Sculpted Prims: Creator's Guide

A.K.A. the complete Noob's Guide

Overview

How do I make a sculpted prim?

Making the Sculpt Map

Modeling

3d Modeling software

Teaching 3d modeling is outside the scope of this guide but here are some guidelines.

Alternatives to 3d Modeling

• Sculpt Generation Programs - Some of Second Life's programmer types are comming out with a number of ways to algorithmicly generate a sculpted prim. ROKURO is one such program that's quickly gaining in popularity: the interface lets the artist manipulate a series of points along a line to create a shape which is spun around its axis to create the sculpt map. Other programs use type-in number values or mathmatical equasions. Programs of this sort have their own section in the 3d software guide.
• Paint Programs - While it hardly seems an intuitive process, people have figured out ways to create and manipulate sculpt textures in programs like Photoshop, The GIMP or PaintShop Pro. While it's no substitute for a 3d model, there are still several usefull applications for the process. The subject has its own article dedicated to it: see Sculpt Textres in Paint Programs.

Exporting

The Methoods

Will vary by program but generaly fall into these categories:

• Scripts/Plugins
• Materials
• Projection

The Exporters

Short list of programs with links to the export insturctions (or see Sculpted Prims: 3d Software Guide)

Texturing

UVW Mapping

Save a seperate copy of your model, apply a spherical map, export template

3d Painting

Programs like zBrush, Deep Paint

2d Painting

How to setup a template for Photoshop

Load an .obj into a 3d viewer and apply the template as a texture and observe where the guides on the template appear

Add more guide lines if you want, paint, save, load texture, check, fix, paint, repeat.

Bringing your Sculpty into Second Life

Upload

Select File --> Upload Image as you would for any other texture. This will bring up the file chooser and the usual upload dialog. Here I'm demonstrating with a quick shape I made in Rokuro.

Notice that in the "Preview image as" dropdown box there's a new option: "Sculpted Prim". This is your last chance to be sure everything is ok before you spend L$ on the upload, so use it! If you're satisfied, hit the Upload button and wait for the upload to complete.

Apply to your object

In the "Create" tab of the build tools window, select any shape and rez it (as of this writing there is no one-click button to make a sculpted prim).

Click the "Advanced" button if you haven't allready and go to the "object" tab. Click on the "Building Block Type" dropdown and select "Sculpted".

Your prim will turn into a sculpted prim and load the default sculpt texture, an apple. Click on the image of the sculpt map to open the Texture Picker and select your uploaded sculpt texture.

Notice that many of the usual prim torture methoods are not avalible; no cutting, twisting, hollow, etc. These may become possible in a later version but for now we have to live without. You can scale, rotate and duplicate your sculpt prim in all the normal ways however.

Apply your textures, et volia'!