Chosen Few

The question of whether or not they store .dae files is completely irrelevant. The file format doesn't matter. What's important is that they've got the data. They can take anything in SL, and spit it out to whatever format they want. That's just system management, 101. While we're on the subject, so can anyone else. Any asset that can be displayed on a monitor, played through a speaker, etc., can be captured. I don't want to get into a detailed discussion about that, for obvious reasons, of course. The point is simply that if you're worried about the technicals involved with LL or anyone else stealing your content, you're focusing on the wrong things. That ship sailed the moment you decided to upload your very first piece of content to any environment other than your own computer. What is worth all of our attention is the new legal rights LL has granted themselves. That's what has changed, and that's what matters. As the author of your linked post well put it, they've performed a bait and switch. Whether it was deliberate or simply a stupid mistake is still up for debate. As for the post itself, I have to say I disagree with that author on almost everything he said. His reasoning in many areas is deeply flawed. First, he seems to think LL somehow would need the new IP rights in order to sell the company. That's completely false. There's absolutely no reason LL couldn't be sold, while still remaining the same service provider that it always had been. The old TOS made it clear that LL owns all the data on its own servers, and that's all that would matter for such a sale. They wouldn't need all these new IP rights just to transfer ownership of that data if another entity were to take over the service. They could simply need to amend the TOS to name the new owner, and that would be that. Consider YouTube's TOS, for a comparison. It limits the company's rights to those needed for running and promoting the service, just as SL's TOS used to do. It even further limits the company's rights by stating that their license to your content will end within a reasonable amount of time after you delete your content. Yet YouTube was able to get itself bought by Google, no problem. The same can be said of countless other services and service providers that have been sold to other companies, both online and offline, since the dawn of the service industry in modern society. So, that whole section of the post is utter hogwash. And that's before we even get to the question of whether or not LL actually is intending to sell itself. There's absolutely no direct evidence that this is the case. I strongly suspect it's not. For some reason that I don't think I'll ever understand, it seems to be a popular notion among certain bloggers that the measure of success for a small company is to one day get bought by a bigger one, and that goal alone is what drives each and every small company's existence. It never seems to occur to these guys that most people who start businesses do so with the intent of actually running them. In reality, the number who want to just make something cool in the short term so they can cash in and get out is relatively small. Second, and far more importantly, the notion that indie game developers would want SL content, or that they could even make practical use of it if they did, is preposterous. Most content in SL, including mesh content, is woefully unoptimized for game environments, not to mention just not very good looking. No game developer in his or her right mind would or should touch it with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of existing warehouses that have lots and lots of good looking, well optimized content available. Indie game developers can and do make use of those resources all the time. I'm not aware of any content warehouse whose TOS grants it the unlimited IP rights that SL's TOS now grants LL. That's simply not necessary, just to run a warehouse service. So, the idea that LL claimed these rights in order to pave the way for Desura is also pretty unlikley. My gut still tells me this is all just a lazy mistake. Most likely, they were looking to have a uniform TOS that could apply across all LL's various services, and somebody said, "To hell with it, let's just say we have unlimited rights to everything, and call it a day," and they didn't think it through. But whatever the real reason is, the reality on the ground is it puts me, and others like me, in quite a bind. Legally, I'm not sure I'm actually allowed to agree to the new TOS at all (which is why I haven't so much as logged into SL since before the change). In my career, I've created thousands of items in SL for third parties. Those third parties are the IP owners in those cases, not me. I can't very well grant LL rights to content that are not mine to grant. I can't even log in to remove that content from my inventory, without first agreeing to the new terms, which I can't agree to. Over the years, my clients in SL have included all the major TV networks, several major motion picture studios, large corporations, advertising agencies, universities, small business, and individuals. My contract in every case states that I don't retain any IP rights to my clients' content, other than my own very limited portfolio rights. Under the strictest letter of the law, I'd need to get written OK's from every single one of them before I could safely log into SL again. Needless to say, that could take many months, and if a single one of them were to fail to say yes, I'd be stuck in the same boat I'm in now. And that's just on the civil side of it. I've also done work in SL for the US Government, including the CIA. I'm sworn to secrecy on that stuff. In those cases, it's a matter of public recrod that I was contracted to do SOMETHING, which is why I can say as much as I have, but I can't tell a soul what the work actually was. I can't show that content to anyone, ever. I certainly can't give Linden Lab unlimited rights to it. With regard to that stuff, if I were to agree to the new TOS, I could potentially be committing a federal crime. At this point, sad is it is to have to say, I'd really just like to sell my L$, and get out, until this has all been sorted. But I can't even do that without agreeing to the new TOS. It's beyond ridiculous.

