Which 3d tool do you recommend?

Hi all,
dithering about getting into designing hair etc, seems i'll need a 3D program : given that things like Poser are very expensive, what do you all recommend i spend my money on for ease of use (not too bothered about massive features as i'm just a beginner)

thanks

programs...you mean you need one? Honestly I've never used another program to mae things in SL...other then paper and pencil and about 29348723947234 things I have for inspiration around my place.

Things made from 3D parts, such as hair, are usually made mostly within SL using the Create tools. A good way to learn to make hair is to get some that is modifiable, and then take it apart.

However, when it comes to painting on colors and patterns, those are usually made outside the SL world using something like Photoshop, or the GIMP. I mention the Gimp because it is an excellent tool, and it is both Open Source and downloadable at no charge. The generic term for these is Textures.

Poser is used to make animations. An animation is a set of instructions that cause your avatar to move around, salute, blow a kiss, or boogie. Avimator and Qavimator are no-cost tools for animating and are also pretty good.

The Gimp is very limited in what it can do. It exists because none of the Adobe or Corel won't port to Linux for free.

The Gimp is not good. You get what you pay for. You want to design, spend some money and get Psp or Ps Cs2.

AS for objects, they are made in world. But blender has a tool made for it, is free and done really well (as opposed to Gimp )
Basically no rl tool can straight upload into SL yet (give autodesk time, they will figure it out.)the ones that have tools made for them (blender, maya, poser) either used the clipboard of your comp to a notecard or upload a animation file.

Dunno, I use CS2 professionally... and still think that the GIMP is excellent for what it is. It even supports most Photoshop plugins, and can read/write PSD files, Targa, etc.

In my pro-photography work GIMP is not a viable alternative, but for design work it is way more than good enough, and free!

-peekay

I'm not sure I'd call Poser "very expensive". For a 3D app (and for software in general), it's actually very inexpensive. Consider that Maya costs $6000 while Poser is only $100-250, depending on the version. Of course, it's not really a fair comparison since Maya can do literally anything you'll ever need for 3D, while Poser is pretty much just a one-trick pony, a dedicated character animator. It just happens that there's nothing really comparable to Poser on the market to compare it with; most other 3D applications have much more functionality.

That having been said, there are alternatives. DAZ Studio, for example, is the closest equivalent to Poser that you'll find, and it's completely free. It's made by a company that specialized for years in selling content for Poser. They decided to build their own free alternative to broaden their market, and to keep their eggs in more than one basket on the off chance that Poser ever disappears one day. DAZ Studio is a pretty good program for what it is. Check it out.

Keep in mind though, as others have pointed out, that neither Poser or Daz Studio will help you create 3D objects for SL. Their only functions in relation to SL are for making animations, and for testing clothing designs. 3D objects must be made inworld via the building tools. Just click on that big blue button at the bottom of the screen that says "Build" on it to bring up the window with toolbox in it.

As for the texturing discussion, let me throw my 2 cents in on GIMP. As I've said many times before, I applaud GIMP for helping to bring digital art to the masses. It can do about 75% of everything Photoshop can do, all for free, which is fantastic. Anything that brings powerful creation tools to the public always has my support.

However, I do have to say that hate the damned thing. ...A lot. Its interface is atrocious. Installing GIMPshop helps a ton since at least the names of commands become more standardized, but getting to them is still quite nonsensical. If you know Photoshop, you can learn PSP, or Photopaint, or pretty much any other decent commercial raster editor very quickly, but learning GIMP, that takes a lot of time (and a lot of buckets to catch all that puke you're gonna hurl).

What GIMP really needs is for someone to do with it what Mozilla did with Firefox, which is take all that open source material, and put it in a really nice and easy to understand package. Right now GIMP looks like exactly what it is, a patchwork of material put together by programmers, not by artists. It needs a really good team of people who understand how artists think and work to repackage the thing into something that makes intuitive sense to its potential user base, not just to its creators. If and when that happens, GIMP will really be something special. It's not just there yet, unfortunately.

Anyway, HarleyJane, to learn the SL building tools, I'd suggest you pay a visit to the Ivory Tower of Primitives, and walk through all the tutorials there. After that, practice, practice, practice. The people who are really good at creating SL content weren't born with silver prims in their mouths. They put in the time and effort it takes to master any skillset. If you want to rival what they're doing, you'll need to do what they did. There's no way around that.

