Nacy Nightfire

Thanks so much for that link to Canned Mushrooms/Jason Welsh's videos. I'm working thru them and although I'm a bit beyond the first in the series skill-wise, I'm still picking up useful workflow tips. One correction I'll make that may have been corrected already in viewer comments (I'm watching these on an Ipad so I don't see viewer's comments). Jason uses the AVERAGE ISLAND SCALE feature of blender incorrectly and then suggests that blender is a bit wonky in it's implementation of this feature. He did not properly select all of the faces in the UV space when he invoked that command and therefore didn't get the results he expected. (I hate to see Blender "taking the fall" for user mistakes.) I've never had a problem with this command. This however doesn't detract from the excellence of this series or the extreme generosity of Jason Welsh to provide this instruction for free. He works on the Mac and the PC in many different programs so it must be a "herculean" effort to accomplish what he does for the general student public - and he does it so well.

Clearly you are too busy with your real life responsibilities and your Second Life projects to read carefully. My op was never a suggestion that everyone MUST participate in a mentoring relationship. I have shared with the general public here what I've learned from own satisfying experience mentoring a talented, intelligent, willing and eager "student/friend" I met here on the forums. I am encouraging those who are too shy to contribute to the forums or unable to make public videos they can make a valuable contribution by teaching on a one to one basis. And yes, via IM, because that's what its there for. Its impractical to bring each and every project that we do to the forum for evaluation by all forum members. And for many reasons, its not a particularly good idea. And we can't always get past our learning hurdles with generalized information. Some learning has to be project specific. Newcomers to 3D are fully formed adult humans with the same maturity and life skill set as anyone else. They are not "newbies" in the prejoritive sense. This is not some bad Hollywood movie about High School hijinks where the seasoned characters berate the freshmen. Newcomers (either to SL as a whole or to an aspect of SL they are new to such as 3d mesh) need the same help to participate in this unique social enviroment as the more seasoned members received (and often conveniently forget they received). In any way that works. Classes, videos on youtube, the forum and private instruction is valid. Now tell me. This post has been up for a while. How many thousands of enthusiastic yet impolite mesh beginners have IMd you to rudely demand your mentoring service, thus interrupting your bliss. I've had none.

You just need to rotate your uvs so the texture is in your prefered orientation.

You wrote: "If your goal is to make knowledge widely available and beneficial to many, blogs and forums are the ideal media. If you want to keep it secret, obscure and accessible to few, private mentorship is preferable because it closely resembles the medieval guild system." Sorry Masami, you can't argue your point in two different directions. On one hand you have said your knowledge is your intellectual property, a commodity and worthy of compensation. On the other you are saying it's wrong for an individual to control how he/she disseminates his/her knowledge and one should make one's knowledge publically available to everyone here on the forum for efficiency sake (and also for free - which you claim to deplore). Wha? When Pamela is proficent enough to get beyond an advanced beginner stage, she will be self-directed and will continue to learn on her own as she takes on greater modeling and texturing challenges. And she and I will still be friends and discussing the new techniques we discover in Blender in our private conversations. She and I will each continue to participate in the mesh forum as we have been all along, for our own benefit and that of the general SL creative public. (I shouldn't speak for Pamela here, but its a pretty reasonable guess she will continue to follow the forums as time permits). I think that's pretty much how these things go with "collaborating friendships" and "mentoring partnerships" The concept of "Mentoring" is primarily to provide encouragement, guidance, to offer instructive critiques on projects, offer reassurance when the learning gets challenging and to point the "student" to the right materials and best approach to learning. And it's all beginner stuff that everyone can learn on their own for free (I did!) if they have the time via free tutorials on the web. It's just more fun and rewarding to learn with a new friend

For folks that do have a business they rely on, getting up to speed with all of this takes an "Olympian" effort and a coach is really helpful, particulary for building confidence, as Pamela points out. Maeve you wrote: "I think the most important thing from me, as far as I can tell, is just passing on my general mesh knowledge as an overview - the broader picture of the procedures - and letting her work from there in her chosen program (Blender). Just knowing WHAT she needed to learn, step by step, is what helped her get to where she is in such a short space of time. The fact that she is also a very focussed and determined person no doubt contributed to her achievements - for the large part, my guidance has been merely pointing her in the right directions, and explaining general 3D concepts - and letting her work from there." And that's exactly right. We don't know what we don't know and there's alot of that in 3d. It's hard for a beginner in 3d to even know what questions to ask. It's not even about the person mentoring giving out well-guarded secrets and hard-won techniques (although Pamela is welcome to these if I ever learn them , it's much more about giving direction and encouragement and experiencing the joy of watching your friend blossom as a 3d artist. And it's never a one-way street with the right mentoring partnership. The teaching and learning go back and forth.