Ah, sorry for misunderstanding what you were actually talking about. What you're describing is a bug that has been around pretty much since the day rigged mesh first hit the grid. Sometimes 32-bit textures on rigged mesh surfaces do indeed end up acting like invisiprims. This seems to be one of those bizarre bugs that is tough to nail down, since it happens intermittently. Sometimes simply detaching the mesh, and reattaching it will solve the problem. Other times, it won't. It also seems to behave differently for different people at different times. I think it's less frequent now than it used to be, or at least it's less frequently talked about. But, as you can see, it definitely still happens. I'm not sure what to suggest as a for-sure fix, sorry.

The hand is the default attachment point. The reason the glasses are moving around is because, you left them attached to the hand. When you moved them, you merely put a bit of distance between the geometry of the hand and the geometry of the object. The attachment itself remains intact; the distnace can't change that. Since the glasses are still attached to the hand, they appear to float around as the hand moves. To make the glasses stay on the head, first detach them from the hand, and then attach them to a static point on the head. The skull, nose, or an ear will work. Don't use the eyes or chin, since those can move on their own, preventing the glasses from staying in place. Since the skull, nose, and ears are fixed in place, relative to the head, anything attached to them will likewise remain in place, relative to the head.

Alisha Ultsch wrote: alpha layer Before we go any futher, let's avoid confusion, by clarifying terminology. There's no such thing as an "alpha layer". It's an alpha CHANNEL. Layers and channels are entirely different things. This forum is the only place in the known universe where people stubbornly insist on using the two words interchangeably. For anyone trying to learn digital arts for the first time, mixing up terminology like this makes it very difficult to proceed. For the rest of us, it makes it hard to communicate intelligently. And for people looking in from the outside, this is one of the big reasons why SL continues to be the laughing stock of the digital arts community at large. For these reasons, and more, I try to squash "alpha layer", whenever I see it. Terminology is important. Alisha Ultsch wrote: but with no transparency on the mesh itself I don't see why it shouldn't display properly. I'm not sure what you mean by "no transparency on the mesh itself". The mesh itself is not capable of having transparency, or of not having transparency. It's just a piece of 3D geometry. The transparency, or lack thereof, is in the texturing. The type of texture images we use in SL have either three or four channels in them. The first three map the colors in the image (red, green, and blue). The fourth (called Alpha), if present, maps the transparency of the image. Each of the channels is itself an 8-bit data map. Hence, images with three channels are referred to as 24-bit images (8x3=24), and images with four channels are referred to as 32-bit images (8x4=32). Due to several factors in the way realtime 3D graphics is processed and drawn by video cards, when two or more surfaces that have 32-bit textures on them overlap in 3D space, the computer can't always know the order in which they should be drawn. Computers don't define concepts like "in front" and "in back" the same way humans do, in this context. The resulting graphical anomoly is called the alpha sorting glitch. It happens in every realtime 3D engine there is, from freebies like SL, to video games, to high end 3D modeling platforms that cost thousands of dollars. The reason you don't see it in games is because professional game artists are well aware of it, and we go to pains to work around it. We just don't overlap 32-bit textures, ever. If that means redesigning a model, or even an entire level, so be it. If you don't want to see the problem in SL, you have to do the same thing. Design around it. In the case of your examle, that means putting a 24-bit texture on one of the surfaces. It doesn't matter how much transparency is in a 32-bit image, by the way. If those extra 8 bits are present, they're present, and that's that. Having a transparency value of zero isn't the same thing as having no transparency value at all. Make sense? Alisha Ultsch wrote: Changing it to a proper jpg with no alpha layer does work. So would changing it to 24-bit TGA, instead of a 32-bit one. You could also save it as PNG without transparency (although the margin of error is greater, depending on what software you're using), and that would work, too. So would saving it as a BMP. The important thing is that it's a 24-bit image. The format is irrelevant.

