Sculpted Prims

Seven prim couch by Xenius Revere, using baked ambient occlusion.

One prim head by Chip Midnight, using baked diffuse lighting.

Vase sculpture by Damanios Thetan

Quick Links

Sculpted Prims FAQ
Sculpted Prims: Technical Explanation
Sculpted Prims: Creator's Guide
Sculpt Textures in Paint Programs
Sculpt Maps and Textures
3D Software Guide
3D Modeling Glossary

What are Sculpted Prims?

A Sculpted Prim, or sculptie, is a prim whose shape is determined by an array of <x, y, z> coordinates stored as RGB values in an image file (a Sculpt Texture or Sculpt Map). Sculpted prims can be used to create more complex, organic shapes that were not previously possible with Second Life's prim system. Each piece of fruit to the right is one prim. For technical details, see Sculpted Prims: Technical Explaination.

How do I make Sculpted Prims

Presently, there only a few limited tools inside Second Life for creating sculptys. They are usually created externally using a 3D modeling tool such as Blender, Maya, or Wings, and then uploading the sculpt texture to Second Life and applying it to a prim with the build tools. See Sculpted Prims: Creator's Guide for more guidance, or jump straight to Sculpted Prims: 3d Software Guide.

Sculpted Prims: News

20 June 2007

In-world group Sculptie Dev: group primarily for the communication/announcement of sculpted prim development.

24 May 2007

Linden Lab is running a contest: show off your sculpties for fun, fame and schwag! Read the blog for details. Deadline for submissions is June 1st.

23 May 2007

Sculpted prims are now available on the Main Grid as of version 1.16.0(5).

16 May 2007

An update to sculpted prims, included in the latest build of the beta viewer (1.16.0(1)), has two changes that are not backwards-compatible:

1) The orientation of the sculpt map (sculpt texture) is reversed. This means all previously created sculpt maps/textures need to be horizontally flipped (otherwise they'll appear inside out.) This change fixes the orientation discrepancy between sculpt maps/textures and surface textures (which have required a 90 degree rotate and flip.) (source)

2) The LSL call to set sculpted prims is changing to require two parameters: the texture and the topology type. (source: Talk page)

27 April 2007

Sculpted Prims made available on the preview grid.

Where can I find out more about Sculpted Prims?

Sculpted Prims have now a comprehensive FAQ wiki page.