Sculpted Prims: 3d Software Guide

Modeling Software: What Features are important for making sculpted prims?

Each program on the list includes a rundown of features that, while maybe not absolutely necessicary for having sculpted prim support, can make the process a whole lot easier.

• User Scripting: A script interface is one of the easiest and fastest ways to add functionality to a program or to automate tasks the program is allready capable of. Plugins and SDKs can do the same thing but may require more work.

• NURBS: NURBS stands for "Non Uniform Rational B-Splines". It's an advanced modeling technique in which shapes are created by manipulating a series of curved splines. Compare this to polygon modeling, the methood of directly manipulating the faces, edges and verticies of a model, which is the default for most programs. NURBS are very good at creating organic shapes and smooth curves and according to Qarl Linden, they convert to sculpt prims much easier than polygons. Though not absolutely necessicary, they can be useful to have.

• Built-in texture baking/generation: The ability of a program to create textures and render them out to image files. Having this functionality built in means it's allready avalible to scripters who want to bend it to our uses. In the case of Blender and Lightwave, it also turns out that the avalibility of this function has allowed people to figure out manual methoods of doing sculpt map exports.

Offline Previewer Tools

Basic tools that can be used to preview what a sculpt texture will look like when uploaded into Second Life and rendered as a prim. All of these are made by other Residents and should generaly be considered beta or works in progress.

XNA Sculptpreview

• Creator: Eddy Stryker
• Link to get it: XNA Sculptpreview
• Requires: Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista, along with the Microsoft XNA framework (see above link for details)
• Derivatives: XNA SculptPreview - Modified version to include LOD and a more sensible camera configuration (and a bunch of other changes under the hood).

A Hacky Sculpt Previewer

• Creator: Yumi Murakami
• Link to get it: Web Start Launcher, Executable JAR file, Source Code (Java SDK required to run from the source).
• Requires: Java Runtime Engine 1.6 or higher, Java 3d API and any OS that will run them (Win, Mac and Linux are well covered). If installing or upgrading the JRE, be sure to do it before installing Java3d. The Web Start link above should be able to automatically install any needed components. Note that it will attempt to automatically redirect your browser to a download page, so if nothing happens when you click on it, please check your security settings will allow this.

Free 3d Modeling Software

Blender

• Website: blender.org
• Licence: GPL
• Operating Systems: Windows, Mac, Linux and more.
• Supports user scripting?: Yes, Python
• Supports NURBS?: Yes
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: Yes
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: Development in progress by SL residents. Also, people have figured out how to get Blender to generate sculpt maps as you work, without needing a script! The process is documented here.

Formerly a company's in-house tool, Blender is the current king of the open source modeling programs. With all the features of the expensive programs, an active development community and even some existing SL-based tools made by Residents, this is going to be the default choice for many people. Downsides: Blender's interface is not newbie-friendly. That combined with spotty documentation can make for a steep learning curve.

Resources

• Blender.org Documentation and Tutorials
• How to Make Sculpted Prims with Blender
• A template file to start with and export easy
• Oven Baked Pretzels @ BlenderNewbies.com - A video tutorial that covers the basics of Blender's new sculpt mode, usefull if you're creating sculpties using the above manual methood.
• Offline Prim Builder for standard prims (Secondlife.com login required)

Art of Illusion

• Website: artofillusion.org
• Licence: GPL
• Operating Systems: Any OS that will run Java (requires Java Runtime Environment 1.4 or later)
• Supports user scripting?: Yes, Java via Beanshell
• Supports NURBS? Yes
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: ???
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: No

A number of Residents have recomended this program; If you're familiar with it, please give the rest of us a summary!

Resources

• AoI Documentation

Moment of Inspiration

• Website: Moment of Inspiration
• Licence: Open beta testing/freeware
• Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• Supports user scripting?: ?
• Supports NURBS? Yes
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: ?
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: 3dm2sculpt(Let me try to add a new Page for this one)

This program has some cool things going for it. It's the work of a former Rhino developer and has an interface that pretty much lets you draw shapes with the mouse or a pen tablet. Documentation on the website is sparse however and being in beta means there will be kinks.

