Sculpty behaviour

If you make an intricate sculpty which has apparent holes in it, through which you can see the scene behind, do the holes exist? Can you pass things, self included, through them?

I think I have read that the original shape of the object transformed by the sculpt map still exists, is this correct?

For example think of a large box 5 metre by 5 metres 0.05 metre thick transformed into a window. Can you pass through window panes?

This question doesn't even apply to sculpties. Yet. (Well it sorta does, but the answer is no for now.)

Ask again when sculpties' physical bounding boxes are actually defined by their sculpt form rather than a basic sphere-like form. For now, it seems Qarl Linden hasn't got anyone to figure out a good way to get the texture database to be sent to the sim rather than just directly to the client. No textures read by the sim means no sculpted physics.

First, sculpties can't have holes (unless youre using the torus form, which is still under development, so I wouldn't recommend it; its surface implementation will be changing soon). I realize you're probably just taking theoretically though.

The answer for all practical purposes is no. The collision lattice of a sculpty is equivalent to that of a torus with no hole size. It would have been a sphere, but spheres fall over too easily, so they picked the next closest thing that could stand up that was within SL's pre-existing capabilities. If part of the sculpty extends outside the collision lattice, then that part will be phantom. Where the lattice ends up depends on how the sculpty was made.

How? Any details on this?

gryff

Wait, what? All the alternative topologies (torus, cylinder and plane) seem to be working fine to me. Why would they change it?

Anyway, you're right, the collision model for sculpties has nothing to do with the actual sculpt shape. They're just there for the looks, heh.

Edit:

Gryff, there are a number of alternative ways for sculpty rendering. The torus type has the top and bottom row of vertices stitched together (vs. each collapsed to a single point in regular "sphere" sculpties) to allow a hole. Then there's the cylinder type, which preserves the top and bottom rows, but still stitches the left and right columns, so you get a hole too, but since vertices are single-sided, the inside of the object will be invisible. The last is the plane, where no stitching occurs... that's the type used for previewing sculpt maps in the upload window (hance the "gaps".
Right now these can only be used via script calls in the form

llSetPrimitiveParams( [PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, "sculpt texture UUID", PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_TORUS]);

or PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_CYLINDER, PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_PLANE and PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE (default type)

As I said, I wouldn't recommend it. Whatever you make, you'll end up having to redo after Qarl finishes fixing the way the torus works. If you're dying to play with it though, the non-sphere sculpt forms are accessible via script.

llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, "uuid", PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_TORUS]);

This is all on the FAQ page of the sculpty wiki

Thanks for the feedback. I've actually been using them (tori) and find them quite interesting to play with.

My concern is:

What changes will be made ??

The pace of development seems at best meandering

gryff

>> First, sculpties can't have holes

Sure they can.

http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ladder001bm9.jpg

(Yes thats one prim)
(Okay so they're not really holes in the sculpty itself, but by all appearances, they might as well be ... )

Okay, I gotta know how that ladder was done with just a single prim. I'm guessing that parts hidden under the floor, but I'd love it if I'm wrong. Care to explain?

Also, how does it hold up under LOD culling? From a distance, does it still look like a ladder, or does it become a blob right away?

No parts hidden in the floor. What, don't trust me?

And as for how well it looks at distance - how far can you pull back your camera?

Ok, now I'm dying to know how you did that. Pretty please?

ok i am lost, why would you make a ladder with a sculptie... what is the benefit? holes or not? make me an apple with a hole in it.. from the apple sculptie. then i might see the benefit. Even at that point the torus still haspoints a sculptie cant touch, but , hey i am not complaining, just curious...

Prim savings, mainly. If you're stuck on a 512 plot, you need all the prims you can get. If you can replace a ladder up into a loft with two prims, and you were using ten, well, thats some more furniture you could put in. Or a garden gnome! And gnomes are awesome.

understands, but... who would climb a ladder...? i made stairs with one prim, that only looked a little strange from some angles.. its all about perspective... and since to use a sculptie staircase or even a ladder has near been impossible.. i am still curious.. or was it just a " i can do it therefore i am" blog..., one prim ladders or stairscases using standard prims.. one prim for as many steps as one wants.. is not hard.. its just how you use the textures.. i should post some jpegs of one prim staircases i think..

