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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.
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Transcription
Hello and welcome!
Today let us make a wineglass by first creating an outline, and then fold it into the 3D-space.
I will take care of the object’s LOD-behaviour ring the construction.
Let us first load a simple wine-glass as background-image.
I will use this image a guideline for the model.
- I go to front-view
- and there i create a new mesh from scratch.
- Open: add, mesh, empty mesh.
- Now i go to edit-mode.
- I remove the 3D-manipulator because it tends to disturb me during positioning the vertices.
- And now i start to draw the profile.
Hold down the CTRL key, then left click for each new vertex.
- I roughly follow the outline of the glass and create 8 edges.
This corresponds to the LOD1 vertices in the final shape. - Then i select all vertices and subdivide once and adjust the new vertices.
These will correspond to the LOD2 vertices. - I subdivide again to get the LOD3 vertices.
- I want the start point and the end-point of the outline at the same position in the x-y plane.
- So i go to top-view and there i press: s, shift-z, zero.
- At the end i place the cursor as exactly as possible over the two points.
- I select all vertices.
- Then i configure the spin-tool to spin around 360 degrees, and i use 32 steps.
- Then I click on the spin-button.
So here is the wine-glas. It is made out of 32 faces in x, and 32 faces in y.
Let us go to object-mode now, and apply the magic part:
- go to: object -> scripts -> sculptify objects
- In the UV-image editor enable: “Synch UV and Mesh selection”
- Select the leftmost and the rightmost column in the UV-map.
- And now remove doubles.
This stitches the plane together along the selected edge.
And so this effectively changes the sculptie-type from plane to cylinder.
Now you can do some fine-adjustments on your shape.
Finally: Render, Bake sculpt meshes.
And here is a trick for a quick check, how your sculptie will look alike in second life.
- go to the image-editor.
- Then: image, import as sculptie.
- In the link and materials section, enable: set smooth.
In some cases You might encounter a couple of problems here.
If your object is rendered in a very dark-grey shade, then go to edit mode,
and immediately step back to object-mode. That often helps.
If your object is completely black then it has been created inside-out.
This can happen because we started with an empty mesh.
And it is not exactly determined which side of the constructed mesh
is the inner side of the object.
You can repair that as follows:
- go to edit mode
- and then: Scale, x, -1.
This will mirror the object and at the same time it will flip the object normals.
Please note, that directly flipping the normals
with blender does not work at all with sculpties.
If the object still shows very dark areas on its surface,
then your object probably suffers from the light-bleeding effect.
If you encounter this problem:
- go to edit-mode and check the edges near the dark spots.
- shift these edges nearer towards each-other
(Do not collapse them into each other!!!). - This will reduce or even avoid the light bleeding effect.
I have shown you in this tutorial:
- how to work with an outline
- and preserve control over the level of detail.
- You now know where to find sculptify-objects and how to use it.
- You can use “image import-as-sculptie” to quick check your object.
- We have seen how to fix the inside-out effect.
- And we now know how to reduce the light bleeding on sharp edges.
Thank you for watching.
Have a nice day!
Great tutorial after watching it i had the idea of useing this process toreate a sculptie from mesh curves. Sililar to nurbs moddleing with the ep curve tool in maya and useing loft. howerev not finding a loft tool in jass/blender i drew a basic outline then used the extrude option.
the end result was a hollow cube with a curved top. for the moast part this worked but the object was 2sided a waist of faces in sl with moast sculpts also textureing issues like half the texturemap would be likely inside the sculpt where we don’t need to see. and when i try’d a more complicated shape it completly broke on the conversion to a sculptmap. I found moddleing with curves a very fast way to create custom shapes in maya and would love to be able to use a similar process in blender.
would you be able to at anypoint in time make a tutorial for this type of moddleing that explained the steps involved inabit of detail. that is if it’s actually possable
I have the picture background, I add an empty mesh, but when I do control left Click..nothing happens? I get one dot, it turns green and has the red blue and green arrows, but no more dots come when doing control left click? Grrrr
Hi again – I still can not get “add empty mesh” to work.
I have been using Blender for almost two years now, and still can not get things to work properly!!
YES it is so hard and even though I re-install and re-download it gets no where.
I have tried to modify a script with text – but i can not even open it.
I can not find anyone that knows how I can turn this text into a Python script.
I can not find anywhere where I can download this script.
I simply do not have this option in my menu.
I came to SL for only 1 reason = to make things, but after almost two years this has been impossible.
Hi Gaia,
I was hoping to make a fish tail this way, however I am unsure how to do this. I outline the fish tale but I am unsure what to do after this as I want the tail to be flat…
I would love your input
Dan
Gaia, if i needed to enclose the shape, rather than have it open as in the video, how would I close it?
