.obj -> sculpties

the method i use wich is horribly complex consist to create a sphere with squares at each pole and not triangles wich basically has the proper UVW map and then sculpt it using edit poly and turbosmooth its a very tedious job and so far the results are kind of mild but its the most precise way to control the amount of pixels allocated to each part of the object.

Hello again,

I attached an obj file containing the Utah teapot.

Greets
Cat

thanks, now i know what went wrong...
fixing the program now

EDIT : done.

Cindy,

thanks for your work!

The program now reads obj from 3dsmax.
I've done some quick test and I can say it works well
for objects that are derived from a sphere.

It does not work for the other 3dsmax standard objects that
I have tested (Chamferbox, etc ...).
I will continue my tests tomorrow.

Can you tell me your workflow in Blender to generate suitable objects.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Greets
Cat

I tries this too. My model was built in MoI - a circle swept along 2 NURBS curves to create a 'blob'. I haven't tried anything more complex yet, I'll try some shape unions/intersections and see how it handles that.

I ran into some issues:

The DOS window complained about some 'bad' pixels. Photoshop wouldn't open the bmp file. But mspaint would, and I could save it back as a 24-bit bmp, and Photoshop would open that Not sure what's going on there... I could upload a 'bad' bmp if you want to take a look at it.

Once I got it into Photoshop, it needed a little more work. The image had to be rotated, and comparing it to other sculpt images, it seemed like some of the channels were swapped. The 'bad' pixels showed up as 2 rows of pixels that were different colors from the surrounding pixels. After the rotate, these were the top and bottom row of the image (that would be the poles of the sphere, right). Anyway, that was easy to fix - I tried 2 things, both of which worked. Either crops those 2 rows out and then resize, or copy the next row in and paste it on top of the bad row. Both would change the geometry, but not in a really noticeable way. And I had to invert the image too.

But after all that... the sculptie I got in SL looked closer to my MoI model than any of the other methods I've tried so far. So thanks, and congrats And I'm guessing most of those steps were needed because of the mesh MoI made when I exported it to obj. I don't know how the object was oriented, I'm not 100% sure the normals were pointing outwards, I think I told it to use triangles only but I'm not positive, and so on.

Next step... can you make your program generate some other output file that would help with texturing the model? My knowledge of 3D modeling is very vague, but I'm thinking you'd need to generate a UV map that would go with the 3D model. Maybe generate a 2nd obj file that has the original model, and includes the UV map? And then I think we'd be able to take that into zBrush or whatever and paint it, and then use that as the applied texture? Or am I completely off-base here?

If you use MoI, try 3dm2sculpt .
I hope that gives better Results, because it uses OpenNURBS to read the File.
Well, about the UV Map, yes, i have to output a new UV Template or an .obj
File with new UV coords... i will think about it later (sorry).
At the Moment, i do Experiments with a Chamfered Cube, this one gives me
flipped Normals at the rounded edges... No Surprise, its made from 6 Surfaces.
About the 'Bad Pixels', thats because the UV Map is not complete from 0.0-1.0.
The .bmp output is buggy... it creates compressed Files, but it seems like some
Flags are not set. I have to fix it ASAP, its no Fun to use.

EDIT : .bmp output fixed, see original Post for Download

Thanks. The 3dm exporter works well, and the generated sculptie seems to be more accurate. I'm still doing some inverts/rotates in Photoshop, but that could easily be something I'm doing wrong in MoI.

Cindy,

Wouldn't it be easier if your object converter only dealt with objects that had 32x32 vertices?. This way, your converter would be able to map the vertices directly.

I personally would prefer to work with vertices directly and then have them converted, rather than have a converter create a rough approximation of my input model. With only 32x32 vertices, it seems every vertex counts and needs to be positioned precisely when trying to make a detailed object like a face.

Blender currently maps vertices directly. But it's a big pain to figure the program out.

Blender also has a bug which wont let you sculpt in wireframe mode.

Thats the first thing i tried, but it was no fun to use,
so i never released the simple converter.
You can still do that, by using one of known Blender export Tricks,
no extra Program needed.
There is much to improve in my obj2sculpt Program to get
perfect Results from every Input file, one of the smart Ideas
would be 'adaptive tessellation' this would create vertices
only where they are needed - not easy to implement, but
the output would be perfect, the best possible Sculpty.

Learning Blender, well... all good 3D Modelers are complicated,
because 3D Modeling is complicated.
But Blenders user Interface and the many Features are among the best.
Some real Experts prefer Blender and Wings3D for many Tasks,
even the most expensive Programs can not replace these great Freebies.
The Sculpt Mode in Blender is new, so expect Bugs.
It worked for me, but i prefer the old-fashioned editing, not Sculpt Mode.

convex decomposition library

Might be useful - It produces a series of convex hulls that should be a good simplification of the mesh.

OMG a Mesh uglifier
I hope we dont need to run our Objects through this evil Algorithm.
Nice Stuff on that Website, thanks for the Link.

I would honestly find it easier to write my own converter than follow the steps shown in the "Blender Trick". and no, I'm not exagerating.

If nobody else has written a simple converter by the time the sculpties have arrived on the maingrid, then I'll probably write one myself.

But you're doing a great job anyway, Cindy!. So keep it up!.

I'm with you on this one. If you take the real vertices you can create a lot of speciall sculptures. A vase could be hollow inside (with some restrictions as you should create the inside using as few vertices as possible). This is not really possible with most of the currently used methods. You can also make perfect corners. I already created a working cube by manually coloring the sculpt texture.

