Changing Sculpt Maps

I conducted some research in the forums to determine if it's possible to use LSL to change a sculpt map smoothly for morphing one object into another. I discovered a topic dating back to October 2007 implying that such a feature does not exist yet. However, since that topic is old, I may have missed something.

Is it still impossible to "cross fade" one sculpt map to another using script?

Thank you in advance.

The only thing like this I know of is that you can supposedly set the sculpt texture to the parcel's media texture key, and then essentially use the video feature to animate the sculpty. I recall seeing that somewhere, but I haven't tried it, haven't witnessed it (I can't get any video functionality anyway since I'm on Linux), and haven't seen more than one reference to it, so don't get too excited from my hearsay.

Hmm.... If this is true, I would need some assistance on how that is accomplished. Thank you for replying.

Does anyone know how the above suggestion can work?

Get the key of the media texture (the object containing the script with this line HAS to be owned by the landowner--including being deeded to a group if the parcel is):

key mediaTextureKey = llList2Key(llParcelMediaQuery([ PARCEL_MEDIA_COMMAND_TEXTURE ]), 0);

Then set the sculpty texture to that key:

llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, (string)mediaTextureKey, PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE ]);

Then set the parcel media URL. As for how to setup the content at the URL, I can't really help there. I'm not sure if an animated GIF might work, or if it has to be an actual QuickTime movie format or what.

Oops. If this involves land owners, there could be a problem. My sculpt change is for an accessory to be worn on an avatar....

you can "fade" sculpt maps.. they're cool that way. Load sculpt 1 and sculpt 2 in photoshop, then make new sculpts fading one to the other.

However, in LSL, you'll still have to do it "step by step".. so the morphing will look "steppy". It helps if you preload the sculpts to the client, and if you can make a lot of steps. Keeping the sculpts small is a good idea also (and that "lossless" thing should be right out... lossless images are WAAAAY slower to load.)

Client preload? How is this accomplished? Am I able to follow Hewee's procedure to load a sculpt map through LSL? If not, then I do not know how I can do it with script.

The limitation is in how fast SL can run the script and recalculate your sculpty.. usually pretty choppy.

Using two scripts that are offset can help, but if you have more than 2 frames this can get complicated to time it right.

preload the images by creating a cube and applying all the sculpt maps in your animation as textures on each face.. or several cubes.. and hide them or make them transparent and wear them. This will help intially by avoiding the popping as the textures load.. it will not have much of an effect after the animation has been running a few times.

Also remember that for most sculpty objects, SL is recalculting the whole prim.. physics mass, position etc.. each time the sculpty animation changes.. for this reason you need to take special consideration when trying to animate physical objects or scripted objects, vehicle prims etc. Making them phantom seems to help.. but I haven't done enough in this area to tell for sure.

The parcel media technique is pretty cool, allthough you are still limited by the script execution time.. even though the media stream may be a smooth transition (which can be acheived through some home movie producer programs) SL will only sample the image every iteration so it will still appear choppy.

-whyroc

This won't work. All the parcel media settings do is replace any instance of a given texture drawn in the scene [Edit: including in any UI windows] with the media stream from the specified URL. Sculpties don't draw the sculpt texture anywhere, so there's nothing to replace. The client will need to be specifically written to use a media stream as a dynamic sculptmap.

Sorry but I have to say this does work, see this very informative thread:

/8/16/191214/1.html

I tested it quite thoroughly.. lol

the biggest issue I found was making a 'movie' with the sculpt maps that is a perfect square, as alot of movie software only does 3:4 or 16:9

if you like a demonstration of this inworld I can be happy to arrange it..

-whyroc

I would appreciate that greatly. I have been testing on beta havoc lately under the same avatar name. What time would be good to meet?

Ouch! True. Hmm. I think I automatically filtered out the high-cost approach. LOL.

Whyroc? I hope you're still checking this thread. I have a video editing program that DOES output 1x1 resolution with square pixels: Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. I can make both AVI files and QuickTime MOV files with the program. I would still like to see a demonstration inworld and show you what I am trying to accomplish.

Well spin my nipplenuts and send me to Alaska, I sit corrected. My admittedly brief test involved setting the media texture of my parcel (though the GUI, not script) to the sculpt texture of an existing sculpty, then playing the stream, which didn't cause the sculpty to change. It didn't occur to me that something would need to force a refresh of the sculpty itself.

Well spin my nipplenuts and send me to Alaska ---- haha



yes it can be quite a nice effect...

There are some limitations with this technique.. the main one being you must have rights to set the media texture in the land options.. so it is really only good for animation that don't leave the parcel.

IN Peach's case it was for an avatar accessory item so I suggested to her to try the normal method of swapping uploaded sculpt maps.

-w