Yes, i know about alpha textures, I just happen to think they're ugly as sin. Why put up with a ladder that looks completely two dimensional if you don't have to have one? Also a ladder, put on its side, sunk into the floor, is now a railing. Or a banister. Or a fence. Actually, in the pic above, see all that fencing in the background? Sculpties.

ok.. time to load some pictures i think.. one prim staircase made with standard prim.. on a standard base.. total two prims.. standard off the shelf, not sculptires.

watch this space..

Sure, we can compare staircases. ^_^

ok two simple examples.. no bases just staircase.. these are either put on a base.. a triangular object that fits exactly.. ie like stone steps.. or just as they are.. one can climb up them.. as they are standard one prim.. these were simply made as an example for this post.. in reality one would tailor make the texture for the situation.. but they are not sculpties.
http://www.incony.org/webpics/staircases.jpg

Ok i will be the first to admit these first attempts arent perfect.. but time applied and a specific environment would make this much better.. this is one triangular prim.
http://www.incony.org/webpics/stairs2.jpg

Here's a sculpty staircase for comparison...

I don't really see the need to set them as phantom as being a huge problem. For example here you get 14 perfect stairs in 2 prims (sculpt + collision ramp). You can actually fudge the sculpty so that you can walk up it without an extra collision ramp, but since the sculpty bounding box is ovoid, you tend to slide off the sides which is a little disconcerting.

Well the superiority of your sculptie over the 2d staircase i made, is evident... there isnt really a comparison, and so is how it should be.. one. yours is 3d.. perfect, mine 2d is flawed.. it really depends on what your intended use is, look correct.. or technical and graphical correctness.

I built a 90 meter high tree, it needed lots of stairs, i would never use... but to make it look correct, i needed them.. 9 prims did the trick.. 10 metre staircases.

If one was creating a dramatic entrance porch, then yes i can see that the sculptie definitely has applications, i comes down to that..desired application.

certainly though it is much easier to create a standard prim object with holes in it.. ( the original topic post ) than sculpties with holes in. and working with a 2d texture is much easier than a 3d one.since one can get random effects applied much easier.

I would still question why one would make a ladder so graphical and technical... unless one was, say, creating something for a specific application.. even so.. it is unlikely i would use such a ladder or staircase.. i would fly.

And those who deny flying in their sims ensure i dont visit more than once.

I have a ladder in a guard tower in the castle that is my home. Right now it's a simple 1-prim ladder, done with an alpha texture on the flat faces and opaque textures on the side edges. The rooms it connects are too small for even a ramp-type staircase. I'd love a sculpty one-prim ladder for that purpose.

In the castle itself, there are no less than six prim staircases, at something like 24 prims each, counting railings and bannister posts supporting the railings. A sculpty stair prim could reduce that by at least 12 to 15 prims per staircase, and would look just as good as the rest of the highly detailed structure.

The whole project is a realistic reproduction of a castle that was built in Japan in 1668, and the original is considered a national treasure. Cutting prims by using textured ramps just wouldn't do at all.

I'd happily PAY someone for a decent sculpty of a ladder and a staircase, as shown in this thread.

I'm still waiting to hear how this one-prim ladder was made. If the creator doesn't care to explain with words, then how about at least posting a few wireframe shots of it? It should be fairly easy to figure it out based on the wireframe.

Chosen, take a look at the 'multiple sculpties' thread i posted, and look at it in wireframe. That should give you the idea... Basically - you can collapse part of the sculpty mesh to a 0 radius cylinder. Then you model with the remaining mesh which is now two independent objects essentially, connected by a string of 0 area faces which won't render in SL. The right side of the ladder is a comb shape. The left side is a box. They are connected by an invisible line. You can easily get up to four independent boxes connected this way such that you can arrange or resize them in any manner. Therefore any object comprised of 4 6-sided polydral shapes can be represented by a sculpty, in any configuration, touching or not, intersecting or not.

I'm not sure if I can squeeze out any more, but i'll let you know

Thanks, Daniel. I figured it was a comb and a box. What I didn't get was by what trickery the two were connected. As soon as I saw your "sculptiples" (great word) thingy earlier today though, I figured that must have been done the same way. Glad to hear I was right.

Thanks so much for sharing the technique.