Anyone on Mac using Cheetah3d for sculpties?

I have been a Mac user for over 15 years. I have a desire to make sculpties for SL and gave Blender a shot for while but it seemed like too big of a learning curve for beginners at 3d modeling. I'm aware of the scripts that you can use in Blender to export to SL. I recently discovered the 3d program Cheetah, a mac only program. What's great is it's simplified and works just like most Mac programs and has great user interface.
I have discovered that you can export out of Cheetah as .obj files and import right into Blender.
This is where my question starts.

I have installed all the Primstar scripts into Blender and they are working fine, but i noticed the only way I can get a good export as a tga uv map is if I use the command Add Sculptie Mesh. Otherwise the UV map file looks very odd and doesn't upload right. Is there a way I can add a mesh to my existing object that came from Cheetah? or is this something that is going to stop me from creating the original file in Cheetah and opening in Blender.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The main problem you are facing is that your primary program does not create the needed UV maps for you ? Although you could upload the .obj files into blender and create/correct the UV-maps manually, it is reported to be a tedious and time consuming task to get the UV map correct.

Currently Domino has done a lot in order to make this task easier, but it seems to be still a challenge. So if you want to use the primstar scripts as sculpt generator, i would still recommend to learn a bit of blender's interface and start from there.

Many people have reported that the machinimatrix-tutorials and those of Keira Wells are very good starting points for blender beginners. So i would take a look into those first before giving up on using blender for your sculpting. It is very much easier than it looks in first place and i am pretty sure it is easier to create a new mesh in blender than to create a correct UV map for an existing object... And with our videos it gets even faster to jump start

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/video-tutorials
http://www.youtube.com/user/BlenderSL

have fun
Gaia

I haven't used Cheetah3d myself, but I use zbrush which does not have a mac sculpt converter for it either.

Since you are comfortable enough in blender to Add sculpt mesh and Bake Secondlife Sculpties, what I would try (and what I have to do using zbrush) is:

Add sculpt mesh in Blender, and export that as an .obj;
import that .obj into Cheetah3d, do your sculpt/deformation work on it;
then export as .obj back to Blender and bake your sculptie map.

This method preserves the UV maps for me really well between programs, and what I make in zbrush will look just right uploaded in-world. I am hoping/guessing this method will work for you with Cheetah3d

Oh, what a nice and easy approach. Wonderfull

But, make sure you don't add mesh! The mesh orientation etc. is important! I am not sure how or what export/import types the Cheetah 3D will use but OBJ are not always OBJ's and the material you export ect. can affect it. I had an error importing obj files into Art Of Illusion.

Plus, if you have NURBS in Cheetah you might be able to import a nurbs object into blender and use the new nurbs to sculptie scripts in blender! I also wanted to use other programs. The only programs I have seen that are as easy and flexible as using Nurbs to sculpt is the AC3D program, it will let you build non sculptie compatible and then it converts them...I think. Plus there are scripts for 3Ds max and Maya that do this to, I think. You divide you build into non hole filled bits then ue the tools to get a sculpt. Projection paint on from a high poly render, viola you have complex looking thing from a blob!

Also,m blender will do projection painting and you might have luck with adding a sphere mesh in blender(after you load the object you wish to make sculpties of) and then placing it over and using the shrinkwrap modifier! It is limited though, and not a copy tool but a shrinkwrapper tool. BUT, if you divide stuff and use the precision sculpt tutorials you might be surprised!

I'm a bit confused here when you say don't add mesh. Isn't the method for creating a sculptie sphere in Blender to hit spacebar, Add>Mesh>Sculpt Mesh? If I export that as an .obj into zbrush, CS 4, Modo, etc., it works flawlessly.

I've never tried that with AOI, though, so maybe something odd is going on in that program. It also *may* not work in Cheetah3d, but it's an easy thing for the OP to try out.

Oh sorry about that, When I say "mesh" I just meant vertices, edges, faces and stuff like extruding, welding objects/other mesh's together or adding normal maps(other than for baking maybe) etc.


Also, I remember I did get one item to work from AOI, but then another didn't work. I think the one that worked I made by typing in the specs I wanted directly into AOI and making the mesh there. I never got it to work again though and only really tried a few times months after I had success. If I get i tto work again I will try to remember to post back here. Mac can use AOI, it is a cross platform java app and is sort of stable enough to work in. Sorry I can't really explain well enough, I am sort of a n00b to 3D software and kind of just work with it not knowing the myriad of definitions lol. I am, right now, looking up stuff so I can learn more lol. So maybe I can come back with a more coherent tut for AOI. I nee to download that. I used it very very little. It has a lathe function, so I had fun with that lol. But otherwise, I have no clue what you can do other than normal manipulation of mesh and extruding etc.