What to Use

I sincerely appreciate what all the builders/scripters do for SL. I spend a lot of money US/Lindens each month in this appreciation, and will continue to do so. I am sorta new at building and do it for myself. I know some of the basics, can manipulate and texture prims and can make a few simple items.

Because I am just doing basic stuff, I am pretty unfamiliar with the language/jargon of builders or scripters use. What I am looking for, is some kind of software....I assume a 3-d modeling program ???? (something really really simple and easy to use or user friendly with a low learning curve)...that I can make items offline that would resemble something made in-world...so I have a clue how to make the item in world. I am not talking sculpted prims here...just good old fashioned original SL prims.

Yes, I have read the infor from the wiki about some of the programs. People start talking about this and that file type, baking textures, etc. my eyes glaze over. Does anyone have a simplified suggestion for someone that would like to learn how to do some building offline? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

There's a script/plugin that basically replicates SL's build tools in blender, along with a feature to import to SL later... I forgot what it's called, prim.blender or something along those lines. I haven't used it for ages since I do mostly sculpties and it'd be too overkill to fire it up everytime I need a normal prim, but found it quite nice when I tried it.

Besides, it may help you get familiar with blender so you can try other fun things like baking textures and making sculpties later

If you're looking for a low learning curve, you're not going to like this answer, but SL is it. It's by far the easiest 3D modeling tool for the untrained novice to pick up and learn right away that I've ever seen. It's far from perfect, of course, but it is easy to learn.

More full featured modeling programs like Blender, Maya, Max, etc. are harder to learn, mostly because they can do a whole lot more things. Also, it's important to understand that traditional modeling programs operate along some different principles than SL does. While there is definitely a substantial amount of overlap, the differences between SL and most other modeling programs are significant enough that if you try to learn SL and another program at the same time, all you'll really do is slow yourself down in both. Once you've got some solid experience under your belt, you will of course find that what you learn in one program can only help you in another, but in the beginning, you need to take one thing at a time.

That said, if you're really itching to get into more 3D applications, then in my opinion, Maya is one of the easiest to get started with, since it comes with the best documentation. But even so, I wouldn't describe any as having a low curve. It can do literally hundreds of thousands of different things. Even people who have been using it professionally for years don't know how to do it all.

If you're dedicated, you can become competent with Maya's beginner basics in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, but learning to do things in it that will be useful for SL is a different story. You need to know what you're doing with it in general first, and then apply that knowledge constructively to what can be applicable for SL purposes.

Blender, in my opinion, is one of the hardest programs to learn that there is. Its fans always yell at me when I say that, since it obviously works well for them, but the fact remains that the majority of people who give it a go do struggle with it. Its interface is unconventional, and is challenging for most people to master. It's a fantastic program, especially when you consider that it's free, but the phrase "low learning curve" definitely does not apply to it.


The best thing for you (or any SL builder) to do, regardless of prior experience, is exactly what you've been doing. Master the in-world tools. While it's true that enterprising residents have had some success in creating plugins for third party programs like Maya and Blender, to replicate SL's building system, the fact remains that SL is very unique in the 3D modeling universe. Get a good handle on SL first, since you've already started with it, and then if you want to branch out into other applications later, that's great too. Just don't expect any other program to server to lower your SL learning curve in any way. It doesn't work like that.


And for what it's worth, don't ever let any perceived ignorance you might feel toward the jargon of the "experts" affect your confidence in what you're doing. Yes it's important to learn the terminology of the industry, but that doesn't mean you can't do great things without knowing it. Everybody picks it up as they go. No one comes into this knowing anything before they get started. It all comes from experience.


Regarding baked textures, don't even worry about that right now. That's a very advanced topic. If you're gonna bake, you need to know at least the basics of modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering before you can even get started. That's not something you could just absorb overnight, even if you had access to the best software and the best teachers in the world. Again, it comes with experience. There's no way around that. So, like I said, don't worry about it yet. You've got more immediate fish to fry first.

As for file formats, if you're talking image files, there's a whole sticky about that at the top of the texturing forum. I'm sure you'll find it useful. If you mean any other types of files, you can always ask here, and Google goes a long way too.

