blender tutorials (text and video) for sculpties and more ...

2.46 is so stable it should be officially released next week. I've been using it since before it became a release candidate. When it is released then I'll be updating the scripts to use more 2.46 features, Python scripts can now set undo points

Did we ever get a definite answer to this problem? I looked over the Hot Keys list at

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Hot_Keys

Nowhere in this list is it stated that Page up/Page Down effects deformation the way as described in the tutorial.

If the correction for this has been covered I apologize (you know how threads get buried) but I'm sure some people would like to know why ( or how) PgUp/PgDwn is a viable hot key for editing in blender. On a side note, I'm finding that I have more control personally using the translate handles in conjunction with the shift key along any given axis.

I'm very accustomed to path editing and point by point manipulation if need be, but this drives some people insane to go to those lengths.

The page up / page down is when you are in proportional edit mode and after you have grabbed the vertices with z key. You should see a circle which is the proportional edit range, page up and page down will alter the size of this circle. You can also use the mouse wheel to do this.

thanks for the clarification on this Domino

Hi;

We proudly announce our next tutorial about sculpties covering LOD.
I have used a simple cube to show what can go wrong and how to make it right.

We appreciate any feedback and advice as susual.

Have fun

I have a quick question about the scripts in the tutorial.

I've played around with Blender for a few years, and am able to use it to make simple geometries that I export out to .obj and use for programs like Poser.

Last year I attempted to make a scultped prim using Blender, following a tutorial I found. According the tutorial, I needed to start with a shape like a cylander of precisely the correct amount of vertices, and then stretch that into the desired shape.

Creating an object starting from a specific shape with a specific number of vertices was too much trouble; I created one sculpted prim and decided it was too much work.

I have hoped that someone would develop some sort of plug in that would let me turn any shape I create in Blender into a sculpted prim, despite the number of vertices in it or the shape with which I start.

Glancing through the tutorials linked in this thread, it appears the scripts use will create maps for sculpted prims despite whatever shape I start with for the object in Blender, or the number of vertices it has.

Am I right on that- that using these scripts with Blender, I can create a sculpted prim despite what shapes I start with or the number or vertices I use (converting whatever vertices I have in Blender to the standard number of vertices for a sculpted prim)?

If that's the case, then I'd like to take a second shot at creating sculpted prims using Blender, and download the scripts and work with them.

In principle, you can create a sculpted prim out of any mesh, that fits the correct topology. I mean, everything, that can be mapped to a sphere, or a torus can be converted to a sculpted prim. I did not yet look very close to the process of creating an UV
map by hand. I fact Domino's script does create the uv-maps for spheres, cylinders, planes, torus and a couple of other symmetric geometrical objects automatically, so all you need to do, is select a sculpt mesh, sculpt it to your needs, bake the sculpt-map and then store the sculptie to your hard disk.
Domino has described some ways to make UV maps by hand. I doo not know, if it is an easy process. You better look at the following thread for more information:
/8/60/203571/1.html

I hope, that helps you a bit.

No, but . . . I think I'm having trouble following just because my understanding of sculpties in general is spotty.

I decided that I would download the scripts, read the documentation, and complete the tutorials. That's the only way I'm going to figure out if the scripts make it easy enough that I want to work on making sculpties. I can probably figure out better questions to ask if I just go ahead and try the scripts and tutorials.

Hi;

We just have released a new tutorial about high precision sculpting.
I have developed a basic workflow (or better said "a cookbook-approach"
for exact building with blender.

Here is the link:

The Arch Example (precision sculpties with blender)
http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2008/06/16/the-arch-example/

Have fun and ...please... give us some feedback for improvement

Gaia Clary, I hope to see your texture bake tutorial soon. The previous one with the hard hat I can get to work. But with 2.46 out I run into problems with other sculpties I try to texture.

I get a no image found error often and have not been able to eliminate it and bake a texture for use use in SL.

I also have a problem with UVMaps dis appearing after I save a blend file...