Rolig, you're right that the statement, "You can be anything you want to be, if you just set your mind to it," can be a dangerous one. It's not necessarily wrong, but it is woefully incomplete. It only focuses on one small part of a much larger picture. It might be more accurate to say, "By setting your mind to it, putting in the requisite planning to identify the steps you need to take, and then following through with the appropriate effort on each and every step, you can prepare all relevant factors that are under your control, so that you have the best possible shot at whatever it is you want to achieve. But there will always also be a margin of error, due to factors that are beyond your control, and you need to prepare yourself to adjust for that, too." But of course, that much of a mouthful of truth isn't exactly the stuff of slogans, nor would it be any more immune to misinterpretation than the original. What it really comes down to is teaching proper goal-setting skills, which sadly is a topic that most educators don't have the first clue about. People who consistently achieve great success know how to break down a goal into long-term, mid-term, and short-term activities, that keep them moving toward the finish line they want to cross. Some people have really good instincts for this, and don't even realize they're doing it. But for most, it's an active technique that must be taught and learned. It's been a while since I was teaching this stuff every day, so I'm afraid I don't have the exact citation in front of me, but I believe it was Harvard University, who first published a really interesting study on this. They tracked the various successes of a cross-section of their alumni, over several decades. What they found was that among those who ended up accomplishing what they'd wanted to in in their professional and personal lives, nearly all of them, whether they realized it or not, had followed one basic pattern in the way they had set goals for themselves. Among the ones who had not accomplished all or any of what they'd wanted, some had followed that same pattern in part, but none had followed it in full. What I believe we can conclude from that is that we can indeed be anything we want to be (within reason), but it takes more than just setting our minds to it. We need to know the formula for properly setting and achieving goals, and we need to follow it. Of course, we do need to be realistic in what goals we set. This is especially true when it comes to competitive goals. If all 30 violinists in an orchestra want to be the first violinist, 29 of them will always be disappointed. And if someone with no arms wants to win an arm-wrestling contest, it's probably not going to work out too well. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't aim high. The law of averages dictates that we all will accomplish less than what we set out to in some areas of life, while in other areas, we'll accomplish more than we dreamed. We can't know in advance which will be which, so we have to try our best at all of it. If by shooting for the stars, we land on the moon, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The danger comes when we only shoot for the moon, and then we've got nothing left of ourselves if we don't hit it. So, what's the pattern? It's gone by many names, and has been repackaged and presented in marginally different ways by different entities over the years. The most well known of these may be Zig Zigglar's "Seven Steps of Goal Setting". (Self-help gurus tend to love packaging things in sevens.) Zig presents it well, but whatever the outward packaging, the substance of the pattern remains a universal truth. There is a basic formula to achievement. When it's followed completely, whether concretely or abstractly, and whether consciously or subconsciously, people do indeed "be anything they want to be" (acts of god, alien invasions, and attacks by Gozer, notwithstanding). When it's not, they don't (divine intervention, and dumb luck, notwithstanding). If more teachers were cognizant of this, we'd have far less of those perpetually disappointed students you're so rightly concerned about.

I get your point, Rolig, but I don't fully agree. I don't consider raw talent to be particularly important, myself. While you and the good Doc are certainly correct that there can only be one first violinist in any orchestra, those trombonists wouldn't be there either, if they hadn't practiced, and practiced, and practiced, until their lips bled, regardless of their talent levels. Allow me to respond to your quote with another: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race". -- Calvin Coolidge Whether one is destined to be in the front or the back of the orchestra doesn't matter, in this regard. My point was simply that without practice, one gets nowhere at all. Of course, one does have to practice the right things. The most naturally talented person in the world will fail, if he or she practices bad technique. Conversely, a person with little or no natural talent can succeed at just about anything, given enough time and practice of good technique. Since you brought it up, allow me to share my feelings on talent. I'm not convinced it actually exists. Let me explain. At an early age people called me a "talented" artist, because I was able to intuit how to draw well, without having been taught. But the reality is anyone on this earth who has functional eyes and hands can be taught to get the same results I got. Drawing is simply an ability the human species possesses. For whatever reason, some people discover it on their own, and some need to be taught first, but everyone can do it. (Anyone reading this who thinks you can't draw, trust me; you can. Literally, everyone can, given the right training. Read the book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," and then practice what it teaches. Your results will surprise you. I've seen it happen for more people than I can count.) On the flip side, I was also an "untalented" singer, for most of my life. But that all changed just a few years ago, the day I met the right teacher. In our first meeting, he told me, "All I do is show people how to make the sounds that every human being is capable of making." What I had never before known was that singing is as much a science as an art, and the science part was what I'd been missing for all those years. My teacher, who has devoted his life to the subject, possesses a deep understanding of the physics and physiology of the voice, and week by week, he imparts that knowledge onto me. Now that I know what to practice, I keep getting better and better and better. The singer in my band, on the other hand, is "talented". He's never had a lesson in his life, plays no instrument, has had no musical training whatsoever, and yet he's one of the best singers I've ever known. For years, I was envious of his voice. I still am, but not nearly as much as I used to be. Now that I'm armed with the knowledge I've gleaned from my lessons, and all the practice I've done, I can now (on a good day) sing nearly as well as he can. In a few more years, I'll be better than he is now. So, what can we conclude about "talent", in a reality where "untalented" artists can be taught to produce the same quality artwork as "talented" ones, and "untalented" singers can be taught to sound just as good as "talented" ones? My best conclusion, as I said, is that talent doesn't really exist. When someone intuits a skill, we call it "talent", and when someone else learns the same skill, we call it technique. Either way, the end product is the same, so what does it matter?

