n0minous

@OptimoMaximo I realize now that I should've said auto-retopology instead of retopology in my initial post that you quoted, which probably caused a misunderstanding. I also didn't realize that remesh was a term that was commonly used nowadays as a synonym for auto-retopology, which I was mainly arguing. I was wrong about this since I haven't used remeshing tools for a long time. I completely agree with what you're saying though that manual retopology is most accurate for creating clean low poly models, yes. Hopefully we're straight now lol.

@OptimoMaximo The author of ZRemesher and Quad Remesher also calls it auto-retopology in discourse and I think "remesh" is more of a brand name that's used in context of his tools. Mainly cuz it rolls off the tongue better lol. Retopology is more correct historically and I think we're arguing semantics at this point. Yup, I'm familiar with the dynamesh to ZRemesher workflow for adding fine details. The scope of ZRemesher and Quad Remesher seems to have been extended to hard surface retopo in recent years: http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/topology/zremesher/ https://polycount.com/discussion/208030/quadremesher-new-auto-retopo-plugin-for-maya-3dsmax/p1 Again, they're not quite there yet compared to retopo'ing manually in traditional poly modeling software. You can see ppl being excited about progress being made in this area much like auto UV unwrapping tools. I wouldn't be surprised if their algorithms become advanced enough to use in production (with minimal cleanup) within the next decade or two.

I'm pretty sure they mean games like beYou, zombie sims, etc. I might be wrong ofc. 🤷‍♂️

I agree, but I'm not sure whether ZBrush should be included in the list since it has ZRemesher for retopology and ZModeler for polygon modeling. I know that it can't compare to traditional poly modeling software, but it's something. If someone is dedicated enough to 3D sculpting to buy ZBrush (no small investment), it's pretty much a given that they'll learn the high to low poly pipeline if their goal is game asset creation. Especially since most beginner 3D artists are trying to break into the video game/film industries and have CGI-centric communities like ZBrushCentral, polycount, and Artstation to learn from more experienced artists, but I digress. This is a nice PSA for realtime content creators who don't pay much attention to optimizing 3D models, textures, etc. I'm curious how many creators actually visit the SL forums though. Since SL's performance is highly dependent on the creation of optimized assets, I think Linden Lab should make a better effort to reach out to beginner/intermediate content creators. Can't they leverage their SL Youtube channel and invite experienced content creators for interviews to offer advice? The ppl who need the most help are those who don't ever read this and similar threads imo.

You can learn most of the SL content creation pipeline by searching through the knowledge base, wiki, and forum. I started by reading mesh/texture/physics model-related articles on the knowledge base and wiki first, had a lot of questions, and searched the forums for answers. When searching the forum, I suggest using the "find results that contain all of my search term words" option. I also suggest taking notes in a word processor since there's a lot of SL-specific info that might be hard to memorize at first and so you can avoid searching for the same thing repeatedly.

@Darksteelhorse Yeah, those seem to be internal lines using the fold settings.

@Kyrah Abattoir I don't have any experience creating hair cards and I just wanted the OP to know the importance of searching forums for info since many solutions can be found by digging. I was a bit too hasty in finding a good solution this time, though. By delving more, I was able to find a goldmine and it seems that using alpha blending only for the tips of hair that require translucency is best in order to minimize sorting issues: Ofc creating hair cards that both avoid sorting issues and create the illusion of volume can take a long time to master. I didn't mean to say that you can just layer cards on top of each other willy-nilly and I apologize if it sounded that way.

Yw, you could try using alpha blending and alpha masking for different layers of hair or reordering the vertex indices as recommended in this thread . If you haven't already, I suggest using the forum's search function since a lot of solutions to common questions are available.

I think Double Sided only works in Blender though or at least collada doesn't seem to support exporting double sided materials. Also, aren't SL's backfaces always transparent? I might be wrong since I've only researched forum posts from like 2012. @Carrie Galaga This post describes duplicating a plane and flipping the normals so that the texture appears on both sides. Idk if you have to move them apart to avoid Z-fighting, but he doesn't seem to for leaves.

Try searching for "blender 2.8 bake normals from high poly to low poly" on Youtube and you should get plenty of results. This page on the polycount wiki contains a lot of detailed info concerning texture baking. It's not Blender-specific, but the info there is pretty much universal across 3D modeling software. The shading artifacts could be caused by any number of things. To control shading on the low poly model, I enable shade smooth in object mode, enable autosmooth in the properties editor > object data properties tab > normals, and increase the angle to 180'. Then I select edges in edit mode and use mark sharp in order to place sharp edges exactly where I want them instead of relying on lower autosmooth values to place them for me. You should be able to find plenty of tutorials on this on Youtube too. Concerning the recommended tri count, it's hard to tell since you haven't mentioned your art style (realistic vs. stylized) or the size of the avatar you're creating clothing for (gnome, human, or giant). You generally make certain areas of a model more or less dense depending on how close you think the in-game camera will normally view them. That way, you can minimize faceting on the model's silhouette if you're going for a realistic art style. You typically use less tris when creating stylized art, but again, it depends on a lot of factors. It's a juggling act between making the model look good from certain distances, optimizing the tri count, and repeating until you're satisfied. That's general advice and I'm sure more experienced SL creators can offer some SL-specific advice.

Thank you, I usually make hard surface objects like weapons and props, but I'm also interested in creating clothes. I'm having trouble deciding what to create for SL since there's so much freedom. All the cool stuff I could think of requires scripting, rigging, and/or animating lol.

