Your dream sculpty program?

Agreed, DrDoug. That's why I did mention typing on this forum as an example of the kindf of very simple content that a browser can do. Still, can we fully define it as actual content CREATION, or would it be better called interaction with a piece of existing content (the forum engine), which was created by someone else? It's both, really.

As for things like Facebook and Myspace pages, if you want yours to include pictures, video, music, or any other type of non-text content, you're gonna have to use something other than just a browser to create them. And for YouTube, you obviously need video editing software at the very least. While it's conceivable that there could one day be web-based tools for all those things (and already are for some), none of those tools will reside within the browser. They are/will be services that browsers connect to, not actually parts of the browser itself.

That's why I envision things like "Dreamweaver For Second Life", or whatever other fictional names we might want to come up with. Let the viewer be a viewer, just as the browser will likely always be just a browser. Let it do the simple things that the majority of the public will be able to do. But let it also connect with other, more complicated programs when it comes to making complicated content.



You're absolutely right, but again, where do you draw the line? As time goes on, SL is going to be able to incorporate more and more types of content. Sooner or later, the tools for making a given type of content get more complicated than is practical (or even wise) to try to build into the viewer, as has was always the case for texturing, animating, sound-making, and video-making. Why should sculpties necessarily have to be force-fit into a viewer that is already too complicated for 90% of the people who try to use it?

When the day comes that SL supports material shaders, should the viewer come with an engine for creating those too? Or would it make more sense that, like textures before them, shaders be left to programs that are much more powerfully dedicated to that task than the viewer could ever be?

And what about the next great addition, and the next, and the next, whatever they might be? Should they all be built into the viewer too? Should the viewer swallow something like GIMP or Paint.net, so you can make textures in-world? Should it come with a built-in milti-track audio editor for making sounds? Should it incorporate its own video editor? In other words, should it become a full-fledged operating system instead of just a viewer?

I used to think so. If you go back and look through my old posts, you'll probably find more than a few talking about how cool all that would be. There was a time, not all that long ago, when I would have been totally on Cheyenne's side on this (well, except for the part about rewriting the history of computing). What changed my mind was when I learned of the incredibly high near-instant dropout rate that SL has. A 90% attrition rate for ANYTHING is really pretty incredible, let alone for something as cool and as appealing as SL. That really got me thinking.

I firmly believe that the only way to turn that dropout rate around is for SL's immediate future to be about simplicity, not about making things harder. With every new bell and whistle that gets added, while things become slightly cooler for us "weirdos" who are here now, it gets that much more difficult and intimidating for everyone else. What I'd really love to see is a streamlined viewer, focused on making SL as easy to understand and use as possible.


I would say three things to this:

First, I don't think it's ever been "easy" to make content, and as I said before, it's only ever been partially doable within the viewer anyway. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the making of textures, animations, sounds, and videos have always required the use of external programs, and likely always will.

Second, you're already somewhat dependent on others to build your world. We are, all of us, interdependent. (That goes for RL as well as SL, by the way.) Do you do all your own scriting, your own animating, your own texturing, your own modeling, your own sound effects, and your own videography? If you do all of that stuff well, you're far more talented than I am, and you should own SL. I'd be willing to be that, like the rest of us, you're good at some things, and not so good at others. And for the stuff you're not so good at, you happily use content made by other people without giving it much thought.

Third, what makes you so sure an in-world sculpting tool would be "easier" to use than an external program? Take a look at the prim system for an analogy. While it is "easy" in the sense that it allows people to make SOMETHING right away, it's also incredibly difficult in the sense that getting good enough with it to make anything of decent quality takes a lot of dedication and persistence. I would even go so far as to argue that getting good results in SL actually takes considerably more effort in the beginning that does getting good results from dedicated, more powerful, 3D modeling programs like Maya, Max, and even Blender. Notice, how often it happens that someone with a lot of modeling experience joins this forum, and then their first question is about why SL's building tools are so hard to use. It happens all the time.

As I often say, modeling in SL is wonderful mental exercise, which teaches you problem-solving skills you would never ordinarily develop. And as with nearly all good exercise, the end result is you get better at a lot of things. That's all really great, but is it actually "easy"? I think not.

So give yourself more credit, DrDoug. If you're building successfully in SL, you're already doing the uneasy. Learning the relatively small parts of Maya or Max that are required for making sculpties is no harder. Different, sure, but certainly not harder.




Not sure I'd agree with that.

Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that comparisons were unreasonable. Clearly, Maya and Blender are meant to accomplish a lot of the same tasks, so comparing and contrasting them is only natural. I don't think Blender is in Maya's league, as I said, but that's just my opinion. You're welcome to disagree.