Currently my approach will likely be to create sculpts of OBJ's that have been created with a compatible number of vertices (32x32, 16x16). Once it's done the sculpts can be easily made in Blender, Maya or your favorit OBJ-supporting 3D editor. A simple command line tool can then convert it to BMP. Only annoying thing left is that JPEG compression may bite in unpleasant ways. I hope LL decides not to compress textures that are sized 32x32 or smaller before sculpts go live.

It'll be written in either Perl or C and as I'm quite lazy it'll just work upto the point that I'm satisfied with it. Still if I notice that I can get results exceeding what is available I may release it so that others can play with it too. Tomorrow I'm going to export something basic and start working on pole recognition and subsequent linking of the line per line vertices from pole to pole. It's now past 2AM so I'm going to bed first

Pole recognition?. Isn't the northern and southern pole the first and last set of vertices in the .obj file?

Vertex linking? Aren't the vertices stored in a left to right order?

I dunno. I've never worked with the .obj file format before. But I had a quick peek in an .obj file yesterday and it looks like it's gonna be pretty straight forward to convert a 32x32 sphere based object into a sculptie. I don't think the linking information is going to be needed.

Infact, it looks so easy that I'm totally puzzled as to why a simple converter hasn't been written already. Instead, we have a wiki page listing all these overly complex and overly expensive methods for making scuplties.

Even though I'm lazy I'd like my tool to do a few things for me. This includes creating poles if they are missing.

As to your questions:
- No, poles are not always the first and last vertex in the file, it depends on how the mesh was created
- No, vertices are not stored in a specific order, it depends on how they were created

You hence need to load all the faces and vertices and logically reconstruct everything so that you can write them back out in the correct order. Sure you'll find some obj's that have them in the right order but you should not rely on it.

-

This thinking makes sense at first, but you have to consider the automatic LOD on prims. SL will simplify your mesh to rough approximations depending on view distance and the perferences of the client, so you shouldn't be thinking in terms of making every vertex count. Rather, you should be designing shapes that look good at various levels of rough approximation, and thus the approach the OP is taking with this tool actually helps you there.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. But I don't really care what SL does to my mesh when it's at a distance. What matters to me is what it looks like close up.

At the moment, I find the LOD way too aggressive with sculpties. You practically have to have your camera touching the object to see it at full detail. I just hope the Lab will change that eventually.

That's open for debate. I don't really agree. A lot of organic shapes look awful once the LOD drops. Especially because people are pushed to use 64x64 which is always recalculated as maximum is 32x32 for the engine. Things will look tons better in the designer than in SL with the approach currently used by most methods. That while a 16x16 with no compression would guarantee it always looks exactly as you designed it because that is the lowest the engine goes.

Noticed a few people interested in a vertex accurate approach to sculpties. I have a Blender script that does export the vertex data directly to a sculpt texture - Early stages but it works - You can find it here on the forums.

Max

Well, no real news about my little program, i still try to find a Way to
do it without the almost-impossible-to-make UV map.

Honestly, this Thread needs a 'Bump'

Cindy, I am selling items from my store made with your converter as is. I am still working on generating maps directly from Zbrush, but for now your converter is very useful.

This Sculpty Prim Idea has got me excited.. however i am totaly lost on finding a good step by step tutorial to create my first one.
I finally found a super simple Tutorial that creates a Vase...
First step... select the default Cilynder... I could not find a Cilynder anywhere in the Blender v2.44 I have just downloaded. the only prim I saw I could use was a cube.
I have spent the whole day now looking all over the net trying to find someone capable of teaching this program.
Seems I should start with a list of terms used in this program... because I don't understand a word of what they are talking about. Its like a foreign language.

I am starting to think that once you download the free Blender you still don't have the full program.... Pythons... scripts... addons and plugins are needed?
Perhaps all I have at first is a Cube and someplace I need to download some Prims
(if thats the right word for them)

I downloaded the Scuplt tests bmps and then uploaded them into SL to try some out...I found the Sculptured in Object list and was astonished..wooohooooow a natural look....then I tried the ones I uploaded...hmmm they looked transparent..not sure the difference between the default texture map and the ones I uploaded

and then I was disapointed again when I see I can not use this idea on a flexi prim.

Now I am happy to wind my day around learning Blender but, on occasion I will have to show some results..8 hours of hunting for a list of prims that I can use is not moveing very fast.
Anyone that can direct me to a step by step tutorial.. or even write a single page Super simple tutorial for ediots. would be very appreceated.
thanks

More or less everything you need, including step-by-step tutorials, sample Blender project files, and more:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims

Thanks Ziggy now that I found everything I poissibly could need... I just need to know what I Need.
I finally broke down and purchased the Manual and am reading it and after an additional 8 hours I have discovered how to split the viewing windows.
I searched and downloaded and even in some cases had to buy the dll files that the manual said is required to run Blender.
and still after carefully following directiuons to install the .dll files... I still do not have a default Cylinder.
Not to worry I am still reading the Manual. I am sure at some point they will stop proudly waveing their intelictual 3D vocabulary and actually attempt to say something with meaning. I refuse to give up... I just pray that once I am done I am still capable of comunicateing with my friends...LoL
I already have a few hobbies that I will not allow myself to talk about with my friends because when I do I get that funny look from everyone and a...HUH??
Can't wait to understand enough that I can actualy attempt a Tutorial.
I have yet to find 1 Tutorol that Can say...Go to this Button and from that menu pick this and then go to this button and from that menu pick that.... guess no one is able to write that way.
I am also still digging through all that info you pointed me to... Thank you very much. I have bookmarked it cause I think I will be back to it several times until I get this sorted in my head.

Add - Mesh - Cylinder is what you are looking for. Delete the cube first

Blender tutorials

These aren't sculptie specific, but are a good place for learning more about Blender.