Blender Mayhem

Hi All,

Ive been on second life for a week now, and am enjoying my stay.

I decided that I wanted to get in on a piece of the action, and to make my own objects to sell. I tried building in SL itself, and found this to be full of lag and awkward, and ever since blender has been my best friend!

So I have created my first 3D object (a skateboard, how original i know). This is where I have become stupified... how the hell do I get this thing into SL. Any step by step help would be greatly appreciated. I am still on the long road of learning scripting etc, but I would like to see some little reward in game

Hope someone can help.

H.T.

Well, if you built the object in Blender itself... you pretty much can't. Second Life relies on its own proprietary, prim-based building tools. Trying to fit a mesh into it is like stuffing canteloupe into a soup can.


If, however, you're referring to my tool for Blender (see sig), there's an import script available by Thraxis Epsilon at his shop. However, I've had trouble getting it to work in recent versions of Second Life. A newer, more robust importer is in the works by the libsecondlife folks, though, so hopefully that will be complete sometime soon.

Thanks Jeffrey,

Ok so I have wasted my efforts with blender then. What is it good for?

So back to the drawing board, what programs should I be looking to use in order to create objects etc and import them into SL. How do the thousands of shop owners do this offline? Im sure this must have been covered a million times in the forums, but Im so confused anything in simple terms would be appreciated. Especially cheap simple terms

H.T.

Blender's good for animations.

All the shops though, are made inworld, the only thing done outside being texture creation. Some of the cool ones have the textures ray traced and rendered in blender or similar, then saved as a tga and uploaded to SL to use.

they dont. everything is pretty much built in game. The last week or so has been really bad for lag, so you have been unlucky there.

Blender's good for all kind of things, just none of them have to do with SL (except for Jeffrey's plugin). Personally, I hate Blender for it's interface (but that tends to be the case with open source stuff), but I whole heartedly support and respect anything that serves to bring 3D to the masses, and Blender does exactly that. Not everyone can afford to shell out $1500 for 3DS Max or $6000 for Maya, but everyone can afford Blender. I can forgive its crappy interface for that reason, even if I'll likely never use it myself (Mayaholic here). Blender's great.


The short answer is none. Learn to use SL's own building tools.


As Duntroon said, they don't. Everything you see in SL was built in SL.

There are a handful of enterprising geniuses like Jeffrey who have come up with some incredibly clever ways of importing external models - actually strike that; a more proper way of describing it would be TRANSLATING external models into SL prims, not actually importing anything, but at this point in time, such things are more of curiosities than practical tools. Jeffrey's Blender plugin is a tremendous leap in the right direction, but since LL likes to change the rules from version to version about how to input external data into SL, translation of models from more common systems to SL's proprietary system is not something that can be depended upon reliably, unfortunately.

One advantage you have being new to SL 3 years in is that you can see first hand just how well SL's primitive system can be implimented to build things many of us a few years ago would never have thought possible. There are lots of amazing things that have been built already from which you can draw inspiration.

I'd suggest a trip to the Ivory Tower of Primitives, so you can see some inworld tutorials on how the building tools work, and then practice, practice, practice. As you get some experience, you kind of learn to "think in prims", and you find yourself instinctively seeing how various basic shapes fit together to form a complex object. Eventually, there's nothing you can't make.

As for other 3D modeling applications, by all means keep using them. It's never a "waste of time". There are lots of valuable things you can learn and do, and the more individual programs you know how to use, the better. Nothing in those programs will help you in SL directly, but all of them will help you as a person become a better modeler, and that skill will be universally applicable to your success in all of them, SL included.

If you want a list of external programs that ARE used in conjunction with SL at this time, here it is. I'll put these in order of popularity among SL users, as best I can estimate, with the ones I prefer to use in bold. Note that in each category, the programs listed are certainly not the only ones available, just the ones that are most commonly used.

