Another offline builder?

Ias I was perusing the web last night I found this link.

It appears to be another offline builder

http://www.qarl.com/qLab/?p=18

From the MEL script:

// currently only works for simple spheres.
// perhaps you'll be the one to extend it.

The general idea it uses is identifying Maya objects that translate directly to prims, for example a sphere. It grabs some basic properties and outputs info that can be stuffed in a notecard and imported with an LSL script they provide.

* The LSL script could probably be easily adapted to import Jeffrey's data
* This isn't in the same league as Jeffrey's tool, but it's a skeleton of how one would go about doing an export script in Maya. Also useful right now if you want to bake textures across multiple spheres.

Thanks for the clarification. Plus it uses Maya, which looks to be an expensive 3d program.

Just for further clarification, Maya is expensive, yes (US $6000), so it's not exactly something for the masses, which is why Jeffrey chose to work with Blender which is free. Maya is a professional tool. However, there are a lot of Maya users in SL, and I for one have been hoping someone would come up with a MEL to LSL translator/exporter for years now. (I wish I had the scripting chops to do it myself, but that's never been my thing; I'm just a lowly modeler/artist.) This is a great start. Thanks for the link.

Also, just so you know, Maya PLE (personal learning edition) is free, and while it is severely crippled compared to the real thing, it's more than capable of doing what would be needed for SL purposes.

not exactly, MayaPLE has a lot of limited functions for import/export so it might be next to impossible. Im not sure, im more of the artist type and less of the scripter myself

I've got Maya here at school (versions 5 and 6 I can use, but version 7 is installed sans licence key), and in theory you could try and find a .torrent for it. I haven't bothered because my computer isn't up to running Maya (I have 1/3 the ram the school machines do, not to mention their 2.6Ghz AMD vs. my 3.0Ghz Intel).

Probably not a good idea to talk on this forum about installing without licenses or about pirated torents, which are illegal. That's not what we're here for.

Anyway, just so you know, Maya doesn't inherently need a stellar setup to run. Prettty much any computer made in the last 3 years or so is sufficient to run the program itself. Beyond that, it all depends on what you're doing with it. The more complex your scene, the more resources it needs.

If all you're doing is simple models like the kind that can easily translate to SL, then you can get by with a really bare bones machine. My GF's crappy HP Pavillion with 2.2GHz Celeron, 256MB RAM, and 64 MB Intel Extreme Graphics runs Maya just fine for simple scenes. I wouldn't go designing space shuttles on it or anything, and I would never use it for rendering, but for slapping a few prims together, it can certainly handle it. I would imagine your system must be better than hers, so if you can obtain a legal copy of Maya, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to use it.