I think Blender's awesome for delivering so much power for free. I just don't consider it to be a professional grade tool.

Wow, reading this thread is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. It's like there are at least two separate conversations here.. maybe more..


a) Should there be sculpt tools in wolrd?
I think the answer, for now, is "yes", but basic ones. I also agree that Linden should consider how to better interface xternal build tools and, over time, move the build tools out of the viewer. This leaves a viewer that is lean and mean and focused on it's purpose. If they still want to provide simple build tools, fine... do it in separate executables. This isn't an either or thing. It's not viewer or maya. It's simply a packaging problem.

b) Is the learning curve too ugly?
Yes, and that is not a good thing. Mature tools faciliate workflow, not inhibit it. The existing 3d tools that are within reach of an average SL user or a reasonable SL business plan (Blender, Wings, AC3D) are not particularly intuitive and/or do not solve the UVMap texturing problem (leaving out AC3D yet, I haven't looked at it but clealry I need to). Bottom line, there is a reason there are tools like Frontpage AND tools like Dreamweaver. It works in LL's interest to see both ends of the spectrum supported.

c) Is Maya a valid tool selection in most cases?
No. Most users don't have 2k to drop on Maya and doubt any completely in world business proposition that would make that a valid investment. By that, I mean, of course companies that do professional builds for corporations would have a business plan supporting that type of investment. But an inworld business to sell in world sculpties to in world citizens... I'm skeptical. Just using standard business plan type calculations, you'd need to achieve 1.6 million more linden from using Maya than you would've using blender over say a 2 year period. I wonder if the most recent economic data would tell me how many people grossed 67.5k a month which would be the minimum possible income to even consider that investment worthwhile. More likely would be a NET income of perhaps 3-4 times that since we're talking efficiency gain over blender/wings, not just gross.

I'm ignoring the tangent on DOS/Windows/Internet which was so flawed and so tangential both that it's not worth going into.

My CG instructors' words of wisdom still ring true:

It is a poor artist who blames his tools.

What I'd like to see in an in-world sculpty program is one that takes any linked object I build out of prims (yes, our SL prims) and converts it to a single sculpty prim. Perhaps giving some options on smoothing out the whole thing. I mean we can build a lot of great stuff out of prims. Why relearn everything when we have these simple 3d building tools already AND that we all know how to use?

The linkset to sculpty idea is one i've heard a few times before and I think its an interesting premise. Since we've figured out to put multiple objects in a single sculpt its actually somewhat feasible, but there are issues also. Converting multiple texture maps with individual face parameters would be a challenge, and due to the low mesh resolution there would probably be a limited set of primitive types supported...

I'm also not sure the architectural foundation is there. Is there any comparable feature in SL that generates an asset in the game that would normally be uploaded? If not they'd have to add in a back-end 'upload' facility to the asset system. Also, would you be charged 10L for the conversion?

There's actually a Jira for this https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1452

It's on the roadmap https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prim#Roadmap in Phase 2 which is tentatively scheduled for Q1 2008

Thanks Domino. Although somehow, I doubt we will see anything like that so quickly

- The raycasting method of course would work for any shape, however with decreasing success with increased complexity. I was already thinking about something that would take simple prims (cubes, etc) and fit their surfaces geometrically into a mesh... but I suppose thats a much more difficult proposition!

Yeah, i was looking at http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread?t=31977 as a possible starting point for an automatic conversion. Close but no cigar.. If anyone knows of more advanced shrinkwrapping methods I'd love to know about them

dream sculpty program features hmmmm....

1) the view port (one of 2 methods) - I want to be able to see what I'm doing after all -

a) one of those 4 way split views that I've seen on some of the 3D programs that I've tried with scroll bars on the side and bottom of each window(+- 60 degree spin/tilt since 3 of windows are each along a different axis don't forget a zeroing button) plus a reverse to see/work the opposite side of the view and the forth window being a non-edit ortho-view should have full 360 degree tilt/pan for viewing the final shape

b) maybe borrow the view port from SL (they did open source the client sometime back as I remember) it's already geared for camera control in a 3D environment and one would hope that someone creating sculpties for SL would at least know how to use the viewing controls for the target audience hmmm... no avie required but may want option to put one in for working on attachments (anyone know how to get a copy of the avie wire frame out of SL? size and shape reference for custom work)
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2) editing controls would consist of:

a) a toggle for gray skin vs wire frame mode

b) ability to select one, or more, vertice points

c) toggle for kinematics (allow other adjoining points to move or not as I move the select
point) hmmm... this may need a depth of affect when on - how many points away to affect and possibly just a selection of points

