How to make sculpties better???

I don't know what direction to go in - I have been trying to make a sculpty with Blender for 3 months now. I spent a long time getting my object very detailed and highly realistic.

I made a tree, but when I got it into SL, it was nowhere as detailed as what it was in blender...... SL made it look rough and lumpy!

Where can I find better tutorials or classes to learn how to do this properly?

The SL wiki is very simple and leaves me with more questions than answers....

How is it possible to get Obj files into SL or even into Blender?? Python scripts do not work.

How do people turn existing 3D objects into sculpties?

What is Zbrush?

Second life sculpt object has several "stitching" options - do these even work?
I have tried different unwrap options in Blender, but these do not translate to SL, seems only the cylinder stitch will work.

If you create an object in blender with high detail, you will most probably end up with a huge mesh of many thousands of vertices. This is good for animation and still photos created with the 3D tool itself, but it is bad for an online game engine like SL where mesh sizes do matter a lot. For instance a sculptie is limitted to 1024 faces (33*33 vertices at maximum, correct number depends on the mesh type) So you end up with a MUCH rougher end result however you do the transformation from your 3D model to sculpted prim.


From your question i conclude that you did not look at the Primstar tool? So here it is:

primstar page: http://www.dominodesigns.info/
download page: http://www.dominodesigns.info/sites/default/files/primstar_1.0.0.zip

This tool is priceless. I think it is one of the master pieces in fine programming and most blender users here in SL use it or at least know about it (There is nothing comparable out on the market for blender!) Concerning tutorials, Here you go:

blenderSL on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/BlenderSL
my own tutorials: http://blog.machinimatrix.org/video-tutorials/
There are countless more, but those above should be good for starting.

You can not convert arbitrary objects easily into sculptie-compatible meshes. The best you can get for blender is hidden in the primstar tool (if you have it installed: object->scripts->sculptify objects) But this does not work sufficiently well for many objects. However it often will give you a reasonable starting point, but you will need manual fine modelling... The easiest option however seems to be: load the 3D-modell as a template and recreate your sculptie from scratch. Also note, that the most part of the magic to turn a sculptie into something stunning is the texture! If you do not know how to make a texture, you have a hard time to get nice looking sculpties! Just coloring them within SL and using standard textures simply is not enough.

ZBrush is another tool which you can use for making sculpties. It comes with excellent texturing tools. The modelling-tools seem to be good, but if you have blender and know how to modell with it, there is no reason to switch. I started with ZBrush myself, but while i was a complete noob at that time, zbrush gave me much of thinking and i never managed to create a sculptie with it. I turned to blender mainly because of the price and i was curious enough to get over the initial complexity of the user interface.

Here is an excellent tutorial for ZBrush: http://www.shiny-life.com/2008/02/12/video-creating-sculpted-prims-with-zbrush-3/

But after all i do not regret my decision to go with blender. It is just feature compatible with the most expensive tools on the market (Maya for example). Chosen Few writes constantly that Maya comes with the most comprehensive and most user friendly user manuals. That sounds good for beginners and for sure it is one of the best tools out there on the market...

Yes, absolutely. Depending on what "start shape" you use, you must use the corresponding stitching type. Otherwise you see artefacts.


Use primstar. It does all that for you in a snap. After you started using it for a couple of hours, you won't want to miss it again

knowing where your lod points are helps... there's a key for the texture somewhere on the forum (and maybe a link to an offsite copy) it shows were the different lod points are, which can help you make sculpts that degrade more gracefully with lod

Oh, Please... Please!!! PLEASE!!! Link me to that when it's found. (O_O)

primstar generates the LOD map by default when you create a new sculptie. If you want to regenerate the map:

1.) go to edit mode
2.) in the UV image editor: image -> Bake sculptie LOD

The LOD-map contains blue dots. The brighter the blue are the LOD-1 vertices, the less bright dots are the LOD-2 vertices. All other vertices are for LOD-3. Use the map in texture mode to see which vertices correspond to which LOD.
BTW the map disappears upon the next bake by default.

after a bit of searching...

sculpty LOD and alignment texture

good for more than just LOD it also helps you align other prim textures to the sculpted part.

and the prim alignment texture


why those don't exist in the stickies somewhere I don't know

Thanks for all this massive detail - but I still don't understand what Primstar is, is it a separate program? Why do you mention baking it in blender - I am not able to import anything into Blender.... I don't understand why some of the sculpties I have seen in SL are completely detailed and sharp, when there are vert icy limits.

