Say you are (an idiot) like me, and after playing around with modifying a sculpty you've been working on you remapped the UV and saved that off....and then forgot to save the file. Since Blender doesn't prompt to save new versions when you've changed something, sometimes you accidentally screw yourself.
Step one: curse profusely. Step two: do a google search and find these plug ins (if you can't see the forum post for whatever reason, here's the download link (and thank you, Domino Marama).
Drop those files in your Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts directory (only the import_sculptie.py is required for importing, however the others may be useful!), and there should be an option in your File->Import dropdown that makes the magic happen. Yay! Once again, watch for that option popup (read the readme attached for what the options do, this time some of them actually are useful to change sometimes, although it defaults to what you usually want to work with, assuming sphere mapping and less pain with seams).
If you change your sculpt and need to remap it any, you will have to add a new material (F5), set to Texface, add three new textures set to blend (F6), and set them (F5) to: x, blank blank, red 1.0, Add; y, blank, blank, green 1.0, Add; z, blank, blank, blue 1.0, Add, and then Bake (F10) Textures, going through the normal material setup (I've gone over that in more detail before if this is too sketchy for you, however, these are the reminder for the things that need to be hit). Once the new materials are added and set up, hit that big Bake button, as you should know by now, to make with the flavour rainbow- and now we're back to just as if we hadn't lost it all in the first place. (One can also use Rokuro for the basic shape and import for making it a less regimented shape in this way, so if we wanted to not admit I'm an idiot, we would use this as the excuse for figuring it out instead.)
Showing posts with label sculpties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sculpties. Show all posts
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Blender and Av painting intro
I'm still learning the ropes in texturing in Blender quite heavily, but I'm currently trying to paint a sculpty to go with avatar mesh stuff, so here are some notes to remind myself how to not be frustrated for 3 hours trying to figure out why my view is on crack.
First step is to download the av meshes- SL's website has that downlaod section with the obj files, and I think I have 7 other copies from other sources (q/avimator might have them in formats that help, the clothing previewer, who knows what else). I do basically everything on the female mesh. One part because I am one, and one part because I find the "default" male mesh doesn't wrap quite right (of course, the one in SL is somewhat of an annoying mess, I think, as well- just in slightly different ways).
Next is to import- go to Blender's importer list and snag the Wavefront OBJ Importer/Exporter, drop that file in your Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts directory.
Fire up Blender and choose File->Import->Wavefront .obj, and a file menu will appear at the bottom. Navigate through the amazingly clunky DOS like interface to find your file, and import it- but don't move your cursor from the button! This popup happens with all sorts of options which you mostly want to ignore, and just hit ok. However, if you move your cursor it disappears and your file does not import, and you're standing there going "well, crap. I thought that was supposed to work" for a month or two.
The avatar imports really small, so zoom in to see it. It's also all detached bits, select all the ones that map together with shift, and hit crtl-J to join them into one (everything will be UV mapped properly). I haven't tried it because I just figured this all out tonight, but I'll bet you can connect the top of the lower body and the bottom of the upper, and be able to paint across those dastardly seams!
When trying to paint a sculpt with the av mesh around for reference, still in Object mode select the avatar first, then shift select the sculpt so it's last selected. This way you won't get the sculpt making the avatar invisible walls (try switching to UV Face Select just with the sculpt selected, and you will probably see what I mean. It drove me nuts for a bit until I found out how to make it not happen. EDIT: Or even with it your view may decide to be on crack with a new file for NO APPARENT REASON even when you do do this, so...yeah, I've got to find a new way to trick it into behaving). To put an existing texture on the avatar mesh (or anything else), select it in Object mode, select all in UV Face Select mode, and then import your image. You can paint directly on that in Texture Paint mode, as well.
First step is to download the av meshes- SL's website has that downlaod section with the obj files, and I think I have 7 other copies from other sources (q/avimator might have them in formats that help, the clothing previewer, who knows what else). I do basically everything on the female mesh. One part because I am one, and one part because I find the "default" male mesh doesn't wrap quite right (of course, the one in SL is somewhat of an annoying mess, I think, as well- just in slightly different ways).
Next is to import- go to Blender's importer list and snag the Wavefront OBJ Importer/Exporter, drop that file in your Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts directory.
Fire up Blender and choose File->Import->Wavefront .obj, and a file menu will appear at the bottom. Navigate through the amazingly clunky DOS like interface to find your file, and import it- but don't move your cursor from the button! This popup happens with all sorts of options which you mostly want to ignore, and just hit ok. However, if you move your cursor it disappears and your file does not import, and you're standing there going "well, crap. I thought that was supposed to work" for a month or two.
The avatar imports really small, so zoom in to see it. It's also all detached bits, select all the ones that map together with shift, and hit crtl-J to join them into one (everything will be UV mapped properly). I haven't tried it because I just figured this all out tonight, but I'll bet you can connect the top of the lower body and the bottom of the upper, and be able to paint across those dastardly seams!
When trying to paint a sculpt with the av mesh around for reference, still in Object mode select the avatar first, then shift select the sculpt so it's last selected. This way you won't get the sculpt making the avatar invisible walls (try switching to UV Face Select just with the sculpt selected, and you will probably see what I mean. It drove me nuts for a bit until I found out how to make it not happen. EDIT: Or even with it your view may decide to be on crack with a new file for NO APPARENT REASON even when you do do this, so...yeah, I've got to find a new way to trick it into behaving). To put an existing texture on the avatar mesh (or anything else), select it in Object mode, select all in UV Face Select mode, and then import your image. You can paint directly on that in Texture Paint mode, as well.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Some getting started in Blender
SL is being a crashy little bitch tonight, so I might as well get to some of this finally.
Work smarter, not harder: download the premapped sphere. I have my own that I did the hard way, with a bit different window set up, but this means you don't have to go through all that! And really, my setup is not much different. One less window on the side (I just have one 3d view and the texture on the side, then the panels at the bottom). But, this gets you what you need, so run with it!
Spheres are the most useful to me. Nine times out of ten, I'm using a sphere to start. Occasionally another shape is better, and for that you will have to prep your own- this tutorial gives you a pretty good rundown on that, just choose a different shape for starters if necessary (remember to prep your seams: it has to be able to unmap into one big flat square, so you need a top, a bottom, and 2 sides. Also keep in mind that it has to be a perfect grid).