I highly recommend the videos brilliantly done by Ashasekayi - start with the lantern series:

Excellent points Medhue. Personally, I am not a good enough instructor to make videos for general consumption or charge for my expertise which is at best that of an advanced beginner or beginning intermediate. And, I ramble, get distracted and lose focus. Also, I don't have a very good speaking voice. (Who'd pay to hear that?! ) So if I can contribute on the forums a bit here and there or mentor on a one-to-one basis, that's where my personal talents lie. I encourage others with such limitations to have an open mind to mentoring someone with potential. I personally want to contribute, it gives me satisfaction, so I do that the way that suits my abilities. I recommend it. It may be true that my more advanced knowledge was gained by personal sweat and toil, and one justifiably might feel proprietary about this (well I don't, but some may and that's reasonable). However, my basic knowledge was obtained for free by the efforts of other's who were kind enough to impart what they know via forums and tutorials. It would by very rude for me to now claim it as my "intellectual property". MY time is my property and I can decide if I want to give it freely or charge for it, but getting talented people who will contribute to the beauty and success of SL up to speed with mesh benefits everyone. And its fun!

Masami, you have made some excellent points, but this was not an invitation to spam . I guess all good ideas can be taken in a nefarious direction. The internet itself is such a thing. SL and it's forums is a social environment. The forums include private IM's for this reason. Anyone who wants to spam can do so without my invitation. I've never been spammed thru them and rarely do I get an IM. Everyone is free to decline a request for help. People come up to me often in sandboxes and ask for help. If I'm not interested or don't have the time, I tell them. They go away. What I'm speaking to here is the advantages to the teacher. And no one has to be one. But I've been involved in such a mentoring situation and I've benefited enormously from the friendship and the ideas created by two people bashing their heads together. And it's a lot less lonely when you are up until 3 in the morning thrashing around trying to solve a problem, when you have someone you have a friendship with who understands your obsession and is as passionate about it as you are. Please also don't read this suggestion on my part as a statement that forming and creating a learning partnership is preferable or replaces any other form of sharing knowledge. Videos and the forum directed to the general public are vital to learning and its because of such good and talented people I respect who contribute in this manner (And there are so many ! I'll mention in particular I've learned so much from Asha, Gaia, Drongle and Maeve here. Anyone else I'm missing I apologize and you can blame it on my age. You know how much I appreciate your input from my kudo/hugs.) I'm recommending and encouraging this type of learning as another manner of learning and sharing the quest for knowledge in a social manner which I, personally, have enjoyed immensely. And specifically you wrote: "I strongly advise against asking people for help via IM unless the person you ask has already been your friend for a while or you are willing to pay the person a reasonable fee for the lesson. Asking strangers for a favor like this is impolite and rude and smells of entitlement. Especially in a place like Second Life where the recipient of the free training is very likely to monetize it and claim exclusive ownership of the result." I have to think by your stating this, you've had some bad experiences with such a thing in SL. But I'm not suggesting anyone go blindly into such a relationship. Just like any other friendship, you have to take a risk in sharing what is personal, but one should never do this without first establishing a comfort level with the other person. You never know for certain about anything. But if you communicate and share what you've done here in sl you can get a good sense about the other person's integrity. And you have your own work to do which will determine what, if any, spare time you have for such a thing. In my case Pamela has credited me excessively and without any request she do so on my part. She has attempted over and over to compensate me and has given me a place on her land to park myself and provided me with a charming house. People this good DO exist and its worth getting burned a few times to get to a place where you meet such a person and befriend them. For me it's not about what the student is getting out of it, it's about how I'M benefiting. But your experiences are valid as well.

