Make texturing a sculpted prim without a texture map easier?

[Cindafukinrella]

Is there any way to make a texture for a sculpted prim easier than just making loads of textures and hoping I land in the right spot in regards to where I want things to go on the texture? I have bought something that came with the sculpt maps but no texture maps and I need to make my own texture for it.

[Chosen Few]

You've got a couple of options.  One, since you say you have the sculpt maps, is you can import them into a capable 3D modeling progam such as Blender or Wings, to recreate the sculpt geometry.  Then you can export the models to a 3D paint program like Photoshop Extended, Zbrush, Mudbox, etc., and paint your texture directly on the surface.

The other way to go is to throw a test pattern on the sculpty, so you can see what part of the surface corresponds with what part of the texture canvas.  Then use the test pattern itself like a UV map, or a template, and paint your texture directly over it.  Here's one I made several years ago, which a lot of people have found useful:

 

 

[Ceera Murakami]

There are a number of free grid patterns that you can apply as a surface texture, to get an idea of what needs to go where, and how it distorts as it is textured. Some are specifically made for sculpted prims, with a grid that matched the verticies of a default sculpty, and the points that mark off vertious levels of LOD changes. Apply a grid like that to the surface of the prim, and then do some trial and error to make it work.

(EDLT - LoL, I see Chosen Few answered faster than I did, and included a great test texture! )

[Drongle McMahon]

Here's one which fits the 32x32 default scuplt UV map. Not so much use for oblongs though.

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

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Cindafukinrella wrote:

Is there any way to make a texture for a sculpted prim easier than just making loads of textures and hoping I land in the right spot in regards to where I want things to go on the texture?

I have bought something that came with the sculpt maps but no texture maps and I need to make my own texture for it.

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Look me up in-world or in the marketplace, TP to my parcel in Peronaut, and take the Teleport to the skybox classroom.

I have a self-paced tutorial and class supplies there that explains how to texture sculpties.

[Void Singer]

and here's a UUID for Chosen's prim allignment texture "11e68b89-6693-e3bf-35c9-876ae2a2e78b"

 

and here's a sculpt LOD map texture, created by DanielFox Abernathy, UUID = "c595dad5-e439-fe75-1220-9dddf6cdf4b3"

red dots are lowest LOD, grey are Mid, corners of the squares are the highest LOD

[Cindafukinrella]

Thank you all for the sugestions. I think Ill start with the first and see how that goes. I have had Blender on my computer several times and removed it because I was too lazy to want to learn to use it. It seems that now is the time to learn >.< Since I have PS CS5 it should be fairly easy to take the 3D model and make the texture in there and it gives me the added excuse to learn another thing in photoshop that I have been putting off. I have saved the other texture things and will go ahead and check out the other ways of doing it for the times I get something and need to know those ways of texturing in SL.

[Josh Susanto]

I usually start with a surface texture and sculpt from that.

I recommend it.

[Chosen Few]

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Josh Susanto wrote:

I usually start with a surface texture and sculpt from that.

I recommend it.

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For the types of objects I've seen that you've made, Josh, that's a great approach.  I'd submit it's the only approach that would really work for a lot of your stuff.

But for a great many other kinds of objects that I haven't seen you make, it would be pretty tough to pull off.  If the fate of the world somehow depended on my creating textures in advance to fit sculpties I haven't made yet, for any typical build of mine, the world would probably perish.  And I dare say, I've got about as good a command of the ins and outs of texturing as almost anyone on this planet.

Where I will often create textures in advance is for mesh models, because I can easily map the UV layout to match the texture layout.  But for sculpties, which have to be bent and twisted in so many odd ways, and which offer no control whatsoever over how the UV's are arranged, it's rarely possible to do.

[Cindafukinrella]

In regards to the first suggestion, I have put my sculpt map into blender and saved my obj file, then I put it into photoshop and got my 3d object. I am new to using the 3d in photoshop so after that its a big fat nothing on what to do next. lol I just wanted to ask two other questions. Do I just start painting the object like I would anything else in photoshop making sure to get all the sides? And the next question is how do I save the file so that I can then use the texture in photoshop? If there is a tutorial or two out there that you know of that would help so you dont have to explain everything that would be great.

[Chosen Few]

In Blender (or whatever your 3D modeling program of choice happens to be), assign a material to the model, before you export to OBJ.  Import the OBJ into Photoshop, and the material will come in with it.  This is extremely important, because if you've got no material, there will be nothing to paint on. 

Also, make sure the UV map is included in the OBJ.  If no UV data is present, Photoshop will invent its own, and the results will NOT be sculpty friendly.

After you import the model to PS, take a look at the layers panel.  You'll see the material texture listed as a sub-layer, underneath the main layer that has the 3D object on it.  Double click the texture, and it will open up as a PSB file.  From there, you can work with it just like you would any other Photoshop document (set the image size, give it layers, etc.).

