Scuplty madness

I made one successful sculpty by cheating, and another that came out totally disfigured. So on to my problems.....

First, I downloaded the current blender version, and for whatever reason, it was expecting python 2.5 rather than an updated version ( im on windows )
After I resolved that problem it was appearent I would have to learn yet another 3d interface ( GASP! ) but have done well to this point. I did an online search and came up with this.....
http://www.secondlifeartist.com/
which I found quite useful.But...
a couple things seemed a little off, yet was able to find the created sculpty map. I went to save as, and the thing would not save .
I did a slight workaround by copying the screen and pasting to photoshop. and my first project went well ( well enough I suppose )

Ok, now my head was spinning and was ready to tackle blender again.
I created what I thought was a pretty simple columb(?) kind of like something in our good ol' us Penny. I moved the points around, but did no add any verticles, or lines, cuts, or whatever all else was possible in blender. or with sculpties in paticular. Burned my map, and of course, it again failed to save it. "No problem" I thought as I did the photoshop manuver again. Uploaded this proud collumb of mine and looked at the results.
And looked at the results....
and looked at the results...... wtf its a minature mountain!
So, what may I have been doing wrong, and how can I correct these problems?

I would start with investigating why you can not save the sculptmap.

I am almost sure, that after you hit the "save as" button you have entered a name for your sculptie-map and then you hit the RETURN key only once. That's not enough. Either hit it again, or click on the "save image" button at the top right after you entered your image name. Then you definitely should find the image on your hard disk ...

Concerning your initial problems about python, that should not have been a problem at all. blender comes along with a sufficient python version. in general you do not need to install python, but having it installed separately does not harm either

Concerning your weird results with your fotoshop-workaround, i suspect, you have shifted the pixels during your transfer... No idea, what could have gone wrong here.
But as soon as you found out how to store your sculptmap to disk, you should not have such problems any more.

A little tip... ermmm... maybe look at http://blog.machinimatrix.org if you like video tutorials i think, we explain pretty much how you can survive with blender and sculpted prims...

have fun
gaia

Thanks for the quik reply. ( at the moment I am not on my own computer )
The console window does give me an error when I make the attempt to save it. I believe it stated something about permissions.

Also regarding Python. I was unable to load scripts without it, though yeah I suspect that I should be able to run without scripts ( just found another tutorial on scripties that is much more informative )
http://amandalevitsky.googlepages.com/sculptedprims

Photoshops compression as far as jepgs arent bad at all. However TGA I know nothing about, only that there are 3 options 16 32 and believe 64bit ( though without my computer I cant even say if thats correct )

Hopefully I'll figure out the problem with saving it in blender.

Interestingly many people end up in Amanda's tutorial after they tried the Domino scripts. I wonder, why this is so Amanda's approach is not easier in the long term. But maybe people feel more confident with it ? It also does not take care about the biggest problem i see with sculpties... the LOD handling. And this is clearly something, that goes very well with Dominos scripts...

Any way you go, good luck to you !
Gaia

And this is likely the key... Take a look at the folder you are trying to save in. Most probably it is the blender program folder (c:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender) and blender won't save to that folder. If you create a folder in your User folder then all will be well.

Gaia, due to modesty and in an effort to avoid self-promotion, only gave you the gentlest hint of where to find exactly the place to look for info that will get you started using blender for making SecondLife sculpties. Let me say what she should have been able to say: If you want to use blender to make sculpties your very first stop should be http://blog.machinimatrix.org/. Seriously, it is the best, most up-to-date, clearest, simplest, most comprehensive set of tutorials you will find on this subject at this time.

Thanks again guys, I just got on so will check out that other site, and also attempt to save in a different location