In the big window with your rainbow sphere, switch from Object Mode to Sculpt Mode in the dropdown. You may find switching to Solid in the dropdown next to that is more useful, since otherwise you can't really see highs and lows and shadows so well. Hit F9 while hovering over the Panels at the bottom to bring up the Editing Panel, and the third block of things over should have tabs: Multirez, Sculpt, Brush. Hit up the Sculpt tab, and start playing with brushes! I start off by blocking out my basic shape (the wireframe view may even be of use here, so you can see your vertices: where your vertices are counts! Textures will map differently, you'll have different amounts of detail, and you may need to cluster vertices in certain areas and leave others as large expanses to get the detail in the model you need) with grab, draw, and even hopping over to the Edit Mode and grabbing points and shoving them where I want them. First run of my sculpts are usually very rough sketches, just to get everything in vaguely the right vicinity. I go in and clean them up with a lot of the smooth tool, white still flipping back and forth with the others to keep detail. Some things require hopping over to Edit to pull individual vertices where they ought to be. Select with the right mouse button (hold down shift for more than one), then hit G to move them around. I cannot tell you how long it took me to stumble across the right thing to find that.
Watch your poles. Depending on how you're going to map, they may make a huge difference. Because you're starting with a mapped sphere, there are no end points. Look in wireframe to see the fact you've got open circles at each end. This causes some problems. If you're not mapping sphere, these ends are going to do other things, but in that case you know what they'll do, so I'm ignoring it. If mapping sphere however, those ends are going to be somewhat messily filled in, with textures pulled off the other side of the model if the texture is mapped 1x1. I've talked about it before at more length, this is just a reminder- grab the whole line of them, and shrink them down to one point, and work with them that way. I usually do that earlier _and_ later in the modeling, as I generally end up pulling them out of whack when prodding at my shape. Select two vertices next to each other, hit ctrl-E and select Edge Loop Select to highlight the whole circle of them, then S and scale it all down to one little bit. Now you don't have to worry as much about texturing (but keep in mind, if either end is massively different in texture, you're going to end up with the dotbleed you already get on spheres at 1x1 texturing).
Switch brushes in that bottom panel, type and size both, to achieve different effects. There are easy peasy symmetry buttons at the bottom of that too- if your model needs to be symmetrical select what you need- you can do a lot of your modeling with symmetry to get the basic shape, and then take it off to do more detailing on either side as well.
Basic camera controls: Hold down alt and left mouse button rotates. Alt+crtl+left button zooms, alt+shift+left button moves. The scroll wheel does odd things in these modes as well that you may or may not find useful.
At a glance, I think the map you come with is 64x64, which is what you want, so you can even just bake over that and save it off. Once you've got your sculpting all happy (for starting out, try something simple so as to not get frustrated: I have a long line of wacky melty skulls I played around with, only some of which I've bothered to keep, but basic construction is one direction symmetry, poke some holes for eyes, poke a nose hole, and shove around the jaw. I wasn't going for realism, because I knew I couldn't attain it, as well as not really caring to achieve it), hit F10 in the Panels, and press that big Bake button in the Bake tab. Your rainbow image should now look like a different rainbow image, save that off as a tga, and ta-dah! you've got a sculpty!
Of course, make sure you save a new file often during this process so you can go back when you've messed up when trying to make it better and suchlike. I usually have 10 or 20 versions of even reasonably simple things, just in case I need to go back. Once you've got it sculpted, save off your final version, trash the earliers unless they have potential to turn into something else, and then you can move on to some of the evils of texturing. You've already gotten enough of a crash course here in the tools that you should be able to sort of muddle your way through it, I think.
Work smarter, not harder: download the premapped sphere. I have my own that I did the hard way, with a bit different window set up, but this means you don't have to go through all that! And really, my setup is not much different. One less window on the side (I just have one 3d view and the texture on the side, then the panels at the bottom). But, this gets you what you need, so run with it!
Spheres are the most useful to me. Nine times out of ten, I'm using a sphere to start. Occasionally another shape is better, and for that you will have to prep your own- this tutorial gives you a pretty good rundown on that, just choose a different shape for starters if necessary (remember to prep your seams: it has to be able to unmap into one big flat square, so you need a top, a bottom, and 2 sides. Also keep in mind that it has to be a perfect grid).
In the big window with your rainbow sphere, switch from Object Mode to Sculpt Mode in the dropdown. You may find switching to Solid in the dropdown next to that is more useful, since otherwise you can't really see highs and lows and shadows so well. Hit F9 while hovering over the Panels at the bottom to bring up the Editing Panel, and the third block of things over should have tabs: Multirez, Sculpt, Brush. Hit up the Sculpt tab, and start playing with brushes! I start off by blocking out my basic shape (the wireframe view may even be of use here, so you can see your vertices: where your vertices are counts! Textures will map differently, you'll have different amounts of detail, and you may need to cluster vertices in certain areas and leave others as large expanses to get the detail in the model you need) with grab, draw, and even hopping over to the Edit Mode and grabbing points and shoving them where I want them. First run of my sculpts are usually very rough sketches, just to get everything in vaguely the right vicinity. I go in and clean them up with a lot of the smooth tool, white still flipping back and forth with the others to keep detail. Some things require hopping over to Edit to pull individual vertices where they ought to be. Select with the right mouse button (hold down shift for more than one), then hit G to move them around. I cannot tell you how long it took me to stumble across the right thing to find that.
Watch your poles. Depending on how you're going to map, they may make a huge difference. Because you're starting with a mapped sphere, there are no end points. Look in wireframe to see the fact you've got open circles at each end. This causes some problems. If you're not mapping sphere, these ends are going to do other things, but in that case you know what they'll do, so I'm ignoring it. If mapping sphere however, those ends are going to be somewhat messily filled in, with textures pulled off the other side of the model if the texture is mapped 1x1. I've talked about it before at more length, this is just a reminder- grab the whole line of them, and shrink them down to one point, and work with them that way. I usually do that earlier _and_ later in the modeling, as I generally end up pulling them out of whack when prodding at my shape. Select two vertices next to each other, hit ctrl-E and select Edge Loop Select to highlight the whole circle of them, then S and scale it all down to one little bit. Now you don't have to worry as much about texturing (but keep in mind, if either end is massively different in texture, you're going to end up with the dotbleed you already get on spheres at 1x1 texturing).
Switch brushes in that bottom panel, type and size both, to achieve different effects. There are easy peasy symmetry buttons at the bottom of that too- if your model needs to be symmetrical select what you need- you can do a lot of your modeling with symmetry to get the basic shape, and then take it off to do more detailing on either side as well.
Basic camera controls: Hold down alt and left mouse button rotates. Alt+crtl+left button zooms, alt+shift+left button moves. The scroll wheel does odd things in these modes as well that you may or may not find useful.