Pamela Galli wrote: On the one hand I am a bit sorry to see my brutally hard won Blender skills rendered antique Your skills have not been, and never will be, rendered antique. First, there will ALWAYS be a need for 3D artists, no matter how sophisticated these kinds of automated tools become. As we've been discussing, they are just tools. They don't replace the artist. They merely offer the artist another way of doing things, among the multitude of methods that already exist. Second, it's the responsibility of every single person in every single field to keep up with the changes to and in that field. When the power saw was invented, carpenters who stubbornly clung to hand saws weren't able to compete for very long. Likewise, a 3D modeler who only learns one piece of software, and then stops learning, won't last very long either. Change happens. We all have to embrace it, or perish. Pamela Galli wrote: but in reality (as I knew from the first moment mesh appeared on the horizon) the flood of ripped mesh has already rendered that as good as done. I couldn't disagree more. The fact that some people rob banks doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't put our money in banks. The fact that some people steal music doesn't mean that musicians shouldn't keep making music. And the fact that some people steal 3D models doesn't mean modelers should stop making models. In every category, there will always be people who will take what doesn't belong to them. That's no reason to be defeatist. Pamela Galli wrote: So what it will come down to is competition based on texture, scripts, animation, customer service, and taste, not actual building or modeling. I agree with you on the customer service and taste part, but not on the other things. Textures, scripts, animations, and every other item you can think of, can all be ripped. What cannot be stolen or duplicated is YOU. Business is about relationships, not about things. Your customers will come back to you because of the service you offer them, and the consociation you develop with them.

Pamela Galli wrote: Dayum. I have always thought 3D software was insanely difficult to learn and create with, and wondered when someone would figure out an easier way. Careful what you define as "easier". Keep in mind that this particular tech is only really meant for manipulating photos. It's highly unlikely that the resulting models would be in any way game-ready. It still takes a human artist to optimize a model properly, so that it will work well in a game or virtual world. There are all kinds of factors to consider, besides just the outward appearance. As Medhue well put it, these things are tools. They're not meant to supplant the 3D modeling process, but to enhance it. To someone who already understands how 3D modeling works, there's a lot that could be done with models generated in this new way. But to someone who thinks this will be a way out of having to first develop that understanding, it's only going to cause a whole new set of problems. Here's a comparison that may help. When the airbrush was invented, a lot of non-painters looked at the results artists were getting with this new tool, and assumed the tool was the reason the paintings looked so good. Some of those people went out and bought airbrushes, assuming it was "easier" than traditional painting. You know what those people discovered? There's nothing actually "easy" about it. If you don't know how to paint, you don't know how to paint. The presence or absence of an airbrush won't change that. By the same token, if you don't know how to 3D model, you don't know how to 3D model. No matter what tools come out to make the job "easier", you'll never be able to do much with them if you don't first develop the skills that every single 3D artist needs to have. I'm sorry to hear that you find all 3D modeling software to be so difficult to use. I know from your posts that you've forced yourself to come a long way with it. Not everyone would have been as tenacious as you've been, so I'm glad you did stick with it. The best advice I can offer to anyone getting started who also finds it difficult is that it's like learning a musical instrument. It takes time and practice.to master. If it were a guitar or a violin, you'd have all the same mental anguish, plus your fingers would bleed, the first few times. Since it's just a computer program, you won't bleed, but it will still be a steep learning curve. By its very nature, every art form is mysterious and painful for anyone who is brand new to it. In the beginning, the only way to get started is by brute force, just making yourself do it, even though it's hard. The key is to focus on the journey, not the destination. As I so often say, if your goal is "I want to know how to make ______," it's going to be very, very frustrating, no matter what the blank happens to be. But if your goal is simply "I want to learn the basics of this software, step by step," then it becomes a pleasure. That blank will fill itself in, automatically, after you've mastered the basics. Most people who follow that step-by-step approach from A to B to C, and so forth, get competent within a few weeks, and really good in about 18 months. Those who try to rush it by skipping around invariably remain frustrated forever. Interestingly, that same time schedule applies to most musical instruments, so the analogy holds up pretty well. If you get started learning the guitar today, you'll be strong enough to strum a few chords within a few weeks. Practice faithfully every day, and you'll be good enough to play in a band in about 18 months. You won't be able to compete yet with people who have been playing for 20 years, of course, but you'll certainly be able to hold your own. I do realize "practice, practice, practice" probably isn't what anyone who's frustrated wants to hear. But it's the only truth I've got.

Medhue Simoni wrote: Rofl, who know? Maybe, this all comes full circle and now we are all modeling actual clay models again. Like the Gods, we create men out of clay again! Funny you should say that. Virtual clay was developed right here in Buffalo, nearly 10 years ago. As far as I know, it never ended up amounting to anything beyond a cool university science project, which is a shame. Obviously, there's a lot of potential for the idea.

Assuming that that is indeed a genuine reply from LL, great. They should have no problem backing it up by clarifying the TOS to once again appropriately limit their rights. If they're not willing to do that, then it looks awfully fishy. When one is sincere about something, one can and should ALWAYS be willing to put it in writing. When one is unwilling to do that, something is very wrong. Wity that in mind, I look forward to LL correcting their mistake very soon.