Resources

• Moment of Inspiration Forums

Ayam

• Website: Ayam
• Licence: BSD licence
• Operating Systems: Unix/Linux (native), Windows 98, 2000 and XP, Mac OSX (with X11)
• Supports user scripting?: Yes, tcl
• Supports NURBS? Yes (NURBS modeling only; polygon meshes can be imported)
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: No
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: No

Resources

• Ayam Documentation page

Wings 3D

• Website: Wings 3D
• Licence:BSD licence
• Operating Systems: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux (binaries), other Unixes (source only)
• Supports user scripting?: ? (Plugin interface avalible)
• Supports NURBS? No
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: ?
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: No

Wings3D is a subdivision modeler and has the advantage of being fairly easy to use and should be able to produce models fairly well suited to making sculpted prims without a lot of trouble. Documentation is sparse, however. The program is in Beta.

Resources

• Wings User Manual (Sourceforge, PDF)

Professional 3d Suites

It has to be said: most professional 3d software is incredibly expensive, anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars for a single copy; they're marketed at big professional studios with thousands or millions of dollars to budget for this stuff. There are ways to reduce this expense so that it's witin the reach of an average person: some legal, some not.

• Don't post links to downloads of pirated software or directions/tools to crack trial software. They'll be deleted.

• Don't ask in a public forum where you can download pirated software.

• Don't be fooled by online retailers selling "OEM" copies of software online for cheep. None of these programs come in OEM (original equipment manufactuer, or anyone who makes computer hardware and bundles software with them) versions. Many companies such as Autodesk go so far as to only sell their software through authorized retailers. These too good to be true offers are just that: crooks trying to get you to pay them money for pirated software. (ed.: Trust me: I've fallen for it before and now know better).

• Do be aware that downloading pirated software is a good way to end up with malware on your system such as trojans and keyloggers.

That said, here are some of the legal options you can look for:

• Educational Licences: If you're a student, you can usualy get a signifigant discount on most of these programs. The downside is that many educational licences say you're not supposed to use the program for commercial purposes.
• Subscriptions: You pay anualy for a subsription to use the program. While this business model sucks for things like Anti-Virus programs, it can really save you money over time for 3d software and is a lot easier than a huge initial investment for the full licence. You also get the full benefits (and sometimes extra) of buying the program outright. I've seen (legit) subscription prices for 3ds Max run as little as $100 or $200 a year.
• Trials: Most 3d software has a demo or a "learning edition" that you can download from the software maker and try on your system. They will be either time or feature limited but this is a good way to get your feet wet.

So with that out of the way, the list...

Maya (Autodesk/Wavefront)

• Website: Autodesk Maya
• Cost: US$3000 ("Complete") - US$7000 ("Unlimited"). ("Complete" version sufficient for creating sculpted prims.) Educational licence: US$300
• Operating Systems: Windows XP SP2, Max OSx 10.4, Linux (SUSE, RedHat and Fedora supported)
• Trial version available?: "Personal Learning Edition", no time limit but not usable for creating sculpted prims (sculpt textures ruined by watermark)
• Supports user scripting?: Yes, MEL Script
• Supports NURBS? Yes
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: Yes
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: Yes, script by Qarl Linden here: LlSculpt mel.

Why was Maya the first to recieve sculpted prim support from Linden Lab? Because it was what Qarl Linden, the main developer on the project, learned to use while creating kick-ass movie SFX like these and the tech for sculpted prims was adapted from tricks he learned in the process. Maya has been a growing force in the movie industry for some years and a strong presence in the video game industry as well.

Resources

3d Studio Max (Autodesk)

• Website: Autodesk 3ds Max
• Cost: US$3495. Educational Licence: ~US$200. Subscription: ~US$500/year.
• Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP, Windows Vista (with version 9.1)
• Trial version available?: Yes, 30-day demo, full features
• Supports user scripting?: Yes, MAX Script/plugins
• Supports NURBS? Yes
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: Yes (version 8 and higher)
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: No, future support planed by Linden Lab

Formerly Maya's main competitor, especaily in the game industry. Then Autodesk (the makers of Max) bought out Alias (the makers of Maya) a coupple years ago. So far the company is developing both products seperately, marketing Maya at the movie industry and Max at the game developers, but they have long had comparable feature sets, and in the future it's likely that there will be tighter integration between the two. A choice between Maya and Max generaly comes down to user preference and (particuarly in our case) plugin support. Some users have said that Max is easier for a newbie to learn than Maya and certian basic controlls share similarities with SL's build tools (such as shift-drag to copy).