At a glance, I think the map you come with is 64x64, which is what you want, so you can even just bake over that and save it off. Once you've got your sculpting all happy (for starting out, try something simple so as to not get frustrated: I have a long line of wacky melty skulls I played around with, only some of which I've bothered to keep, but basic construction is one direction symmetry, poke some holes for eyes, poke a nose hole, and shove around the jaw. I wasn't going for realism, because I knew I couldn't attain it, as well as not really caring to achieve it), hit F10 in the Panels, and press that big Bake button in the Bake tab. Your rainbow image should now look like a different rainbow image, save that off as a tga, and ta-dah! you've got a sculpty!
Of course, make sure you save a new file often during this process so you can go back when you've messed up when trying to make it better and suchlike. I usually have 10 or 20 versions of even reasonably simple things, just in case I need to go back. Once you've got it sculpted, save off your final version, trash the earliers unless they have potential to turn into something else, and then you can move on to some of the evils of texturing. You've already gotten enough of a crash course here in the tools that you should be able to sort of muddle your way through it, I think.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
SLImageUploader, oh how I love thee
This sculpt was a test to push the system (basically...every vertex counts, and is required to be reasonably accurate, with this done in a 64x64 mesh, which it was), because my pirate hat...came out lessgood than expected. I also wanted to make this table (someday, I'll actually get around to making the legs, and texturing, and all that stuff). Firstly, I uploaded it with the default uploader, to see how bad that makes it:
Not only does it mush the details and can't manage a flat surface, LOD also wrecks it even more:
Something that is only really easy to tell when you're in SL, at the side seams it often doesn't quite match up. While SL's compression sort of wraps when chopping things into little bits and gluing them back together again, it doesn't do a great job of it. In textures this is generally not something you'll notice- although upload anything that actually depends on real pixel data, and yeah, you will (I've got a small texture I need to upload through SLImageUploader because it has very obvious seams...that aren't actually there).
Here you can also see where the top vertices all pull to one, because the top doesn't technically exist. I didn't have the vertices to spare to pull it all to the center, so I'll have to take care in my texturing. (Note: while this is taken of the default uploaded version, the good one is fairly similar, and identical in the vertex pulling)
Finally, what happener when I used SLImageUploader instead. Flat pristine surfaces, a little distortion but not even close to as much, and a generally much cleaner model. This is something I can work with. The other was something I could give up on sculpties with.
Things to still keep in mind: the interpolation in SL rounds off edges. This is good, in that things aren't all sharp and pointy because we've got limited points. This is bad when you want to make things with...sharp points. This is a problem that can be sort of gotten around by clustering a number of points to remind it you really do want that.
Not only does it mush the details and can't manage a flat surface, LOD also wrecks it even more:
Something that is only really easy to tell when you're in SL, at the side seams it often doesn't quite match up. While SL's compression sort of wraps when chopping things into little bits and gluing them back together again, it doesn't do a great job of it. In textures this is generally not something you'll notice- although upload anything that actually depends on real pixel data, and yeah, you will (I've got a small texture I need to upload through SLImageUploader because it has very obvious seams...that aren't actually there).
Here you can also see where the top vertices all pull to one, because the top doesn't technically exist. I didn't have the vertices to spare to pull it all to the center, so I'll have to take care in my texturing. (Note: while this is taken of the default uploaded version, the good one is fairly similar, and identical in the vertex pulling)
Finally, what happener when I used SLImageUploader instead. Flat pristine surfaces, a little distortion but not even close to as much, and a generally much cleaner model. This is something I can work with. The other was something I could give up on sculpties with.
Things to still keep in mind: the interpolation in SL rounds off edges. This is good, in that things aren't all sharp and pointy because we've got limited points. This is bad when you want to make things with...sharp points. This is a problem that can be sort of gotten around by clustering a number of points to remind it you really do want that.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sculpty corralling
You can use tags to find all of my ramblings on sculpties, but it's kind of word soup in there. So here's an attempt at a handy dandy guide of what's where.
Step by step...badly. Sort of. Tips with no shiny pictures, because I am lazy:
Getting Started: A very quick and dirty crash course in how to get up and running. Use a premapped sphere, and jump straight in to using the modeling tools (the fun part!). This is to get your familiar enough to hit the ground running, it doesn't teach you how to master Blender. Because Blender is evil and complicated, and I don't know how to do most things in it.
UV mapping the hard way: Say you didn't use that premapped sphere to start out with, and in fact, did your sculpting first, and then decided you needed to map it. It ain't pretty, unless you go through a number of seemingly extraneous steps. If you do this, it is imperative you preview your sculpts before uploading, as getting them backwards is really easy.
Texturing sculpts: some quick and dirty tips to get your started in the world of texturing with Blender. Does not include advanced techniques, but at least gets you pointed in a vaguely decent direction to start.
Texturing and the Avatar mesh: how to import the av mesh into Blender, and a few things to do from there, as well as how to be able to paint on a sculpt to line up better with an avatar clothing texture (note: your mileage may vary, since we don't get to play with the real av mesh, just a vague approximation).
Importing Sculpt Maps to Blender: we've covered how to make an object in Blender into a sculpty. But what about taking one of those rainbow maps and making it into an object in Blender we can play with? Here's how.
Awesome things that make life easier:
Link to a pre mapped sphere: Find mapping a pain in the ass? You're in luck! Here, have a sphere to start with that's already had all that crap done to it. You just need to rebake when you've finished your sculpting.
SLImageUploader: example of mush to awesome with SLImageUpload. Also, if you're having some side seam distortion, this should fix it, because it doesn't use the stupid JPEG compression...which is idiotic when we're talking something where every pixel does matter. Yes, even when you tick lossless in the SL client, it lies like a filthy whore.
Extra tips for other problems:
Mirroring: a very brief couple of tips about what to do if you find your sculpt map is inside out in SL. This is why you pretty much always want to preview the sculpt in SL, even if you're then logging out to use SLImageUploader.
Sculpt Mapping: an overview of the different mapping modes you can set for your sculpt in SL. Generally you'll go with the default sphere, but the others do have their uses.
Sizing Sculpties Smaller: Say you need miniprim sculpties for something. Sculpts only natively go down so far, and there's no dimpling to save you. However, adjusting the map in Photoshop can shrink them down nicely.
Step by step...badly. Sort of. Tips with no shiny pictures, because I am lazy:
Getting Started: A very quick and dirty crash course in how to get up and running. Use a premapped sphere, and jump straight in to using the modeling tools (the fun part!). This is to get your familiar enough to hit the ground running, it doesn't teach you how to master Blender. Because Blender is evil and complicated, and I don't know how to do most things in it.
