exporters avalible

hey everyone. Im a noobie here at SL but curretnly develop on another 3d platoform

ive been trying to find out what software is supported for exporting/importing to SL.

At the moment I use 3ds max 7 and and Google Sketchup Pro.

if anyone could help me that would be much appreciated. not sure im comfortable with the in world building and wanted to have some info before i decided where to go with it all.

thanks in advance, groovyloopylou.

Put TGA in your search and there are many threads that will give you the answers.

There are quite a few software packages but they depend on what type of designing you will be doing.

and TGA is the file format for uploading to SL.

thanks for the swift response. trying to get my head round how it works with a tga now. kinda understand it. just not what im used to. at the moment i make meshes for another site, mostly room scenes and furniture etc. some avatar animations also.

have done a quick search and will look further into over the next few days.

thanks for your time.

I think he means 3D importing. As far as I know we have no way of importing objects from out-of-world applications, except I suppose for the sculpties, which are built in 3D programs like Maya - but not in the way that the average Maya developer would be used to. Because you can only use one NURBS surface.

yes i mean exporting objects eg make say a mesh of a house n bring the whole lot in.

and btw he is a she lol

Hi there and welcome, as said we can not render imported meshes in SL, however, SL can be employed as a conveyor for mesh data. Mesh data in any text format can be pasted into a notecard and distributed for people to use in other 3d rendering programs (such as maya or Blender) [obvious bias in capital usage ther hehe]

BTW this also applies to other text style data such as gcode for CNC machines.

If this isn't up your alley, plz ignore this post. : )
best wishes, ZZ

Quick answer since no one has done it yet is no.
There isnt a straight importer because SL won't let us for various reasons. The best compromise is sculpties. There is one for 3dmax of that here somewhere.
As for sketchup, it is useless for sl.
There was some buzz about someone making an exporter that allowed the raw code to dumped on a notepad and uploaded into sl and rezzed. But that was all it was; buzz.

If you want anything you made in SL, you will have to make it a sculptie and work with obj. The importer the other poster was talking about thats the raw positioning and converts it at a huge prim cost. It was made prior to the sculptie launch.

SL is still behind in many things. This is sadly one.

hi there...another noobie here...

so basically what you saying is that all of the creations in SL world is pretty much created in prim? what would you suggest to a new developer starting in SL.
forget about other 3D applications and start prisming in SL itself?

thanks.

Yes - and do start with a class or two - just 'Search' for 'Events' (with Education in the drop-down menu) and build some basic stuff with a tutor's guidance. And although the beginners classes rarely mention it (in my experience) you MUST use the grid! I didn't really use it for ages and built some good stuff - but soooo much work without the grid. See my reply to 'noobish question' in this forum.

Don't be tempted by builders 'tools' and may the grid be with you

Cat x

To have a 3D model made outside SL, recreated in SL, you have 3 solutions :

- rebuild it by hand with prims
- use a tool to convert each polygon into a prim
- use sculpties

There are many threads about exporting/importing, just do a search.


PS : I have written a tool that allows builders to export/import all parameters of linked prims in text format - a beta version should be available in the next weeks.

You might want to look at 'prim blender' which allows you to work with SL prims in the blender interface.. haven't tried it much but some SL architects I know swear by it.

Here's an idea take it another step and combine sculpties and prim blender... oooh I'm starting to salivate again!!!

-whyroc