Daz Studio - sculpty?

Has anybody tried this program yet? http://www.daz3d.com/

As I am just a beginner at ANYTHING 3D, so I have noooo clue if this would even work for sculptys. I'm assuming one would have to write an exporter, or export into Wings/Blender, then out from there. But my main question is, what about textures? Or are they called texture maps? You know, the textures that go OVER the prim. sorry....As I've said, I'm so new at this I don't even think calling myself a beginner is accurate. ...basically I'm looking for a cheap...or even better, free, way to make and texture (map?) sculptys, rather than Maya and the like. yes, blender will work so I've heard, perhaps Wings as well...but an all in one program would be ideal. frankly, I'm already sick of switching between 3 or 4 programs... anyway, thanks!

It's my goal to make Blender an all in one content toolkit for Second Life. I like Daz 3D in a lot of ways, it's far more new user friendly than Blender for one But when it comes to a platform I can build on, Blender's open source nature makes a lot more sense. And I'm getting to the skill level in Blender where it's ui design really starts to shine. Some things like all the keyboard shortcuts can change how you think about interface design. I never really thought about it before, but an icon based system relies on visual memory and each use is different depending on current cursor position. With a keyboard driven system, it gets into muscle memory, and like driving a car it becomes automatic. It's hard to describe how the interface eventually gets out of your way, but you'll notice when it's happened.

Sorry, got lost in a train of thought there for a moment, back to my point for posting..

Long term I'd like to build some Second Life client functionality into Blender, I've a lot to do before then, but I want to be able to build fully in Blender. A bit like the verse support lets you use remote resources, I want to do a layer that loads live Second Life prims into Blender and have changes made in Blender updated in world. This needs a different approach than the previous prims in Blender work as I want to integrate with Blenders ui rather than having a prim specific one. The sculptie stuff is just the first few steps on that path.

So a lot to do, but anyone interested in an all in one solution should definately keep an eye on my progress

CherryBerry, it's doubtful that DAZ|Studio will every be a viable option for making sculpties. It's primarily an animation program. DAZ has other software that might be a good choice eventually (I know for a fact that DAZ is very interested in SL), but Studio is not a likely candidate. It's just not a modeling program.

ok, I see what you mean. I took another look at Hexagon by Daz. I guess 150 isn't a bad price for such a program. Prefer free, but hey lol ....I am willing to pay for a good program, but a Maya price I can't do.

So, does anybody know anything about Hexagon? There doesn't seem to be a trail version.

Thanks!

I have tried Hexagon ... not thrilled! And as far as I know ... there is no sculpty exporter.

If you want free, then Blender or Wings3d. Both have sculpty exporters. Used both work fine. If you are a newbie though be warned Blender has an "Interface from Hell".

If you are willing to pay ... AC3D is a good starter 3d modeling program with a reasonably shallow learning curve and Zora Spoonhammer's sculpty export plugin works well. You can see some of my efforts on the AC3D/Sculpty thread.

You can in fact use any 3d modeling program you can find and if they export your geometry as a .obj file Blender/AC3D can import them and export as sculpties. Just make sure that the geometry has a correct UVmap.

gryff

Gryff, are you speaking from experience regarding the Blender interface?

I'm fairly comfortable with it.

From what I've heard from people who have use various 3d packages, they all have significant learning curves both in the UI and the methodologies used.

Yes Zen

Been building in 3D since 1999 ... used probably about 15-20 different 3D programs from 3DMax(v4), Lightwave (v6+7) at the expensive end, to Wings3D and Blender at the free end.

With Blender, I find the interface non-intuitive and cluttered. I use it for a number of things (eg. baking textures ) but I would never recommend it as a starting place for a newbie to 3d building.

You are right of course that all modelers have a learning curve, and anyone starting out in 3d modeling should be prepared for some work!

gryff