Curious... what is it? New type of prim???

I am sorry I read that and panicked. One of my team members I share land and prims with reassured me that old prims wouldn't go away. I have been struggling with 3d content and different programs for 10 years. Most and all of programs with few exceptions its been a nightmare for me. I have made several attempts to use different programs and I must say Blender has been thorn in my side. Some programs you can read few faqs, play with buttons and eventually create things like with Adobe or Corell but other programs are more difficult. For example Maya has free educational verision, I registered but I couldn't get past the window to use the registeration number because it wouldn't accept it. Daz has free version, I got stumped with that one too. I figure it out eventually if I persist but its just be frusterating and overwhelming sometimes. SL has some great ways to be creative but the learning curve sometimes is enough to make me want to pull my hair out.

Actually, I think we'll see sets that combine shapes and skins.

Buy a given shape, and get a pack of 10 textures that apply to it.

This will be an interesting new market for TRU and others - textures that map to popular 3D shapes ...

Interesting discussion at: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Talk:Sculpted_Prims

So what does it look like without smoothing applied to it? Because I've made a really low poly figure in 3ds max and a turbo smooth modifier looks just like that. >
Good work on that figure by the way. It's not easy to model anatomy.



References to "new" rendering systems some time back, at least as far back as when I was interested in SL until now, related to a new rendering engine that could support a draw distance out to about half a dozen sims with reliably high frame rates. This engine was scrapped for whatever reason, despite screen shots showing this amazing feat, but it was a big let down to all of us who wanted it.

As for poly counts, no, it wouldn't generate a lot of polygons at all. According to the wiki page for sculpted prims linked several times already, it wouldn't use more polys than a torus. In actuality to get the shapes possible with such a "prim" (I can't count sculpted prims as a prim, it's far from being a primitive construct), you'd need at least three or more current prims to approximate it. Consider constructing a chamfered box at the moment. You'd need a cube, four cylinders for each edge, and then four spheres for each corner. That's far in excess of a torus.

Thinking about the possibilities, suddenly a 31 prim limit for vehicles doesn't seem so restrictive anymore. People will be able to construct hands with more detail than the current avatar hands (obviously requiring invisiprims to hide those meat hooks). Furries will be able to construct heads, paws, and tails (and I suppose even digitigrade legs) with exactly the kind of detail they want. This would trump my request for CSG in prims because it technically does what I want to do most (subtract, or create dips in other prims), only to a much more organic degree*. And if we get to do what the blog suggests (morphing from sculpt texture to sculpt texture), imagine the possibilities! Expressive faces, tails that swish the way we want (even just twitching the tip of your tail), muscles that seem to flex as you move (though that might require a bit more detail than they're giving us), and for the first time ever, the ability to give someone a thumbs up with a hand that doesn't look like it was made with a K'nex set or something.

Will SL become a building place for professionals only? Not likely. There's still a lot you can do with basic prims that are very impressive (like countless buildings I've come across in SL already). What it will mean is that people with a familiarity with 3d programs will be able to build things that they want for SL, and that's it. Crafting an entire building from sculpted prims would be a daunting and tedious task, one probably better accomplished by using a bunch of prims rather than importing them from the 3d program of your choice, but creating molding for the top of a cylinder to turn it into a crafted pillar is certainly a likely use for this.

Although I'm sure some people will make money selling these new prims for building, some of us are already planning on making and giving away full-perm shapes for people to use when this hits the grid. The kinds of things people want like single-prim cubes with rounded corners, irregular shapes for rocks and things like that. Until we have an inworld sculptie prim editor, sharing is Good Thing to do.

http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=11887

I totally agree, and I'll be sharing some rock shapes when the time comes.

Okay I did it, because it had to be done. Teleport to Zebulon 171, 80,26 to get your free Cube! gestures. Look for the bland grey cube. The fun can NOT be halted!