d) option to enter position numbers (relative or absolute) for a single selected vertice (my biggest frustration is that that I can actually see most of the vertice positions on my head but the interface requires me to figure how to mouse it - if someone could tell me how to do this in Blender I would probably not be looking here
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3) handle multiple objects at once and sculpty map for each (auto number objects as created and have a rename function with name checking to prevent 2 objects with same name)
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4) when saving multiple objects - create a text file with offsets from a specified control piece (makes lining them up in SL easier if I just need to put the first piece out then start adding or subtracting from <x,y,z> from that start position)

a) option to set a location for the control piece and put absolute values in the text file for all the pieces
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5) maybe incorporate an upload option on the file menu (if I remember right a tool for this was mentioned earlier) see if it can be adjusted to allow upload to the beta grid for testing out the creation
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6) possibly some basic coloring in the program and texture file creation

a) able to save out a flat UV map that can be imported to a paint program for coloring and other texturing fun
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7) affordable - I use Blender and GIMP because that is what I can afford not necessarily what I want to use

I don't need a fancy program with all kinds of bells and whistles, as have been listed in previous posts, after all a sculpty is not much more than a 1024 vertice ball that has been mangled in a particular fashion

(opening quote shamelessly mangled from Monty Python)

AARGH *commits seppuku*

Hehehe. Ain't the English language fun?

The plaural of"vertex" can be spelled as "vertexes" or "vertices", but the singular is only spelled as "vertex". How does that make sense?

"Vertice" is actually an entirely different word, which means "the highest point one's profession". So, if someone's profession had two equally high points, both higher than all others, there would be two vertices there. But "vertices" is plaural of "vertex", not of "vertice". So there we have a word paradox, I guess. If any profession has more than one vertice, the universe might explode. Wouldn't that be fun?

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled on-topic discussion. Sorry for this small distraction. Couldn't resist.

In the spirit of fun, Chosen, what is plaural?

When something can be heard multiple ways?

Hahaha. Ok, P-L-A-U-R-A-L is actually the formal spelling of an ancient and powerful incantation, which means "Chosen no can be immune to typos, nuh-uh, no sir."

Push the "n" key. That will open a window that allows to you to manually enter position, rotation, scale, and size settings for whatever you have selected.

thanks Jamay

OK Chosen, if you guys are already making a "thin client", why not let LL work on a more robust one? .

Or is it more a matter of where they should direct their energy/resources rather than just having a slimmed-down version of the client available for people.

Seriously, it seems like you folks are creating/have already created just the client you want.

No?

Doug

Apologies in advance for quoting out of order here, but I think my responses will make more sense if I rearrange the sequence of the questions a little.

Also, before I start, I think it's important to address your references to "you folks" and "you guys". By those, I assume you mean the Electric Sheep Company, and that your reason for mentioning it is that you're maybe wondering if any of what I said about the direction I think the viewer should go has something to do with the fact that ESC is releasing a viewer of its own in a few days. I'd like to make two things clear on this.

First, while I am a full time employee of the company (and I love being one), please understand that when I post on the forums, I'm speaking on no one's behalf but my own. When I talk about changes that I think are in store for SL as a whole, I'm only expressing my own opinion based on my own experiences and my own theories. Other people who also happen to work for the company might have different views, and they're just as free to express them as I am. I just happen to be a more frequent user of the forums than most.

So, please don't ever confuse my voice with "the voice of the company". I'm not any sort of spokesperson.

Second, it's probably worth pointing out that I'm not a member of the software department at ESC, so don't have anything to do with the making of any software product, including the OnRez viewer. The most involvement I've had with the viewer has been simply to use it at various stages of its development, to report any bugs I've found, and to offer feedback and suggestions as I saw fit. In other words, I've been doing no more than what we've all always done with LL's viewer. In just a few short days, everyone will able to do the same with OnRez. I was just fortunate enough to have gotten a few weeks' head start is all.


To this, I'd have to say sort of yes, sort of no (again, from my own personal point of view). Let me elaborate in two ways on this.

First, let me say that I believe existing builders will be very pleased with OnRez. It puts all the building tools in one place, so finding them is really easy. There's no more need to bother with running through File, Edit, Tools, etc., just to get to all your tools. It's all there on the new Build menu. Uploads, save-to-inventory, selection options, grid options, scripts, terraforming, etc., it's all right there. It takes a little bit to get used to such simplicity after years of dealing with LL's way over-complicated menus, but after about an hour or two with it, you'll never want to go back.