Thanks every one that has relied! Sounds a bit disheartening from my perspective, but I have never taken the easy path. I do appreciate the advice.

As far as file types, I meant things like .obj extensions. I have played around with textures and made a few alpha and non-alpha textures for use in SL. They may not be the best work but it was need driven at the time and taught me how to use Adobe Elements.

By the way, unless you just won the lottery or have a wealthy employer/patron who will pay for it for you, most of us can forget about Maya. It's WAY too expensive for a legal copy.

SIX GRAND for a license??? *chokes* Sorry, it can't possibly be worth six thousand US dollars, at least not for me. Nothing in Second Life can make enough money to make that kind of software cost a rational decision.

Even the heavily-discounted Student and Educational Institution price is close to 400 bucks!

Sure, they have a free "Personal learning edition...". But it's a worthless demo that can't be used commercially, places a visible watermark on your work, and only saves to a specific non-standard format that only the non-commercial use version saves in. Free advertizing to get you hooked, but not anything you could actually use to make things.

For good old fashioned prims, SL itself is the best option. Chosen is right in saying that all the 3D software does have an initial steep learning curve, though I'd disagee that Blender's is any steeper than the others. What Blender does have is a large initial shock as it's unlike anything you will have used before. That's what gives the steep curve and what puts a lot of people off before they get started. You can get past that with a day or two watching tutorials and playing with Blender. After that the curve levels off and things get a lot easier.

Within a year it's likely that Blender will be the best option for offline building. One of the goals of the Apricot project is to make the user interface fully configurable. So Blender will be able to be customised to create editors for games. I'm following these developments closely while looking to expand my sculptie scripts to support other prim types, a bit like prim.blender but with texturing and more closely integrated with Blender.

Jacek Antonelli has been pioneering the work on producing SL compatible bvh files from Blender, so having the ability to create (for example) a textured prim and sculptie sofa with custom animations, completely in one application is a very real possibilty.

Add to that a customised user interface to expose just the functionality that is specific to SL, and perhaps getting a head start by learning a bit of Blender is well worth jumping over that initial hurdle.

But for now SL is the best bet for normal prims

Uuumm...yeah...just looking at prices...Maya is more then I wish to invest in my little, what I thought would be fun, building project. Guess I will just deal with SL...more to my speed I believe.

Don't be disheartened. There's a lot to learn, but if you're determined, you can pick it up quickly. 3D modeling is kind of like driving. It's 10% knowledge, and 90% experience. To do it right, you spend a little time in "driver's ed" in the beginning, learning the basic fundamentals, and then from there you continue to learn by doing.

What I said about baking was meant to encourage, not discourage, you. So maybe I didn't word it right. All I meant was you shouldn't be afraid to take it one step at a time. Focus on the more immediate essential things you need to know now, and then before you know it, you'll be ready to tackle the optional things you want to know, like baking. Again, it's the kind of thing you can only really learn by doing, and before you can do that, you need to get pretty good at a few other things first. It won't take you years, but it might take might take a few weeks.

As for OBJ, so you know, it's a simple text-based format for describing the placement of polygons, materials, and a few other things in 3D models. Its main advantage is that it is fairly universal, readable by almost all 3D applications. This makes for easy transfer of polygonal models from program to program. It's not something that's really useful for SL right now.





Ceera, while I do agree with you that Maya's pricing does put it out of reach for a lot of people, and that it's not worth spending the money for those who will only use it very casually, let's clarify a few things.

First, Maya Complete is $2000, not $6000. The 6K version is Maya Unlimited, which has extra features used primarily by the film industry. Those features are not needed for video-game type work, including what we do for SL. If someone's not planning on making the next Lord of the Rings movie, they should be looking at the $2000 version, not the $6000 version.

As for the personal learning edition, it is useless for sculpties, yes. But it's not useless in general. As a tool to teach you how to use the program, which is all it's meant to be, it's perfect. It's fully functional so you can learn all aspects of modeling, lighting, animation, dynamics, rendering, etc. And unlike a lot of other trial software, it has no time limit.

It's only got two small handicaps to prevent it from being used commercially. First is the water mark you mentioned, which is applied to all renderings, to identify the work as having been made with the PLE instead of a licensed copy. This has the unfortunate side effect of borking sculpt maps, since creating them depends upon rendering. Second, it's blocked from utilizing certain third party plugins, as some of them would serve to circumvent the rendering handicap. Other than that, PLE can do everything a licensed copy can do.

