Mesh tutorial insanity

[Chosen Few]

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Remington Aries wrote:

 

With the exception of Maya, it may be a surprise to 3D application newcomers that in fact the cheaper the app, the HARDER it is to use.

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I'm not sure I follow you here.  Why is it you feel Maya is an exception, exactly?  Is it because you feel it's expensive and hard to use, or cheap and easy to use? 

You did say easy to use goes with expensive, and hard to use goes with cheap, right?  If that's your criterea, then I'd say Maya is no exception at all.  It's both expensive and easy to use. 

Maya has the gentlest learning curve of any full featured 3D platform I've ever encountered.  A new user can be proficient with it, at a beginner level, in a matter of days, simply by following the included help tutorials.  The central underlying logic of the program is so wholly consistent that as soon as you've learned one corner of Maya, you're equipped to know the whole thing.

That's not to say it doesn't take a long time to become an expert with it, of course.  Just like with a sport or a musical instrument, mastery only comes with practice.  Plus, Maya can do so many things, no single user knows them all, not even professionals who use it every day.  But as far as actually getting started with it goes, I have yet to see any other full featured graphics application of any kind that is as well set up as Maya is for immediate understanding.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

I cannot even put into words the horror and frustration I have felt dealing with Blender. It is without doubt the worst creative application ever made for user friendliness.

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I used to feel the same way.  But once the Machinimatrix team began producing such easy to follow tutorial videos, I realized the problem was never with Blender itself, but rather, in the way it had traditionally been explained.   Most of the educational material available for Blender in the past was written by engineers, for engineers.  It just wasn't easily absorbable by the rest of us.  Now that that's no longer the case, Blender really is no harder to learn than most other comparably featured 3D applications.

It's also worth noting that they've recently improved the interface tremendously.  People had been talking about it here, but I didn't really believe it myself until I downloaded it in order to be able to answer a question somebody had.  I was pretty blown away at just how straight forward it has become.  With very little effort, I was able to translate my general knowledge of 3D principles to Blender's particular implementation, and I was off to the races with it in just minutes.

I'm still not about to say Blender will ever be my favorite program in the world.  But it's awfully nice to know that if Autodesk ever were to get swallowed by an earthquake or beamed off the planet by aliens or something, Blender is an alternative to which I could turn without hardly missing a beat.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

Where is basic cut, copy and paste as a brief example?

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Within Blender's text editor, cut, copy, and paste are in the Edit menu, exactly where you'd expect them to be.  You can also use the standard hotkeys, ctrl-x, ctrl-c, and ctrl-v, or right-click and select the desired command from the context menu.  That's all perfectly straight-forward, exactly as it is in just about every text editor on the planet.  What's more, those same standard hotkeys also work in every text entry field in the entire program, which is again prcisely as expected.

Within a 3D viewport, however, cut, copy, and paste do not exist, for good reason.  While some programs do have those functions enabled in all viewports, it's almost never a good idea to use them.   They tend to bork scenes very quickly.  To produce a copy of an object in 3D space, you should always duplicate it; never copy and paste it.  To get rid of an object, you should always delete it; never cut it.  That's not a Blender thing; that's a 3D modeling 101 thing.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

But free applications can be a dangerous gift. If you assume even minimum working hourly rate, and keep the clock ticking while you trawl the internet for answers trying to get such programs to function, you might be surprised how quickly you mount up the cost of a better package.

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People just as often have to trawl the Internet for answers while using commercial software as well, so what's your point?

I don't mind saying I have a better working knowledge of the subject of 3D modeling than most people on this Earth, but I still search for answers online all the time.  I do it practically every day.  I went to school for this, and it's what I do for a living, so I'm as experienced as they come.  Yet still I look up answers all the time.  I paid many thousands of dollars for my software, but still I routinely Google for solutions to various questions I think of while I'm working.  So again, what was your point?

With regard to Blender in particular, all it takes to get started with it these days, if you're brand new to it, is the URL for Blender Cookie, and a few hours of your time to follow along with the videos.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

With educational discount I am fairly confident most frustrated Blender users would quickly find they have burnt through enough hourly rate to afford Modo or amazingly the full auto desk suite on an education license.

