Make different colored walls in your Linden Home

[kiramanell]

My experience with Blender, as told through her thoughts...

"This is probably why Kira thinks the program is called 'Blender', as it only takes about 5 minutes for everything to become one huge blur to her. And it's usually the moment she starts talking in the third person."

[Marianne Little]

11 minutes ago, Leora Jacobus said:

Well I am on a journey now so cannot look wether the Blender I have installed is the 2.8

The tutorial ... can one use it with an elder version aswell?

 

I did the second floor, the one with all the pictures, in 2.79. Yes.

 

 

[RuffertasAlt]

4 hours ago, Leora Jacobus said:

THAT's just what I felt! 

The darned thing is just toooo complicated! They tried to squeeze tooooo many features into one programm! It lets you not only make 3D Objects but also make your own animation film! I do not want that! And I do not need 95% of their buttons! And I do not know how to find the 5% that I do need!

Yup - I periodically try to learn Blender. Immediately afterwards they decide to do an update of the program. A course on Blender I bought at Udemy is in the process of going from one version to another, so some classes are taught in the current version, and some in another. I will keep trying, though.

[kiramanell]

On 7/4/2019 at 1:06 PM, Marianne Little said:

In Second Life, you can choose between the Main Grid and the Test grid. Uploads is free in the Test Grid, but I skip that point. I have already written so much. You can search the Forums for Test grid or Aditi.

1: Open your inventory and cloose Upload - Model

I also skip the details of how you can be qualified for mesh uploads. SL tells you it in the upload window, and also where you qualify.

2: Find your mesh and upload it. You will se it sharp with perfect edges and joints. Try to calculate Weights and Fee. Look at the numbers. It could be a weight of 5, 6, 7 LI... depending on the size. But I want lower LI.

3: Since this mesh will be viewed close up in a building, I reduce the LOD and the triangles until the build start to fall apart. This would be a bad thing to do if it was meant to be viewed outdoors. But change the numbers, calculate weights and fee again until you think the LI is low enough.

4: My uploaded mesh has a LI of 1, and even viewed on LOD 2 in Firestorm and outdoors, it holds the shape well enough for me. I don't need LOD 4 to see it.

You can not walk inside the mesh walls! Select the mesh and set it to Phantom. It does not need to have Physics, the Linden Home walls is solid, and will stop you from walking through. This is just a decorative inside.

Now to the texturing.

1: Select your mesh and tint it white, before you texture the faces. Select your mesh and change "Mapping" to Planar.

2: Select a face, and find a texture for it. The horizontal and vertical scale was too big for the pattern, I changed it from 2 to 0.5.

3: This repeat look ok. I picked the first textures I found, did not think about if they are pretty, or match.

4: One of the walls in this room had a different color. If you want, you can use this as a contast wall. If not, use the same texture there as on the other walls. Maybe you look at the right side, and think the textured wall continues a bit in the other room. It does not. The Linden home walls is too thick for that.

If you wanted a contrast wall, you had to color it in another color before you export it as Collada from Second Life. It is too late now.

Now rez in your home and start to edit it in place. This will be a lot of careful moving. But it is worth it?

I am so exhausted of this tutorial now ... 😁 If you know of a better way, please write it here, so we can learn the right way of doing it. I am a newbie. ☺️

 

 

 

Hey, Marianne, quick question.  What happens if you don't export the object with textures already on it? Will you still be able tp texture them, later on? I read somewhere you need to define UV mapping too, if you want to be able to texture them afterwards. I have no idea how to do that.

[kiramanell]

7 hours ago, Leora Jacobus said:

THAT's just what I felt! 

The darned thing is just toooo complicated! They tried to squeeze tooooo many features into one programm! It lets you not only make 3D Objects but also make your own animation film! I do not want that! And I do not need 95% of their buttons! And I do not know how to find the 5% that I do need!

 

Hehe, I hear ya! I so hear ya.

All levity set aside, I think Blender shows why Sansar is essentially such a bust: you need an advanced degree in Blender to be able to do anything useful in it. Another way of putting this, is saying: this is why SL is such a success. 😄  Some people will scoff at prims, but the fact remains, that the prim-system. and the incredible intuitive, low-threshold way of doing things, is what makes building in SL so accessible to many. If SL had been as impossibly difficult as Sansar, I would never have been here.

Edited July 8, 2019 by kiramanell

[Marianne Little]

28 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

 

Hey, Marianne, quick question.  What happens if you don't export the object with textures already on it? Will you still be able tp texture them, later on? I read somewhere you need to define UV mapping too, if you want to be able to texture them afterwards. I have no idea how to do that.