I have no clue what LOD is.
Yes there are many tutorials that do not make sense, and assume that you have a computer science master’s doctorate!

Where can I find simple to understand language about this....?

I made an L-shaped wall with a window, and a nice texture to fit it properly, but you cannot walk into the corner, SL creates a circle limit, and you just keep banging into it!

I made a chair, rather crude, but you are not able to sit on it, the avatar sits in the air above it.

People make high detailed 1 prim chairs, that are extremely detailed looking and functional - how is that possible???!!!

The latest version of Blender does not have a UV image editor.

I cannot get the SL different stitching options to work - I have made a simple box, using the box unwrap, but SL is not able to stitch these together.

I don't know how people learnt how do this in the first place; you are all gifted technical people that were born knowing!

I am a creative visual artist - that cannot find any way of getting my ideas into SL!!!

Primstar is a scripting "plugin" for Blender. Read the manual on the website for more details. (^_^)LOD = Level of Detail. It's a simple algorithm used to lower the polygon count of an object when it's further away and in a situation where such detail may be unreasonable. (^_^)I'm a 10th grade drop out. =^-^=Google goes a long way. Look for the BlenderSL tutorials on Youtube and read the existing forum posts slowly and carefully. Most of what you're asking for is already there if you don't skim past it. (^_^)It's best to never consider a sculpt to be a physical object in SL. The bounding is never correct. Set your sculpts to phantom and use invisible prims if you need to define their shape for physical use. (^_^)IM me inworld and ask for the SitTarget setter tool. It's best to never consider a sculpt to be a physical object in SL. Relocating the sit position via scripts will solve this problem instantly. (^_^)Scripting magic. (^_^)It's all right there under your nose if you just take a deep breath and pay attention to the details of what you're being told. If you need audo/visual instruction, look for the BlenderSL tutorials on Youtube. Otherwise, a little Google goes a long way. (^_^)y

edit: I just realised that you have asked for help on the machinimatrix blog too. I will also answer there

I am a bit confused. How did you manage to create sculpties with blender (even lumpy ones) witout script-support ? Yes you can do that, but if you are able to do THAT, then you are good! But Domino's scripts have made sculpty making with blender a snap. Furthermore the blenderSL tutorials and the machinimatrix tutorials too try to explain sculpty making with blender as easy as possible. We have taken care to introduce every tiny little piece of the cake with as much simplicity as possible. Many people gave their feedback about how easy it became for them after they have watched those videos...

BTW if you have trouble to understand primstar and its relation to blender and python, then i can understand that. It is a bit painfull to get those 3 tools to work together if you are a computer newbie and have no idea how to install programs or just do not know if everything fits together or not...

So if you want to do a jump start without bothering with python and primstar, you still can use JASS. JASS is a ready made binary distribution which contains everything you need to start. It is blender and it has the needed add on scripts already installed with it. We still distribute the JASS-1.4 release (which you also can find on the machinimatrix blog at http://blog.machinimatrix.org/jass/ ) Right now it has become a bit outdated but it still serves its purpose. At least it helps you to jump start.

But take one remark seriously: If you want to create highest quality sculpties, then you will need to understand at least the very basics of how sculpties work, what LOD is and how to create textures for your artwork. And you will need a bit of time and practicing too...

The latest version of Blender (2.5 Alpha 0) is a testing release and not ready for productive use. The download page clearly states that there are features missing and lots of bugs to be expected. The latest _stable_ release is version 2.49b.


No. All these things are documented, in the SL wiki, in Blender's user manual, in video tutorials, in the blogs of content creators who spent some time to write it down for you. All you need to do is read and watch and practice.


Art is 1% inspiration and 99% transpiration. If inspiration alone was sufficient, everyone would be an artist and the market value of art would be zero.

Relevant to sculpts, I searched the forums for this and did not find it. I'm sharing where I can. The following is to CHANGE LOD DISTANCE. It doesn't hurt performance at all, and (finally!) makes sculpts look better from farther distances.

1. Show the “Advanced” menu with Ctrl-Alt-D, or Opt-Ctrl-D on a Mac.
2. Select “debug settings” near the bottom.
3. In the blank space, copy and paste the word:

RenderVolumeLODFactor

4. Default (crappy) appearance is 1.25. I recommend 4.0.

Ref page:
http://rehula.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/sculpt-users-addict-tip-about-lod-sculpted-prim/

Ref image (save, share!):
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a194/Silverdark/screens/sl_lod_debug_fix.jpg