UV mapping the hard way: Say you didn't use that premapped sphere to start out with, and in fact, did your sculpting first, and then decided you needed to map it. It ain't pretty, unless you go through a number of seemingly extraneous steps. If you do this, it is imperative you preview your sculpts before uploading, as getting them backwards is really easy.
Texturing sculpts: some quick and dirty tips to get your started in the world of texturing with Blender. Does not include advanced techniques, but at least gets you pointed in a vaguely decent direction to start.
Texturing and the Avatar mesh: how to import the av mesh into Blender, and a few things to do from there, as well as how to be able to paint on a sculpt to line up better with an avatar clothing texture (note: your mileage may vary, since we don't get to play with the real av mesh, just a vague approximation).
Importing Sculpt Maps to Blender: we've covered how to make an object in Blender into a sculpty. But what about taking one of those rainbow maps and making it into an object in Blender we can play with? Here's how.
Awesome things that make life easier:
Link to a pre mapped sphere: Find mapping a pain in the ass? You're in luck! Here, have a sphere to start with that's already had all that crap done to it. You just need to rebake when you've finished your sculpting.
SLImageUploader: example of mush to awesome with SLImageUpload. Also, if you're having some side seam distortion, this should fix it, because it doesn't use the stupid JPEG compression...which is idiotic when we're talking something where every pixel does matter. Yes, even when you tick lossless in the SL client, it lies like a filthy whore.
Extra tips for other problems:
Mirroring: a very brief couple of tips about what to do if you find your sculpt map is inside out in SL. This is why you pretty much always want to preview the sculpt in SL, even if you're then logging out to use SLImageUploader.
Sculpt Mapping: an overview of the different mapping modes you can set for your sculpt in SL. Generally you'll go with the default sphere, but the others do have their uses.
Sizing Sculpties Smaller: Say you need miniprim sculpties for something. Sculpts only natively go down so far, and there's no dimpling to save you. However, adjusting the map in Photoshop can shrink them down nicely.
Sculpt mapping
Sculpty UVs map 4 different ways in SL. Each have uses and pitfalls. To change your mapping mode, you have to insert a script defining the llSetPrimitiveParams:
Where PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE is changed to the type you need, and YOUR UUID HERE has been replaced with the UUID of your sculpt map (left click on the texture in inventory, Copy Asset UUID, Paste in script). After it's compiled, you can, and probably should, delete the script from the object's inventory.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_PLANE maps as a plane. The edges do not connect in any way, it's one face and invisible from the back side. Your sculpt is a one sided piece of paper you've done your crumpling or origami to.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_CYLINDER makes the UV map a tube. The sides wrap around and connect to each other. This is the first evidence of why it is 100% necessary to not end up with a sculpt map that's 90 degrees off, although it will screw you in all modes but plane. In cylinder, the top and bottom are open and do not connect to each other in any way, leaving an open hole on either end, through which you can look in and see that there is no inside to your prim, because of the way 3d faces only face one side.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE is the default mode. You take your cylinder, and now the ends have stretchy bits that cover them. These pieces do not technically exist in your UV map, so in your texture...they also do not exist. They are beyond the bounds of the texturing you've done in Blender, and wrap from the other side of the texture. Add more data at the top and bottom of your sculpt map if you need these things to have something else! They also wrap sort of oddly, pulling all to one point, which is why generally it is a good idea to keep all the vertices on the poles clustered up into tiny little circles and manipulate the group as if they were single points, to minimize this distortion. Select a sculpty in edit mode in world, and in 90% of the cases you can see exactly how it's pulling the ends with a cluster of lines.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_TORUS also started with the cylinder mapping, sides go to sides. Additionally, top edge goes straight down to meet bottom edge. There is less distortion here, as one vertex matches up with one vertex. However, the texturing rules still apply! Anything in between the vertices at the top and bottom is "dead" space to the way the texture is mapped, so either start out with a torus when you're sculpting and do the extra seaming, or keep this in mind!
default
{
state_entry()
{
llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, "YOUR UUID HERE", PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE]);
}
}
Where PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE is changed to the type you need, and YOUR UUID HERE has been replaced with the UUID of your sculpt map (left click on the texture in inventory, Copy Asset UUID, Paste in script). After it's compiled, you can, and probably should, delete the script from the object's inventory.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_PLANE maps as a plane. The edges do not connect in any way, it's one face and invisible from the back side. Your sculpt is a one sided piece of paper you've done your crumpling or origami to.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_CYLINDER makes the UV map a tube. The sides wrap around and connect to each other. This is the first evidence of why it is 100% necessary to not end up with a sculpt map that's 90 degrees off, although it will screw you in all modes but plane. In cylinder, the top and bottom are open and do not connect to each other in any way, leaving an open hole on either end, through which you can look in and see that there is no inside to your prim, because of the way 3d faces only face one side.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_SPHERE is the default mode. You take your cylinder, and now the ends have stretchy bits that cover them. These pieces do not technically exist in your UV map, so in your texture...they also do not exist. They are beyond the bounds of the texturing you've done in Blender, and wrap from the other side of the texture. Add more data at the top and bottom of your sculpt map if you need these things to have something else! They also wrap sort of oddly, pulling all to one point, which is why generally it is a good idea to keep all the vertices on the poles clustered up into tiny little circles and manipulate the group as if they were single points, to minimize this distortion. Select a sculpty in edit mode in world, and in 90% of the cases you can see exactly how it's pulling the ends with a cluster of lines.
PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_TORUS also started with the cylinder mapping, sides go to sides. Additionally, top edge goes straight down to meet bottom edge. There is less distortion here, as one vertex matches up with one vertex. However, the texturing rules still apply! Anything in between the vertices at the top and bottom is "dead" space to the way the texture is mapped, so either start out with a torus when you're sculpting and do the extra seaming, or keep this in mind!
Texturing sculpts
Once you've sculpted your beautiful object, you may want to be able to texture it. The brilliant things about sculpties, is that unlike prims where you either have to recreate the object outside of SL or just have a really good idea of how things will map and hope you're right, you can paint directly onto your object in Blender. It's sex.
Once you've done your mapping and your sculpting, go to Texture Paint mode in the pane with your 3d object (assuming you work in the split 3d View/UV Image Editor with the bottom Buttons Window workspace that I find most useful). In the dropdown next to that, there's the view modes: choose Textured with the odd little nubby thing at the top, so you can see what's going on in your object. Select the entire thing with A, and in the texture view pane, create a new image. This one should be big! Bare minimum of 256x256- I generally work in 1024x1024 with the idea that I will scale it down to 512. I want it to be at least double size of the final product though, because I'm not so good at fine control, and really, shrinking down is always a good thing.