Under the strictest interpretation of the new TOS, you should not upload any asset to SL for which the owner has not specifically granted you the right to redistribute the asset itself. In nearly all cases, when you purchase a commercial license to a texture, that's not a right you're given. You can distribute models you've made that have the texture on them, but not the texture itself. Under the previous TOS, this subject was a bit of a gray area. Even though it was technically a license violation, many texture sellers would look the other way, since the TOS language made it clear that LL's only interest was in running the service, and that they would only use assets in the necessary manner to make SL function. Under the new language, that guarantee no longer exists. They now can do literally anything with every single uploaded asset. Therefore, your uploading of any asset you don't have the right to redistribute would be a definite no-no. LL has really created a fine mess with this one.

Glad it's working, Paper. You might also want to give Kwak's suggestion a whirl, make sure you've got the very latest version of the exporter from Autodesk, if you haven't already. If Kwak's guess is right, it'll save you a few clicks. I'd be curious to hear the results, either way.

Nope, I'm not at all sure, Kwak. As I mentioned, I'm still using Maya 2009, so I can't test. It's entirely possible Autodesk and/or LL may have solved the problem. Hence the "unless something has changed" portion of my post. As for reasons why Maya's COLLADA exporter may be different from Max's, I can think of plenty. The two programs are developed by different teams, have different scripting languages, and are structured in very different ways, for starters. It's possible the exporters write the same COLLADA info, but it's equally possible they don't. Just because two products are published by the same company doesn't mean they have interchangeable parts, or that they work the same way at all. (Heck I have two Dodge vehicles sitting in my driveway right now, and they don't have a single part in common. I've checked.)

Cathy Foil wrote: Chosen, I thought the stand alone FBX Converter couldn't do rigged DAE files? I hadn't heard that, Cathy. It's possible you're right. I can't say for sure. I'm still using Maya 2009, myself.

WolfBaginski Bearsfoot wrote: I get an impression of ill-informed lawyers and mismanagement of data resources. Your thoughts somewhat mirror my own. I know from long experience what happens with lawers who 'get it', and with those who don't. When a lawyer who writes a TOS fundamentally understands the technology and its uses, as well as the respective needs of the company and its customers, you get a TOS that is fair for all involved, such as the one SL had before. That kind of TOS naturally builds up the company by also building up everybody else. The rising tide lifts all boats. However, when a lawyer doesn't fully understand what he or she is dealing with, he or she tends to default to the simplest possible protective stance for his or client, which is "My client get everything. Everyone else, you're not my client, so you're not my concern." The larger picture doesn't seem to dawn on these guys. The puzzling part here, though, is that LL has been at this a long time, and they're well aware of the former principle. SL succeeded where other virtual worlds failed, precisely BECAUSE the company went to pains to respect the rights of its users. That, more than anything else, was what made it so unique and compelling when it was new. By this point, with that model having been so well proven for so long, the appearance or disappearance of any particular lawyer, or even team of lawyers, wouldn't have been able to affect this kind of apparent philosophical change. If LL were still a startup, then maybe, but it's been over a decade now. They do know better. So, there are only two possibilities here. Either somebody made a huge mistake, in which case it will be corrected, or this reflects a fundamental paradigm shift for the company itself, in which case we should all seriously consider whether or not we want to remain involved. I'm currently waiting for more evidence, one way or the other, before I can know which way to interpret it. If it turns out to be the former, I'll happily stay onboard, and wait for LL to regain its senses. But if it's the latter, then I'll likely jump ship altogether (which of course would pain me greatly, after having been in it for nearly 10 years). In the mean time, I'll be treating SL cautiously, pretty much the same way I treat the likes of Facebook, and so many other services whose leadership is of questionable intent. I simply won't upload anything I don't want to risk. Side note: While we're on the subject of lawyers who don't get it, wanna hear a sad story? I myself recently lost $70,000 worth of work, due to a game company's new lawyer having no idea how game development works. I won't name the company, of course, but I'd been doing a lot of artwork for them on a regular basis, for better part of the last year. They just dumped their CEO, and the guy they replaced him with came from the banking industry, rather than from the game industry. Some of you no doubt know where this is going, already. Long story short, the new lawyer who came along with the new CEO demanded radical changes to my existing agreement with the company. The new terms he proposed were unbelievably unfair, 100% in favor of the company at every turn, with no concern for my rights as a contractor at all. Upon my mere suggestion that we so much as discuss the proposed changes, the company rescinded nearly all the orders for the new work they'd promised me, and refused to talk any further about it. In my 19 years in business, I've never seen such an unprofessional and short-sighted move by any client of mine, ever. So, yeah, wacky things happen when lawyers are brought in who don't understand the industry in which their client needs to operate.

Porky Gorky wrote: Indeed. And when you consider the implicaitons of this technology combined with 3D printing, in 10 years time anyone with the approproate kit could possibly create a 3D model and print it out with only a mininal skillset. Tea, Earl Gray, hot!

