Nacy Nightfire

go here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/How_to_create_animations Scroll down to the Poser section and there's a link to a .zip file with the files you need

Thanks so much Rolig! I appreciate the help and I'm relieved that I'm not chasing after something that would be too complex for a beginner. (This is shark infested waters for me and I'm a bit nervous...I never venture out of the the Mesh forum where I feel safe!)

I'm completely new to scripting , although I've gotten lucky fiddling with a few to get results I've wanted re: particles and animations. I'm now ready (after 5 year in SL :P ) to teach myself and I have the following project in mind: I'd like to make a script that on a face basis switches the texture on that face to alpha and back again. The texture would switch to alph on its own (no touch needed) and return to the texture based on a timer. Only one face would have a texture showing at any one time (the other's being in an alpha state). Also I'd like to specify the order in which each texture face in turn appears as a non-alpha texture. Is this too complex a project for a beginner? Is this method of scripting hard on resources? Would texture animation on each face and attempting to line them up so the above is a better approach - or would that be less reliable and more tedious to achieve? Thanks for any and all assistance. I hope this isn't repeating an early post. I researched this on the forums and the web for a few hours and got nowhere.

LOL, Rahkis. I think that's why they say "A picture is worth a thousand words". But it's also something that is worthwhile repeating!

It you look closely at the bottom of the UV window there is a SNAP function you can turn on and of. Also the shortcut key W brings up a menu for aligning selected verts in various directions as well as welding them. You should also check out videos on youtube specifically explainaing how to use the sew tool which brings together islands that have been split off.

As Kwakkelde posted, these are baked in specular effects in a fixed position. They are determined by the lighting set up and the material properties and I believe camera angle. You can not simply bake specularity in Blender (the rational probably being that specularity is supposed to be "real time" and based on a specularity map that moves as the lighting moves in a game). The work around for Blender to actually bake spec is to use the Nodes material set up in Blender. Check out this tutorial: http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/tutorials/31727-tutorial-baking-specular-blender.html Be prepared to spend some time experimenting with this and learing how to control lighting, material setting and setting up a "scene" to get excellent results that don't look artificial, unnatural or "chalky". Edited: eeep! sorry for spelling your name incorrectly Kwakkelde

For anyone not following this, here's an illustration (again I'm a beginning intermediate Blender user so I may be missing some subtleties here): Note it that the UVs can positioned outside the positive 0-1 uv grid space and here each mesh box is assigned it's own material so that in SL a seperate texture can be applied. Within Blender a second material isn't required to assign various faces in an object to different textures, but in SL you must to assign material groups to create texture seperation. Also it's important to note that you can only manipulate and paint the texture within the visible grid section. From there the texture gets applied to the mesh as an infinitely repeating pattern, so its important to view your mesh in texture view in the 3d edit screen to make certain it's place in the manner you desire. SL view:

You can also just drag an image from your desktop or folder and drop it right into the Blender 3d workspace, and then change the scale and position from the Transform menu on the right (shortcut N). The texture is automatically loaded into the system and it also appears in the uv section drop down menu for loaded textures. Additionally there is a add-on that you might find useful. It is in the add-on list but is not activated by default. It's called ImportExport: Import Images as Planes, which can also be used for reference. It automagically loads the image to scale onto a plane, puts the plane into the editing space and loads a UV referenced to the texture in UV space.

What you have there are two mesh parts that you want to join. It has nothing to do with seams. Seams refer to how the UVs are layed out. If you split the mesh up into UV islands you create seams from disconnecting the parts in UV space. You have a few options here to join these two mesh parts together. You can select equal number of vertices on each side and bridge them using the W (specials menu) key and select "Bridge Two Edge Loops" creating a connected loop of faces. Or you can temporarily turn on "auto merge editing" by checking that from the MESH menu at the bottom of the edit screen. Set your snapping mode to verts and select each vertex in turn and drag it while hold down control (to temporarily turn snapping on),and drag and snap it to the vert you want to merge it to. Don't forget to turn off the auto merge feature when you are finished or you won't be able to extrude vertices since they will automatically merge back. To set snapping mode to verts go to the bottom of the 3d edit screen and select verts from the drop down menu to the right of the little magnet icon. edited to correct misspellings and redundant words.

Thanks for the "heads-up" Indigo! If anyone else is running this on a mac, you might find, like I did, the specials menu is no longer linked to the shortcut "W" in edit mode. If anyone needs help recreating this shortcut, let me know and I'll post the steps on the Mesh forum. It might just be specific to me due to something I did in my version, but there's no way for me to to test this, so If others are missing it this shortcut, I'm getting it out there that it's easily fixed.

Absolutely Gaia. I'd be honored. I owe you a tremendous debt for the superb educational resourse you provide in SL that I've personally benefitted from and can't recommend enough.