Warning: if you have only one face selected when you add this image, only the painting on that face will show! The rest just won't do anything! This can be useful when you, say, want to work with a cluster of faces and keep them separate from the rest of the object. This is not useful when you accidentally do it and can't figure out why the hell your painting isn't working except for one little square.
Unselect in the 3d view with A again, and your object should now be black, black as my soul, with grey lines denoting the faces. Your image should be similarly black, although without the grid. You can, at this point, just start doodling with the default paintbrush, which is rather large, and set to white. However! Hit F9 to be taken to the Object tool panel at the bottom, and there is a panel there, Paint, that gives you control over your brush! Opacity, mode, size, colour, etc, as well as a couple of different painting modes. Brush on your highlights and shadows! It's magic, not only does it show on your 3d model while you're painting, it also shows you exactly what section of the texture you're painting on. I still find I lack fine control, so I tend to do large markers for myself to use in Photoshop, and save off a number of layers (for instance, I do one image for shadows, another for highlights, in the black/white, and use Channels to pull out the stuff I want). Any time you want to use a new image, save your image off with a useful name, and create a new one in the Image menu of the texture pane again.
Another fun and easy cheat for basic shadows, is Ambient Occlusion. This will light your model with global lighting. Its results are very noisy and gritty, so you may want to do a bit of post processing, but it still gives you a quick and easy baseline that's great for some basic shadowing to start from.
Go back to UV Face Select mode, select all (A), and create a new image again. This also needs to be big really, again bare minimum of twice size (I generally use twice size, and then do a lot of smudging/blurring in PS to tone down the dirtiness). With all still selected, hit Ctrl-Alt-B, and choose Ambient Occlusion from the dropdown. It takes a bit to do all of its interpolation, and you can watch the image being build up in rows. If you've still got Textured selected on your 3d model, you can see exactly how the shades of grey are mapping to your model. Save that image off for use.
It is fully possible to do start to finish texturing in Blender- however I find the tools in PS are easier for me to use, due to familiarity, the vast toolset available there, and the fact I'm not having to worry about rotating a 3d object to get around it in the middle of what I'm doing. There are also a number of other texturing options available- setting up good lighting and doing a Full Render instead of the Ambient Occlusion, for instance, will get you more real baked lighting. Materials let you set things to have inherent reflectiveness for the lighting to play off of as well, so a really well textured shininess is not that difficult. But, these are things that have so far been beyond me- the lighting never seems to listen to me at all, and I ended up with crinkly cellophane looking highlights the time I tried to do a full render. I'm obviously missing a step somewhere, that I'll figure out eventually, once I decide I want something that I can't get otherwise.
You can also open images in the same menu where you create new ones, to do some of this stuff to an image you've already partially prepped (with, say, a pattern), as well as seeing how your current image will map once you've got all of your layers sorted (and paint directly on that, as well- with brush settings you can conceivably paint on some of your detail there).
Once you've done your mapping and your sculpting, go to Texture Paint mode in the pane with your 3d object (assuming you work in the split 3d View/UV Image Editor with the bottom Buttons Window workspace that I find most useful). In the dropdown next to that, there's the view modes: choose Textured with the odd little nubby thing at the top, so you can see what's going on in your object. Select the entire thing with A, and in the texture view pane, create a new image. This one should be big! Bare minimum of 256x256- I generally work in 1024x1024 with the idea that I will scale it down to 512. I want it to be at least double size of the final product though, because I'm not so good at fine control, and really, shrinking down is always a good thing.
Warning: if you have only one face selected when you add this image, only the painting on that face will show! The rest just won't do anything! This can be useful when you, say, want to work with a cluster of faces and keep them separate from the rest of the object. This is not useful when you accidentally do it and can't figure out why the hell your painting isn't working except for one little square.
Unselect in the 3d view with A again, and your object should now be black, black as my soul, with grey lines denoting the faces. Your image should be similarly black, although without the grid. You can, at this point, just start doodling with the default paintbrush, which is rather large, and set to white. However! Hit F9 to be taken to the Object tool panel at the bottom, and there is a panel there, Paint, that gives you control over your brush! Opacity, mode, size, colour, etc, as well as a couple of different painting modes. Brush on your highlights and shadows! It's magic, not only does it show on your 3d model while you're painting, it also shows you exactly what section of the texture you're painting on. I still find I lack fine control, so I tend to do large markers for myself to use in Photoshop, and save off a number of layers (for instance, I do one image for shadows, another for highlights, in the black/white, and use Channels to pull out the stuff I want). Any time you want to use a new image, save your image off with a useful name, and create a new one in the Image menu of the texture pane again.
Another fun and easy cheat for basic shadows, is Ambient Occlusion. This will light your model with global lighting. Its results are very noisy and gritty, so you may want to do a bit of post processing, but it still gives you a quick and easy baseline that's great for some basic shadowing to start from.
Go back to UV Face Select mode, select all (A), and create a new image again. This also needs to be big really, again bare minimum of twice size (I generally use twice size, and then do a lot of smudging/blurring in PS to tone down the dirtiness). With all still selected, hit Ctrl-Alt-B, and choose Ambient Occlusion from the dropdown. It takes a bit to do all of its interpolation, and you can watch the image being build up in rows. If you've still got Textured selected on your 3d model, you can see exactly how the shades of grey are mapping to your model. Save that image off for use.
It is fully possible to do start to finish texturing in Blender- however I find the tools in PS are easier for me to use, due to familiarity, the vast toolset available there, and the fact I'm not having to worry about rotating a 3d object to get around it in the middle of what I'm doing. There are also a number of other texturing options available- setting up good lighting and doing a Full Render instead of the Ambient Occlusion, for instance, will get you more real baked lighting. Materials let you set things to have inherent reflectiveness for the lighting to play off of as well, so a really well textured shininess is not that difficult. But, these are things that have so far been beyond me- the lighting never seems to listen to me at all, and I ended up with crinkly cellophane looking highlights the time I tried to do a full render. I'm obviously missing a step somewhere, that I'll figure out eventually, once I decide I want something that I can't get otherwise.
You can also open images in the same menu where you create new ones, to do some of this stuff to an image you've already partially prepped (with, say, a pattern), as well as seeing how your current image will map once you've got all of your layers sorted (and paint directly on that, as well- with brush settings you can conceivably paint on some of your detail there).
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
UV the easy way!
It took a bit of hunting (everyone seems to be linking to the Levitsky one in preference to anything else, and it _is_ the best thing out there to walk people who don't know Blender through out there), but I found a pre mapped sphere to download. After you've messed up your sphere, you just go baking when in UV Select mode (you may need to add a new image...I seem really good at managing to lose my images loaded. That's at least reasonably straightforward). Assuming you don't mind doing a bit of work _un_ sculpting, the Levitsky tutorial has the file at the bottom as well, so you can start with almost-a-cylinder that's pre-mapped. I think I found a clean cylinder base somewhere, but arsed if I can find where now.