Your last two tutorials have been a nice step up from the first two. You are getting better.

I saw someone linked to you tutorials over at BlenderArtists.org. You guys will be (or are) famious.

In blender 2.46 something has changed, that sometimes results in the error you describe.
From our own investigations on blender-2.46 i can tell you, that your problems most probably disappear, when you bake the textures in "object mode". Right after you baked them, you will find the images in the UV-editor exactly where we have shown in our texture tutorial. And yes, the images disappear, except you have "packed" them: In the UV-image editor look right to the image selector box (at the bottom of the window) There you see a small icon, which shows a "wrapped packet". If you click on that one, the UV-textures should keep in the blend file. Thats at least what i guess from the descriptions. But to be honest, i always export my textures to file and keep them separated from blender for some reason. Maybe i just got customized to this workflow, i never thought about it until now

Nice to hear that Yes, i guess, we get better with understanding the tools. Meanwhile we also know much more about the video editor, so we can do more advanced things there too.

And to answer your question about a new texturing tutorial. Yes, i started something today. I want to make a tutorial about how to texturize an item with more than one source image. We will try to understand, how we can make a multi layer texturing. I am almost sure, that blender is a strong tool for such sort of work, but it looks like we need to dig even deeper into this theme. So more fun to come ... and many more questions to be asked and answered beforehand

Thanks for the response.

I did not describe one of the problems very well. I know about packing the images into the blend file. That is not the problem.

When I unwrap a uvmap it is the uv layout that is gone when I reopen the blend file. At that point I can no longer bake because of the 'no image' error.

I can unwrap, I just can't get it back to a rectangular layout that can be laid over the sculpty. The process of Unwrap - Project from View (bounds) gives me a layout I expect. Change UV to Quads Constrained Rectangular, G and Enter to force recalc and I have a mess of rectangles scattered all over... nothing even close to a checkerboard. Quads are various from a 0 width or height to 50% of image. Another Unwrap using Follow Active (Quads) does nothing... It used to give me grid (sometimes badly warped but useable).

Making a new image does not help bake. Resetting UV layout/unwrap does not solve the unwrap problem.

When you your new tutorial is out I might figure this out. So, I am looking forward to it.

Also, on the Blender forums there seems to be a known problem with the Save UV Faces Layout script. I've run into that one too, but it is intermittent.

continuing my questino here in response to your reply here:




I did "save UV face layout" while I saw the correct layout image. As you saw in the before picture that was exactly what I saw when I called the script. I did see the weird name it was "blade_cylinder.tga".

As you see in before, I see the layout I want, but in the after pic I see just a nomral grid layout in photoshop when I open up the exported tga file.

To go further, when I call the "save UV face layout" script these are the options selected:
Size: 512, Wire: 1, Wrap enabled, All Faces enabled, Object enabled, and Fill SVG faces enabled. SVG and Edit are not enabled, this is what came up as default.

hrmmmm I don't understand what I did differently but I went through the tutorial like I did before and it came out fine now. I went through the exact same process as I did before (the process described in the tutorial) and it worked this time.

Thanks, I do wonder how I got the grid before instead of the sword layout.

Thanks for the time and effort on te tutorial

Derin, Don't worry Things like that seem to happen very often. Maybe it is the complexity of the system, where small initial differences sum up to massive deviations from the expected... Maybe you have unintentionally deleted one of the UV-maps behind the scenes, who knows. Anyways, congrats, that you got through the process now

And good luck for your further investigations!

I am glad you resolved this issue. Would you mind letting me know if you can consistantly have the texture map come out in photoshop, because I have the same issue as you did. I follow the machinamatrix video to the tee, but just get the grid in photoshop. Argg, I guess I will keep playing around with it

hmmm...
I tried several times now, but i never run into this problem. If i could reproduce it, i could give some help, but for me it runs as smooth as ever on blender 2.46 and windows-xp ...
Maybe something very obvious is going wrong, but we just dont see it ...
maybe you can attach the missbehaving .blend file to this thread, so i (or someone with more skills) can take a look at it ?