Add me to the list of the "self-taught" via all the sources listed on this post. I think becoming obsessed with the idea of mastering the skill is a bonus. I know it seems as if many folks who are making really great stuff in mesh must seem to have some special advantage over those who are beginners and struggling with it. However, you'd really be surprised how many folks just jumped in and started watching Youtube, Vimeo and Blender Cookie, etc. along with following the Mesh forum to get tips. Prior to joining SL in '07 I had no idea 3d art existed. I've taught myself to use Poser for making animations, Photoshop for textures and clothing and Blender for Sculpties and later mesh. As I understood a bit more I added Lightwave, Modo and Zbrush to my arsenal. I never stop trying to improve and I watch at least one free tutorial every day. There are no shortcuts.

What I recommend is: Set your uv to "sync" mode (press the box with the arrow at the bottom UV menu). Select the merged vertice. Bring your cursor back into the UV Edit window where the selected vert is and press CTL V and click (don't move anything just click to seperate it). Go back into the UV space and move the split vert to each island where you want it. DESELECT "sync" mode in UV so nothing is selected in UV space. Important or it will remerge. Return to the split vert in the UV edit window. Box select the vert in wireframe mode it to select each instance of the vert - it will be split but in the same location. Finally press CTL M to remerge the vert.

When I see an unexpected jump like this in LI count I check my mesh for a duplicate that has been inadvertantly made and is sharing the same space. This isn't removed by "remove doubles"...try to turn on Mesh>Automerge Editing, but be sure to turn this feature off when you are extruding or you will merge the extrusion before you can grab it and drag it out. Another thing I check for is the physics shape. It's possible you forgot it on upload. If you baked one texture for the whole thing, I'm not sure you need 3 materials. I'd reset the mesh to one material as a texture face for the whole mesh that is covered by a single texture. Just a few things that I check for. I'm sure other's have different thoughts on this.

I'm not sure I completely understand your question, but I'll point out a feature in the UV window that allows you to select (or NOT select) shared vertices or shared location:

Beautiful job Aquila, thank you.

I believe by default "snapping" is off when you open up Blender. When snapping mode (the small magnet icon at the bottom of the edit window) is not selected, then holding CTL temporarily turns it on (and if it's on CTL temporarily turns off snapping ) as long as the CTL key is held down. Also by default snapping is set to the grid. This is probably not what you want if you are trying to snap one mesh to another. So change the "Snap Element" ti faces, edges or verts and once you select one of these choices another field will appear to allow you select your "Snap Target" which is the part of the moving geometry you want to snap. This takes a bit of experimentation to get the hang of and I highly recommend you check out videos related to snapping in Blender on YOUTUBE, etc. to get a visual explanation.

Thank you so much Masami...that was a wonderful explanation! :matte-motes-smile:

Excellent info Masami. Thanks very much. I personally find data blocks very confusing. If you have time to explain or point me or anyone else to a good tutorial source which explains this Blender concept, I'd be very grateful. And if anyone else with a good grasp of this cares to also chime in here or a seperate new thread about Data Blocks I would appreciate your help with this very much.

Pamela, Double check that in the material pallete setting under the heading OPTIONS that FACE TEXTURES is UNchecked. Edited to add: Make sure at the same time your texture is checked on in the materials texture palette. If that doesn't work, check that you don't have more then one camera in the scene. If you have a second camera delete it.

You wrote: "This is in Blender. I have a back porch and as a separate mesh, a pool, about the same size. Both have the same brick material with a 4 x 4 repeat. Yet look at the difference in the size of the bricks: An alternative to all these great suggestions posted here... If by separate mesh you mean separate object, here is another workflow: Create uv's for the second item you've created that fit the "bake area" of the uv space (I'm assuming this is the pool area mesh object). Assign the same material as the porch brick and click on the number to the right of the material name so it becomes a separate instance of this material. Go into to the texture portion of the material you just copied and under "mapping" make sure that the UV set selected is the one for the pool. If not, select it from the drop down list. From the 3d edit Display menu set your Edit window to display GLSL and from the bottom of the 3d edit window set the 3d edit window "Viewport shading mode" to "Texture". Using the first object (the porch) as a reference, play with the size in the x and y dimensions of the pool TEXTURE: Mapping > Size. You will be able to see the texture scale in realtime when you are in GLSL mode. Scale to match the reference mesh. You may discover you have to further tweak the scale or orientation a bit for some of the UV islands you created by manually and selectively scalling and rotating the islands or faces to equalize the scale and correct the texture direction on all parts defined and seperated by uv islands.. Finally, assign a texture to the pool deck UV's and bake. To see it your baked texture on the model, change the display in 3d edit from GLSL to Multi Texture, check "Texture Solid" and change your 3d "Viewport Shading Mode" to "Solid". Edited to add: Note: Don't change the repeats from the upper section called Image Mapping. The numbers you adjust are in the area below that in the Mapping section. 2nd edit to add: Although the SHAPES of the meshes appear to be the same size, the uvs you created are not the same size and scale. So you are comparing apples to oranges when it comes to applying a texture that has the same repeat. You need to either adjust the scale of one set of uvs to match the other and if the scale is such that it goes outside the boundries of the UV bake area, use that as a source uv set that gets baked to a target set you create that is confined to the UV bake space as described by Asha. OR fiddle with the mapping as I described .