So if one is planning on using it for its intended purpose, learning, then the program does its job perfectly well. But if one would rather do more than that, then I can see how it could be perceived as annoying. But in that case, the obvious answer is either buy it or don't use it, of course.

In any case, I strongly disagree with your assessment that nothing in Second Life could earn you enough money to pay for a copy of Maya. If it's strictly a hobby for someone, then it probably won't earn much, if anything, and that's fine. But if one chooses to make a real job out of it, it can earn any amount of money one wants it to, just like any other business. In other words, you get out of it what you put into it, which is exactly how it should be.

For example, if you do custom work, and you bill yourself out at reasonable RL rates, you could pay for Maya in a few days. If you do prefab items for mass market, then all it takes is a handful of hot sellers, and you could pay for it in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. Not everyone will do either of those things, of course, but anyone could who wants to.

In my opinion, it all boils down to two main things, commitment and perspective. Regarding commitment, if one devotes fully to doing the work it takes to make real money in SL (or elsewhere), the rewards will be there. Some obviously would rather treat it strictly as a hobby, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't mean that those of us who do it for a living don't exist. As for the perspective part, basic human psychology dictates that long as long as one chooses to perceive couple thousand dollars as being an outlandish sum, then one will almost certainly never earn that amount for doing anything ever. But if you take a step back and realize that everything is relative, that good tools cost money, that you get what you pay for, suddenly it's not such a big deal.

If a piece of software isn't worth $2000 to you personally, that's fine, but it's not because $2000 itself is a lot. I'm pretty sure that if I were to offer you a brand new Ferrari for $2000, it wouldn't be a lot at all, and you could probably find a way to come up with it in about 2 seconds. As I said, it's all relative.

I myself am not rich. Far from it, in fact. However, I'm typing right now on a $10,000 computer. I have it for one reason. When I decided to make virtual worlds my career, I worked my ass off for two months doing as many contract jobs as I could possibly squeeze in, because I knew having such a machine would be worthwhile in the end. And it is.

Am I trying to say that everyone should go out and spend thousands of dollars on high end software and equipment? Absolutely not. As you rightly said, it's not worth it for everyone. However, if someone's planning on being more than just a casual hobbyist, such expenditures can be well worth it.

Morgaine.....don't get discouraged.. all it takes is practice and you would do very well to listen to the advice that Chosen has given here on this thread.

When I first started, I really didn't have a clue.... I remember buying a 300L$ hair and crying when I put it on and it appeared to be a huge box attached to my head...lol But I learned and with each day in SL I still learn new things all the time.

The first outfit I made was, well..........not great, the second was a little better...etc and so on and so on. Now I make decent clothing and it's all because I went to classes and learned as much as I could, I read through all the 'stickies' on the forums and made notes on all the things I wanted to learn.

Regarding other programs for creation in SL, I have blender and I did manage to make a sculptie, but to be honest, I've no idea what it's supposed to be...it looks very stange but I'm still learning. Blender, for me, is confusing. For clothing, I use Photoshop CS3 and it's been worth every penny. I learned how to use it by trial and error and experimenting.

I guess what I'm trying to say is just have fun while you learn....keep making things, some will be okay, some will be great and some, you'll want to trash almost immediately but with each effort, you'll learn something.

good luck with your building and learning...

I've personally been trying to learn Maya, knowing the results I've seen come outof it as far as sculpted prims, and I'm personally at a complete loss. I wish I had Chosen's...well whatever you got because I just can't grasp the program. Tutorials are lost on me unless they are video because I have such a low attention span and I honestly can't help that, though I can say I did go through the tutorials, though it was hard for me to focus on and make sense of.
I get so confused with Maya, compared to Zbrush's way of doing things, but Zbrush is not relavent to this thread so I'm not trying to talk about it. I just wish that I could make sense of Maya the way Chosen does.