Not everyone is comfortable making training videos for public consumption, or even contributing actively to the mesh forum, but I would recommend the satisfying experience of joining up with another individual who needs a boost to get current with 3d modeling and mesh in SL. Like any partnership of friends there has to be compatibility and each partner has to contribute something, but if you find the right match you are benefiting one person, yourself and the whole SL community. Working in mesh means a lot of time spent alone and off-line from SL, and having one friend to knock heads together with and jointly share ideas and knowledge is very satisfying. The forums are fantastic, but often an one-on-one communication is more efficient and effective for learning. I have formed such a friendship with an extremely talented designer/merchant whose design talents exceed mine by a huge margin, but I, on the other hand, was a bit ahead of her on the curve of 3d. It's a been a real pleasure being part of her growth in the 3D arena and I've benefitted from both the friendship and what she's taught me in areas of design where my knowledge is weak. I'm looking forward to the time where my friend "leaves me in the dust" as far as mesh is concerned. She has already taught me things about mesh that I didn't know based on her own individual research, problem solving skills and forum queries. Anyone who had it together to successfully create and conduct business in SL has the ability to conquer mesh, but they may benefit from some individual "hand-holding" and having a friend to brainstorm with. You can easily search for such a partner by privately IMing folks on the forums who contribute by answering or asking intelligent questions on the mesh forum and who seems to be a compatible match. Don't be put off if the person you contact doesn't have the time or the interest or is otherwise engaged mentoring another person. Keep searching to find the right mesh "buddy". It's time well spent.

Not only have I been involved in sculpty creation, Blender is the only program I found that i could use to successfully make fractional sculpties and get the texturing results I needed via projection painting. For sculpties, depending on the project, I used Zbrush, Modo and Blender. I prefer Blender. I found it easier. And there is no easy 3d program, especially for a beginner, but personally, I took to Blender like a duck to water.

By mentioning you happily use Zbrush means you are promoting Zbrush. And that's perfectly acceptable since this is a forum thread titled "Picking a Program" . The theme is about stating one's opinions and experiences not aggressively defending one's position to the point of being impolite. I, and I'm sure the rest of the readers, do not find any fault with anyone promoting their favorite program. However you are being disrespectful and you are attributing something to Masami that I don't see he/she wrote . In fact you are attributing something to my post - that I'm accuse you of promoting Zbrush - be assured that I was just sharing my personal opinion about Zbrush it since it was mentioned. A previous poster DID mention Blender is the easiest - not Masami -and also I'm pretty sure that no one will just accept this one person's opinion on the matter and will wait until others chime in to form an opinion. It is not necessariy to go off the rails with hyperbole about how much you distain Blender. Meanwhile the attack-dog tone of your argument no doubt inhibits other's who may have some excellent contributions. They may fail to contribute to this thread although they may wish to. I caution you not to claim that Blender has a reputation of one sort or another. Speak only for yourself, because for every claim make against its "reputation", there are those, like myself, who happily use it an love it. And hundreds of tutorials and tutorial websites support the idea that it's a great program. The fact that I love it doesn't make you wrong and the fact that you hate it doesn't make me wrong. But more importantly this isn't a platform for you to hijack the topic just argue your point , it's a thread written by someone who wants information. Edit to correct typos

In reading this thread I get the uneasy feeling that Toysoldier is less interested in readers' input and opinions, then he/she is in telling the folks who offer their opinons re:the programs they prefer, that they are WRONG (and worse). This is not a respectful response on his poster's part. There's no point in Blender-bashing because no one will agree on the ideal program. We are all different. I own Blender, MODO 601, 3d COAT, Zbrush and Mudbox (I'm probably forgetting one or 2). What do I feel most comfortable using? BLENDER. I love blender and I have access to an enormous community (including the kind and generous contributors on the SL Mesh forum) that produces tutorials for free. I respect Modo, and I'd say most of it's advanced users love it, but its an advanced modeling system (now with nice animation features) and there's very little out there from a tutorial perspective that helps beginnners and I've had a hard time with its UI. I've had the same experience with 3d Coat which I purchased to compliment Zbrush. Zbrush is incomplete for my purposes. I love it and have used it extensively for both making both mesh and sculpty items, but it lacks UV features I depend on. It's gotten really complicated in the last few versions in ways that don't enhance my work, andI have to commit to relearning it's very tedious interface (which gets the same bashing as blender, btw, by much of the general public) with little advantage to me. Edited because I confused the OP with Toysoldier Thor. My apologies to the OP. Correction to the content of my post has been made.

