Do you use a 3d package?

Do you use a 3d package to assist in creation of content for SL?
If so, which package, and for what purposes do you use it?


Pure curiosity

No, but i have used TrueSpace 4 a lot in the past.

If I had Maya I would so use the texture baking technique that you and Neil do

Have maya 3.0 still learning it...will probably use it when i do..

But nothing right now.

I have Lightwave 3D but its no use here....
i do use it for Avatars in other online worlds
its much easier to create avs when it dont cost ya $L10
to try a texture and you can edit individual points

I Use Maya 5 and Maya 6 extensively. I also have SoftImage 3.5, Messiah Studio, Gmax, and Poser 5.

Maya is one of the most full-featured 3D package around but it has no real good use for SL. Occasionally I use it to model things I'm thinking of building in SL to help me decide whether it's worth it to demolish one SL project in favor of another, but there's no need to invest in a $6000 piece of software just for that. The same thing could be done on paper.

Messiah is a truly excellent animation and rendering package (no modeling tools). It can import models from other 3D packages and animate them in astonishingly lifelike fashion. It is of absolutely no use for SL though.

Gmax can be described a very, very, very scaled down version of 3DSMax. It is designed strictly for gaming purposes, and is useful for creating content for a good many games and some online worlds, but it is not at all applicable to SL. Even though quite a few games use it these days, personally I think it's a terrible program. It's only saving grace is that it is free. I suppose you could use it to build test models, similar to how I described I've been using Maya occasionally to test ideas for SL, but understand you will not be able to upload any of them to SL. You will still have to build your model in SL the same as always. You'll just be a little better prepared.

The only external piece of 3D software that has any direct use for SL is Poser, which will create animations that SL can import. Poser's models however cannot be brought into SL.

The bottom line is don't go out and buy a 3D modeling program with the intent of using it to help you in SL. It won't. If you want to use one for other purposes though, by all mean do so. 3D modeling is lots of (time-consuming) fun and is a wonderful creative outlet. 3D software is typically very expensive, but for many of them you can get a learning edition for next to nothing. I believe the Maya one is only $20, for example, and from what I understand it has all the features of the full version but renders with a watermark over everything, not a big deal if all you want to do is model and animate, and you don't care about publishing.

I sincerely hope that one day Linden Labs makes the leap to allow modeling to be done outside of SL and then imported. I have so many Maya models I'd love to bring in, as I'm sure do lots of other 3D artists. I doubt we will have this option any time soon though, if ever at all.

Hope that helped answer your question.

nice, thanks for the responses!
I have been curious about this for a while, it finally occured to me to post about it
Been craving some shop talk
I've been a Lightwave user for about 4 years, I have found it useful for the creation of building and clothing textures in SL- build a wall, light it, render with global illum and the local lighting that would occur and you've got a rather nice texture. I've also found it to be very useful for clothing- load the clothing template up as a backdrop, and model the geometry for the garment. Surface, light, render, save as tga, and you have clothes

I've been playing with the idea of learning maya. I've played with maya's paint fx in canvas mode for creating some foliage maps and some hair maps, but thats about as far as I have gotten with it.

Chosen-
Messiah!!! Messiah is great. I havent used it since '02 though, what version are they at now? any nifty new features?

I've thought about using Lightwave for texture making, but havn't gotten around to playing with it just yet..

It works decently well
I've found pulling the camera far far back from the object and zooming it in dramatically before rendering helps. Neil also likes to use the Microwave plugin for baking, but that method takes insane amounts of setup time. The results from it are nice though!

Using the zoom flattens the render a bunch eh?

As for baking.. eh thats a bit beyond my patience ;p

I am tossing around the following idea:

If I were to make a model in Maya or FormZ and extracte elevations of rendered surfaces, I would get a texture with beautiful shadows. But this would be a static shadow and would not respond to the SL sun.

Now is there a way to make the texture change in response to sun position so that I could put in 3 textures for morning, afternoon, and night, that would change according to the time?

I use 3dsmax5 to make some textures now and then. I've also use it to plan out some builds, so I can show the renders to the client for feedback.
I've also used 3dsmax to render alpha shadow textures, that I can apply to a separate prim and move/rotate.

Jayant - you can use the SetTexture command to change the texture on a prim/prim-face. There used to be a few script examples for tracking the sun position in the old scripting forum, but I don't know if theyre still around anywhere.

I use maya mostly and cry everytime I open poser to try to make an animation without a decent curves editor. I can never seem to get any feel for weight or follow through movement out of poser, it's a piece of crap.

Just noticed this thread I use 3ds Max 6 with Vray Advanced for doing some texture baking. Most of the stuff I do for SL is just plain old Photoshop work though. My fingers are crossed that some enterprising maxscript programmer will write a SL compatible BVH exporter for use with Character Studio.

I also use DarkTree 2 quite a bit for rendering procedural textures for tiling or for spherical mapping. Great tool and loads of fun to play with.