Zbrush is a very feature rich complex program. I suggest you download the free trial and check it out yourself. I've spent couple of years using it, mostly for sculpty work, and I'm still very much a Zbrush beginner. I love the program and I find it useful, but I wouldn't put it in the catagory of easy to use or a substitute for a good 3d modeling program like Blender, 3dmax, C4D, Maya, etc. One would generally purchase this product in addition to a 3d modeling/animation package. It doesn't export collada files natively, but there is a free plug-in created by Marcus Civis on the Zbrush Central forum which allows you to export your model as a collada for SL. A competitor to Zbrush is Autodesk's Mudbox. These are both primarily sculpting programs. A free sculpting program that is pretty decent is Sculptris and you can get that from the Pixologic web site (creators of Zbrush). The focus of these products is to allow you to create a very dense model polygon-wise from which you can create your models in a more traditionally artistic fashion, as if you were working in a clay medium. And if you are not committing these forms directly into 2d images within Zbrush you need to drastically reduce their poly count by retopologizing into a simpler form. Retopologizing is yet another skill to be learned as well as understanding how displacement, vector and normal maps are used and how to export them out of Zbrush into a compatible form that your 3d program will accept.

Excellent info Masami and Asha. And I might also remind anyone using the target (bake to) UVs and a second "bake from" set technique you must remember delete the "from" set before exporting as a collada. There can only be one UV assigned for the SL importer to work properly. Again that should be the "bake to" version since its aligned with the final baked texture you want to use.

Thanks a gazillion, Masami. The "active face" issue is the missing link for me. The reason a texture didn't appear in my first example (the eyes) is because I most likely selected those parts via hovering over them and pressing the shortcut "L". I didn't actively click-select any particular face so there were no active faces - thus no image appeared in the UV space. I must have then clicked in the "pink" region creating an active face and for the remaining texture selections I just used the shortcut "L" to select those areas which I previously isolated by edge marking. So the active face remained in the pink region. This makes a big difference in the way I view how this works. I appreciate the help.

When selecting faces to bake to a seperate textures (with or without material assignments) it can be very helpful to assign your textures unique colors. When you bake, these colors will be over-ridden, so just like a texture grid helps guide you in effectively scaling and aligning your uvs, the use of different colors give you a visual cue in the 3d edit window in TEXTURE view what faces are assigned to unique textures. Any unassigned faces appear bright shadeless white. When assigning textures always work in Face Select mode and set your 3d edit window display to TEXTURE to get confirmation of your texture assignments. Note: If you default to using the black texture or only one color in for your texture assignments, you will not see the difference in your various assignment groupings. As mentioned, the uv space can only show one texture at a time, it gets very confusing what you are actually looking at. So don't use the UV space to confirm texture assignment. However as you assign or remove texture assignments, you should only see those particular faces appear in the UV space. Again, you may not actually see the texture you have assigned. Don't be thrown off by this. Look in the 3d edit window for confirmation. To assign faces to a texture, select the faces you are assigning so they appear in the UV space and add/create a texture or pick one already created or imported from the drop down list in the UV edit window. To change/remove previous texture assignments, select the faces and click x to remove what is assigned and/or reassign a new texture or select from the drop down list. Check what you have done in the 3d edit window to confirm the assignment is correct. Ignore the texture in the UV window. Here are some visuals: Here I've begun assigning textures. I've assigned a new green texture to the eyes. Note that this texture fails to appear in the UV space***. Never fear, the green appears on the eyes. The texture is assigned properly. Now I've made my second texture assignment. Note that suddenly the pink texture somewhat arbitrarily appears in the UV space.*** Now I have faces selected from two different texture assignments. Both the eyes and faces appear on the UV screen but only one texture appears. As long as you don't change the texture that appears or delete the texture everything remains correctly assigned to these two groups. Check what you see in the 3d edit space for what is actually assigned. Now I have the ears selected, but I have not yet added a texture to them. They appear to be sitting on the pink texture in UV space***, but they are shadeless bright white in the 3d edit texture view window. There is no texture assigned to these faces. Now I've gone ahead and assigned a texture to the ears that is blue. Again these colors are temporary and will be overwritten when you bake. So you can see the ears have their own texture assignment, but in the UV space you still see the pink texture***. Finally the last group of faces is assigned an orange texture. Note the back of head bit still appears to be sitting on the pink texture if you look in the uv space***, however that is not what is actually assigned. Edited: I'd like to direct your attention to a subsequent post by Masami who points out the texture that appears in the UV space is controlled by the "actively" selected face which is the last face actively clicked on and selected that then has a dotted appearance. Thanks very much Masami!