1. For textures - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP
   
   
   
   
2. For avatar animations - Poser, DAZ Studio, Avimator, Maya (with Orion Neville's cool rig)
   
   
   
   
3. For sounds - Audacity, Goldwave, Sound Forge, Adobe Audition

One of the things I'd like to see happen is genuine Linden involvement in tools like my own. LL has shown a cursory interest in things like libsecondlife, which is nice, but here I'm practically handing them the code and... get ignored, for the most part.

The original intent of my work, from "3D importer" to Prim Mirror to the present has been to have them use my work to improve upon the original platform. I honestly don't know why they haven't. These are things that, in my opinion, would be a great boon to builders if LL would just be willing to communicate.

Thank you for your post Chosen Few, that has really cleared up a lot of the things running through my head.

I will continue to use blender, as I have worked really hard getting to grips with it, and created some very smart objects with it. Im not just going to throw that away. I take my hat off to all those who build in SL as I find it very difficult. I presume people build objects therefore on their private land, or in sandboxs as I have been doing? Hopefully my experiences with blender has made me far better at it.

From reading here there and everywhere I see that Jeffrey is quite the respected genius. <<bows to his wisdom>>

So let me get my tiny brain into gear here... If I want to make a very basic box car...
1) build car in SL.
2) create required textures in Paintshop Pro (which I own).
3) Then I will need to script the object so it moves around... is this to be done in game also?
4) Use "Poser, DAZ Studio, Avimator, Maya" to provide a sitting animation. Can these be used to animate the object also, lets say to make the car morph into a rocket or something?
5) Use a nice sound package for sounds.

Thanks again for everyones comprehensive help

Regards.

H.T.

Basically true
2. can also be done by also creating the vehicle in blender etc, and using it's facilities to make the texture, rather than photoshop. Use photoshop to touch it up and prepare it for SL.

4. animations for objects are done with in world scripts. Google for "LSL Wiki" for more information.

Jeffrey, I'm sorry to hear LL isn't more communicative with you. The things you've done so far have been simply amazing, and soooo helpful. I use Prim Mirror all the time, and your OBJ importer has been a tremendous help to me in creating templates based on some of my Maya models, which I've lately started using as frameworks upon which to more build prim-efficient and more authentically shaped SL models. What used to take me several days worth of difficult math and a lot of trial and error now typically takes just a few hours or less. You have no idea how much aggravation you've saved me, so let me take this opportunity to issue a gigantic, heartfelt thankyou.

Now that that's out of the way, let me say I totally agree with you. I can't figure out why they haven't done these thing either. Your tools, especially Prim Mirror, are things that should absolutely be part of the SL interface, not things that we should have to depend on 3rd party programmers to come up with on their own. In my opinion, LL should hire you, and just let you go to town, completely overhauling the building system from start to finish so you can impliment tools that make sense.

In the mean time, please keep the good stuff coming, and thanks again for all that you do. It's quite rare to meet someone who is both so capable, and so benevolant as you. SL's a much better place with you around.


Hehe, no problem. Any time my brain can avoid doing actual work by letting itself get distracted by questions on these forums, it's only too happy to oblige.


Yes


Yes. Here a few tips:

1. For best results, always output your work as TGA prior to upload. SL coverts all images internally to JPEG2000, so it's best to avoid starting with a JPEG as your source.
   
   
2. Always make sure your texture height and width are measured in powers of two (standard OpenGL requirement). Measurements that SL will accept (in pixels) are 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, and 2048. Anything other than that will get resized at the time of upload, and the results are not always pretty.
   
   
3. Keep your textures as small as possible. Remember that every 1024x1024 consumes 16 times as much video memory as a 256x256, usually without much noticeable difference in visual quality. The biggest reason SL runs so slowly is because of poor texture size management from its users.
   
   
4. Always make sure textures that don't need transparency are saved as 24-bit, and those that do are saved as 32-bit. The 8-bit difference between the two is dependant on whether or not an alpha channel (the component that governs transparency) is present in the image. If you don't know how to use alpha channels already, see the transparency guide, stickied at the top of the texture forum for complete details and tutorials.