This should get your map oriented the right way (and, one hopes, not inside out, since they changed the orientation necessary midway through development) so sides are sides and tops are tops, as well as skipping the beastly coord stage, which mostly just sucks with the power of a thousand suns.
Note: sculpt maps are most efficient (and, generally, successful) when the rainbow image map is 64x64, due to LOD and ceilings on vertices.
This should get your map oriented the right way (and, one hopes, not inside out, since they changed the orientation necessary midway through development) so sides are sides and tops are tops, as well as skipping the beastly coord stage, which mostly just sucks with the power of a thousand suns.
Note: sculpt maps are most efficient (and, generally, successful) when the rainbow image map is 64x64, due to LOD and ceilings on vertices.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Mirror mirror on the wall
Unfortunately the new way of mapping gets me an inside out object often (ALWAYS PREVIEW YOUR SCULPTS BEFORE UPLOADING! Even if you don't upload them through SL's interface), which means the image needs to be flipped horozontal in post. SL just sometimes get confused what's an inside and what's an outside, since it only textures on one side of the face. (Of course, say you want an inside out texture for a bottle or balloon or something, flip a right side out sculpt map horozontal to get it inside out.)
Mirroring the actual object can be done in Blender as well- ctrl-alt-M if I recall correctly. However it can also be done in post! Assuming you have an image editor that divides up the colour channels, invert the red channel (note: this mirrors on the x axis. Invert one of the other channels to mirror along their axes instead), and then flip the whole thing horozontal (this is to make it not be inside out, and assumes that the before copy wasn't inside out either- to un-inside out something, flip the whole thing horozontal). If your sculpt is inside out, flip it back horozontal.
Mirroring the actual object can be done in Blender as well- ctrl-alt-M if I recall correctly. However it can also be done in post! Assuming you have an image editor that divides up the colour channels, invert the red channel (note: this mirrors on the x axis. Invert one of the other channels to mirror along their axes instead), and then flip the whole thing horozontal (this is to make it not be inside out, and assumes that the before copy wasn't inside out either- to un-inside out something, flip the whole thing horozontal). If your sculpt is inside out, flip it back horozontal.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Hurdles
So, after finding just the right search terms, I found this (+100 points for the Strangelove reference), which explains how to unwrap _after_ you've done your sculpting (which was the deal).
In text only, with no helpful images like the other people (and I'll be checking this through next time to make sure I haven't missed a step, so approach with caution now, also note that this assumes you've gotten this far on your own, refer to the others for more helpful stuff. This is really just so I have something if they go poof):
Prep model for mapping. If you've got a mesh, make sure you've marked your seams (Edit Mode, select 2 points in the loop you want, ctrl-E, Select Edge Loop, ctrl-E, Mark Seam). It has to unwrap to a square, so you need good edges. You _can_ kill sphere end points after it's UV mapped (and any other niggling things that muck up your nice square grid, if necessary. Finding them can be annoying with the way modes work.)
UV mapping:
Window with object: UV Face Select. Second window: UV/Image Editor
In UV Face Select pane, hit A (select all), hit U, select Project from View (Bounds). This presents you with something fucking terrifying, and my problem before.
Select a face in UV Face Select mode, hit A twice to select all. Hit U, choose Follow Active (Quads)->None. Still a mess, but better. In the UV/Image Editor pane, select Quads Constrained Rectangular from the UVs menu. You _may_ need to hit A on your UV map, and G to move it a little, to get it to pay attention to the next step, it doesn't always unmap properly unless you've reminded it. Back to UV Face Select window, hit U, Follow Active (Quads)->None again. If all has gone well, it's all rectangular!
If you mapped a cylinder first, then sculpted (as in this tutorial), you won't need to force it to be rectangular repeatedly.
Use S (scale, if you hit Y or X after S you can scale in just one direction) and G (move) with A (all) selected to scale and move it within the bounds. In the UVs menu, Layout Clipped to Image size will eventually help.
In Image menu, add new, 64 by 64. (Note: if your model isn't that size with vertices exactly, you may need to burn that larger and shrink down. I had a 63x64 due to miscalculation that worked perfectly when a 256 square was shrunk down, but had white lines at 64).
Note: There is a possibility, depending on how you've gotten your edges together, that the UV map will be at 90 degrees to where it ought to be. Tick off Quads Restrained Rectangular (important! It does nasty bad things if it's still on), select all (A) your grid mesh, and type in R (rotate) and 90 to rotate things nice and easy (you can do this later and rebake the UV map if necessary, since you've set up everything to make it happy to rebake at any time).
Texture mapping:
F5 selects the Shading panel, Materials. In Material, Add New under Links and Pipeline. Things change drastically. Click Texface on in the new Material pane.
Either add 3 textures here under Texture (Add new), or add them in the F6 window (it makes no nevermind, but you have to go to F6 next- Shading, Texture). At each of the 3 textures, set Texture Type to Blend.
Hit F5 to go back to the Materials panel, and in the Texture menu, select the first texture button. Change Map Input to X, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 1.0, Green 0.0, Blue 0.0; select Add from the dropdown. Second texture is Map Input to Y, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 0.0, Green 1.0, Blue 0.0; select Add from the dropdown. Third is Map Input to Z, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 0.0, Green 0.0, Blue 1.0; select Add from the dropdown.
In other words: all textures set to Add. Texture one is the X coords, which stores info in Red channel, two is Y coords in Green, and three is Z coords in Blue. The 2nd and 3rd coord space in each is blank because we're separating out each coord to be translated into colourspace.
Switch to Scene->Render with F10, Choose Bake, click on Textures, and hit the button. If your texture is predominantly white! go back to F5 and make sure you've selected Texface!! I always forget that. If it isn't shiny happy rainbow but has too much white or black, something Bad happened. You can add a new Image texture at any point, and overwrite existings if something goes wrong. However, in theory you have a psychadelic rainbow, so Save the targa in the Image menu in UV/Image mode.
Texture Painting:
Add a new Image in the UV/Image pane, make this one larger (256, 512, whatever. I usually go 1024, so I can shrink down later). Switch the pane with UV Face Select to Texture Paint. Start doodling, and go wheeee! In Panels, hit F9 (Editting), and adjust your brush in Paint. Save your image off once you're done. I only do certain things with this, then bring lots of layers into PS to make things happy and pretty- however, there is a lot you can do here, including texture the model entirely in Blender if you have the stomach for figuring it all out.
