Tataku Yugen

I used to do a lot of prim modeling years ago, and have been trying to learn mesh recently. I finally finished my first real mesh object (not counting a few easy signs and stuff I made). My partner had wanted a vendor hut for her gacha shop. It was modeled in Blender 2.8, painted in Substance Painter, then the textures baked in Blender. I ended up doing something a little weird - the original model has 4 separate mesh objects (1 - roof and floor, 2 - structure, 3 - wall frame, and 4 - wall paper), each with its own UV map and texture. I painted and baked each separately, then blender-joined the two wall meshes into one for export. If I were to do it over I would've kept it 3 meshes all the way through, but I didn't want to go back and UV unwrap the wall from scratch. It took a few weeks with a lot of trial and error, but I'm pretty satisfied with the results, especially since it came in at 3LI, and has accurate working physics (including an invisible prim floor to help bug-free object rezzing). Thanks to @Chic Aeon, @ChinRey, @MaxMare, and so many others who contribute to this forum.

That helps a lot. First I had no idea you could open two models in Painter. I'm still wrapping (no pun intended) my head around the idea of applying textures of one model to another, but I'm starting to internalize the concept that the UV is just a flat plane (duh).

If there's a wrong workflow I'll find it. Case in point: my day-job programming 🤣

Thanks. I hadn't thought of doing it in reverse like that - starting with lower detail and working my way up. Now I can see a logical workflow. Substance (as far as I know) doesn't alter the UVs, just exports texture maps. But I'll definitely keep an eye on it. I could swear I saw an option to lock islands in Blender's UV editor. I'll have to investigate that and see if that will help keep them in place when I bevel. And I hear you loud and clear on the testing. Aditi is my second home (Third Life?) Thanks again!

I'm finally getting the comfortable with mesh creation, and have been using Blender with Substance Painter. I want to be a good SL citizen and create appropriate LOD models, but I can't quite wrap my head around a good workflow. An example of my current workflow (ignoring repeat iterations to correct geometry, UV, etc): Create the model in Blender Bevel edges (manually ctrl-B) UV unwrap Export dae for Second Life and fbx for Painter Import into Painter, bake, texture, paint, etc Export texture, normal map, and specular map Now if I create a less detailed model (for example, without beveled edges), I would repeat steps 3-6 for that lower LOD. I feel like I'm missing something though. I don't think a bevel modifier would help, since I would presumably still have to apply it before UV unwrapping anyway. I thought about duplicating the geometry before bevelling, but the same thing would apply. And each model would still need to be individually texture/painted. I guess it boils down to UV unwrapping and painting for each LOD. Is there any getting around this? Or is it just the cost of doing business.

@Chic Aeon first thank you for the videos! You're my hero (even if I haven't internalized the knowledge yet). I will admit I watched them several times, albeit on a long flight and didn't try the examples until later (and then only the crate & frame). I'll certainly go back and watch & follow the examples through. And thanks so much for the other video link.

I've messed around with Blender (not for SL though) and studied Chic Aeon's videos meticulously. I'm still a little vague on some basics: Question 1 - Let's say I had a simple object, a box with a cylinder, like a stereo with a knob in front. Is there anything special I need to do in Blender to combine them when I export them? Do I just multiple-select them? Or join them into one object before exporting somehow? Question 2 - Am I limited to only one UV map per imported DAE? Or can you upload multiple UV textures (for example, with the stereo, say I had 1 UV map for the stereo and 1 UV map for the knob, how does the UV texture get applied in SL Edit dialog box)? edit: in the stereo example, I know I could probably subdivide the box, add a bunch of vertices, and eventually extrude a cylinder so it's all the same object. I'm trying to understand this for more complicated examples, like a house or car that would really need multiple objects.

Thank you so much!!

I mostly mean it's hard to tell the shape & contours of the face with facial hair. Thanks for the tip on the Catwa head. I'll give that one a shot.

This guy: It's so difficult, 99% of the guys have facial hair, and look angry. I can't find anyone who looks like him. Is there hope?

I'm very new to sculpties, and trying to create a certain shape (I don't know how to describe it - I guess tucked in corners?). I keep ended up with a deformity in the SL viewer. Pic showing the deformity (along the bottom edge): http://i.imgur.com/7voZH.pngBlender file: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1232172/deformed_box_1.blendTGA: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1232172/deformed_box_1.tgaI've recreated the mesh 4 times from scratch, and each time hit a similar issue no matter how I place the subdivided loops. Am I hitting a limitation of UV maps or sculpties? This is using Jass-2 by the way. Thanks.