If only....

I can't make heads or tails out of creating anything using Sculpties....

It'd be nice to replace my current avatar with something that uses less prims by turning it into a Sculpty.....



If I knew how that is, I'm clueless how to work with these 3D programs, other then to make a box, or boxlike object, making anything organic seems beyond my abilities....



That's me using G-max right there, it's the only one I've made anything with, these other programs seem over my head, however recently I was able to make this using the Spore Creature Creator....



Now, if only there was a way to import THAT into Second Life to replace my far too many prims to be of any good to be an avatar as it slows down and lags Second Life sometimes. ( or that seems to be the case according to folks who have talked to me about it, it never slows down MY computer, but that's just me and pulling my settings way low so I can run SL in the first place on my 5 year old computer )

However the idea that LL would even use something like the SCC to make avatars is laughable at best and I'm dreaming and this will never be supported or anything....

So, I guess I'll wind up playing Spore more then playing on Second Life at all in about 2 months and a few weeks time if that's the case.

It's like I said, If only....

- W -
* Don't expect to see me on SL much in the future, if at all *

Woulfe, from your pictures, I would doubt that any 3D modeling program would be "over your head". You've obviously got a solid sense of how to position objects in 3D space on a computer screen, and that's the first major hurdle. From there, it's just a question of taking the time to learn a few more foundational things, and then to train yourself on the specifics of whatever your program of choice happens to be.

I think what's holding you back is little more than an unrealistic expectation that the learning process should be quick and painless. Patience, Grasshopper. It takes time and commitment; there's no way around that.

If you want to feel some relatively immediate hope, here's one possibility for you. Download the free Personal Learning Edition of Maya, and go through its Help tutorials (in order). Much of the information will be Maya-specific, but a lot of it will be applicable to any other 3D modeling program you'll every use.

I should caution you that PLE is useless for outputting sculpties, since it watermarks all renderings, including sculpt maps. But it's excellent for its intended purpose, learning. Spend a few weeks with it, and I think your confidence will shift the other direction. Then you'll be in a much better position to learn another 3D application, or you can, of course, continue with Maya, if you're OK with its price tag.

Oh, and by the way, resist the temptation to keep thinking "sculpties, sculpties, sculpties" while you're learning. You should just be thinking "3d modeling", nothing more, nothing less. Sculpties are too narrow, and too unique, of a subject to focus on for the level you're at now. Broaden your sights to the foundationals for the time being, and you'll naturally get to where you want to be before you know it.


You might also want to consider taking a class at your local community college or adult education center. Courses on Maya and/or 3DS Max are quite common these days.

Because sculpties have a limited number of verticies, there is a limit on how much detail you can get on a single one. You will need to break your avatar down into sections, make sculpties for each section and assemble them in SL. The good news is that you can break down your modelling work into parts. Do one sculptie for the torso, another for the paw or even a seperate sculptie for each "finger" of the claw.

I hope this helps.

And your last picture is delightful. You and sculpties were made for each other, I think. Don't give up.

Oh man, that would be pretty cool to have the spore content creator coupled with SL as an option to creating avatars. Spore developers have been talking about their very low memory used up by these creature models, it would be perfect for an online world and it would be fascinating if Linden Lab could make a deal.

Chosen Few

I would agree, if I had made my prim avatar myself, however, someone made that for me.
It cost a hefty 10K L$ for it as well, all I did was mod it to be larger then average.
That being said I will try the Learning edition of Maya.
The steep curve of learning G-max made me a bit wary of learning other 3D programs.

___________

Sylvia Trilling

My idea wasn't to turn my current avatar into one big sculpty, just to reduce the amount of prims that make it up, currently it's like 222 or so prims, in two big parts, upper body and lower body.

If sculpys can reduce it to the same basic parts a base avatar is made up of, head, torso, upper arm, lower arm, upper leg, lower leg, hand, foot, pelvis, etc, I'm sure that would be a lot better to reduce rendering time then the 200+ prims it's made of currently.

There's talk of making a Spore API from the Maxis folks.

What that means is that Spore would be more integrated into the 'net like the 'net is integrated into it, think of it as a two way street, Spore's information going to the internet, and the internet information going into Spore.

Like so.

Lets say you come across a nebula modeled after a real one, you can click on it for more info, it takes you to NASA's website, and Hubble images, and all kinds of information about the nebula in question, all this while still in game, no separate browser opening up or anything like that, it all happens on the fly.

Or you stumble across the EARTH easter egg in Spore, and it links to Google Earth....

The possibilities are endless.