Unless anything has changed recently, SL's COLLADA implementation is too old to work directly with Maya 2012 and newer. Not to worry, there is a simple work-around. Export to FBX, and then use Autodesk's stand-alone FBX Converter to convert the file to COLLADA 1.4.

Pretty cool. As others have already pointed out, it's less than perfect, but it's certainly impressive. Of course, it's nothing that any moderately compentent human 3D artist couldn't do better, using just about any 3D modeling program, plus Photoshop. It would just take the human a little longer that way, of course. It'll be interesting to see how quickly this sort of technology evolves to the point where the automation actually can match, or even surpass, the human artist.

Kurama Bingyi wrote: What programs do you use to make mesh clothing? The first thing to realize is it's not about making mesh CLOTHING. It's simply about mesh modeling itself. It's just like with any other artform. You learn the principles and techniques, and then you apply them to whatever it is you want to do, whether it be clothing, or tennis rackets, or houses, or rocket ships, or robots, or space aliens, or whatever else you can think of. It's all the same thing. You don't learn to play the violin by playing one piece of music. You don't learn to paint by painting just one picture. When you know how to play the instrument, you can play any music you want on it, and when you know how to paint, you can creatre any image. By the same token, when you know how to model, you can model anything you want, not just clothing. That said, to answer your direct question, I personally use Maya. This is not because Maya is inherently any better or worse than other available choices; it's simply because it's what I was trained on and am comfortable with. I make my living using it every day. The best program to use is whatever prorgram you're most comfortable using. If you don't want to spend money, then as has been mentioned a few times now, Blender is by far the most full-featured free option, and it's well supported among the SL community. If price is no object, then I'd suggest you also check out popular commercial options, such as Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave, etc. Most of them come with 30-day free trials. Give them a whirl, and see which one best speaks your language. Whetever you do, just don't get caught up in trying to learn just the things you think you need to know. That's not how it works. First you have to learn all the basics, and only then can you transition into applying them to the things you want to make. In the beginning, you don't yet know enough to know what it is you don't know, and trying to cherry-pick information will only lead to endless frustration. So, pick a course of study, and stick with it, from start to finish, BEFORE you try to attempt your own projects. Maya comes with the best included help file of any program on this planet. To get started, just open up the help, click on "Learning Maya", and follow the tutorials. Do them all, from start to finish. Don't skip any, and don't go out of order. When you're done, you'll have a solid command of the basics, and you'll be able to start making whatever you want. After that, it's just practice, practice, practice. If you go with Blender, then I'd suggest you follow the beginner tutorials at blendercookie.com. Again, do them all from strart to finish, don't skip any, and don't go out of order. Let each lesson build up the last, like it's supposed to, and you'll do fine. Rember, although the learning curve is steep, it's never hard if you take it one step at a time. Whenever you see frantic cries for help from hopelessly confused and stressed out people, it's nearly always because they tried to go out of order and do something they're not yet ready for. You said you're patient, and that's great. It takes patience and discipline to learn this stuff for the first time. Learn it the right way, and you'll find that although it's time consuming, it's fun, easy, and very rewarding, the whole way through.

Nalates Urriah wrote: Linden Lab supports Blender. Can you provide any evidence of this, Nat? To my knowledge, Linden Lab does not directly support any software but their own. Perhaps our definitions of "support" are different? How did you mean it? Nalates Urriah wrote: Next is the fact that Linden Lab is a stakeholder in Blender. Again, can you provide a reference for this? My understanding is it's a long-held misconception, which originated from a comment in the Blender release notes when the program's COLLADA exporter was revamped. The comment included the phrase, "Second Life is now the primary stakeholder." A lot of people on this forum at the time seemed to grossly misinterpret the word "stakeholder" in this context. They took it to mean that Linden Lab somehow now owned a piece of Blender. But in truth, all it actually meant was that Blender's COLLADA implementation had been rebuilt with SL compatibility in mind. I'm not aware of any information directly indicating that Linden Lab as a company contributes, financially or otherwise, to the Blender Foundation or has any ownership in it. Blender is more compatible with SL now than it used to be, simply because certain people who happened to be members of both the communities decided to make it so. As far as I know, Linden Lab had nothing directly to do with the COLLADA change, or with anything else in Blender's development history. Do you have differing information from mine? If I'm misinformed, I'd be interested to hear more.