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Educational licenses?  Really?  That's what you think people should do?  Let's count the ways in which that doesn't work:

1. If someone is not a college student or a faculty member, they can't get an educational discount.  You do realize most of the world does not fit into either of those two categories, right?
2. Educational licenses strictly forbid use for commercial purposes. Or are you advocating people steal from the commercial software makers that you hold in such high esteem?  You do realize using an educational version of a program for non-educational purposes is the same thing as using a cracked copy of the program, right?
3. Educational versions of many programs even have certain functions disabled, or altered in such a way as to make circumvention of the licensed rights difficult. Autodesk's education-license products, for example, bake a big honkin' watermark into everything they output.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

The biggest way forward for Second Life right now in this field is if firstly,  the Lindens stop treating Mesh as a cash cow

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How exactly are they "treating mesh as a cash cow"?  You do understand they don't make money on your upload fees, right?  They can produce $L out of thin air, any time they want.  They don't need yours.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

I am not putting any mesh on my builds with these sort of cost attachments, when avatars can walk around decked out in them for free

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What cost attachments?  Just today, someone asked me to recreate their 198-prim, 40-meter tall, building as a mesh model.  My replacement exterior facade now has a land impact of 20, whereas the original facade was well over 80.  Once they building is competed, with full interior, wall adornments, etc., it will likely come out to around 50.  That's a savings of almost 75% from what was already a very prim-efficient build to start with.

All those people out there whining about the oh-so-high prim equivalency of mesh just don't know how to optimize their models.  I would have expected that such an experienced modeler as you claim to be would understand such a simple thing.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

secondly, people abandon Blender (it needs to die)

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Let me get this straight.  Because YOU don't personally use it, it needs to die? Wow, man.  Remind me not to invite you to my X-mas party.  I don't want my chili dip stomped into oblivion by your combat boots, just because you prefer the French onion dip.

Blender is one of the most important programs ever written.  It's the only full-featured open source 3D modeling application in existence.  That's significant.  I know plenty of professional 3D artist who use it and love it. 

In fact, a guy with whom I had the pleasure of working on a game project about a year ago was so good, his work put my own to shame, and his only tools were Blender and GIMP.  Everyone else on the team was using Maya and Photoshop, but this guy just didn't see any point in spending thousands of dollars for such things, when he was able to get the results he was getting from free tools.  What's more, he was one of the fastest workers on the entire team. 

That man was one of the best 3D artists I've ever seen.  You really want to tell a guy like that that his tools are no good?

A talented artist is a talented artist, and a poor artist is a poor artist, no matter what the tools.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

move to properly developed and supported 3D programs

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And what does "properly developed" mean, exaclty? 

Blender does exactly what it claims to do, and it's virtually bug free.  I'd say that means it's as well developed as any program can be.

And it's certainly well supported.  It wasn't always, but it is now.  This forum alone is an excellent resource, and it's just one among thousands.

 

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Remington Aries wrote:

education license level, then full as money develops.

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Once again, most people are not eligible for education licenses, and even those who are wouldn't be able to use one to make money.  If you want to use software for commercial purposes, you need a commercial license, period.

 

 

[Siddean Munro]

Blender is great these days, so Remington is welcome to keep throwing money at autodesk for overpriced software if that's his poison. Not sure why the rest of us need to as well. Maybe he's on the autodesk payroll?

[Chosen Few]

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Siddean Munro wrote:

Blender is great these days, so Remington is welcome to keep throwing money at autodesk for overpriced software if that's his poison. Not sure why the rest of us need to as well. Maybe he's on the autodesk payroll?

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Two wrongs don't make a right, Siddean.  Yes, Remington was wrong in his comments, but you're now equally wrong in yours.

It's hardly fair to call any Autodesk product overpriced.  Maya, Max, Softimage, etc., all do thousands of things that no free program on Earth, including Blender, can do.  Plus, you get Autodesk's support, which is excellent, as well as the best included help files this world has ever seen.  Good as Blender is, it still pales in comparison to the industry big dogs.

Considering professional 3D artists bill at anywhere from $50 to $300 or more per hour, a pro can pay for any of these programs off of just one job.

[Siddean Munro]

When I can bill $300 an hour, then I might buy Maya. Autodesk ticked me right off when they bought out Alias and started charging an arm and a leg for the sketchbook pro rebrand and yearly updates, so I would take a lot for me to spend that kind of money with them. Until then, Blender is more than adequate. And more than adequate for a pro.

[Chosen Few]

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Siddean Munro wrote:

Autodesk ticked me right off when they bought out Alias and started charging an arm and a leg for the sketchbook pro rebrand and yearly updates

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$59 is an arm and a leg?

 

For my part, I was thrilled when Autodesk bought Alias.  I would imagine most Maya users were.  They lowered Maya's price from $7000 to $3500.

