What I'd like to see in a sculptie builder.

I know that there are several people out there who are working on different forms of sculptie builders. I just thought I'd like to share what I think would make a good builder. I feel that since many people are already acclimated to the building tools in SL, one should strive as much as possible to mirror them. So here's a list:

Basically recreate the "Object" tab in the edit window.
Add an option to modify face/vertices by stretching, and moving them using the same sort of handles
Possibly a built in preview option that shows what it "should" look like in SL.
Having camera controls be similar to SL.. ie, hold down alt to move the camera around.


Just some thoughts.

I don't think that any sculptie manipulation device could function without some form of live preview, so that's a definite must have.

How you actually manipulate them is going to be problematic - but almost any attempt at a sane user interface will be well received after exploring the insanely complex, unintuitive and bizarre 'methods' advocated by LL.

See, I differ in opinion there. I think the linden controls are very intuitive, possibly because I've been building with them for 2 years or so now. But I think I've always thought so. Camera manipulation was tricky at first, but it wasn't long before I got the hang of it. I mean it's like flying. When you first start SL, flying was a pain in the arse, doesn't mean it's not intuitive.

I feel that most 3d programs (with the exception of maya thus far) that I have tried, are lacking a usable interface.. There's no standard way to manipulate things, every program names a control something different. Some of them force you to move the mouse to make a change while others click and drag.. It's all very confusing imho. In SL you choose what mode you want to be in, then you see a control that looks very different and easily recognizable. You always know what mode you are in based on the controls you see on the screen.

Again maybe it's me, dunno..

As far as the previewer, I meant to generate a "temp" sculptie texture and then run it through an external viewer.. just to be sure.

Er, I was referring to the 'make it in Maya, export, import, fiddle, rinse, repeat' system. Which appears to be where LL are leaving things.

The inworld building tools certainly have their moments, but you can get the hang of them, given time.
But something which requires you to own and understand Maya for starters...? That's pretty much a non-starter I'd have thought.

I think an ideal sculptie builder would be a smart add on to Blender that makes the process more user friendly. As for recreating the object tab, what on the object tab are you going to use exactly?

Useful features:

- Smooth Export/Import
- Live Preview (the code for prim rendering should be in the client, copy that. Add a slider for LOD)
- Texturing preview

It might be nice to have the keyboard controls for camera / object manipulation as that is what so many people are used to in SL.