You can't save it to your computer with textures on. You simply can't. Unless you make your own textures and upload them to Sl and then texure with them. Every thing need your name as creator, even if you have bought full permission textures. Yes, when you upload the mesh, it comes with the colors. You tint it back to white, and change mapping to planar. You can texture it with normal too, but planar has made me so happy. Much less adjusting of patterns.

I made a platform tonight, it comes uploaded with the colors... then I texture it. This isn't uploaded from SL. I made it from scratch in Blender 2.8.

It is roughly 6 x 6 m, and I uploaded some different versions to see how well it hold LOD. I don't bother to texture all. From left to right: 1 LI, 3 Li, 4 LI.

Edit: I added something, and wasn't done before I was quoted. Sorry! 😧

 

Edited July 8, 2019 by Marianne Little

[kiramanell]

4 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

You can't save it to your computer with textures on. You simply can't. Unless you make your own textures and upload them to Sl and then texure with them. Every thing need your name on it, even if you have bought full permission textures. Yes, when you upload the mesh, it comes with the colors. You tint it back to white, and change mapping to planar. You can texture it with normal too, but planar has made me so happy. Much less adjusting of patterns.

I made a platform tonight, it comes uploaded with the colors... then I texture it. This isn't uploaded from SL. I made it from scratch in Blender 2.8.

 

 

Thanks!

And my, you're getting real good at this Blender stuff. 👍

[Marianne Little]

And now, I think I will try to make real window trim with 45 degree corners... but not tonight!

Bellisseria has made me insane. 😵

[WillowTenage]

31 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I made a platform tonight, it comes uploaded with the colors... then I texture it. This isn't uploaded from SL. I made it from scratch in Blender 2.8.

It is roughly 6 x 6 m, and I uploaded some different versions to see how well it hold LOD. I don't bother to texture all. From left to right: 1 LI, 3 Li, 4 LI.

Edit: I added something, and wasn't done before I was quoted. Sorry! 😧

 

 

 

You are catching on to all of this really fast😁  I can't wait to see what you come up with next   

[Marianne Little]

2 minutes ago, WillowTenage said:

You are catching on to all of this really fast😁  I can't wait to see what you come up with next   

No, really. I am not going to do more that I have to. I am doing this to replace my higher LI platform. It is a crazy job. Totally exhausting. Some way to spend my summer vacation, shoulders aching... haha. What I do for more LI...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/27764102@N02/48080124497/

I make my platform smaller and simpler, because of LI. It still does not look too bad... I think... and I kept one 45 degree corner to make it interesting.

When I am done with the platform, it's on to do the kitchen build in mesh.

[WillowTenage]

7 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

No, really. I am not going to do more that I have to. I am doing this to replace my higher LI platform. It is a crazy job. Totally exhausting. Some way to spend my summer vacation, shoulders aching... haha. What I do for more LI...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/27764102@N02/48080124497/

I make my platform smaller and simpler, because of LI. It still does not look too bad... I think... and I kept one 45 degree corner to make it interesting.

When I am done with the platform, it's on to do the kitchen build in mesh.

That looks gorgeous Marianne I would love to make a kitchen in mesh, I've been following the same video tutorials you linked to earlier and having a blast playing around in Blender, who knows, perhaps one day?  For now, I'm just planting happy little trees in scenes 🤣  

 

If you haven't used it before, AVsitter is amazing for doing all of the poses and completely free   It does all sorts of things too, like props, and is incredibly easy to use.  The main problem I had with it, was having to copy all of the text from github into scripts in the viewer, but doing it this way is completely free.  You can get it from the marketplace, but it costs $L that way.

[Trinity Aironaut]

Has anyone noticed that these walls are not straight? Sometimes they are off a little and other times they are off a lot. I know the moles can't be building them like this, they are pros. I had a BF a few years ago, who built using math. He'd build perfectly straight lines, then come back the next day and they would be off, just a little, but numbers don't lie. He researched it and found out prims drift. He had to start locking down his builds to stop it. That seemed to do the trick, he never came back to an off build when he locked it. I had to lock mine a couple days ago to prevent them disappearing into the linden walls. Once I did that the walls and textures stayed in place.

[Trinity Aironaut]

14 hours ago, WillowTenage said:

That looks gorgeous Marianne I would love to make a kitchen in mesh, I've been following the same video tutorials you linked to earlier and having a blast playing around in Blender, who knows, perhaps one day?  For now, I'm just planting happy little trees in scenes 🤣  

 

If you haven't used it before, AVsitter is amazing for doing all of the poses and completely free   It does all sorts of things too, like props, and is incredibly easy to use.  The main problem I had with it, was having to copy all of the text from github into scripts in the viewer, but doing it this way is completely free.  You can get it from the marketplace, but it costs $L that way.