TishaRogue wrote: I would assume if the original maker went out of business and isn't responding that they may have left sl all together. Whether or not that assumption turns out to be true, it's not relevant. Just because someone leaves SL doesn't mean they magically surrender their IP rights. SL is merely one distribution platform among countless thousands of other platforms. Copyright exists in RL, and spans all platforms, regardless of which ones an author might choose to use, or not use. In any cases, when an IP owner does not respond to a request for permission to copy, the answer is automatically no. The right to choose when, how, whether, and where a work can be copied belongs exclusively to the owner. By definition, and by default, you do not have permission until and unless the owner grants it to you. Simply saying, "He didn't respond, so I guess he's not objecting," doesn't cut it. That's just not how it works. The fact that I haven't told you not to take my car for a spin doesn't mean you wouldn't be stealing it if you did. By the same token, the fact that I haven't told you not to use my artwork doesn't mean you wouldn't be stealing it if you did. TishaRogue wrote: As for making knock offs... well it's legal in rl so why not here. Careful with that statement. There are a lot of important answers to "why not here". First, knock-offs in RL are only legal for items which cannot be copyrighted, trademarked, patented, or otherwise protected under IP law. Garments can be copied, for example, because they are considered under the law to be utilitarian items, rather than artistic works. The print pattern on the fabric that a garment is made out of, however, may be a different story. That absolutely can be copyrighted. The print is artwork, even if the garment is printed on is not. Make all the knock-offs you want of that hot dress you saw on the runway, you'll be just fine, legally speaking, as long as you only copy the utilitarian aspects of it. But if you go too far, and you also copy incorporated artistic elements, then you'd be breaking the law. You may ask then why does knock-off clothing so often look exactly like the original, including the fabric prints. The answer is simple. If the fabric the original designer used is available on the open market, as fabrics usually are, then anyone can buy it. If I buy the same fabric, I can make the same dress out of it, since the dress itself is utilitarian, and I will have broken no copyright laws, since I did not copy the print. If the dress is too complex of an example, here's a simpler one that may help get the point across. Let's go with a Mikey Mouse T-shirt. Under the law, there's nothing artistic about a T-shirt itself. It's a purely utilitarian item. Every garment company in the world makes T-shirts, and they all look basically the same. I can copy the design of whatever T-shirt Disney is putting Mickey on these days, including every last measurement, in perfect detail, and it would be totally legal. But it would have to be just the shirt; I would NOT be able to include Mickey. The picture of him on the real thing is a copyrighted image, and Mickey himself is a trademarked character. So, I can knock off the shirt all day long, but if I want Mickey to be on it, Disney needs to give me the OK first. That's how it works in RL. Now let's talk about SL. In a simulated environment like SL, nothing is utilitarian. The dress isn't a dress, and the T-shirt isn't a T-shirt. Both are pieces of digital art. As such, they are protected in their entirety under copyright law. If "Virtual Versace" creates a new digital dress, that 3D model is copyrighted artwork, and we can't just knock it off. So what happens if you and I both independently take inspiration from the same RL dress, and decide to make a virtual version of it. Our two 3D models are going to look similar to each other. Will either of us have broken the law in that case? With respect to each other, the answer is no. Independent design is considered and protected by the law. If you and I independently create similar things at the same time, and neither of us is aware of the other before or during the process, then neither of us can have copied the other. In that case, we'd each independently enjoy copyright protections on our works. (And yes, that can get quite complicated, commercially, but that's another matter.) With respect to the original creator of the RL dress, that's a gray area. The RL garment is utilitarian, but any drawings, 3D models, sculptures, etc., that may have been created during the design process are all copyrightable artworks. So, when you make a 3D model of a RL dress, are you simply making a new artistic representation of a utilitarian item, or are you making an unauthorized copy of the design artwork that utilitarian item happens to look like? There's no universally applicable answer to that question. Courts decide it on a case by case basis. And of course, some things are too mundane to protect. You can't copyright the color red, for example. If I make a red wall, I don't get to stop you from making your own red wall. In order for a work to be protected, the law does require a degree of originality. TishaRogue wrote: We all take inspiration from things we see and hear the question is how much do we make it the same and how much do we redesign to make our own. That is where the balance lays and we all have to find what works best. Agreed. The main thing is to respect the difference between "inspired by" and "copy of". Star Trek was inspired by Wagon Train, for example, but the differences between the two are fairly obvious.

Ivan is right. Do it by hand. That's the only way to make sure it's done right. Like it or not, these things take time and effort. There can never be a magical "make it work" button. It's tedious, which is one reason the world at large is not burtsting at the seams with billions of 3D artists. It's a specialized skill, which most people don't want to take the time to learn how to do well. Automated tools like decimators and such have their place, but they only work for certain things, under relatively narrow circumstances. The only thing that works every time is the hand of an actual human artist. I've said this a thousand times before, and I'll say it again now. If you're wiling to put the amiunt of work into it that it demands, digital art is highly rewarding. But if you're not, then you may want to consider finding a different hobby, because it can be awfully frustrating for those who are under the unfortunate impression that it's about pushing buttons and watching things happen. Don't take that the wrong way. Just be aware of what you're asking of yourself if you really intend to to make a go of it.

I'm afraid I can't think of any way to explain those points with pictures. You're going to need to read the words. If Englsh is not your first language, perhaps it would be a good idea for you to state what language you do speak, and maybe someone would be kind enough to translate.