[Siddean Munro]

I bought Alias SBP for $240.  When I had to reinstall it after I reinstalled my OS, Autodesk charged me $75 to get to the install files because they had bought it in the meantime and added their branding to it, while adding *no* extra functionality to the initial program.  Same thing happened the next year when they updated the branding to 2011, another $75 charge to get the rebranded install files.  I couldn't just get 2010 which is what I owned and didn't want to update.  It wasn't cheap when I bought it.  The fact that it is now annoys me even more

$3500 is still better than $7000, I will agree there.  Still far more than your average SL hobbyist or small business needs to fork out when there are very good cheaper or free options available.

[Chosen Few]

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Siddean Munro wrote:

I bought Alias SBP for $240. When I had to reinstall it after I reinstalled my OS, Autodesk charged me $75 to get to the install files because they had bought it in the meantime and added their branding to it, while adding *no* extra functionality to the initial program. Same thing happened the next year when they updated the branding to 2011, another $75 charge to get the rebranded install files. I couldn't just get 2010 which is what I owned and didn't want to update.

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What happened to your original install files, the ones you'd bought from Alias in the first place?  And what happened the following year that necessitated you buying them yet a third time?

If you lost them, did you expect Autodesk just to give you new ones for free, after a new version had already come out?  No software company I know of will do that, unless you've specifically purchased download protection, or a subscription of some sort. 

$75 sounds like a pretty reasonable upgrade price, if the new purchase price was indeed $240 at the time.

I can understand that whatever happened, the experience was upsetting to you.  But that hardly justifies referring to every Autodesk product as "overpriced".

As for your assertion that the newer versions did not include new features, you really sure you want to make that claim?  From what I've read, there have been plenty of new features introduced, as well as old features improved, with each new version of the program.

Sketchbook Pro 2011 New Feature Highlights:

• New Tool bar for quick access
• New Palette to store customized brushes
• Draw Modes to quickly capture basic shapes
• New brush parameters for customizing brush textures
• Adjustment tools
• Text Layers for annotation
• Import and export your own custom brush sets
• Layer Enhancements, including Layer Blend Modes

Sketchbook Pro 2010 New Feature Highlights:

• Blur and Sharpen tools
• Brush Manager
• Customizable making menus
• Customizable lagoon
• Straight and elliptical ruler guides
• Symmetry sketching
• Canvas rotation
• Custom texture brushes
• Create, import, and export your own brushes
• Non-proportional scaling
• RGB input in the color editor
• Full screen mode

Sketchbook Pro 2009 New Feature Highlights:

• Photoshop interoperability (ability to read and write PSD files)
• New flood fill tools
• Preserve transparency
• Productivity enhancements
• First universal binary release

 

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Siddean Munro wrote:

It wasn't cheap when I bought it. The fact that it is now annoys me even more

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So if it remained more expensive, you'd feel better?  It sounds to me like you just didn't like the fact that Alias got bought, and you've been stuck in "Autodesk can do no right" mode ever since.  They don't add new features, even when they do.  Their stuff is overpriced, even when it's not.  When their stuff is dirt cheap, that's even worse than when it's expensive.  Hmm, is there a pattern here?

 

Anyway, for what it's worth, the reason Sketchbook Pro is so cheap now is because Sketchbook Designer is now the flagship drawing product.  It's an amazingly cool raster/vector hybrid program, and I want it!

 

 

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Siddean Munro wrote:

Still far more than your average SL hobbyist or small business needs to fork out when there are very good cheaper or free options available.

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Oh, I totally agree.  I just don't think it's fair to call the Autodesk programs "overpriced" is all.  They're worth every penny.

[Siddean Munro]

I lost the install files when my hard drive died  I didn't want the upgraded version, I wanted the version I owned, that's all, I was quite happy with that.  But Autodesk couldn't provide them.  I even put in a support ticket which they never even answered.  I had to pay again, for software I already owned, because they don't provide different versions.  They'd do well to take a leaf out of Pixologic's book and provide version updates for free, talk about generating brand loyalty.  I'd run backwards across an ocean for Pixologic.  Autodesk, not so much.  I thought it to be pretty low money grubbing to be honest, and Autodesk shouldn't need to do that.

Needless to say I've learned that lesson the hard way, and now keep separate backups of my install files on a different drive.

Shall I provide you with a list of the feature updates that pixologic has provided to their licence holders for FREE since Zbrush 2?