Two thousand dollars is still awfully high, for most people. I got the 6K price from the Maya website. Even went back and rechecked three more times, because I couldn't believe their lowest commercially viable version was 6K. I saw the 2K price once, and the 6K price three times, when asking about the price for Maya Complete (not Unlimited). Apparently their website was malfunctioning, and was sending many of my queries for the lower priced product the price info for the top of the line version. I assumed, apparently incorrectly, that the one citation I saw for $2K must have been a mis-direct to an upgrade price.

The PLE version is all well and good for learning how Maya works. But its licensed as strictly for non-commercial use only. So even if you could get around the watermarking and limited file format issues, it won't legally help anyone to make anything that they can sell in SL. They, or their employer, will still have to pony up for the $2000 version to make anything commercially.

Well, I know you are incredibly talented, Chosen. And I know you have been fortunate enough to land some high-pay work with big corporate contracts, that don't blink when asked to pay "real world rates". I think it's great that you can do the kind of work and have the kind of sales leads that would allow you to earn two thousand dollars for a few weeks effort. But that kind of work, and those kinds of clients, and your level of talent, are rare in SL. Maybe I should charge a lot more for what I do. But I don't want to price myself to the point where only a tiny fraction of the market can afford to hire me. For me, at the rates I charge now, it would take two months or more of working 20+ hours a week on a high-end whole-sim project or two for me to earn enough to pay for the $2K version of Maya. And there are plenty of other uses for that money that have higher percieved value, for me, than Maya would have.

It largely is a matter of percieved value, to be sure. I don't yet percieve enough value in owning a copy of Maya to justify the expense if buying it. Offer me a Ferrari for two grand? Sure. Because a Ferrari is worth far more than that, to me and to many others, and I could readily sell it and make a large profit on the deal. But if the offer was for the same price on an exotic piece of manufacturing equipment that I had little to no personal use for, and that I had no way of selling to anyone else... well, then even if it is actually worth far more than that Ferrari, I'd pass. For any tool, or any purchase, you have to have sufficient use for it or desire to possess it, or it doesn't make sense.

Sorry to hear you've been struggling, Zae. If following written tutorials is problematic for you, then yeah, the Help file isn't going to be much help. That's unfortunate, but it doesn't need to be a showstopper.

There are lots of sources for video learning, if that's what you prefer. However good ones tend to be expensive. Also, most that I've encountered tend to be task-driven, often assuming a certain level basic knowledge. It can be hard to find ones that start from the beginning and cover the basics from A to Z like the written Help tutorials do.

Gnomon has some very good DVD's you can buy, if you're willing to spend the money. http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/groups/maya1_g.html I haven't watched the Introduction to Maya one, but judging from the list of topics it covers, it should give you a good sense of how to navigate the program itself. It's probably a safe bet that if you were to get that, along with some others to cover the basics of NURBS modeling, polygon modeling, and texturing, you'd do pretty well. However, at $25-60 per DVD, the cost can start to add up fast. You'll have to decide whether or not you think it's worth it.

You might also want to look into whether any of the community colleges in your area teach Maya. A lot of schools do.


Getting back to the written tutorials for a second, one thing that might be worth thinking about is whether a change of workspace setup might make it easier.

I remember that shortly after I started using Maya was when I decided to invest in dual monitors. Up until then, it had been such a pain to keep flipping between windows to read the tutorials one moment, and perform the steps the next. Of course, I'd been wanting dual monitors for a while anyway, since there are all kinds of benefits that come from having two. But it was the ability to both read and perform tutorial steps at the same time that turned out to be the final straw on that particular camel's back. I've been using dual monitors ever since, and it's great.

To this day, when following tutorials, I always put the browser and/or video player on one screen while I follow along in Maya (or whatever program I'm learning in) on the other. For me, it works really well. I could never learn as quickly as I do with everything on one screen.

Of course, if you're unwilling or unable to buy a second monitor, that's perfectly understandable. Throwing money at a problem isn't always the best solution, obviously. Or maybe you already have two screens, and it's still not working for you. In either case, maybe printing the tutorials out would help. Some people find it easier to absorb information when reading it on paper than on a screen. And I think most people find it easier to keep their place on paper, at the very least.

