Modelling with Outlines

abstract: We show you, how you can start with an empty mesh, draw an outline of an object and eventually create the full 3D-model. In the final step the object will be turned into a Sculptie using some primstar magic.


15 comments to Modelling with Outlines

  • Feivl Footman (in SL)

    Hi Gaia!

    First of all: Awesome work and one of my favorite sites ever! Perfect!

    But i have some problem with the technique in this tutorial. It`s easy to create the wineglas. But I tryed to draw some other things than the glas. My actual project is the wheel of a Segway. I have drawn the tire but after using the script “sculptify objects” I got an image with just 18 vertices on it. I imported the image as a sculpty and the result was just a naily undefinable object.

    What went wrong? Is there a max of vertices to use with this script? I can`t comprehend what the problem is. I love this method because I am free in my designs (I hate deforming the premodeled or imported sculptys :)

    I hope someone can help me with that…
    Sorry for my bad english!

    Best regards,
    Feivl

    • Gaia Clary

      Maybe you forgot to bake your object and you just used the default image which is just an LOD-helper image… Indeed this image will result in an hedge hog when imported into SL ;-)

      If this was not the problem, then can you please provide the corresponding .blend file? Or at least an image of your mesh ? If you register to this site, you can attach files right into your comments. Otherwise you can send the data to gaia.clary@machinimatrix.org if you prefer.

      cheers,
      Gaia

      • Feivl Footman (in SL)

        ok, i have send the blendfile to your emailadress on last saturday. I hope you help me with that :)
        thanks for your effort!

        Feivl

        • Gaia Clary

          Hi, Feivl

          Sorry for the late answer, I have been on vacance for a few days and then i was completely sucked up with releasing the first 2 tutorials of the new series. I have taken a very quick look into your blend file and:

          1.) It is not 100% rotational symmetric, so you will probably have no big advantage from using the outline technique here.

          2.) You try to achieve something that can not be done like you try to do it. The main problem is, that your object topology is massively diverging from the topology needed by sculpted prims.

          3.) However there is one possible option how you can get away with your wheel:

          - create an oblong cylinder.
          - cut it into 9 pieces using the separation technique by collapsing vertices to a thin (invisible) line
          - Arrange the 8 inner spokes
          - Use the nineth subelement to create the rim.

          I hope that helps you a bit ?

  • Shelly Macchi

    when i reach the stage of object/scripts/sculptify object, i am getting “phython script error, check console” msg.

    i am using a Macbook pro, OS 10.05.08
    Blender v 2.49a
    i added the primstar files to a folder i placed in my Blender application folder, and set the path to find them as shown in your tutorial on that (they are set to default as suggested)
    did this perhaps somehow result in whatever phython scripts came ready to use with blender from being found now?

    am so confused *L*
    help?

  • Thanks for your tutorial.
    It works fine for me, till I try to bake the sculpt mesh. Then I get this error:

    File “”, line 1, in
    File D:\Program Files\Jass-2.0.0\.blender\scripts\primstar\render_sculptie.py
    “, line 50 in
    import tkFileDialog
    ImportError: No module named tkFileDialog

    • Gaia Clary

      What do you see in the first 2 lines of the console window ? It should read:


      Compiled with Python version 2.6.2.
      Checking for installed Python... got it!

      Possibly the initial 2 lines are followed by more outputs. All information here is interesting to understand the cause of the error.

      Are you using the out of the box installation of Jass. And if yes,which version of jass are you using (RC1, RC2, or RC3) ? At the moment you can only see that on the name of the installer file.

  • How did you do the draw thing? All I get is a funny line and it wont do the whole glass.

    • Gaia Clary

      At some point in the video you have to use the “spin tool” which takes the line and duplicates it several times while rotating around the cursor. The result of this step is the wineglas. Therefore you must be in top view when you start the spin tool and the end points of the line should have the same x,y coordinates and the cursor should be positioned at the same x,y positions too. Otherwise the rotation goes wrong and you end up with unexpected results (like holes at the top/bottom or completely messed structure when the rotaytion is not exactly around the z axis…) The details are explained at 1:20 in the video.

  • Nik

    When I press Sculpity Object. It does nothing :( But thanks for this tutorial! it def will help me out if I get to know how to fix the sculpity object script.

    • Gaia Clary

      This sounds like you have got an installation problem. Further information is needed to understand what’s going up.

      - The first source of information is the console window. What does it say ?

      - What operating system are you running ?

      - Which version of the scripts are you using ?

      - Are you with blender or with Jass ?
      If you are using Jass, then please ensure that you are using the newest RC (as of today it is RC3).

  • Summer

    Thanks so much for the tutorials. Could not even imagine figuring this out without them. Very Noob, and trying to find my way. In modeling with outlines how/where do I get the Empty Mesh that is used, it shows on the tutorial with a python icon on the menu? I have the latest version of Primstar & Blender installed, and its not there. I’m assuming the empty mesh with the python icon on the menu bar is different from the Blender empty mesh? Thanks again for your patience with us noobies.

    • Gaia Clary

      The “Empty Mesh” with the Python Icon is exactly what you need. It is part of the standard Blender distribution so you should have it. The Blender “Empty” is just an empty object. You could start with that too. But then you would have to add an empty mesh to that object manually and i must admit that i do not know how i can add an empty mesh to an empty object… So your best option is just to use

      add -> Mesh -> Empty Mesh

      as explained in the video.

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