coloring outside of SL?

i made a object in 2nd life, with prims and i was wondering if i could open it with tattoo to color it?

how would i go about doing this?

Unfortunately, you can't simply export a model out of SL. It's certainly plausible to write a script that would gather the required information about each prim, and then the resulting text could be used to create an OBJ, but I don't think anyone has done it (at least not that I've seen). From there you could bring it into Tattoo, or whatever your 3D program of choice happens to be.

Anyway, in case you didn't know, the reason people have been talking about programs such as Tattoo lately has nothing to do with prim-models. LL recently released the base avatar models for download in order to ease in the making of clothing, skins, tattoos, and custom animations. I don't know that there's much need for exporting other models, but it would make for an interesting project.

The reverse (imports) are currently possible, but they are pretty prim-intensive:
/54/09/32283/1.html

Furthermore, the existing SL texture system is not conducive for texture imports until they fix stretching behaviors, so you're out of luck there. When they fix it, though, I have the script handy.

However, I intend to work on (no promises) an application and/or script to allow prim-based imports and exports. Again, texturing is a big difficulty, due to chat buffer behavior, so that's optional.

For now, the definitive answer is: Use the existing texture and prim system.

By "fix stretching behaviors" I assume you're talking about the texture distortion that appears when prims have their tops shrunk. If that is indeed what you're talking about, there's nothing to be "fixed". In that regard, textures in SL behave the same way as textures in ALL 3D applications. That kind of effect is inherent to polygons.

You can counter it by changing your source image so that it is pre-distorted in the opposite direction. Check this thread for a great example. /109/51/34398/1.html

Were you to use a program like Tattoo or Deep Paint to create the texture, the offsetting to counter the distortion would naturally be created along the way. It could not be otherwise.

I agree with you that for now the best solution is to use the existing system, but if and when the day comes that models can be reliably exported, 3D paint programs will become invaluable in texturing odd-shaped objects.

Nah. That was solvable. The problem I'm having is with regards to prim sizes. To see what I'm talking about, rez a cube, set it to say, 2 x 5 x 10m, flip the texture of your choice around 45 degrees, and view the white square.

The problem is textures are stretched to "fit" the X/Y size of the face they're on, causing nasty distortion at any angle that's not a factor of ninety degrees. No matter how much you set for S or T (texture size), it's still stuffed through that distort on a different axis, so there's really nothing (I know of) that can be done short of editing the texture itself... which defeats the purpose of texture imports in the first place.

I've asked for it to be fixed a few times now, but my guess is Lindens have their hands full.

Thanks for the attempt at help, though.

Ah, okay. This has never been a problem for me since believe it or not I've never found cause to rotate a texture to any direction except a multiple of 90. If I've needed something slanted (which is not often), I've always just made new texture. I don't think I've ever even thought about it.

I'll play around with it though, and if I find a solution, I'll post it.