It's also possible that, for whatever reason, the writing style of the author(s) who wrote the Help tutorials doesn't jive with you. In that case, you might want to explore books. Your local Barned N' Nobles or Borders likely has at least half a dozen books on getting started with Maya. When I started, I found the Introducing Maya series from Maya Press to be very helpful. They're written in plain English, in a more discussional style than the dryness you've seen in the Help file.

If none of that works for you, then I'm afraid I'm out of ideas. Good luck.

I do have dual monitors, but I will definately look into the video tutorials and perhaps the books. The writting style does get to me if it's not like someone is actually talking to me, but unfortunately not many tutorials are like that lol.
Thank you for the suggestions.

No argument there. Professional grade tools are expensive, no doubt. It's unfortunate, but it's an expense we have to live with. You're right, of course, that it's not an investment most people should make. My only point was that it shouldn't be dismissed as being totally out of reach. It can certainly pay for itself if it's put to good use.

Forgive me if I sometimes get a little overzealous in promoting it. I just like the program so much, I want to share the joy of it with others. Maybe that's a little silly of me, maybe it's not. I don't know.


Eek, if the website was malfunctioning, that sucks for Autodesk. It does seem to be working now. But if anyone is interested, here is another site that sells Maya Complete:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/526844-REG/Autodesk_72202_050000_9000_MAYA_COMPLETE_2008_COMM.html


Very true. My only point regarding this was in response to your use of the phrase "totally useless". It can't be used for exporting sculpties or for anything that would be sold commercially. But if someone wants to learn the program without having to spend money upfront, and then decide later whether or not to invest in a licensed copy, PLE is the way to do that. All in all, I think it's a pretty good way to do it. I like it better than the typical 30-day trial thing, anyway.



Thanks for the compliment.

I'm not sure I totally agree on the rarity thing, though. I think opportunities abound for those who have the drive to seek them out. Maybe it's the drive that's the rare part. I don't think it's the amount of available work or available talent.

I'll agree with you that I was fortunate to have landed a steady job (while it lasted) with the development company I worked for for all of last year. Obviously, those kinds of jobs were few and far between then, and are even fewer now. However, I firmly believe that anyone who's good at this stuff could make a solid business of their own out of it if they want to. I would always encourage anyone interested to dive in and give it their all.

The particular business model won't be the same for everyone, of course. That will depend on the individual's strengths. For someone like Simone, obviously the mass market works tremendously well. She's branded herself very successfully, she sells a ton of pre-fabricated items in her stores, and makes a lot of money at it. For her, that's wonderful. She's certainly not the only example of that, though. Lots of other people do similarly, and many more could. I really think the potential there is absolutely unlimited. (And it's got the advantage that it doesn't require you to go out actively seeking clients with deep pockets.)

I myself just have never had much interest in persuing that kind of work. Even though I know I could probably make a fortune at it, I've just never had the particular drive to do it. For those who do, it's great. I just don't happen to be one of them, or at least I haven't been yet. I prefer to do custom projects. It's harder to find steady work doing that, of course, but it's more interesting for me. It keeps me from getting bored, if nothing else, and that's important to me.

Either business model works if someone has the drive, as long their end product is good and their work ethic is strong. There's lots of opportunity.

I know some people are probably more scared to dive into the custom build market than they used to be, since the fall of the great and powerful Electric Sheep Company. But the truth is ESC's current absence in the marketplace can only leave more opportunities open for others. Of course, I wasn't happy about having been laid off; none of us were. But when they announced to the press that they would no longer be seeking sub-million dollar contracts, I was like "Well, that's good news for me. I'll be happy to pick up those four and five figure contracts myself. Good luck with all your millions. I'm glad we won't be competing."




I can't pretend to know what rates are good for you and your particular situation. If what you're doing now makes you happy, that's all that's important. I would only point out that you COULD charge more than it sounds like you're charging now, and you'd still have enough business. It would just be a different class of client is all. You're right that there are more people out there with sub-RL budgets than with RL ones, of course. And if you enjoy catering to that market, that's fine. Just don't make the mistake of assuming that you wouldn't be able to compete in the RL budget market if you wanted to. I think you'd probably do fine.


Understood. That's pretty much what I was saying. If you're going to put something like Maya to good use, then it's worth every penny, and it WILL pay for itself. But if you don't think you would, then there's no reason to spend the money on it, whether it's $2000 or $2.