Yes. Check the scripting library forum for some examples of vehicle scripts.

Be warned though, I've heard there's currently a bug with the inworld script editor, which is causing considerable lag when editing lengthy scripts. I don't do much scripting myself, so I haven't noticed it first hand, but there was some talk about it earlier today. Whatever it is, hopefully they'll fix it soon.


Yes. You can simply use the default sit animation which you already have, but if you want the driver/passengers to sit in a specific, non-standard way, then by all means, make whatever animations you want.


Yes. Sounds to be uploaded to SL must be in PCM WAV format, 44.1kHz sampling, 16-bit stereo or 16-bit mono, and be under 10 seconds in length. If you have any sounds that are at other sample rates and bit depths, you'll need to use a good audio program to convert them. SL only accepts CD-quality sounds.

For continuous sound, like music, you can stream online radio stations and other audio sources on to your land if you own any. In the About Land window, simply plug in the URL from which you want to stream (same is true for streaming video as well).

I think that covers everything. Hope this was helpful.

... wow. That absolutely made my day. Thanks.

I too would like to pat you on the back Jeffrey, i love your prim mirror!
and ive been playing with the BVH Importer thank you so much for these
and other awesome script you have released, ive learned so much from them
-LW

Hi Guys,

Special thanks to 'Chosen Few.' I know now roughtly what I have to do. Tried building in SL again, although it was easier than before, its certainly no easy task. Im sure practise makes perfect, and I shall persevere. Watch this space Jeffrey Gomez, Im a coming!

I would just like to say how fantastic helpful everyone has been in SL! Although we always will get nasty people, everyone so far has been so willing to help with any problems, both in game and out. This is a highly unusual phenomena from my online experiences.

As previously mentioned, I understand Jeffrey to be a bit of a celebrity, and am thrilled and honoured that he replied to my posts I will make sure I start the J-GAS Group sometime (Jeffrey Gomez Appreciation Society). Although Im a little new to really appreciate your work Jeff, anything that provides progressive opportunities to the masses I am in favour of!

I am ill at the moment, and am drugged up to the eye balls. God bless robotosin! Apologies if I dont make 100% sense.

Thanks again for everyone.

H.T.

Jeffreys prim script is really cool

and

Blender + BRayBaker = very useful!


... if anyone knows of a better/easier UV texture baker for Blender please let me know !

I've been fooling around with UVBaker ( http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/blender/tutor/cpl_mesh3d2uv2d_en.htm )
- isn't it even part of the standard Blender distribution? No comments on the "better/easier", I can't get it to work correctly half of the time :\

Heh heh. I'm really not, though I certainly pretend to be.

Feel better.

Probably not, though that tool looks pretty nifty. Blender's politics for code submissions can best be described in "bleh," "ick," and "omgwtfbbq."

I've tried submitting code to them in the past before. We'll just say it did not go so well.

UVBaker is now part of the standard installation. It only bakes procedural textures

BRayBaker looks set to be part of the standard installation in the near future. It bakes the fully rendered product into a single texture.

aside...

I've used Strata 3D, Cinema 4D, 3DS, Maya, Lightwave and others I can't even remember the names of now, and more recently Blender. ALL of them have their own weird UIs and none of them even begin to approach what I would call an intuitive UI.

One Blenders biggest failings is that stuff that should be coded properly into the main app is being left to python scripts with even clunkier UIs ( I hesitate to call them UIs ) than blender itself. ie : Blender has no proper material library and they're planning on integrating a script with a totally half assed approach to viewing preset materials. It's shame because the animation and rendering quality in Blender are almost second to none. The renderer output is every bit as good as Lightwaves and 3DS in my opinion. Blenders tools for mesh manipulation are really very nice once you get used to them. I've recently moved over to Blender from Lightwave, not sure for how long I'll stick it out but I find Blender gives me everything I want without the huge upgrade costs !