The only thing that bugged me about it at first was that it doesn't have a dedicated Build button. I remember what it was like back before LL added theirs, when every other question on the forum was "how do you build". I distinctly remember that as soon as that button appeared, that question all but went away.

So at first, the absence of the button naturally had me concerned. Then when they added the Build menu, which hadn't been present in the earliest versions of OnRez 0.x, I was like "Oh, that's much better. Screw the button. The menu kicks the button's ass."

I'm sure you'll agree.



Second, and I think this goes more to the heart of your question, I don't think anyone would mind me saying that while I really do like the OnRez viewer a lot, I might have chosen to do a few things differently if it were up to me. If it were mine to design from scratch, I'd want more powerful building tools in it than currently exist in either viewer. That may sound strange, considering what I've already said in this thread about the importance of keeping things simple in order to be palatable to the general public, so don't misunderstand me. I'm talking about making things easier by refining basic capabilities, not about making things more complicated by adding in every function under the sun.

For example, one thing I'd like to see in the viewer is user-customizable camera controls. Right now, SL's alt-zoom controls, while very good, are almost exactly backwards from the same controls in Maya. This makes using both programs at the same time (which I often do) somewhat problematic. The ability to customize the controls would eliminate many problems.

Now, since camera controls are one of the most basic functions of ANY 3D software, turning them customizable in SL would be a refinement, not an addition. Make sense? It's something that would make life easier for the experienced 3D artist while not complicating anything for the casual user since nobody would ever have to see the option unless they actively chose to.

I think there lots of areas in the viewer where this logic could apply. Tackling those would be what I would do if I could.




It's not a "thin client" at all. It's got all the functionality of the Linden viewer, just more nicely packaged, more sensibly arranged, and with a few extra bells & whistles to make it easier to use. Nothing has been cut out or "thinned" in any way.

I believe LL has tossed around the idea from time to time of maybe one day making a "light" version of the client, designed specifically for non-content-creators, but I don't know any immediate plans to do that by them or anyone else. I think it's a good idea though.

As for a more robust one, if anyone's gonna do that, I'd rather it not be LL. More on this below.


I don't know that directing resources necessarily has to be an either/or type of situation. I think LL could certainly devote enough resources to both client development and other things at the same time. I think it makes more sense to talk about distributing resources not in terms of time priority, but in terms of strengths. The important question, as I see it, is what is LL really best at? The answer to that, I think, is what determines what they should be concentrating on.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would say I believe quite firmly that LL's greatest strengths do not lay in their ability to make good front end software. I don't think they'll mind my saying that their client has never been exactly user-friendly. It's visually uninviting, somewhat less than sensibly laid out, and quite complicated. Client development just isn't their best talent, and I believe they know that.

Where they really excel is in server-side development. I'd love to see what they could do if that were the only thing that needed to be on their plate. I realize that some people are getting tired of the Web analogies, but in the same way that back end Web developers don't make browsers, I don't think LL should really be making viewers. Leave that to third parties who can do a much better job of it. Let LL concentrate on what they're really good at, which is making the system itself work.

I'm sure I'm gonna get yelled at for that, but it's what I think should happen. Could it happen tomorrow? No way. SL's not ready for that yet. Eventually though, I believe it has to, and likely will, be how it goes.




Again, all of the above is my own opinion. Everyone, feel free to agree with it, disagree with it, tell me I'm crazy or that I'm a genius or that I'm devilishly handsome and you can't resist my sexy body, or whatever. But please kindly refrain from any more of these "you folks" references. I speak only for myself. Thanks.

Can I have a build button anyway? Thanks. And two quick questions since we are on the 'You are a sheep' bit still. What do you do as a sheep?
And I seriously need my onrez account reset. Can you pass that along or tell me who to talk to. Mine has been fubared long enough.
Oh an the address to the sheep CSI:NY orientation island would be good too.

No!

Actually, there is a hotkey, so if you're not a fan of right click -> Create, just remember ctrl-4.


I'd like to think that the actual topic of the thread is more important than I and my job, but I'll be happy to answer...


I build stuff.


Sorry to hear of your troubles. I'm sure the Shop people can get you squared away.

As much as I hate ever to give an "It's not my department" kind of answer, it's really not. My involvement with shop.onrez is only as a user, just like you. That said, I'll be happy to E-mail somebody from customer service for you. You can also speak with them yourself, either in-world during office hours ( http://shop.onrez.com/help/office-hours/ ) or you could submit a trouble ticket ( http://shop.onrez.com/help/support-login/ )



That I don't know, sorry. I could tell you the names of the gameplay sims, but you won't be able to get into them until tomorrow, at which time everyone will know them anyway. I've never been to or seen the orientation, so I'm afraid I don't know the name of the particular sim(s) it's on. In any case, I doubt the orientation would be something that would be open to existing users, just as the standard LL orientations are not (unless I'm mistaken). If you want to check it out, you might need to register for an alt account via the CSI portal tomorrow. Don't quote me on that; it's just a guess. I could be wrong.