AV Sitter is an awesome tool.

[kiramanell]

23 minutes ago, Trinity Aironaut said:

AV Sitter is an awesome tool.

 

It really is.  I have the paid version of it, cuz I hate having to copy & paste text around all the time. 😛

One of the things I really like about is the AVpos configuration. Instaed of relying on 'saving' your adjusted positions (to memory), which will be lost upon scripts reset/inventory deletion, AVpos can store the settings permanently. And, with the AVHelper 'stick' you get, adjusting your pos is a breeze!

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Trinity Aironaut said:

Has anyone noticed that these walls are not straight? Sometimes they are off a little and other times they are off a lot. I know the moles can't be building them like this, they are pros. I had a BF a few years ago, who built using math. He'd build perfectly straight lines, then come back the next day and they would be off, just a little, but numbers don't lie. He researched it and found out prims drift. He had to start locking down his builds to stop it. That seemed to do the trick, he never came back to an off build when he locked it. I had to lock mine a couple days ago to prevent them disappearing into the linden walls. Once I did that the walls and textures stayed in place.

Even within things locked, I have noticed some drifting now and then.  However, locking does seem to prevent it most of the time.

[kiramanell]

14 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Even within things locked, I have noticed some drifting now and then.  However, locking does seem to prevent it most of the time.

 

Yeah, locking an object does not prevent Prim Drift. All locking does, really, is setting a flag for your viewer not to edit/move it. It does not affect server prim drift one ioata, unfortunately.

[Aquila Kytori]

On 7/7/2019 at 9:44 PM, Nika Talaj said:

I'm curious about the effects of this technique on LOD (though of course that is not so very important for simple walls).  But in general, if one eliminates generally invisible vertices this way, it would seem like rendering the object would end up being easier on the client (require a lower viewer LOD setting).  True?  It also seems like, if one were developing a really detailed piece of jewelry or something, one could lose some (arguably not so very necessary) detail if you zoomed out too far before saving.  True?

The distance at which LoDs switch is size dependent (bounding box size of the model). These walls make for a large mesh and they will only be seen from inside of the building so LoD switching isn't a problem even when the lower LoDs have been zeroed out in the SL mesh uploader because they will never be seen.

For much smaller items where the LoDs switch very quickly you need to do some testing.

This "Smash and grab" approach to meshing, (importing into Blender, joining to become a single object and getting out as fast as you possibly can) may work well for these interior walls but for smaller items I would suggest you open the door to Edit mode in Blender and do the reduction by hand. 

On 7/7/2019 at 9:44 PM, Nika Talaj said:

Should beginners start with 2.80, or an earlier version?

The actual modelling process etc remains the same but the user interface has changed dramatically from the previous versions. As a beginner you would probably find it impossible to follow Blender 2.79 tutorials and then try to recreate what ever in 2.80.

2.80 is the future and judging from what Marianne is showing over in the mesh forum she seems to be coping very well following those 2.80 tutorials she linked to earlier in this thread. It can, will be horribly frustrating at first. You just have to be prepared for that.When you get stuck on something you can often get a very fast answer from the Builders Brewery group chat or ask in the mesh forums here. There is no shortage of people willing to help you along the way.

I expect Blender will be getting lots of little updates in the near future.To cope with that don't install Blender.

• Create a Blender Download folder on your desktop or where ever.
• Download a zip version and drop it into that folder.
• Unzip it into the same folder.
• Open the unzipped file and scroll down until you see the Blender icon (application) and drag the icon to your taskbar.
• Blender will now open from there. When you want to try a later version there is nothing to uninstall, just delete the contents of that Blender Download folder.

 

Edited July 9, 2019 by Aquila Kytori

[Aquila Kytori]

On 7/8/2019 at 1:48 AM, Marianne Little said:

Have Idone it right?

The wals I made in this tutorial to the left. The second floor and stairway to the right. Including window trim for all second floor windows and the one in the stairway. I don't think I can take off more.

1 build: 3020 display

2 build: 479 display

This is a good? 

 

 

Zooming in on your screenshot you appear to have 2 triangles everywhere, where before you had 9. That has to be good .

[Trinity Aironaut]

On 7/8/2019 at 9:57 AM, Marianne Little said:

Hope you make it @Leora Jacobus.

I like Blender 2.8 best. First of all, we leftlick to select. Not rightclick. Just that is an improvement.

Finding tutorials for Blender 2.8 is a bit tricky, since the changes is so big, and it is an ocean of tutorials for earlier versions....2.8 came out late 2018, I think. So selecting tutorials from the last year helps. I did the second floor in 2.8.