Don't worry though. You'll find that building in SL is pretty intuitive, once you understand the basics. Give it a few weeks of dedication, and you'll be great. If you've got questions along the way, come right back here and ask.

Learning to texture will take you a little longer, but the concept is the same. Pick a raster editor you want to learn (Photoshop, Pantshop Pro, and GIMP are the most popular), and dive into it. Once you've gotten the hang of the basics, start learning how 2D images wrap around 3D objects in SL. With time and practice, you'll get good at learning to think in 3D while painting in 2D, and your textures will turn out great. And the texturing forum is full of helpful people who can guide you along the way, should you need.

Happy learning, and welcome to the content creation community.

As a die-hard GIMP user, I somewhat disagree here. While I agree that the GIMP lacks a sane interface for Windows, it compares very well to Photoshop for OSX and has a few features and a python interface that are very easy to hack around with and use.

It's simply a different utility program than something like CS2, which is geared more toward using filters to get the job done. The GIMP is more centered on traditional painting, paths, and photomanipulation, and includes some very nice color tools, which are the reason I use it. And I find both support layers about equally.


It can't hurt to give the GIMP a try, though it's not for everyone.

my "build button" is deactivated - any reason why? :-/

Are you on "no build" land? This is indicated by a tiny red dot with a sorta cube in it, on the top status bar.

If so you need to go somewhere else to build. The Ivory tower of Prims both teaches and allows you to build there (for a short time).

Thunderclap, since Adobe Photoshop Cs2 start at over $600.00 USD not everyone have that kind of money to spend.

Hi HarleyJane,

If you want to see examples what you can do with The Gimp, you can click on my photoblog link on my signature or get more indepth discussion on how I create textures/clothes from my website.

ADF Website

Get gimp here:

gimp.org

If you are familiar with with photoshop (maybe like me, tried demo first) you can check out gimp shop which is a hack that make The Gimp user interface work and look like photoshop

And this is a tutorial photoshop crash course that is great tool to at least get basics.

I just recently taught a friend who had just the basics on the gimp, and gave her some extras and tips on some of the tools etc. You can contact me by PM here on forum, or IM in world if you would like some help with gimp

Thanks for all the help people

1) - yes, i'm on no build land, Orientation Island. so that's that one cleared up!
2) - I use Photoshop. i primarily want to design and sell clothes, but i';m not sure how to do this, apart from a snippet i came across saying put it in teh inventory and mark it as "for sale" - i'm assuming no one can buy unless i'm online?
3) Regarding the designing and practice of building hair etc, what i really wanted was to be able to build it offline and then import it - my connection to SL *suuuuucks!* : i get a frame rate of about once a week >:-/
4) i've just met a chat parrot

gonna have to get familiarised a lot, there's a load of stuff i can't figure out, my sound seems dead even though it's not muted and stuff.


thanks again for the help everyone

one way for a beginner to sell is to rent a small space from an existing mall. A lot of malls have small stores for rent. Then, you put your stuff into a vending machine there. You don't need to be online at all.

Much about clothes can be done offline. Hair varies. Say you have one prim hairdo online. You can then create numerous textures for it offline, upload them, and try them out.

On the other hand, if you plan to make lots of differnent hair styles, then you will probably have to spend time online. The new offline builder might help you. Otherwise, get a better computer or connection. Sorry.

Looks like you need help with the basic basics! When you hit the "mainland" look up the New Citizens Inc (NCI) using your Search button - Groups tab and/or Places tab

They've got FREE classes from bonehead basic to advanced.

They'll teach you how to do basic building (you need that for setting up your items for sale) and how to go from there.

As Lee Ponzi mentioned, renting a small shop/stall area is a great way to get started. The NCI can help you with that too OMG!

In the meantime you might want to check out This Fantastic Collection of Links To get you going with creating your designs

And even MORE goodies can be found in the Design and Textures Forum

Have Fun!

Just one more thing HarleyJane (lovely name by the way). One easy way to get into selling is to sell on-line through SL Boutique. I've just started that way myself, and I sold my first bikini within 90 minutes! IM me in-world if you want to chat.

Love Suzi