There is a post and video of the problem somewhere... Harry(something) documented the problem very well and shows trying several times to save the Faces Layout for use in PS using Blender 2.46. He thought it was a Blender bug thus the documentation.

In his case, it was a matter of mixed version scripts. When he cleaned up the Blender install his problem went away. BUT his problem as doc'd was consistant. Only a first faces layout was saved correctly (matched what he saw). No matter how he changed the UV faces layout the Save Faces Layout script always gave him the first saved layout.

I my case that problem is intermittant (Vista). Also, some failures result in a scrambled layout image being saved to TGA file. I have two Blenders (an old and a new) installed but use only 2.46 now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In the times that it does not, I use a screen capture, trim the image to the edges, and then size it to the correct image size in PS. It gets me by. I may remove both installs and reinstall just 2.46 to see if that helps.

Can it be, that this is a matter of different python integrations ?
Maybe it works, when you have installed the full python package... But that would not explain, why it sometimes works and sometimes not (on the same machine)...

I am a bit concerned ... If it is really a blender bug, it should have already been reported on the blender site. but there i could not find anything...

Hi;

I just have released a rework of the surface texturing video-tutorial. We have used blender 2.46 and added a few more hints and background informations. The spoken text is also available in textual form. See the video and text

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2008/05/12/blender-surface-textures/

We hope, that we could improve the quality at least a bit.

Hi;

We now have recreated all older tutorials, adding some enhancements and most important, updated all videos to use blender 2.46

Please let us know your opinion about the videos. Especially if you find something weird/broken/uggly/inconvenient/... Your remarks will help us to improve.

Thank you so far for your attention.

Have fun

I just watched you revised texture map video. Much nicer. The audio is getting better.

After I click the the Occlude Geomoetry button B and LMB no longer work to select. I plan to reinstall Blender this weekend and see if it is an install or a Vista problem.

I watched your video on texturing the sculpted model this weekend too. Thanks loads!

I found one bit confusing: when you tell us, near the end, to create a new texture, make it an Image type, load the texture we've painted, then go to the Edit panel... you tell us to go to Map Input, and click UV, and then "type in the name of the texture". I was confused, and kept typing in the name of my PNG file, that I loaded. It took me a while to realize you meant the *texture-thingy that was created, and named, within blender*, called "surface-texture".

I had to zoom in on the video to notice that little detail. It might help, if you make any other changes, to clarify this by saying more about "surface-texture", reminding us that this is not the name of the actual image file we loaded. Instead, it's the name of the UV texture we created in the very first step.

About the problem Nalates Urriah described: I think you might want to ask the author of these brilliant Python scripts, Domino Marama, about that.

I also just now noticed, when checking the spelling of Domino's name, that Domino has just uploaded a new version of the scripts today.

@Welleran Kanto: Thanks for your hint about the confusing spot! Your proposal sounds very good and i will take care of this in the next update of the videos.
Since Domino has released a new version of the scripts, parts of the video are no longer matching the current behaviour of the scripts . And i just found a real "bug" in the videos. So we will have to update the videos anyways within the next few days.

@Nalates Uriah: Have you been able to track down your problem with "b" and the left mouse button no longer working ? Can you tell a workaround ?

im sorry, i dont want to be a dick, you did do a very nice job on the videos and your efforts DO show

but i started watching the first one (The Arch Example (precision sculpties with blender) last night and i couldn't finish it

i got to almost 30% into it and ...

x) the horrible synthesized voice made it a chore to keep along

x) even by 30% you hadn't even gotten to a blender screen

x) i know how to make a SL arch, thats not why i was watching the video

x) and when the new age "lets pan around standard SL prims" music video started i had already lost interest and patience

im a meat n potatoes kind of guy, when i see a "blender" tutorial i sort to expect it to jump into the source material pretty quick and get on with the point