Blender tutorials can be compared to cooking in RL. Let us say I am cooking dinner for 8. I will find out how many gram meat I need to buy per person. But all I can find is recipes for all sort of dinners, three courses, taco dinners and dinners for 8, 5, 20 persons, and all in between. The one thing I need to know is in one of these recipes. But which one?

Before I start, let me say I'm not a Rep from Udemy......but......I am a life long learner, and If you can catch a sale, and it's amazing how often they have one, Udemy offers full Blender 2.8 online classes for as little as 9 usd! These are step by step, intro to finished project. and teach a wealth of information beyond the project itself. Even now they are doing an 11.99 sale for the next 2 days. I loaded up about 2 weeks ago on the 9.99 sale. You have lifetime access to them and can learn at your own pace, they offer the current version and 2.8, you just need to search for the right version. The instructors often teach at the college level and have skills at online, hands on training. At the end of a successfully completed course they offer a certificate.....which could be useful for jobs requiring training. I'm not going to add the link here, I think I'm skating close and it might be against TOS to do it, but do a search for Udemy or hit me up in private IM. If someone can let me know about TOS and outside educational links I'd be grateful.

Edited July 10, 2019 by Trinity Aironaut

[Marianne Little]

It is time for an update! Ta - daaa!

Triangles. The more smaller triangles, the worse. After I added window frames and deeper window sills to my wall models, the triangle numbers went up.

This is harder to upload, and it is harder to be around. In worst case, you lag yourself and others.

This continues after you have built your walls and eventual window trim in Second Life. You have saved it as Collada, and now you work in Blender.

Open Blender 2.8.

Click outside the start image.

The cube in the middle is outlined in yellow. That means it is selected.

Click "X" and then "delete".

The strange shape to the left is the camera. Leftclick it, and watch it be outlined in yellow.

Click "X" and then "delete".

Now you have your open, clean screen to work with. Go to File - Import - Collada.

Previously, all I did was clicking "A" to select all, then Ctrl "J" to JOIN ALL.

Then I saved it as a Blender File, and uploaded it directly. This works, of course, but you get all the Triangles with you in Second Life.

(To view it better, hold down middle mouse to rotate. Hold down Shift and press down middle mouse, to drag your object.)

The joined mesh object look very clear and pretty. But press "Z" on your keyboard, and watch this come up:

You choose Wireframe to watch the triangles. When you will see it solid again, press "Z" and choose solid.

 

In the next post, we will remove the triangles.

 

[Marianne Little]

Click "Z" and cloose "Solid" if you haven't already done that.

Until now, we have worked in "Object Mode". That is showing in the second line on top of the blender screen.

Select the "Edit Mode".

It should look like this, watch your build change, and the "Edit Mode" is now showing instead of "Object Mode":

I was originally working on cleaning up that manually, removing one triangle by one... Until I stumbled over something that worked better.

Click "A" on your keyboard to Select All, and watch your every line and dot change color to yellow. They are all selected.

Now, find "Mesh" in the second line on the top of your screen. Press it, then  - Clean up - Limited dissolve. Press it.

Watch the triangles go away!

When you press "Z" and choose Wireframe, it should look like this:

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Marianne Little

[Raevyn Addams]

Thank you so much @Marianne Little; you're so inspiring! I think I might just have to give Blender another try! Thank you again for such clear, step-by-step instructions. ❤️ 

[Marianne Little]

Press "Z" and choose "Solid".

Go to "File" - and "Save As". Name it and save it. Log into Second Life Beta (free uploads) to test how it works.

I choose to let the upload be "High", but I reduce all the triangle limits, under medium, low and lowest. I choose "Calculate weights and fee" until I am satisfied, and upload it.

Don't forget to set your rezzed build to Phantom, or you can't work in it.

Two builds that look identical, but are not. One before cleanup, one after.

This has cover shells for the default walls, plus window trim and wider/deeper windowsills, wall that separates the big room in a bedroom and a bathroom, bathroom floor, and trim for the new wall.

 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Marianne Little

[karynmaria]

@Marianne Little

 

You need to put these on the MP  😁

[Marianne Little]

Just now, karynmaria said:

@Marianne Little

 

You need to put these on the MP  😁

You see it look good, yes? I see only the mistakes. I haven't lined up the window sill in one of the rooms properly, and it isn't visible from the distance I take pictures. But I know it is there. And ... Self-consciousness. Some will find one not perfectly lined up part, and blast me to pieces. When people make it themself, they have no others to blame.

I don't think I ever make it good enough. When that window sill is corrected, with new test uploads and final upload, I find another small issue. It is never going to be good enough, for me to dare to let anyone scrutinize it.