[Qie Niangao]

FWIW, I quite like Blender these days, for what it is. I absolutely hate spending time using it instead of doing things in Second Life, but then I feel the same way about Gimp.  Also, in passing, I'm ever more impressed by the genius of prims. If SL had started with Mesh instead of prims it would never have amounted to anything.

I very much wish the Lab would find a way to get some of that "prim genius" into the Mesh workflow.

Anyway, that's all an aside, and what follows is a complete tangent, but I just had to respond to this:

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Chosen Few wrote:

How exactly are they "treating mesh as a cash cow"?  You do understand they don't make money on your upload fees, right?  They can produce $L out of thin air, any time they want.  They don't need yours.

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It's been a long time since I've heard that argument.  Without a long dissertation on L$ sources and sinks, suffice it to say that upload fees are a significant sink (not Meshes so much yet, I should think, but still...), and all else being equal, each L$ that goes into a sink must come from a source--and Linden Lab makes a (small) share of their revenue from minting new L$s.  (Or at least they did, back when they actually published meaningful economic statistics.) In short, sinks such as upload fees generate demand for Supply to print and sell more L$s.

That said, I too don't really see how the Lab is treating Mesh as a cash cow. The net present value of all future Mesh upload fees, if paid directly to LL in US$s, probably recoups about ten minutes of development cost for the feature, so yeah: that's certainly not it.  I'm sure they do see Mesh as tablestakes -- else they wouldn't have diverted such a huge share of development resources to it for well over a year.  Ultimately, to make a business case, they must believe that a Second Life with Mesh means more virtual land fees than one without Mesh.  (Yeah, they might get some Marketplace commissions off of it, too, but Marketplace fees barely cover the cost of running it, give or take the inflated L$ exchange rate used for buying with US$s on the site.)  Land fees are still the primary driver to the Lab's bottom line, by far.

[Chosen Few]

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Siddean Munro wrote:

I lost the install files when my hard drive died

 I didn't want the upgraded version, I wanted the version I owned, that's all, I was quite happy with that.  But Autodesk couldn't provide them.  I even put in a support ticket which they never even answered.  I had to pay again, for software I already owned, because they don't provide different versions.

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Sorry to hear that your hard drive died.  In cicumstances like that, SOME software makers will provide replacement install files, either for free or for a nominal fee.  Most won't do it for older versions, though, once a newer version has come out.  Some very well may, but not most.

If you've got a beef with Autodesk for your own reasons, that's one thing.  And if you prefer to do business only with what few companies do provide unlimited download protection for old products, that's certainly your prerogative.   But none of that means Autodesk products are overpriced, which was the point I was originally responding to.  Their pricing is more than fair for what they offer.

 

With respect to the support ticket going unanswered, I've never had that happen.  My guess would be either somebody goofed, or else they matched up the ticket with whatever phone call you must have made in order to have found out in the first place that the older version was no longer offered, and they considered the matter resolved per that phone call.

 

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Siddean Munro wrote:

They'd do well to take a leaf out of Pixologic's book and provide version updates for free, talk about generating brand loyalty.  I'd run backwards across an ocean for Pixologic.

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I have no idea how Pixologic manages to stay in business without charging for upgrades.  I suspect they won't be able to maintain that policy forever.  Get while the gettin's good!

Most companies, Autodesk included, will of course provide updates for free, for each version (and even for old versions that are still in wide use).  That's standard practice in the software industry.  But updates aren't the same thing as upgrades, of course.  Pixologic is the only company I know of that offers free upgrades without a subscription.  Autodesk does give free upgrades to all active subscribers.

 

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Siddean Munro wrote:

Shall I provide you with a list of the feature updates that pixologic has provided to their licence holders for FREE since Zbrush 2?

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What for?  Did I make any claim that they don't include new features with their upgrades? 

Quite obviously, my listing of Sketchbook's new feautres per version was simply to counter your false claim that said features did not, in fact. exist.  For you now to do a similar listing of Zbrush's features would serve no such purpose, since no one made any claim of the sort, in regard to Zbrush. 

You're the only one here who's accused any software maker of providing upgrades merely as rebranding stunts. Pixologic doesn't do that, Autodesk doesnt' do that, and neither does any other software company I'm aware of.  So, I would never make such a claim.

However, if you feel listing the new features would serve some other purpose, then sure, have at it.  But kindly explain your reasons.

[Chosen Few]

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Qie Niangao wrote:

If SL had started with Mesh instead of prims it would never have amounted to anything.

