How to create this prim?

Hello!

I have bought a sword which is really nice. But I want to create my own original one. So I took a look at the bought one to see the basics. The blade of the whole sword itself is created with two prims, the blade itself and the sharpens.

Now I tried to create a similar prim for the blade, but I didn't get nearly to something that looks like the prim I want.

So I'm asking if someone could tell me how to create such a specific prim. Look at that picture http://home.arcor.de/wilkyway/prim.JPG .

(1.) is the sideview of the prim. It has five sides. I got something similar with cheating a bit with hollowing and path cutting. What I got had that five sides, but wasn't nearly simetrical.

(2.) From the bottom view it looks like a trapezoid. At my cheated prim I couldn't use the taper edit function as the wrong sides got edited.

(3.) Finaly the object is slightly curved. I don't have any idea how to curve something as I don't found any option for.

So how was that prim I saw created? Someone knows? Are there third party tools that could edit prims in another way then we can in second life itself? Are there some special editing tools?

Hope someone could help me.

Curious. Maybe something with prisms, rings or tori with certain cuts, hollows, profile cuts etc?

I'm having a little trouble following your diagram, Manne, but does this look something like the shape you're looking for?

Thanks for reply. I'm not 100% sure, but for the basics the prim on your image looks like what I'm looking for. At least if it is able to adjust it some more. Would be great if you could tell me which prim that is and what parameters you have used so I could experiment with.

I made a better image either. I don't know if it is still usefull. But here you see what I'm exactly looking for.

Well, Manne, I am pleased that you like the sword

I have to admit that I will be terribly disappointed if someone just tells you how to make that shape, however. That took me a great deal of time to discover, during which I learned a tremendous amount about how SL's building tools work, and I would be pretty offended if someone only a week in SL was simply handed the information without going through a similar process.


But let me ask you some questions : Have you been to the Ivory Tower? What kinds of things have you built so far? What kinds of things do you want to build, and why? I do enjoy helping people to learn, and would probably be willing to give hints and tips, etc. I just dont want to give away information that I feel should be learned firsthand.

That is correct. Profile cut is an important part of it, though hollow is not.

Ah, I was close, that was going to be my next guess. It's a cut elliptical tube with a profile cut.

To give you an idea of how to built it, create a tube. Stretch it out so that it's elliptical rather than circular.

Change the Path Cut values. Notice that with an ellipse, the cut ends aren't always square to the inner and outer arcs, because they always intersect the center of the ellipse. Adjust these to control the "curvature" of the blade.

Now change the Profile Cut values. The "cutting edge" of the sword is at the center point of the rectangular cross section, formed by the faces of the profile cut. Adjust these values to control how sharp or blunt the edge is.

Change the Hole Size Y value to adjust the "width" of the blade, and the X scale and/or Hole Size X values to adjust the "thickness" of the blade. (Hole size is a misnomer, it's actually cross-section size, as a percentage of overall X and Y scale)

Thank you very much Deanna. I think with that informations I could experiment with.

And Robby, saying that I like your sword are the wrong words. I think it is truely a masterpiece! I realy like katanas in RL and also now some shinkendo which is about fighting with katanas. For that reason I'm so interested in creating such and I don't really know what else I should create.

I worked three days on my first three prim katana with a simple selfmade alpha texture for the blade. For my first work it looked relative good and I was a bit proud of it. Then I randomly saw your swords on a shopping tour. I saw it and thought "WTF, over 130 prims!?". I didn't wanted to buy it at first cause that 800 bucks was much money for me. But I was so curiously about and bought it, and it is worth each cent. But as much as I like it I would like to have my own individualy selfmade sword. Till that (if ever) I wear yours with proud.

Well, I could understand that you would be disappointed when a newbie like me would be able to make a similar sword in notime. But it is not that I just want to copy or modify your sword or want someone that will do the whole work for me. I have much respect of your work. It has inspired me to learn anything to be able to make my own sword with similar quality. I don't even think I would be a a great competitor for you as my current plan is to create a simple but high quality katana and scabbard with just a simple script to draw and holster.

Maybe it is a hard project for a newbie. I don't have the patience to create things that I don't have a need for. I'm more a practical one. But when I have a goal I have the patience for spending enought time with reading tutorials and experiment with the given tools.

To answer your questions .. yes, I was in the ivory tower and learned some basics. I didn't created much things in my short time in sl. Three trys on different katanas while the third one got finished. Some t-shirts and other clothings for testing alpha textures. But most time I spend on just experimenting with the prims, how to link/dock them together and what the parameters effect and how textures could be aligned. What I want to create and why is answered above. I would be pleased if I could get some tips and hints from you from time to time. For now I think I have enough to do with forming the blade, aligning the textures probably and adding the shape to the blade. I wondering how thinks will work.

Hard projects are the most rewarding, aren't they? And having the result be something that you are not only proud of but is itself somethat that you would like to own are great motivations for learning to build.

I dropped a couple items on you in-game that, while not exactly the perfect shape you want, are pretty similar and will allow you to tweak the numbers (they are mod-enabled) to see the different effects.