Resources

Zbrush (Pixelogic)

• Website: Pizologig :: Zbrush
• Cost: US$489
• Operating Systems: Windows 98/2000/ZP, Mac OSX
• Trial version available?: Yes, 30-day time limit
• Supports user scripting?: Yes, Zscripting
• Supports NURBS? No
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: Yes
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: No, future support is planned by Linden Lab

Zbrush pretty new and a bit unique. It's a 3d painting and sculpting tool; instead of manipulating polys or curves, you select a brush and litteraly paint and chisel and mold...the best way to grasp it is to download the demo and play with it. It's pretty sweet: a ton of studios such as Epic Games use it to create the details for their normal maps and some SL designers are allready using it for the 3d painting capabilties.

Resources

• Zbrush Documentation

Lightwave (Newtek)

• Website: Lightwave
• Cost: US$795
• Operating Systems: Windows XP, Mac OSX 10.3.9 or higher
• Trial version available?: Yes, 30 day time limit
• Supports user scripting?: Yes, LScript
• Supports NURBS? No
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?: Yes
• Current Sculpt Map Support?: Yes, manual method instructions here: User:Patchouli_Woollahra/Lightwave_Sculptie_Rendering

Some high-profile Second Life designers have been using Lightwave for quite a while to burn realistic highlights and shadows onto their skins and clothing textures. Therefore it's not a big surprise that after Blender, this was the second program that community members figured out a sculpt export methood for.

Resources

Rhinoceros Rhino 3D

• Website: Rhino 3D
• Cost: US$995
• Operating Systems:
• Trial version available?: Yes, save count limited
• Supports user scripting?: Yes
• Supports NURBS? Yes, design focus
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?:
• Current Sculpt Map Support?:

Resources

Caligari Truespace

• Website: Caligari
• Cost: US$595 for latest version (7), but legacy versions are sold for lower prices ($199 for TrueSpace 5)
• Operating Systems:
• Trial version available?:
• Supports user scripting?:
• Supports NURBS?
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?:
• Current Sculpt Map Support?:

Resources Appears to support Second Life style collaborative building!!??

Softimage XSI

• Website: Softimage XSI
• Cost: US$495 ("Foundation") - US$6995 ("Advanced")
• Operating Systems:
• Trial version available?:
• Supports user scripting?:
• Supports NURBS?
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?:
• Current Sculpt Map Support?:

Resources

Other 3d Programs

These programs may be free or cheap, but they won't have nearly as expansive feature sets as those above.

Google Sketchup

• Website: Google Sketchup
• Cost: Free (Google Sketchup 6)/$ (Google Sketchup 6 Pro)
• Operating Systems:
• Trial version available?:
• Supports user scripting?:
• Supports NURBS?
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation?:
• Current Sculpt Map Support?:

Resources

MilkShape 3D

• Website: www.milkshape3d.com
• Cost: US$25 / €25
• Operating Systems: Windows
• Trial version available? 30-day unrestricted trial, save disabled thereafter until registered
• Supports user scripting? Plug-in SDK available (Does that count?)
• Supports NURBS? No
• Built-in Texture Baking/generation? No
• Current Sculpt Map Support: Import/Export plugin under development

Resources

See Tutorials and Links links on website above

3D File Formats

If you're using software that doesn't have a sculpt exporter avalible for it yet, there's always the option of exporting it in another program or giving the file to someone who can. To do that you'll need to export the model into a format the other program can handle. Here's a brief rundown of the ones that will generaly be the most usefull.

• .OBJ: Probably the most common cross-platform export format for polygon models; it's fairly open and any 3d program worth its bits supports it. It's also well documented and easily hackable.

• .3DS: The default polygon export format supported by 3d Studio Max. It has enough clout that importers and exporters for it are common, but it doesn't have as many options as OBJ.

• .FBX: Another Autodesk format that is good if you need to export whole scenes; objects, animation, lights, cameras, etc. More importantly for our purposes, it preserves NURBS objects. Especialy usefull if you're trading files between 3DS Max and Maya; it's also supported in some other programs but Blender isn't one of them yet.

• .3DM: a.k.a OpenNURBS, this is the native format of Rhino3d and, as the name suggests, is a NURBS export format that is gaining some popularity. Unfortunatly, it's not supported by the Big 3 (Maya, Max and Blender). However the format documentation and code libraries are open, free and avalible without copyright restriction, should someone feel brave enough to try and write import/export plugins for it.