Hi, Eleanora;
I am not sure what you exactly mean. You mean close the top and bottom after spinning ? Then you only need to select the border loops one by one and scale them to zero. This creates the 2 poles which are typical for closed sculpties (which are made out of sculptie spheres).
If that is not what you mean, can you provide an image please ?
Hello, I am having trouble with the tutorial. When I spin the object, it doesn’t match the vertices no matter which camera angle I’m on. What should I do? Should all spins be on 360 and 8?
Hi, Darkstar;
You must place your view such that you along the axis around which you want to spin. Then spin. For example the outline of the wineglas is done in frontview (or sideview, it doesn’t matter). Now before you spin you will change to top view.
Then a spin around 360 degrees should create a closed shape where the vertices along the initial outline are doubled as i have shown in the video. Thats why i later remove duplicates to stitch the surface along the outline.
Hi – where can I get the “add empty mesh” script??
I am using Blender 2.49b and there is no option like this from the “add mesh” menu.
if that file is “missing” then you probably do not have python installed (correctly). What version of the add on scripts (primstar) do you use? Can you use them ? If you use Jass, then something must be broken with your installation.
I do not have Jass, as I thought these things would work with Blender. I installed Primstar 1.0.0. Python 2.6.2 Blender says “checking for installed python- got it!” . The add sculpt mesh works ok, but there is no option for “add empty mesh”. It is not possible for me to draw around an outline. I have a screen shot, but no where to show you…
jass is just a sofware bundle that includes blender, python, primstar and an installer for windows. If you say you can create and bake sculpties, but have no “empty mesh” then make sure that you have blender-2.49b and that you realy try
“add -> mesh -> empty mesh”
The function is part of the blender distribution. If it does not exist on your computer, then blender seems broken for you. Or maybe for your operating system the function is not supported (although i do believe that this function has been along for ages and since it is python it should be independent from the operating system)
About the screenshot. Why can’t you add it as an attachment to yur comment ? (you have not registered to the blog?) There are a lot of public image servers around in the world like http://www.pasteall.org . You can drop your image there and publish the link here…
To be more specific i attach my sculpt map in the reply
[file]/wp-content/upload/Glass4.tga[/file]
Best Regard
Geek Dirval
There is nothing wrong with your sculptmap. Your glas looks blocky because after reimporting the sculptmap to blender, its material settings are “set solid” by default. In the tutorial i show that you should “set smooth” to get the smooth looking surface which you will also see in SL once you inported the glass with lossless compression.
One remark: it looks to me as if you have used jass-pub to make the glass. Is that true ? In the case you used jass-pro, can you tell me which version you used to make the glass ?
thanks, gaia
hi Gaia,
i used the jass-pro version, i know that becouse the version i’ve been used since jass pro 2.3.5 doesn’t have the gridalign.py script, the version i use now have it, so i’m almost sure that it’s the rigth one.
I have to apologize but my inexperience fool me. I’ve tried to upload the image with second life viewer 2 and it work perfectlly (yesterday attempt were made by phoenix viewer) … maybe i’ve missed the tutorial that explain why phoenix (emerald successor) doesn’t upload it correctly (even with use loseless compression enabled and no temporary)
It’s a pity becouse termporary texture upload seems a very nice feature …
And I’m sorry for the poor shape of the glass but it was the fouth attempt and i was in hurry
Thank for your help and your advice … I appreciate it sincerelly, i have to find some time to improve my skill.
Hoping to be a fast sculpt map learner following your tutorial …
Best Regards
Geek Divarl
hi Gaya and all machinimatrix staff,
I’ve bougth the jass 2.3.5 and i’ve followed you work from a long time, but i have to admitt i have some trouble importing sculpt map on sl.
I’ve followed the tutorial, and all goes well, the secondlife upload preview seems also nice …
Once i’ve applied the sculpt map on the object a weird stuff shows up. The glass doesn’t seem cilindrical but cubic. It’s seem it use only 4 of the 8 spin step (and ignore the subsurf modifier) … i’ve tried to change sculpt map size (first attempt 32*128, second one 64*128) but nothing, all attempt give the same result…
I don’t know why, and i don’t know why blender (using import as sculpt map) and second life upload preview give me the correct result but the wrong one after i apply the map to an object.
I have to say that only cilidrical sculpt map give as result a closed shape, all the other type give only 3/4 of the shape i’ve made (but i think that’s normal).