I'll second the suggestion of ShaderMap. It's a wonderful tool, and at less than US$40, it's an absolute steal. I haven't tried nVidia's Photoshop plugin, but it seems worth checking out. I also use CrazyBump, and find I get better results with it, more easily, in a lot of cases, than with ShaderMap. CrazyBump doesn't have the painting features that ShaderMap has, but its calculations from source images seem to be better. So, both programs are great for different things. CrazyBump is a bit more expensive, at $99 for a personal license, or $299 for commercial, so bargain hunters will probably be better off with just ShaderMap. For those willing to invest a little more, CrazyBump is worth every penny. Whatever people end up using, here are a couple of quick tips that are seldom talked about: First, make sure that your software is set to generate normal maps for OpenGL, as opposed to for DirectX or any other graphics API. SL is an OpenGL application. DirectX apps tend to reverse certain vectors, so maps made with DirectX in mind aren't likely to work very well in SL. Second, even with the first point in mind, the fact remains that there is no actual finalized standard for how normal mapping works. Every application implements it slightly differently. It's a not uncommon hot-button issue between game developers and artists. Don't be surprised if your maps don't produce exactly the same results in SL as in your modeling program, other games, etc. That's par for the course. This is one of those areas where all we can do is say close enough is close enough. There will always be a certain degree of artifacting, and we all have to just live with it (at least until a standard is reached).

Jumbomahmo wrote: Nothing different from your tutorial. Well, that's not true. You actually deviated from the tutorial in many important ways. I'll explain what the differences were, but before I do that, I'll talk more generally about why your geometry is disappearing on you when you try to do the Boolean subtraction. When that happens, it's because you've created a situation in which the mathematics have become impossible. Boolean operations, by definition, are nothing more than mathematical equations. To make them work, you MUST begin with proper data upon which the math can work. In Maya terms, that means things like remembering to delete history and freeze transformations when and where you need to; making sure geometry is not inside out, non-manifold, or otherwise problematic; ensuring topologies of the surfaces involved are as compatible as possible; etc., etc., etc. With that in mind, let's talk about where you deviated from the tutorial: 1. You used a different method to create your cube than the author did. He made a simple default cube, without interactive creation enabled. You, on the other hand, did use interactive creation. That in itself isn't necessarily problematic, but it did cause you to make your first mistake. Notice the author's cube was perfectly uniform, and close in size to the source model, while yours was oblong, and was MUCH larger than the source model, as well as quite a bit taller. Because of this, your divisions did not coincide nearly as well with the topology of the source model as the author's did. With the cube being that large, you should have given it a lot more divisions, especially along that long width. (This was not what directly caused the Boolean to fail, but it would have caused you other problems, if the Boolean had worked.) The whole point of this step of the tutorial was to create quads that were of similar size to the source model's tris, so that the upcoming Boolean intersection of the two would be as neat and clean as possible. You seem to have missed that point entirely. 2. You extruded in the opposite direction than the author did. Your model was therefore inside out, relative to the author's model. This is most likely the first factor that caused the Boolean to fail. (To ensure that models are not inside out, always work with backface culling enabled, so you can see these kinds of mistakes as they happen.) 3. You deleted the original faces after extrusion, whereas the author deleted the newly created faces. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it is nonetheless a deviation from the tutorial. I only mention it, since you said nothing was different. There are scenarios in which even a subtle difference like this can have huge consequences, so it's worth paying attention to. 4. Most importantly of all, you did not delete history or freeze transformations before performing the Boolean operation. This is crucially important. Maya mathematically tracks every single change you make to every single object in your scene, and records it to the construction history for each object. This is an extremely powerful function of Maya, which enables you to do all kinds of things procedurally that you would never otherwise be able to do, but it comes with the downside that every time you perform a new operation, all that math has to be recalculated. When you do things that drastically change an object's topology, such as Booleans, you should delete the object's construction history first, to ensure you don't create conflicts between the existing math and the new math you're about to perform. You should also freeze transformations, so that the object's size and rotation do not end up as extraneous factors in the new equations, which could affect the results. When you freeze the transformations, size values become ones, and rotation values become zeroes, which makes them all effectively neutral in equations. Neglecting to delete history and freeze transformations is the most common cause of operational failures or unexpected results. Always keep history and transformation values only for as long as you need them, no longer. Remember to delete history and freeze transformations at all key points in your work flow, and you'll eliminated 90% of potential problems before they happen. To summarize, issues 2 and 4 are the things that directly contributed to the Boolean failure. Issue 1 likely had nothing to do with the failure, but would have led to undesirable results had the failure not happened. Issue 3 probably did not directly cause any problems, but was still an area where you did something different from what was in the tutorial. By the way, I'm not sure who the "you" was that you thought you were talking to when you said, "follow the same steps as you," and "your tutorial". If you wanted to speak directly to the author of the tutorial, his contact info is probably on his website. This is a public forum, with thousands of individual users. 99.9999% of the people who might respond here are not that author. I'm not him, but I responded anyway.