Tiffany Lamp

I want to make a tiffany lamp shade on a single dome shaped prim - Are there templates for the basic prims so I can build the texture in Photoshop?

If not, how do I go about making one?

Tarak

The texture on things like spheres is wrapped around the prim like the label on a bottle.

So, to make your lamp, just make the texture with the top at the top of the page, and the bottom in the middle (because you're using a hemisphere.) Be aware that it will all pull in at the top, and compensate for that when you make the texture. (Think of your texture like a Mercator projection of the world map, which is then wrapped onto a sphere to form a globe.)

If you have problems with that, there are programs that can help; for instance, Flexify, from Flaming Pear that will let you draw your design on a different shape, make it into a sphere, and export the projection that will work in SL. For instance, you could draw your lampshade as if you were looking at it from the top, and then export that as a Mercator projection to upload into SL.

At least, I'm pretty sure you can. I haven't used it in a while, and I'm not at the right computer to test it just now. But you can download a demo from the site above, and test it yourself.

In any case, when you get it into SL, since your lamp is a hemisphere, you'll only want to use the top half, so make your image on the top half only. (If you want to fully utilize your image, you can put a different lampshade on the bottom of it.)

It is possible to use two vertical repeats on the prim, which forces half of it onto a hemisphere: but if you've optimized your texture for the top half of a sphere, (which is what the rest of this post is about,) you'll have much better results if you only use that half.

Anyway, I hope this makes sense. I'm still pretty sick (which is where I've been the last few weeks,) and I'm not sure I'm completely coherent yet.

But I hope it helps!

Thanks Robin - hope you get well soon - I think I understand - best way to find out is get in and do

Hi! Now that I'm on the other computer, I just ran a quick test with Flexify 2, and it does work.

All you need to do is draw the lamp as if you were looking down on it from the top (which is the easiest way to do it in any case, really.) Make sure that the very center, which will be the top when you import your shade, is a solid color (because that part will shatter when it's used as a texture, and if it's solid no one will see it happening,) and make a composite layer so that the entire image is in that one layer. (Or make a copy, and flatten the image.)

Then, in Flexify 2, choose Polar from the Input Menu, and Equirectangular from the Output menu. Set the Latitude to -90, the Longitude to 90, and the Spin to 90, and say OK.

The image will now be half the height it was. Use the Move tool to move it to the top of the square you have for the texture. Make another, flip it Vertically, and put it in the bottom, if you want.

If you want the lampshade to have transparency (you may not; it'll probably look better if you don't, but just in case,) don't forget to run the filter on the Alpha, too. (It will work.)

Then just save and upload your .tga file, put it on a sphere, hollow it, Dimple it to something more than half, and you're good to go.

Hope this helps!