How do I create the little dip in the middle of a cushion???

I've tried everything I can think of but I can't work out how to make that little dip you see in the centre of cushions, can anyone help?

I'm sure it's very simple but I'm totally new to creating things in SL and any help would be so much appreciated.

Thanks!

Try using the torus shape

I'll second the torus suggestion. Hollow a torus, and cut away the outside of it. What you'll be left with is a shape resembling the central part of an hour glass, wide at the edges, narrow in the center. You'll find that the horribly named "hole size" setting is your best friend for setting the proportions of the narrowing.

Using a hollowed cut torus, along with some cut spheres and cut cylinders can be very effective for making believably shaped cushions and pillows. Head on over to the beach house at Gabetti Island for some examples of that technique. (sorry, I don't have a picture to link at the moment)

Don't underestimate the power of texturing though. Often in SL it's far more advantageous to make a cushion out of a simple cube, and then fake the appearance of more sophisticated shaping by clever use of highlight and shadow. As human beings, we're programmed to take our notion of shape from shading, which is why when you look at your monitor or your TV screen or a photograph, you believe you're seeing a 3D world, even though it's nothing more than a flat piece of glass or paper. You can use that to your advantage fairly well with texturing. Incorporate shading that implies curvature onto a flat surface, and the viewer's brain goes "hey, that must be curved" even if it's not.

Check out the captain's chair in this picture for an example. See the round-looking cushions? They're just flat cubes, but you'd never know it thanks to the texturing.

I guess Chosen is thinking of the kind of cushion that supports your back in a big comfy chair... er no,... I dunno.

Anyhow, you should start with a whole torus if you want to make a nice soft seat cushion that dimples in the middle. But have you seen those smooth dimpled cushions that even have four corners? I did, and once I saw them, I realized how to make one.

This special shape is created by taking advantage of the ability to stretch your torus shape, twist it, and then stretch it again.
Stretch: set your Y hole-size to .50 and your X hole-size to about .64.
Twist: Take the Twist setting from one extreme to another. To get its triangles to stretch the right way (hit ctrl-shift-R to see this clearly), have it twist from 360 (Beginning) to -360 (End).
Stretch Again: Set the torus prim's X-Size to about half of it's Y- and Z-Size.

And there we have it; one way to really take advantage of the deforming potential of a prim. It may look a little funny (a bit lumpy) right from the sides, but it really looks great from above.

If you are talking about circular cushions with a dimple then it is really quite easy. Rez a torus and give it a beginning and end twist of 90 degrees. Set the hole size parameters to 1.0 and 0.5 and you are done.

How do you guys know all these amazing tricks??


Is it the result of thousands of hours or practice and experimentation, or is there some source of book knowledge.

Lee, I watch people's toes.
When there's sand between their toes, I know they spend WAY too much time in the sandboxes torturing prims.

..but I'm thankful that they do so...their amazing tricks are amazing.

If the torus trick gives you problems with the holes at either end: You can cheat them by filling them up with small stretched and flattened spheres on either side. I know you can remove them completely somehow, but just putting those spheres on either end worked much quicker, though it did cost me 2 extra prims

I like to use the dimple tool.

Make a sphere and flatten it out some in the shape of a cushion. Then use the dimple tool to flatten one side of the cushion.
Now put complimentary colors/textures on the main sphere and the dimpled surface and you got yourself a cushion.
And its less graphics intensive than a torus cushion.

Just screw around with settings a lot. Use all of them. Put weird stuff in, try things with different hollow amounts and different sizes.

i wanna buy it but i dont see a price on it. can u help me out, chosen? i d greatly appreciate it! thx

freee

Sorry Freestyle, but it's not mine to sell. It belongs to Gabetti. They hired Electric Sheep Company to build their islands, and I was assigned to do the work. Everything there belongs to them, not us, even if it's got my name on it.

As far as I know, they have no plans to sell it, although if you want the RL version, I'm sure they'll be happy to sell you one of those. I'm not totally sure where that particular unit is from (I couldn't read the text of the brochure they gave me to work from, as it was in Italian), but I think it is part of a property in the Caymans. If you get one, be sure and let me know, so I can, uh, come take a look and make sure I built it right. I'm not just gonna hang out by the pool and watch the beach babes walk by; I swear, really.


On an actual on-topic note to the thread starter, it's really interesting how much of this thread is no longer quite relevant, now that we have sculpties. Creasing a cushion can actually be done for real now. Everything that was written here still works, of course, but sculpties work way better.

oh ok. yea i figured it was sumthn like this. its all good! thx alot for respondin tho. i really appreciate it.

and back to da topic of this thread... wat are sculpties and how do u do em?

How does it work 'better'? I'm just curious... though you can get the same look using a sculpty.. what's the point? Real cushions often have that dip, as it is where their 'button' and/or seam is, its a decorative way of hiding it.. and generally looks good.

A simple squashed torus works wonderfully.. sure it's missing the button...but it can be a solid object that has essentially a true-to-life appearance, as opposed to a square block of invisibleness or a phantom cushion that looks.. infinitesimally better....

So how does it work better?

You can make other styles of cushions and whatnot, but for this purpose, the rounded cushion with the 'dip' in it... how are sculpties better?