Baking up bits that Blender sets up for you can also be really useful. Add a new image in the UV/Image mode. Go back to UV/Face Select mode in the other window, select all, hit ctrl-alt-B and choose from the menu of baking choices. If you can set up nice lighting, you can do some pretty fancy stuff here. Although sometimes it looks like saran wrap and is all crinkly. Ambient Occlusion can give some basic depth.
In text only, with no helpful images like the other people (and I'll be checking this through next time to make sure I haven't missed a step, so approach with caution now, also note that this assumes you've gotten this far on your own, refer to the others for more helpful stuff. This is really just so I have something if they go poof):
Prep model for mapping. If you've got a mesh, make sure you've marked your seams (Edit Mode, select 2 points in the loop you want, ctrl-E, Select Edge Loop, ctrl-E, Mark Seam). It has to unwrap to a square, so you need good edges. You _can_ kill sphere end points after it's UV mapped (and any other niggling things that muck up your nice square grid, if necessary. Finding them can be annoying with the way modes work.)
UV mapping:
Window with object: UV Face Select. Second window: UV/Image Editor
In UV Face Select pane, hit A (select all), hit U, select Project from View (Bounds). This presents you with something fucking terrifying, and my problem before.
Select a face in UV Face Select mode, hit A twice to select all. Hit U, choose Follow Active (Quads)->None. Still a mess, but better. In the UV/Image Editor pane, select Quads Constrained Rectangular from the UVs menu. You _may_ need to hit A on your UV map, and G to move it a little, to get it to pay attention to the next step, it doesn't always unmap properly unless you've reminded it. Back to UV Face Select window, hit U, Follow Active (Quads)->None again. If all has gone well, it's all rectangular!
If you mapped a cylinder first, then sculpted (as in this tutorial), you won't need to force it to be rectangular repeatedly.
Use S (scale, if you hit Y or X after S you can scale in just one direction) and G (move) with A (all) selected to scale and move it within the bounds. In the UVs menu, Layout Clipped to Image size will eventually help.
In Image menu, add new, 64 by 64. (Note: if your model isn't that size with vertices exactly, you may need to burn that larger and shrink down. I had a 63x64 due to miscalculation that worked perfectly when a 256 square was shrunk down, but had white lines at 64).
Note: There is a possibility, depending on how you've gotten your edges together, that the UV map will be at 90 degrees to where it ought to be. Tick off Quads Restrained Rectangular (important! It does nasty bad things if it's still on), select all (A) your grid mesh, and type in R (rotate) and 90 to rotate things nice and easy (you can do this later and rebake the UV map if necessary, since you've set up everything to make it happy to rebake at any time).
Texture mapping:
F5 selects the Shading panel, Materials. In Material, Add New under Links and Pipeline. Things change drastically. Click Texface on in the new Material pane.
Either add 3 textures here under Texture (Add new), or add them in the F6 window (it makes no nevermind, but you have to go to F6 next- Shading, Texture). At each of the 3 textures, set Texture Type to Blend.
Hit F5 to go back to the Materials panel, and in the Texture menu, select the first texture button. Change Map Input to X, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 1.0, Green 0.0, Blue 0.0; select Add from the dropdown. Second texture is Map Input to Y, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 0.0, Green 1.0, Blue 0.0; select Add from the dropdown. Third is Map Input to Z, blank, blank (vertical); and Map To Red 0.0, Green 0.0, Blue 1.0; select Add from the dropdown.
In other words: all textures set to Add. Texture one is the X coords, which stores info in Red channel, two is Y coords in Green, and three is Z coords in Blue. The 2nd and 3rd coord space in each is blank because we're separating out each coord to be translated into colourspace.
Switch to Scene->Render with F10, Choose Bake, click on Textures, and hit the button. If your texture is predominantly white! go back to F5 and make sure you've selected Texface!! I always forget that. If it isn't shiny happy rainbow but has too much white or black, something Bad happened. You can add a new Image texture at any point, and overwrite existings if something goes wrong. However, in theory you have a psychadelic rainbow, so Save the targa in the Image menu in UV/Image mode.
Texture Painting:
Add a new Image in the UV/Image pane, make this one larger (256, 512, whatever. I usually go 1024, so I can shrink down later). Switch the pane with UV Face Select to Texture Paint. Start doodling, and go wheeee! In Panels, hit F9 (Editting), and adjust your brush in Paint. Save your image off once you're done. I only do certain things with this, then bring lots of layers into PS to make things happy and pretty- however, there is a lot you can do here, including texture the model entirely in Blender if you have the stomach for figuring it all out.
Baking up bits that Blender sets up for you can also be really useful. Add a new image in the UV/Image mode. Go back to UV/Face Select mode in the other window, select all, hit ctrl-alt-B and choose from the menu of baking choices. If you can set up nice lighting, you can do some pretty fancy stuff here. Although sometimes it looks like saran wrap and is all crinkly. Ambient Occlusion can give some basic depth.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Sculpty growling.
On sculpties, I've hit a rather massive (and insanely inconvenient and tedious) roadblock, that lead to 4 hours last night to not even get halfway through...it either taught me a very important (and inconvenient, again!) lesson, or there's a Better Way that I can't find the slightest bit of info about. Partly, this is because Blender is incomprehensible at the best of times. *sigh*
If I can find a way around it that doesn't involve massive amounts of brainless monkeywork, I may be able to lure Max back into making some things for SL. He's very much beyond the general level available, and finds it all ugly and primitive- Windlight, for instance, has the downside that it just shows off how badly built a vast majority of the Grid is (oh, that's right, not supposed to call it that anymore). Sculpties provide the more advanced objects, pair that with competent texturing, and you've opened the door to a lot more exciting...so long as the Grid can handle it, which honestly...it can't _really_. (He also bitches about the crashing and slowing and laments that beautiful Babbage even brings _his_ computer to its knees, which, well, what the hell exactly are they running there? High res textures are some of it, but it can't be the whole problem, can it? Grid stability really does need to be a higher priority than fancy smancy features.)
But then, he plays more games than I do (for reasons beyond simply, "ooo shiny!" but that too)- I don't play much (pre WoW which sucked me in hard, and then I went back to SL), so I haven't lost the wide eyed wonder (I haven't lost, haven't lost, haven't lost that stupid fear of thunder).
But, if I can find an easier way, I've got a few things lined up that will be finished up in the (one hopes) near future, and ideas for more. If I can't, I'll be completely rethinking my workflow to try to plan around it, which has certain less desirable elements to it (aside from scrapping everything I've already started).