I've used many versions of Blender and I've never had my textures load with the model. I always import them separately and apply them in SL.

I've experienced this frequently of late. It seems very "hit or miss" and unrelated to the complexity of the mesh. I no longer wait. If things appear to be hanging up I just reset and recalculate. Sometimes (and I think this is most likely superstitious magic thinking on my part) I change the scale and restore the size back in the uploader and then recalculate and it seems to upload very quickly after I do that which probably works because it's just another way of resetting for recalculation.

Braydon you wrote: "I have found that you can sort of reuse your UV map on lower LOD items by pinning the areas that define its size and location, like around the edges in the uv editor, and then asking it to unwrap again and most of the time it will move the internal vertices of the UV map to compensate for the holes generated by removing ring loops." I too hastily dismissed this workflow deciding the process of selecting the edges of the discontinuous lower lods would as much work as just moving things around. I discovered that you can just select the entire UV set up, set the entire UV set to "pin" and re-unwrap. It all reconnects nicely without having to pick and choose borders. All the verts remain in place where they were on the higher LOD UV set. Thanks so much for this tip. It's a huge timesaver when making LODs.

Bray, you can also bake the texture of the highest lod and use that as a guide for setting up the lowest LOD versions. You don't have to just accept what the unwrap does. If it doesn't line up, just move things around. And an alternative to using the baked texture as a guide is to export the UV template of the highest lod uvs, reimport it and use that as a guide to arrange your lower lod versions onto the texture space.

It takes a button to know a button.

Ok. Just be careful what buttons you push. Or per an old joke (circulated in very bad taste): "o-ooo-o what does THIS button do?" .

I'm losing track here. Are we still talking about dingle dongles?

"can I have a different sticker? that one doesn't have a smiley face on it =(" The smiley is now on Storm's face. Its my understanding HE is willing to be had and I'm guessing he is much more enduring then a sticker.

"Oh, there's always a smartypants non-believer with the wise-crack And do YOU feel you feel.... Oh, wait. That doesn't make sense... Dammit!" I thought we were going for pounds here and not cents sense. (And for all you virtual voyeurs out there: I'm not wearing any pants, smarty or otherwise, so it's not possible to describe them. Don't even ask.)

"Hey! Hey! Stop trying to pinch my punters! I mean "patients"." This sounds like unpardonably degenerate behavior in American-English speak. Ouch.

" However, he found out that people found it immensely therapeutic to be asked their opinion and initiated the habit of asking "And how do you feel?" and charging £100 a go for doing so." I feel £100 lighter.

I'm sure everyone is happy to help where they can and for the most part folks here are exceptionally considerate of everyone else, even when the same basic questions are asked repeatedly. The forum search engine is an excellent way to do some good research, and is an important tool for catching up on what's happening with mesh. I use it constantly to keep updated . Very general questions about mesh are very difficult to answer and you will most likely get unsatisfying generalized answers or get pointed in the direction of the many great tutorials out there, even if you didnt' specifically ask for a list of tutorials. There is always the beta grid to freely test out your mesh and determine for yourself if there is any basis to all the rumors and complaints you have heard about mesh being expensive. It won't cost you anything but time to try it out. Sculpties ARE mesh as far as mesh skills are concerned, but they are limited. Mesh can do so much more.

Hello Professor. I strongly encourage all participants of Second Life to make use of whatever virtual psychological services they can sign up for regardless of how specious, as you well know. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in your research project/survey. As soon as I untie my accountant, he will contact you to let you know where to forward the 100,000 lindens I understand you will be paying me for my participation. He's been a naughty boy. 1) Did your Mummy love you? Well, she was looking at herself in the mirror when she said it, but I think she meant me. 2) Did your Mummy spank you? Boy did she. And she'd do it again if she could catch me. 3) Did your Mummy tell you that your dingle-dongle would drop off if you played with it? I was under the impression it was supposed to drop off.