Noob and sculpted prims

Hi everyone,

So I am just learning to build in SL and now I hear this exciting news about sculpted prims. Since I am just learing to build, how would you suggest I proceed? I am not sure I fully understand the implications of this news. Should I go get a copy of Maya and start learning all about it? Will most people buy these new shaping textures to use in their building in world?

Any help or advice would be great. Thanks so much.

Nimue

You know the Price of Maya ?
Its Hi-End, (possibly) the best 3D Animation Package in the whole Industry.

Maya Complete : $1999
Maya Unlimited : $6999

3D MAX : $3495

Blender : free

I hope Blender will do.

ya buy that and send me a couple thousand too

AH! Dont forget!! There is also Maya PLD (Personal Learning Addition) , which is just as useful as the full version. I used it alot for exporting maps & models for UnReal Tournament 2004/Postal 2. Best of all..... It's free!!

Just dont expect an easy learning curve!

...Except that all of the bitmaps it generates (including these maps) have that watermark across them, making it essentially useless for this purpose.

The expectation for users to have Maya isn't really that far-fetched... LL already expects its users to just throw around thousands of dollars for a flat textured plane, so what's another few grand for some polygons? We'll still have to pay to upload those textures, too.

Seriously though, just wait for the Blender exporter, or the in-world tools (in-world will probably be best, you can get a real-time idea of how LOD will affect your mesh).

First off, in reference to the personal learning edition of Maya, its most likely not going to be usable for this as it does indeed watermark output and limit output options.

As for using blender with this, even with an exporter i have my doubts. Blender's object sculpting tools in comparrison to Maya's is akin to comparing MS Paint to Photoshop.

I would suggest to anyone serious about staying on the forefront of asset creation in SL to start learning Maya and/or pixelogic Z-Brush, and be prepared for a nosebleed inducing learning curve.

As for the implication of these, due to their annouced abilities/limitations heres a predictive list of what they will be good at/for:

Vehicles with complex curved surfaces (sports cars especially)
Anything organic, furry avs, cartoony stuff
Anything molded plastic/subtle detail

What it will not to well:
Anything with creased edges/corners (due to 32x32 point tessalation)
Anything largely rectanlinear

So basically, for certain sectors of SL building, this is going to severly raise the bar for possible quality of asset while dropping prim counts. This is however, going to take some used to. Once this option hits the grid, I'll be writing an in depth tutorial on using it both on the SL side and the Maya side.

Have a nice day

We are all noobs when it comes to scupted prims. My advise: learn to build using the regular prims first. Get a feel for building. Start with sculpted prims when you have mastered regular prim building and start getting annoyed at the limitations.

Tis the internet, all you can eat for the price of a connection

Seriously though, don't rush off to throw money away just yet. Wait at least until it's more than just an announcement and a video.

If I remember correctly, it only watermarks the output of rendered images, not file exportation.

Maya 8.5 PLE has the core features of the commercial (and educational) version of Maya 8.5 Complete. Unless the exportation MEL script Linden Labs has offered to the public does not work on Maya PLE because of a function lock or the script makes use of Maya's renderer before exporting, then it wouldn't be usable.

Barring those 2 situations, Maya PLE should be able to export the 64 pixel by 64 pixel RGB file needed for the sculted prims.

You can get educational versions (identical to commercial versions w/ different terms of use licenses) of Maya 8.5 Complete for about $290 and Maya 8.5 Unlimited for $380 at websites/stores such as Studica or JourneyEd... provided you have proof you're currently a high school student, undergrad/grad student or a teacher/instructor of aforementioned students.

Now a word from MC Double Def DP, "Don't Copy That Floppy!"

Someone moved it to youtube at last

Welcome to the end of the computer age.
http://nwn.bioware.com/

Rather than resorting to piracy though, I'd just recommend blender for anyone without a few thousand bucks lying around.

You don't have to work in Blender...

There are loads of other free options (many of which have better sculpting tools) that can export 3D models in formats that Blender can import. You only need Blender to import the model and export the map, I'd imagine.

Any chance of a small list of those other free options?
I don't spend any time in 3D modelling (other than ocassionaly messing around), but it could be useful to make a start.

I tried out the mel export script in Maya 5.0 PLE. The maps came out watermarked.

Looks like Autodesk covered their bases and watermarked every function that created a bitmap.

If you're skills are up to par, you can touch up that watermark in Photoshop and make it look like it was never there .

Another work around is to create a number of those baked textures in Maya PLE with different UV offsets. That way, you can lay the non-watermarked parts in the other textures over the watermarked parts of the main texture. This technique sorta lies in the gray area in the terms of use license agreement, so don't use it for commercial purposes .

Hi:
Art of Illusion:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/aoi/
has one file format in common with Blender, is free, platform independent (will run on most any OS with Java) and has good tutorials and info available on the Internet to learn to use it. I've been trying to learn 3D but haven't been able to get into it, despite a background in 2D design. Until Art of Illusion. I have found personally, that the interface is easier to use than other 3D programs that I've tried.
Shaman Till

Another really nice Program is Wings3D , a subdivision modeler.
look at this Animated GIF for a Clue how it works.
I have no Idea if it will help with the Sculpting Work for SL, but its always good
to know the finest free Software

maya unlimited educational is so much cheaper if you have to right credentials for it. It is $350-$400.

Blender is great for polygonal modeling and for beginners, but the interface can be quite daunting at first.

Does this mean it wont handle something like this?



This took like 2 minutes to make in Wings, exactly 32 vertices's.

I would continue learning how to build the "old" prims until the bugs are gone from the new ones

someone had better do one for Poser or Daz3D, seeing how many people already have these for animating, it would seem a good choice.

For anyone jumping into Blender (watch out for the blades) here is a good tutorial for working with NURBS. http://www.blendernation.com/tutorials/blender-3d-beginner-tutorial-dolphin/

I keep seeing info that there is already and exporter for blender made. Does anyone have a link to it? I would like to work on stuff on the beta grid when they release this stuff onto it..

I'm sorry if someone brought this up, but I'm curious about Photoshop CS3 Extended. It supposedly has 3d capabilities. Do you think this could be useful for the sculpted prims?