift. One can be skilled, and still not have creative talent. Just as one can be talented, and not be skilled.

Texturing is a learned skill.
Graphic Design is a learned skill.
Scripting is a learned skill.

We can acquire all of the above and not necessarily be talented. Smart? Perhaps. Talented? Not necessarily.

Singing is a talent.
Performing/acting is a talent.
Painting/Drawing is a talent.

It is not necessary to be skilled to be talented, but taking lessons and training can further our mastery of that talent.



You do not need to be able to sing to be a DJ or a performer. And as I have mentioned above, one with the talent to sing must still take singing lessons in order to harness that talent?



I am sorry to break this to you but ... not all builders are good at 3d and other design. They are not all CGI makers and graphics artists. And not all builders were born with the talent to use Maya, and Photoshop, and Wings3d, etc. et al.

Some builders may learned how to use these programs later in life, which in turn gave them the ability to take advantage of that training as either a hobby or employment. So that although they may have had what you call talent to build (a concept which I don't entirely agree with), they did not harness that so called talent until they learned how to use those tools.



And some who are here for socialization, may also want to be venture into sculpty building. And not everyone who is here designing clothes is using wings3d, or Maya or Blender etc. Just as not everyone who has mastered building with prims has used any outside program other than the in-world tools currently provided by the SL platform.



Sculpties are for whoever wishes to partake in the feature. And all of those who do, should be considered builders, whether or not they have yet perfected the ability to use Maya, Wings3d, Blender, or any other program. The only barrier keeping them from becoming "builders," as you call it, is the ability to use a sculpty creating tool. Which takes us full circle to the topic at hand.