Sorry I don't have better answers, but I'm afraid just working for the company does not make me an expert on all things Sheep. My involvement with the CSI project, for example, was quite minimal. I was busy with several other projects during most of its development. And as I've already said, I don't have anything really to do with software, so Shop is not my thing. Dare I say it, "I just work here".

Hey Thunderclap! You can reset your OnRez account by visiting OnRez island in-world. Find one of the kiosks in the middle of the sim. Click the Accounts button on the kiosk, then click Password, and that will walk you through the process of changing your password. If you've forgotten your username, just pay attention to the top of the page that this directs you to. It'll say "Welcome, <username>!" Make sure you're logging in with that username. You can IM Jade Lily in-world if you have any additional questions.

Thanks! Now back to the regularly scheduled Thread on your dream sculpty program.

AC3D will do *ALL* of this except for the Kinematics. To do the auto-layout you requested you would need to use the Box rezer plug-in in conjunction with the Scuplty plug-in.

Zee

My dream Sculpty Programm.

Well hard to judge .. and while i still foght with various programms, plug ins, exporters and general cursing and cussing at my beloved elecronical slave (e.g. my computer) i have some points that i really want to see.

1.) More control over vertexes.
What i mainly miss here is the ability to snap and line up vertexes to a single target specific point.
Say i have spread out vertexes, what i want now is something similar to:
Click or mark a couple vertexes, choose a command ( maybe snap to point, or move to target ) click onto another vertex and all the former selected vertexes snap into the same position as the later one.

2.) A function that lets me copy rotation and dimension of any faces onto a set of others.
Like above with vertexes i would like to have something that let me click a set of faces, click a command button click on a "root" and thats copys the entire dimensions and rotations to that set of former selected faces.

3.) More power over aligning things up
How often i notice, after a lot of time spend with a model, (Read Sculpty mesh) that i have some distortion build in, cause i wasnt looking at the right angle or missed something in the whole process.
Aligning in general seems to be a beast for most of the programms out there.
I want something like .. i have a set of 3x3 faces that are distorted and want to align them back into a smooth surface. I think it would be handy to have someting that let you mark the .. say 2 rows, of faces around the 3x3 set and the with a command like "Smooth Alignment" ( just pulled that one off, bear with me ) aligns the 3x3 set so that they fits into the sourrounding faces again.

4.) More and easier handling of UV maps.
Geez asinde of Wing 3D, i never was able to handle a UV function right it seems. Not with Blender not with AC3D. Maybe im to thickskulled to get it .. but all i ask for is some kind of pre defined mesh in the UV map that let me exactly know where i am on the surface off the mesh.
Likely a simply number system would do it .. so to say .. Left upper corner 1 .. next field 2 and so on and so on. I would do it myself, if i could .

Well and of course a menue and button system that is "right for the task".
Imho applications like blender or, god forbid, Maya, are too heavy onto the tweaks and quirks side. They all have too much stuff build in, that you never will use in regard to sculptys. But all this will tend to distract you if its there, and you always wonder if you miss something because you are not sure if it can be somehow involved with the process to make and shape a sculpty.

Maybe a start would be to have a "Add" menue that let you choose from any working pre defined meshes. We have them all already it seems.
Well at least for Wings 3D there are a wide arrange of pre defined meshes that you can start to torture and that will still work after you finished to torture them.
Also AC3D has some, but its generally missing the wide array Wings3D has.

(As a sinde note .. can anyone please explain to me on HOW the heck im able to make such a mesh from scratch? I mean the steps ? I think i lost track somewhere.)

Well theres much more to say i think .. Let alone speak about dimension.. It would be good in that Programm has a Grid in a Range that represents the Grid in SL. So when you build you sculpt and upload it, you dosnt have to worry about Resizing, and having trouble with BIG bounding boxes, cause you build something long and small as a sculpty and have to stretch it like crazy after upload.

Well i close here. Theres too much to say about it.
But im interested to keep that further on. So throw me an IM if you need more input

Im wishing for a simple program that converts a ".stl" (meshes) file in a sculpture texture......this could be an universal tool for all 3d softwares (maya,wings,rhino,blender.....and all)

Anthony