I was able to upload a very similar model and it rezzes as expected on the beta grid: It would probably be fastest to solve if you can upload your blend file here for us to test.

Thanks @Skell Dagger! Love your blog btw, I learned a lot about BoM, appliers, etc. from it. I'm kicking myself for missing that free Catwa Freya unisex head lol. The hair is called 85(SNR) from DP Yumyum. I'm mainly proud of the face shape since I got pretty close to recreating one of my favorite singers, Mika Nakashima. SL's sliders are pretty easy to use now and the default head shape seems to be important for recreating faces.

I saw the recent necro in the men's thread, but I'll bite. I'm male and also a prospective content creator who's considering using a female model for product ads. I'm also a penny-pincher, so I'm considering buying just a female head/body for an androgynous male avatar as well for normal use. Haven't purchased the head (Lelutka Fleur) yet since I'm waiting to demo Lelutka Ryn. I'll call this post a social experiment as well since I haven't seen any demo head/body pics yet. 😂 I'm too proud of her to resist not posting lol.

Ah, sorry I meant to say that I've considered 3D modeling (I guess "meshing" is the term used here) accessories a bit larger than I normally would, not becoming a fashion model. 😅

I came here a month ago to learn about SL in general and subsequently content creation. For any online community, I turn to forums first since threads/posts tend to be more long-lived, convenient to bookmark/transcribe, and more eloquent compared to Discord messages and especially in-game chat. It's mainly lurking and researching for me until I'm confident enough to post.

I'm 5'7" irl and set my avatar accordingly. Received a random fashion show invitation yesterday and imagine my awkwardness when I saw that everyone (models and audience) was about 7' tall. 😄 Since the average height in SL seems to be so high, I'm thinking of bumping my avatar to 6'3" to balance it out. It's been a bit of a conundrum since I've considered modeling assets slightly larger than they would normally be irl (e.g. weapons, accessories, etc.).

CAD software looks neat since the models have infinite resolution for tight thresholds in real life manufacturing. For creating game assets that have finite resolution though, I think it's a waste of time to model using CAD software first and then retopologizing to meshes. Concerning modern game asset creation, I mainly consider CAD software as an alternative to subdivision surfaces for complex curvature (Millenia3D, Chris Stone, and other game industry professionals demonstrate this on Artstation). Most customers in SL only care about the model's aesthetics such as texture detail and mesh design rather than adhering to real life dimensions, so I think it's much more efficient to model everything in poly modeling software. This is mainly if you're a professional content creator rather than a hobbyist since time is money. If you're a hobbyist and you enjoy using CAD software, by all means. I'm not knocking on CAD software btw since I've seen absolutely beautiful models being created in it.

Wait, so you already know how to bake an AO map in Blender? I gave you the benefit of the doubt and tried to carefully explain the baking process in case you weren't familiar with it. You could have made your point directly instead of wasting someone's time trying to explain something you already know how to do. Could you please explain to me then how you combine an AO map with a diffuse map in Blender using shader nodes? Edit: I didn't mean to sound too harsh and I understand that baking maps itself takes a bit of learning nodes if you choose to do so in Blender. I just assumed that Jul was already comfortable in Photoshop and I still think it's easier to blend via layers. But if anyone wants to further learn node-based workflows, by all means.

Ah, there should be plenty of youtube tutorials on it such as this one: It seems that you select the high poly model, give it a material in the properties editor > material properties tab, and in the shader editor, connect an ambient occlusion input node's color output to the Principled BSDF's base color input. Select the low poly model and in the shader editor, create a new image texture that's not connected to anything. Select the high poly first, the low poly second, and then bake a diffuse map. I bake maps in Substance Painter instead of Blender, so some of these directions might be wrong.

I'm sure you can do that using Blender's shader nodes, but isn't using layer-based image editing software like Photoshop and Substance Painter easier since you just use a multiply blending mode over the diffuse map? Especially if you're already familiar with Photoshop, which I assume Juls is. I know that node-based workflows can be very powerful for things like non-destructive editing, but their learning curve can be steep compared to layers.

Ah, it seems you're using subdivision surfaces. This is a high poly model and you'll need a low poly model in order to bake the high poly's details onto a tangent space normal map for use in SL. The low poly will be the final model that will be imported to SL. It seems that your base mesh (the high poly model without a subdivision modifier added) is dense enough, so I would simply duplicate it for use as the low poly model. Afterwards, simply delete the support loops that you used to model the high poly since they're unneeded for the low poly. Then watch some UV unwrapping + normal map baking tutorials on youtube and you should have a great normal map on your low poly model that contains all the nice, soft details of the high poly.

Concerning question 2, could you show the model in Blender in edit mode and solid view? Just so we can see how dense the geometry really is. For modeling game assets, you should give the areas with curvature just enough edges to avoid the silhouette looking too faceted. This depends on a number of factors such as how close the object will ever (or normally) appear on screen. For example, if you plan (for yourself or your customers) to be able to see the jar that close in-game, you should only need about 32 faces at most on the outside of the jar and lid. If it will normally be viewed from further away (like a meter or so), then you can get away with a lower amount such as 16. Optimizing models this way is very important for game assets and you shouldn't add more geometry unless it contributes to the model's silhouette. It's less of a problem for modern games, but I understand that a lot of existing SL models suffer from too dense geo, which contributes to low frame rates.