I just found 123D Catch and wrote about it in: New 3D Modeling Tool – 123D Catch Review. 123D Catch is a program that runs on iPhones, iPads, and desktops. It allows you to turn photos of an object into 3D models that can then be ‘printed’ as real physical models. Of course Second Life™ users would use the result as 3D models with textures for import to SL.
However, 123D Catch is only part of a suite of 123D programs being created by AutoDesk to capture the consumer design market. We have new technology like Cubify 3D Systems that can turn 3D models into real life objects.
The suite of programs is free and consists of:
Catch – Uses photos of real objects to generate a 3D model.
Design – Create 3D models on your Mac, PC, or iPad
Sculpt – 3D sculpting
Make – unique projects using incredible slice or fold techniques.
I came across an article on a new way of building 3D virtual worlds. (Thanks Hamlet NWN) Well, may be not so new, it came out in 2011 I think. But, the process, new to me, is being used to create the independent adventure game: Rustclad. The development team has a video out showing the process they are using and early scenes from their game.
[youtube pj-Gpe2oh_4]
You can see they are using a more organic style than we typically see in Second Life™. Sculpties were introduced to Second Life to enable the creation of this more organic style. I am not sure we have ever taken advantage of sculpties as intended by the creator of them: Karl Stiefvater (Qarl Fizz, formerly Qarl Linden). May be I’ll ask him some day.
Materials are coming to Second Life™. Part of the feature is Normal Maps. So, if you want to take advantage of the new feature you are going to need to learn how to make Normal Maps. There is a new tutorial that teaches one how to use the free GIMP image editor to make them.
Indigo Mertel Plurked the link. If you’re Plurking, friend Indigo. The video is 23 minutes long.
[youtube 8Jdo3ZmtPWk]
vscorpianc made the tutorial. Vscorpianc has 277 videos on YouTube. It is a nice collection of GIMP and Blender tutorials.
She does an excellent job and speaks very well. None of the umm… errr… uuhh… or false starts and redo’s.
Medhue Simoni has put up a video tutorial on using Slat to make Second Life™ animations. He announced it in the SL forum: SLat Tutorial for Animations – 15 minutes. If you are into animation or have been thinking about it, check it out.
The direction I’m going with tutorial is toward making clothes and weight painting. But, this tutorial will provide information for those building both objects and clothes. I am limiting this tutorial to just the modeling and the tools we need for making the model and the lower poly models we need for Second Life.
#1 – Modeling in Second Life
This is not your standard tutorial. There are loads of modeling tutorials. Making avatar clothes is a special type of 3D modeling. There are a number of tricks to be learned, especially for making Second Life® clothes. I’m going to focus on the things I had a hard time figuring out how to do.
I’ll lay this tutorial out with indexing so you can quickly find the various tricks. I need that because I tend forget a step here and there and need to look it up.
Index
Page 1 – First Decision – Which shape to use. Page 1 – Deformer – What it does. Page 2 – Modeling – Start the modeling tools. Page 2 – C-Select – A better select tool. Page 2 – Redoing Topology Trick – Snap with a good video. Page 2 – Snap – Details on using snap. Page 3 – Scaling – How to use Alt-S scaling. Page 3 – Shrinkwrap – How to use shrinkwrap. Page 4 – Triangles vs Ngons – Getting into Ngons and Bsurface. Page 4 – Bsurface – How to use Bsurface. Page 4 – Grease Pencil – Needed for Bsurface. Page 5 – Reducing Poly Count – Needed for LoD’s. Page 5 – Dissolve – Tools for reducing poly count. Page 5 – Using Images – How to use pictures and images to guide your modeling. Page 5 – How to Model – Some of the Second Life requirements. Page 6 – How to Model – The outline. Page 6 – Summary
I hate slow paced, rambling video tutorials. I’ve found some that are pretty good. I’ll include those where appropriate. After them I’ll add explanations. Sometimes they leave out the most basic but necessary steps. Even after a couple years of using Blender I’m going: how did they do that?
In April I posted an article on retopologizing (like that is a word – redoing the topology of) mesh objects in Blender. See: #SL Blender Clothes Retopology. In Blender 2.62 I kept having problems getting the method to work. I think it was more me than Blender that was the problem. Whatever… today a decided to figure it out.
#1 Getting Surface Snap to Work - Click to Enlarge
I plan to do more tutorials. One of the things I want to do is work with weight painting to see if I can make skirts that work better than what we have. The current mesh mini-skirts show it all when one sits down. I don’t think it has to be that way. Now I need a well made skirt to work with. So, I’m studying 3D modeling. One of the things modelers deal with is redoing the topology of high polygon into low polygon models. Using the tools built into blender can make changing the topology much easier.