To paint, first click on a layer in the PSB to activate it, the same way you'd activate any other layer in Photoshop.  After that, you can paint on the layer either in 2D right in the PSB, or in 3D on the model.  Changes will appear in both places.

You're free to use all of Photoshop's tools.  Paintbrushes, filters, marquees, etc., everything works.

You can also projection paint, by working on a layer above the 3D layer in the PSD's layer stack, and then merging (ctrl-E) that layer down onto the 3D layer.

To export the texture for upload to SL, simply save the PSB file as a TGA (or BMP, PNG, or JPG, if you prefer).

[Cindafukinrella]

Is there perhaps a tutorial on how to assign a material to the sculpt. I am a little lost on that part and have looked for several days.

[Chosen Few]

As so often tends to be the case among users on this forum, you're now witnessing first hand the obstacles that inherently accompany any attempt to put the cart before the horse.  I know this isn't what you're going to want to hear, but if you don't yet know how to do something as day-one-basic as applying a material to a surface, you're way ahead of yourself right now, and you should NOT proceed any further until you've got at least a beginner level working knowledge of your software.

That's not intended as a slight against you in any way, so please don't take it that way.  It's simply an acknowledgement of the reality of the situation.  If one doesn't yet know how to assign a material, chances are there a ton of other equally foundational things that one also has not learned yet, and that lack of fundamental knowledge can only continue to cause one problems as one tries to go forward from such a place of ignorance.  The only way to remedy that is to start at the beginning, and approach all this in an order that actually works.

It almost never works to approach this for the first time with "I just want to know how to do ______" in mind, no matter what the blank happens to be.  What ALWAYS works, assuming the learner has the requisite patience, is to learn the program itself first, and then apply that knowledge to the blank afterwards.

So, my best advice to you is this.  Forget all about anything so specific as sculpties for the time being, and instead spend a couple of weeks learning the basics of Blender itself, from the beginning.  Your sculpties will still be there when you're done, and you won't have to stop every five minutes because you keep hitting road block after road block. A temporary step backward now will enable you to make a giant leap forward in a week or two, and then you'll never have to look back.

The Machinimatrix Blender Trail is a great place to start.  Begin with the Blender Primer video, and go from there.

 

That said, to answer your specific question, did you try looking it up in the manual?  I'm not a Blender user myself, but it took me just a couple of clicks to find this.  According to that page, just press F5, and the Material Buttons window will appear.  Press the Add New button (presumably while your model is selected), and now the model will have a brand new material assigned to it.  (Note, I don't have Blender here in front of me to test.  All I can do is assume that if the manual says it'll work, then it'll work.  This forum is chock full of Blender users, who no doubt can chime in to verify.)

If you're wondering how I found that, I Googled "Blender apply material to surface", and the first link took me to the manual.  From there, I just expanded the Materials section of the left side menu, and under the Usage subsection, the very first entry was "Assign a material". 

Of course, the only reason this information was easy for me to find at all is just because I already knew what to look for.  Even though I don't use Blender in particular, the general principles of 3D modeling that I do know still apply. 

It's totally understandable, and expected, that someone new to all this, who isn't already armed with the knowledge of what to look for, would have great difficulty zeroing in on any specific subject, just as you did.  So, once again, I strongly urge you to start at the beginning, and learn the basics one step at a time, so you won't have to keep stumbling around in the dark.  Do it right, and in a few short weeks, this will all be child's play to you.

Have fun with it.

[Cindafukinrella]

Actually that post has been the most helpful, and by no means did I take it entirely personal only slightly so.

I had read about the manual, had even found it, and read bits and pieces but could not find what I was looking for. I had infact found the specific part of the manual dealing with the material and infact followed the instructions however very stupidly and hastily did not want to; nor did I take the time to; read the rest of the manual. -.- You would have thought after two years of working on another chat program and developing for it that the idea of not putting the cart before the horse would have been apparent.To be quiet frank and honest the small little voice telling me that; may have been slightly ignored. Ok, I even point blank told it to shut up. 

So I am off to read the deaded manual, suck it up and learn blender. Its gonna be like taking nasty meds when your sick but Im gonna do it. Lastly thank you for the virtual spanking so to speak, it was needed. I didnt learn html coding by skiping the small stuff and I am not going to learn this by doing so either. I may not like it but at the end of the day your right, when its all said and done Ill be able to look back and see how far I have come; and that wil have made all the difference.:smileytongue:

[Chosen Few]

I'm very glad to hear that.  You've got your work cut out for you, but it'll be worth it, as you know.  If you've got questions along the way, you'll find that Blender is quite well supported on this forum.  I'm happy to help with the generalities whenever I can, but you'll obviously need actual Blender users to answer the specifics (unless you want to learn Maya, in which case, I can cite specifics all day long).  Luckily, there are plenty of them in this community.

Good luck, and have fun with the learning process.