3D Modeling limitations

Greetings and Salutations to all,

I am a newcomer developer to SL. I am quite well versed in 3D packages like zBrush 2, 3D Studio Max, Luxology Modo etc.. I saw quite a few objects in the world which I figured were imported 3D Meshes. Yet searching through the forums and such I have yet to find a reference to how or what format a 3D mesh could be used in. It actually seems as tho all of the actual modeling is done directly in game.. is this true? Are the in game Prims the only way to build objects here? If so my compliments to those whom have built such marvelous things in such a way.

I was however hoping to be able to sit down in zBrush and produce some things to make one drool. hihi ^_^ anyway.. any tips for a first time developer in terms of this world would be appreciated. It would seem that it accepts OBJ format.. is that true? If so does it also support 3ds? How would I go about uploading these new objects to SL also what poly limits etc should be used if this is the case..

I am good at texture mapping having actually taught 3D / 2D art classes in South Florida. Photoshop was my first love.

I am very proficient in animation and Poser is cake to use compared to my usual Character Studio. I do have a newer version of Poser.. Poser 5. Anything I need to know about conversions to the older format or is it still using the standard bvh 2?

Also about audio. I am a musician. I have 5 albums completed in the electronic category ranging from ambient/atmospheric to 180bpm jungle and drum n bass. I would be happy to write or sell rights to songs either general or exclusive to those who would like to add a bit more personalization to their creations. I can produce high quality sound effects such as weapons, machines, odd things. Female voice or Male special apon request for custom additions to animations. Anyway, thanks to all and see you in our Second Life.

Every object you see in SL is created with prims. There is an open source script that allows you to import .OBJ files to SL; howerver, every polygon of the object you're importing counts as one prim. The importer is so prim heavy that i'm not linking to the script.

It's Jeffrey Gomez's obj importer. It's useful when the thing you're importing will be very very large - then you have no choice about using lots of prims to make it, due to the 10m maximum size limitation. I wouldn't use it for something smaller though.

Here's a great thread on the subject, complete with examples of what can be done in professional modelling apps, versus what can be done using SL's simple prims.

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I'd be interested in seeing the models you're referring to. I'd be willing to bet they weren't brought in using my script, but are instead just builds using prims or other tools like Cadroe's Ringmaker or Xylor's (unreleased) Shapemaker.


Rafe and Seifert both have a point, though. Second Life does not support imports. At all. The only solution that does is a script I wrote, and happens to be such a kludge on the system that it's not typically viable for projects.

Really, I'd hoped the script would pave the way to Linden support of the feature on some level. And it hasn't.

Can you post a link to that script? I have the ability to do low poly modeling.. Ie.. I can make something that looks very complex using very few polys.. ie low prim count. I think you will appreciate what comes as a result. And thank you very much for making such a script. I know the proggies I use do support that file format which makes it good as gold to me. Thank you all for the replies. I have experience making things i Activeworlds back in the day... oh like what 8-10 years ago.. *feels dated* anyway ^_^ thankies!

Here:
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