I hope this is a common mistake, so i can say … “At the end a glass i’m capable to do”
Hoping for a solution
Best Regards
Geek Dirval
P.s.: sorry for my weak english … i’m tring to improve it as quick as i can …
Bye
Disculpa que te escriba en español, pero definitivamente es magico todo lo que se puede hacer con tus tutoriales, yo luchaba mucho por que me limitaba mucho a crear cosas en sl y con esto se que podre hacer de todo, te agradezco y nos vemos en el mundo.
I used this tutorial to make different items, and when uploaded into SL they were all crap! How do I get away from the tiny tiny sculpt maps I end up with? When they’re only 4 pixels by 24 pixels the detail is right out the window
Your sculptmap is calculated from the number of vertices
you used in the outline and from the number of faces yu used
in the spin tool. SL can not import small sculptmaps
with viewer-1. With viewer-2 there are less problems.
In order to workaround this limitation of Second LIfe, you
can do this:
- go to edit mode.
- select all images
- then go to the UV image editor
- image new -> set for width/hight one of:
64*64, 64*128, 32*128, 16*128, 8*256, 16*256
note: you can also interchange width and hight.
e.g. 128*32 is also legal combination
- bake
- done
Hello! I just discover your blog, and your fantastic tutorials, before, i would never have dreamed to make things like this with success! i say a big THANKS to you!
((sorry for my bad english
))
Emelsea
I understand how to how to make the prim with spin.
How do I make a prim that can’t be made by lathing?
Trying to duplicate a support leg by outlining the image from blue prints set as a back ground image.
you can use all techniques provided by blender to create your objects.
You only must ensure that the objects conform to the mesh topology
of sculpted prims:
- They MUST be unwrappable to either:
– a simple rectangular plane
– a simple cylinder with one seam
– a simple sphere with one seam and
one pole at the top and/or one pole at the bottom
– a simple torus with 2 seams.
- They must only use Quads
If the objects topology derives just a tiny bit from these constraints,
the UV-map resulting from sculptify Objects gets borked.
Sometimes it helps to predefine the seams before you do the sculptify
objects. But honestly this is not a simple task. Often the deviations
from the constraints can only be seen by close and intense insepction.
Hmmm, I think I got it… But I am beginner and dont understand a few things. 1. How could I get the glass transparent? Should I do it in Blender or in Second Life? 2. Why should I do anything with texture map in UV window only to correct shape in 3D window? Are such a difficult and confusing (in my opinion) steps really necessary? 3. Is there any difference between “import as sculptie” and “classical” way “bake – save image – SL upload”? I have uploaded the same object by both ways…
I apologize for a little bit rude behaviour of mine – but I begin with Blender and, in fact, I am not very clever and inteligent. So I dont very much when anyone makes a things difficult without any reason…
Hi, Jergon. Sorry for the late response.
Sculpting is not an easy task. And sculpting with blender is
combined with understanding the tool first. And blender 2.4
is known to be a challenge for many people. We have tried
to lower the entrance barrier with this blog.
But if you just started, then you might want to first go over
the “beginners” tutorials.
You will see then that the technique shown in this tutorial
here is not soo complicated. But it is addressed to more
advanced users.
1. How could I get the glass transparent?
You make the glas transparent by either applying a transparent texture
or set transparency in Second life. You can create transparent
textures with blender or Photoshop or any other 2D tool.
2. Why should I do anything with texture map in UV window only to correct shape in 3D window?
You actually do not modify the UV map here. You just use one very neat feature of
the UV-map editor which allows you to find the seam in the object easily. Of course you could
also try to find the vertices before you actually sculptify. But using the UV map is just easier.
3. Is there any difference between “import as sculptie” and “classical” way “bake – save image – SL upload”?
– “Import as sculptie” takes the current sculptie-map in the UV image editor and creates a 3D- model from it.
– “Bake” takes the current model in the 3D viewer and creates a sculptie-map from it.
Oh my God, this is too dificult and complicated way for me! Isnt there any easier way to create it?
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
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
ok, i have send the blendfile to your emailadress on last saturday. I hope you help me with that
thanks for your effort!
Feivl
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 ?
Thanks a lot! Problem solved^^
Now I only have to check the LODproblem.
Anyway, thanks for your help and keep on with the great tutorials!
Cheers,
Feivl
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?
Sorry to see, that MAC is a problematic issue. I can not give instant help here, but please check the thread about blender and IMac in the Second Life forums:
https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/117104
That may contain some solutions for your problem.
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
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.
Thanks Gaya,
Python version was the problem indeed.
How did you do the draw thing? All I get is a funny line and it wont do the whole glass.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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 Meshas explained in the video.