If I can find a way around it that doesn't involve massive amounts of brainless monkeywork, I may be able to lure Max back into making some things for SL. He's very much beyond the general level available, and finds it all ugly and primitive- Windlight, for instance, has the downside that it just shows off how badly built a vast majority of the Grid is (oh, that's right, not supposed to call it that anymore). Sculpties provide the more advanced objects, pair that with competent texturing, and you've opened the door to a lot more exciting...so long as the Grid can handle it, which honestly...it can't _really_. (He also bitches about the crashing and slowing and laments that beautiful Babbage even brings _his_ computer to its knees, which, well, what the hell exactly are they running there? High res textures are some of it, but it can't be the whole problem, can it? Grid stability really does need to be a higher priority than fancy smancy features.)
But then, he plays more games than I do (for reasons beyond simply, "ooo shiny!" but that too)- I don't play much (pre WoW which sucked me in hard, and then I went back to SL), so I haven't lost the wide eyed wonder (I haven't lost, haven't lost, haven't lost that stupid fear of thunder).
But, if I can find an easier way, I've got a few things lined up that will be finished up in the (one hopes) near future, and ideas for more. If I can't, I'll be completely rethinking my workflow to try to plan around it, which has certain less desirable elements to it (aside from scrapping everything I've already started).
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Port Seraphine and the Dangers of Sculpties
I'm quite saddened by the Port Seraphine build. Even when I'm only sharing the sim with two other people, I can't move, I get stuck in terrain, I'm lagged to hell, etc. So, yeah, from now on it's a place I shan't ever be going. I rather liked the old build. Maybe it wasn't as flashy as this, but it was still rather cute, and I could, you know, actually look at the shops in it.
This is why one should not make their entire sim out of lots of sculpties. Technology can't handle it at this point, at all.
This is why one should not make their entire sim out of lots of sculpties. Technology can't handle it at this point, at all.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Sizing Sculpties Smaller
I'm working on a (somewhat huge) commission right now, and one necessity to do things right is a small sculpted item. It, however, has to be smaller than the .01x.01x.01 you can get to with just uploading a normal sculpty. Prim torture doesn't work for the workaround for sculpts, the texture itself has be altered to get things smaller.
Considering I'm primarily obsessed with jewelry now, this is a wall I would be running into regardless eventually. I've been avoiding sculpties because they tend towards massive lumpiness, as well as criminal inefficiency in most cases (all the vertices need to be interpolated, and we're talking way more than on a regular prim, and it makes quite a lot of sense that some people are sitting there chugging away with spheres where sculpties should be while they load the things that could have been done in 2 regular prims, which would have loaded far faster and easier). A big part of the problem is we're talking about giving shiny toys to people who don't understand the real practicality behind them (at the Jewelry Exposition, someone was fighting about the exclusion of sculpties in our builds, because "they're the great new thing! She's an idiot to not let us use them! We can just give one of our texture allowances to them!" not realizing that it works on a substantially different principle, and does add more to lag. Also there was a bit of "why can't I do _that_, it just adds to client side lag?" while ignoring the fact that client or server side, LAG IS LAG when it comes to the people who are trying to actually look around. But, I digress). Another big part of the problem is that the system already has serious constraints without adding yet another big imposition on it. Sculpties are marvelous and fabulous and let us do things we couldn't before...and technologically we're not really ready for them, except in ideal conditions. Add in the people who are using them entirely to cheat their prim limits on their sims...and yeah. It isn't a system breaker, but it certainly does mean things run less smoothly than they could.
But yeah, off the soapbox, and back to useful things. Johanna Hyacinth was the only reference I could find to anyone even suggesting cheating the size limit on sculpties. However, I needed to do some trial and error to figure out how to cut the channels- this is how it's done in Photoshop:
Open your sculpt texture.
Open Levels. Move Output Levels more towards the middle, in this case, I chose 60, 195. The more towards the middle you go, the smaller your sculpt (also, as she points out, the more detail that gets lost! So don't go too far! And really, you can't actually make things out well once they're too small anyway), but this ought to be sufficient for my needs.
Save, import, voila! An (almost) identical sculpted item, at a smaller size!
Of rather useful note: the UV mapping will be the same as if it were at the larger size- it doesn't do the thing with inner hollows and the percentage texture thing (Robin Sojourner has a great tutorial book in world on figuring all that out, close to the place to pick up her avatar uv maps).
(Yes, this is extremely basic, but I'm good at forgetting what I've done, and then being stupid trying to figure it out and ignoring the obvious.)
Considering I'm primarily obsessed with jewelry now, this is a wall I would be running into regardless eventually. I've been avoiding sculpties because they tend towards massive lumpiness, as well as criminal inefficiency in most cases (all the vertices need to be interpolated, and we're talking way more than on a regular prim, and it makes quite a lot of sense that some people are sitting there chugging away with spheres where sculpties should be while they load the things that could have been done in 2 regular prims, which would have loaded far faster and easier). A big part of the problem is we're talking about giving shiny toys to people who don't understand the real practicality behind them (at the Jewelry Exposition, someone was fighting about the exclusion of sculpties in our builds, because "they're the great new thing! She's an idiot to not let us use them! We can just give one of our texture allowances to them!" not realizing that it works on a substantially different principle, and does add more to lag. Also there was a bit of "why can't I do _that_, it just adds to client side lag?" while ignoring the fact that client or server side, LAG IS LAG when it comes to the people who are trying to actually look around. But, I digress). Another big part of the problem is that the system already has serious constraints without adding yet another big imposition on it. Sculpties are marvelous and fabulous and let us do things we couldn't before...and technologically we're not really ready for them, except in ideal conditions. Add in the people who are using them entirely to cheat their prim limits on their sims...and yeah. It isn't a system breaker, but it certainly does mean things run less smoothly than they could.
But yeah, off the soapbox, and back to useful things. Johanna Hyacinth was the only reference I could find to anyone even suggesting cheating the size limit on sculpties. However, I needed to do some trial and error to figure out how to cut the channels- this is how it's done in Photoshop:
Open your sculpt texture.
Open Levels. Move Output Levels more towards the middle, in this case, I chose 60, 195. The more towards the middle you go, the smaller your sculpt (also, as she points out, the more detail that gets lost! So don't go too far! And really, you can't actually make things out well once they're too small anyway), but this ought to be sufficient for my needs.
Save, import, voila! An (almost) identical sculpted item, at a smaller size!
Of rather useful note: the UV mapping will be the same as if it were at the larger size- it doesn't do the thing with inner hollows and the percentage texture thing (Robin Sojourner has a great tutorial book in world on figuring all that out, close to the place to pick up her avatar uv maps).
(Yes, this is extremely basic, but I'm good at forgetting what I've done, and then being stupid trying to figure it out and ignoring the obvious.)
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