Exporting mesh from Second Life with a texture on it

[Marianne Little]

I know I must be the creator of the texture to export it. I have a free full permissions builders grid texture I saved to my computer, and uploaded to SL. I am now its creator.

I build a model in prims - my own prims. I want to look at it when I build the mesh model in Blender.

I have the reference model in Blender, I have the builders grid texture on it. But the texture is only visible in UV editing. I want to see the texture on the model in Layout, when I am in constructing the mesh.

I am sure it is possible, I have not found out how?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

There are some small icons near the top-right corner of the 3D viewport, where you can set the viewport shading. It's set to Solid by default, but you'll want Material Preview to see any textures/shaders applied to the object.

[Marianne Little]

@Wulfie ReanimatorI love you, I really do. ❤️

This is what tutorials are missing, or where I suck at understanding tutorials. It is always, always a small step I have not found. Newbie tutorials are sometimes the worst. I have mastered some steps, and they are all repeated in them. I wonder when the 30 min tutorial is going to be about what I need NOW, and it very often does not address it. Then comes the super complicated tutorials that is way over what I can, and that I can't use in SL.

It is not much in between super newbie and super advanced, and frustrating little about SL.

Tonight I woke up and decided I can redo my Victorian garden layout from a plane in Blender. Instead of joined prims from SL. It is fun when ideas like that just comes to me.

[Rick Nightingale]

You are absolutely right regarding all those tutorials. I've found the same things, and one can spend hours watching all of them repeating each other never to see one do that little, necessary step. I recently discovered the answer to a baking issue that has been spoiling some of my bakes, which I've spent countless hours over the last two years researching and watching videos, and never got an answer. The Blender manual doesn't mention it, at least not anywhere I've looked. I've followed tutorials to the letter on how to bake from my mesh, and it hasn't worked. I found the answer in a single sentance on a 3D forum somewhere just a few weeks ago with just the right combination of search words and reading twenty or so results, the first nineteen of which were useless. Now all my bakes work, finally!

If you are making mesh for landscaping, that's a perfect use of 'Local Mesh' in Firestorm. I've used it several times now. I can make the mesh and use it in world, on the main grid, like a local texture is used without paying to upload. See the mesh on the land, go back to Blender to adjust it, refresh the Local Mesh in world... much easier than guessing how it will fit in the Beta grid. I have a meandering and up-and-down pathway across my land in Mesh now that looks like it was built right onto the land, because it was.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Rick Nightingale

[Marianne Little]

On 3/21/2023 at 3:01 PM, Rick Nightingale said:

You are absolutely right regarding all those tutorials. I've found the same things, and one can spend hours watching all of them repeating each other never to see one do that little, necessary step. I recently discovered the answer to a baking issue that has been spoiling some of my bakes, which I've spent countless hours over the last two years researching and watching videos, and never got an answer. The Blender manual doesn't mention it, at least not anywhere I've looked. I've followed tutorials to the letter on how to bake from my mesh, and it hasn't worked. I found the answer in a single sentance on a 3D forum somewhere just a few weeks ago with just the right combination of search words and reading twenty or so results, the first nineteen of which were useless. Now all my bakes work, finally!

If you are making mesh for landscaping, that's a perfect use of 'Local Mesh' in Firestorm. I've used it several times now. I can make the mesh and use it in world, on the main grid, like a local texture is used without paying to upload. See the mesh on the land, go back to Blender to adjust it, refresh the Local Mesh in world... much easier than guessing how it will fit in the Beta grid. I have a meandering and up-and-down pathway across my land in Mesh now that looks like it was built right onto the land, because it was.

Ooh, post where you found it. I totally suck. I have made UV maps that work - I can only texture very rough, but it is practice. I have only come so far as assigning materials (colors) and making an UV map. Then it stops. Bake is terrible to understand for me.

[Rick Nightingale]

I can't recall which forum, but I'll tell you what the issue was: When baking, if you have other mesh objects hidden near the object being baked from, they will still influence the outcome even though they are hidden. No-one ever told me that. I had my lower LOD models in the same location but hidden and that was really messing with the baking. The times my baking worked were when, just by chance, I didn't have anything else there hidden or otherwise.

The answer is simple: Either move everything away, or, much easier, uncheck the little camera icon next to the mesh objects you don't want to influence the baking, in the outliner - the icon next to the 'eye' that lets you hide or show each mesh object visibly.

I still consider baking a 'dark art'. Texturing in general is my weakest point because I have the artistic talent of a stone. That said, my current argument with Blender is trying to bevel a relatively simple profile on a door. Me: 'Bevel this simple edge loop around the corner of the molding'; Blender: 'Ha ha - you must be joking - look at this shading mess I can make all over it'. Three days I've been trying to get a successful, smooth-shaded bevel on the thing.

While I'm far from an expert, you are always welcome to shout out in world if you want help. At the moment I'm on the beta grid a lot, arguing with mesh there.