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Oh, I'm sure it would have.  It just would have been something quite different from the SL we know today.

How many times over the years before mesh support had we all seen an experienced 3D artist who's new to SL come right here to the forums to complain about not being able to bring his or her models into SL, and to balk at what a strange thing it is that SL is made entirely from primitives?  It used to happen all the time, and I used to offer all kinds of indepth replies about why it was that way, and words of encouragement about how prims are more powerful than they first seem, and how said artists should really give them a chance, and enjoy the problem-solving intelligence challenges that prims inherently provide.  Some listened, and remained in SL, while others simply turned up their noses and left.

Had SL been mesh-capable from the start, those conversations never would have been necessary, and SL would have been attractive to existing 3D artists all along.   That, of course, would have meant the early adopters would have been a somewhat different crowd than the folks we actually did start with, so the culture would have shaped differently than it did.

We obviously can't say with any certainty what all the ramifications of that might have been.  One thing I am positive it would have meant, though, was SL would have bred content creators who thought of mesh as the perfectly ordinary, entirely standard, medium that it is, rather than as some strange newfangled contraption.  Wouldn't that be something?

 

I'm in agreement with the rest of your post, by the way.

[Neural Blankes]

To be more specific and rational, there are multiple versions of the avatar rigging available on the web, both through the second life Wiki, as well as other sites.  Each tutorial on the properusage of those rigs when working with blender uses a version of blender that is older than 2.6.

In the latest version of Blender, the "make real" button is missing from the modifyers section, and before you get to that step, the armature creation no longer has "from bone heat" as an option.

The end result is that when uploading any mesh based item using the common avatar rig files, the mesh is fine right up until you check the "skin weight" box in the preview, at which point the object/avatar is distorted and deformed beyond use.  Checking "bones" will show that the bones themselves are jumbled up.

As to experience, since some people are now taking a position of authority in spreading lies about my person, I have been working with mesh and 3D programs since around 1993 when Ligthwave 3D version 4.0 was released, and been modeling as a hobby with side freelance jobs over the years including logo work.  I have been accused, by non-professionals, of taking photographs and claiming they are CG.  I have written and sold scripts for use with Lightwave 3D, and I did my best in world to hammer out the issues that arose with sculpts, working to smooth out the detail problems which were showing up for some Lightwave users.  I taught a number of building classes at NCI in 2006/2007, back before we had sculpts.  Also, look in your inventory.  Library>Ojbects>sculpted prim examples. 

 

[Chosen Few]

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Neural Blankes wrote:

To be more specific and rational, there are multiple versions of the avatar

rigging

available on the web, both through the second life Wiki, as well as other sites.  

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There are multiple versions only because there a lot of people independently doing this, some of whom have offered to share with the community.  At the end of the day, a skeleton is a skeleton.  You can use a preexisting one made by someone else, or you can make your own.  As long as all the bone names are correct, the parenting is in the right order, and the joints are in roughly the right positions, it will work. 

 

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Neural Blankes wrote:

Each tutorial on the properusage of those rigs when working with

blender

uses a version of blender that is older than 2.6.

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I could be mistaken, but from what I've read on this forum, SL is not yet able to utilize the COLLADA files generated by the newest versions of Blender.  I've seen people mention doing all the work in 2.6, and then using an older version to do the final .dae export.

To be clear, this is an SL/COLLADA version issue, not directly a Blender issue.  The latest COLLADA exporters for other programs have similar issues, if my understanding is correct.

For my part, I use Maya 2009, and have had no problems with either the stock FBX/DAE plugin or openCOLLADA.  Users of Maya 2012 have reported some problems with the stock FBX/DAE exporter for that version.

 

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Neural Blankes wrote:

Each tutorial on the properusage of those rigs when working with

blender

uses a version of blender that is older than 2.6.

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If that's the case, then I'd suggest you look for tutorials about rigging in general in Blender, rather than so narrowly focusing your search just on what few are aimed at SL.  Rigging is rigging.  There's nothing unique about doing it for SL avatar attachments, as opposed to for any other purpose.

 

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Neural Blankes wrote:

 

As to experience, since some people are now taking a position of authority in spreading lies about my person,

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Sorry to cut you off mid-sentence there, but what lies?  What authority?  No one in this thread said anything at all about YOU. 

