What is the best tool for creating sculpties with textures?

[Night Singh]

I would like to make things like stuffed animals and bunny ears and I would like to paint the texture on in the tool.

I don't plan on making things with great detail and I do not have any experiance with 3D tools - only with Photoshop and other tools like Flash and FIreworks.

What is the best and easiest tool for sculpties?

Thanks

Night

[Zack Lockjaw]

Unfortunately, there's no real "easy" way to sculpt. It takes hours of practice to even begin to get the hang of it. I've been trying to learn for quite some time now and still only acheive fairly basic shapes.

 

However, if you just want to create basic shapes, you may wish to try an in-world tool such as SLoft or Sculpt Studio (both can be found on XSL)

[Rachel Darling]

Defining the "best" tool is a difficult thing to do, as it can be very subjective. However, there are a number of options:

1. If you have the sculpt map files already (ie you're purchasing sculpts and just want to paint on them in 3d), I'd suggest Photoshop CS4 Extended. The Extended version lets you work in 3d using with many of the same tools you already know from working in 2d. You'd need to learn how to import the sculpt into Photoshop (using some other 3d tool or plugin to convert it to an .obj file, I believe), and then you'd need to familiarize yourself with the 3d portion of Photoshop CS4E's interface, but that would let you paint in 3d using much of the knowledge you already have. There are tutorials on Adobe's website about the 3d interface, as well as some excellent info in the Content Creation/Texture forums on the main SL website.

2. If you also want to create the sculpts, you could use Blender. Pros: It's free and it allows you to paint as well as make the sculpt. Cons: I understand the interface is very different than the norm, giving it a bit of a learning curve.

Other than that, I suggest you check out the SL Wiki, and search for sculpts or sculpties. There's a page listing all of the available 3d modeling tools, their costs and a comparison that might give you a better idea on which of them would best meet your needs.

[Corina Clavenham]

I can assure you upfront there will be many Suggestions coming up on this Topic with all the Pro´s and Cons. We had this Topic i guess probably 20 times if not more in the old Xstreet forum.

Anyway..to give you my Suggestion for making sculpties i´d recomend to use Blender. First of all its a free Program and with the Scripts from Domino Marama and the new JASS Application i think you are set for the basics. As for Textureing in Blender i think you need a little time to figure out how this works. Like any Sculptie Program you need to invest Time to learn.

There is absolute no Program that spits out a Sculpties the way you want it within Seconds. Some Programs have a tough learning curve and are packed with tons of Stuff and Buttons you dont need to create Sculpties.

 

For more Information how to create Sculpties in Blender check this Link out

 

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/

Also join Blender User groups in world if that interests you

[Athena Chun]

Hello there,

Personnally I use Wings3D with a plug in for SL which allow to create sculpties.It is one of the best tools for creating Sculpties and it is much more easy to learn than other programs like Blender.

For wings Programs go there:

http://www.wings3d.com/

For the plug-in which allows you to import /export Sculpt maps, go there:

http://pkpounceworks.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=28&func=startdown&id=119

Once , you have everything installed,Open one of the primitives given with the plug-in and nothing else unless you know how to modify a UV map..

Modify the shape without adding any point or face,( just move things, don't extrude or delete faces of the object) until it suits your taste than export the object as a .bmp file.

It is recommended at this stage to modify the Sculpt map from .bmp to .Png to prevent any loss when you import into Second Life.

Photoshop does this very well...

If you want to see what your object will look like in  SL, Use a program like Sculptypaint that you can find here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~elout/sculptpaint/

You can modify your sculpt( smooth it a bit for example) and export it too, in that App.....

Have fun.....

[Madeliefste Oh]

For making the sculpties: Blender

For making the textures: Photoshop cs4 extended

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cYo - Sculpties with editable textures:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Belmeade/182/17/70/

[Night Singh]

Wow, Photoshop CS4 Extended looks amazing. Just ordered my upgrade.

Thanks to all for answers.

-Night

[Nalates Urriah]

Blender with CS3 is doable but not as easy as using CS4. CS3 and Blender can work together. Textures can be baked in Blender to get lighting effects. Those can be cleaned up or enhanced in PS. Using Blenders UVMapping has a high learning curve.

If you are considering working in Blue Mars then Blender is a good choice. The Primstar (http://dominodesigns.info/project/primstar) add-on to Blender allows one to import/export SL sculpties. With the other file formats that Blender provides it would allow you to convert sculpties to almost any file format you need.

[Amiryu Hosoi]

No doubt, Zbrush is th ebest, most natural tool to work with.

http://www.pixologic.com/home.php

http://www.wegame.com/watch/Creating_Sculpted_Prims_in_ZBrush_3_Part_1/

http://www.wegame.com/watch/Creating_Sculpted_Prims_in_ZBrush_3_Part_2

Best of luck,

Ami

[Insky Jedburgh]

I use a variety of low cost sculpty editors, not so much because they are the best, but because they were cheap, and now I have become accustomed to using them in tandem with each other to form up sculpty objects.

The first and foremost is SCULPTYPAINT created by Cel Edman for SL users

here is the website: http://www.xs4all.nl/~elout/sculptpaint/

It's free, allows you to create baked textures as well as a variety of forms from arches to stairs & rocks.  Incredibly useful.

Here's one of the SCULPTYPAINT TUTORIALS:

Available in Second Life at the Kanae Project:  http://kanae.net/secondlife/index.html

There are several types of editors all of which are useful, they are not free however, you must purchase the license at the slurl listed on the website, but the cost is not so bad, especially considering how useful they are.

One program, Nomi, allows you to make grayscale "heightmaps" in photoshop or whatever basically with black being the lowest elevation and white the highest and save as a TGA, then import it into Nomi and it instantly gets translated into a 3d form, great for making mountains.

I use a combination of these programs to make various forms fairly quickly, and though they may not be the best they are very accessible to almost anyone.