My own first response to your rather irrational rant was somewhat tongue-in-cheek.  I thought it a bit silly that you would just pour your frustration out all over your keyboard like that, rather than simply ask for help.  My response was intended, in part, to make light of that.  At no time in this thread, or any other, have I made any statement about you.  I haven't read anything from anyone else here that would fit that description either.

I must say, by the way, that I'm more than a bit baffled as to why you would equate anyone's assessment of your experience level with any sort of statement about you as a person.  Even if someone did say, "Neural Blankes has no experience whatsoever," that wouldn't mean anything at all about YOU.  It happens that no one said anything of the kind, so it's a moot point anyway, but if someone had, why would it matter?

I'm also puzzled why you would refer to such a statement as a lie.  Your original post here went a long way toward making it appear as if you had very little understanding of what you were talking about.  None of us here know anything about you, so in the absence of any other evidence, it was perfectly natural to conclude that you were pretty uninformed.  Annoyance over what you perceived to be a lack of available information was the primary complaint in the rant, right?  Well, by simple definition, if one does not have access to information, then one is uninformed.  So, if any of us said anything at all about your experience level (which no one actually did, by the way), then the assessment could only have been based on what you yourself said about your present situation.  Therefore, it could not have been a lie. 

An inaccurate assessment is not a lie.  A misunderstanding of the facts is not a lie.  In order for any statement to be a lie, the person issuing it needs to be aware that it's not true.

So, please enlighten us.  What exactly did any of us say about you that you believe we knew to be untrue?

 

 

On a side note, you might want to be a little more careful with your phraseology.  The phrase "my person" literally means "my body".   The word "about" can mean either "around" or "in regard to".  Most commonly, "about my person" means "around my body", as in "Airport security performed a search about my person, and then someone wrote a song about it, called 'Don't Touch My Junk!'."   Less commonly, it means "in regard to my body", as in "I just read an anatomy book, and learned a lot about my person."

By the first definition, if one were to say, "Some people are now spreading peanut butter about my person," that would mean one's body is presently being coated in peanut butter by multiple other people.  Hey, whatever you're into, right?   Under that meaning, it's not physically possible to spread lies about one's person.

By the second definition, "Some people are now spreading lies about my person," would mean multiple mistruths are currently being told by several individuals, in regard to your body.  Somehow I doubt that's what you meant.  You don't really think anyone said anything about your physical appearance, right?

I'm pretty sure what you meant to say was "spreading lies about me as a person" or "spreading lies about my personality". Either of those would at least make literal sense.  Neither happens to be factually true (unless you're maybe talking about places other than this thread), but at least the grammar would work.

 

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Neural Blankes wrote:

I have been working with mesh and 3D programs since around 1993 when Ligthwave 3D version 4.0 was released, and been modeling as a hobby with side freelance jobs over the years including logo work.  I have been accused, by non-professionals, of taking photographs and claiming they are CG.  I have written and sold scripts for use with Lightwave 3D, and I did my best in world to hammer out the issues that arose with sculpts, working to smooth out the detail problems which were showing up for some Lightwave users.  I taught a number of building classes at NCI in 2006/2007, back before we had sculpts.  Also, look in your inventory.  Library>Ojbects>sculpted prim examples. 

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I'm not sure why you seem to feel you've got something to prove.  If you need help, just ask for it.  If you already know what you're doing, then offer help to others.  Otherwise, there's not much to be gained by spending any time on this forum at all.

It's great that you've got all that experience with Lightwave, and with SL itself.  It does beg the question, why would you bother with Blender at all, when you clearly already know what you're doing with Lightwave?  As you must know, Lightwave is more than capable of rigging a character model, an exporting to .dae format.

It also leaves me wondering why you had such a harsh assessment of the pricing of commercial modeling software when you, yourself, own a prime example of it.  The current price of Lightwave, as you no doubt know, is US$1495.00.  If I remember correctly, I've seen its pricing fluctuate from the thouands, down to about $800 at its lowest, and now up again to $1500.  It's never been exactly cheap.

How's that bank ownership working out for you?  I'm still waiting to hear which bank is mine.

[Judy Muircastle]

After all this talk .....I know how to sculpt on sl ....but I cannot find anywhere a "makes sense" video, manual, class, that explains even what mesh is.  I just see a bunch of people talking way over the new user head.   This does not mean that I would give up because I won't.  Someday when all the experts make their money they will teach us regular sl users how to use it and even what it is ????

[Gaia Clary]

This video was made to help sculptie makers to switch to mesh. maybe it helps a bit although it is already one year old now:

http://blog.machinimatrix.org/optimizing-meshes/