lab impossible

Sculptie Creation for Second Life® with Maya

I spoke on organic content creation, using Maya, at the Second Life Community Convention (SLCC) in San Francisco last month.  Here are my notes.  Of course, there are a few fine tutorials on this topic already, but I wanted to cover: multi-object sculpties, lighting and materials (in addition to specific modeling issues).  Feedback is welcome via email.  Enjoy.

Find more info here:   Sculptie FAQ (wiki)

This tutorial in pdf form is here.

Setup: Install the Mel Script

1. Grab Qarl’s export script here:  http://www.qarl.com/qLab/pile/ant/sculpt.mel

2. Copy entire script (to clipboard)

3. Open the Script Editor in Maya

4. Paste sculpt.mel into the editor

5. With the entire sculpt.mel script selected, File ->  Save Script to Shelf

6. Give the shelf script a meaningful name, such as:

Setup and Define a New Project

1. File -> Project -> New

2. Name: flower

3. Select Use Defaults

4. Accept

Model

1. Set shelf tab to Surfaces

2. Create -> NURBS Primitives -> Sphere -> Option

Alternatively, sculpties can be made from NURBS planes, cylinders (no caps), or torus.

The stitching type may need to be set in SL or OpenSim to match a non-sphere object type (since the sphere is the default).  The sphere is usually the best way to go.  The exporter is also optimized for spheres.

3. Set sections = 8 and spans = 8.

(Sections and spans can also be set to : 4, 8, 16 or 32, depending on how much detail is needed.  Sections do not have to be equal to Spans.)

4. Switch to Select by Component Type

5. Use any Maya tool for editing control points (such as move, rotate and scale).

Do not add or delete vertices.  For more complex shapes, add more NURBS spheres.  The ends, or poles, appear to be single points, but are  rings of very close control points.   Avoid manipulating the poles.

6. Switch back to Select by Object Type

Materials

1. Gather all source textures and copy to the project sourceimages directory.

This is the flower petal texture (256 pixels x 256 pixels):

2. Right click on petal object

Select Assign New Material -> Lambert

3. Open Attribute Editor (AE)

4. Change name to “purple_petal”

5. Set color to the file: “purple_petal”

6. Move transparency slider to the right about 1/4 of the way over

7. Set bump map (for this tutorial, use the same file as for the color map)

Lights

Since the flower will be lit in Second Life, the objective here is only to ensure that the texture details are captured in the surface file.  We want to produce even, well-balanced illumination.

Here is a simple light rig:  1 overhead area light and 4 ambient lights for fill

(one for the front, back, left and right).

1. Create -> LIghts -> Area Light

position above (such as a large photographic soft box, or the sun)

2. Create -> LIghts -> Ambient

set intensity = .2 for each

position at left, right, front and back

Camera (Optional)

For a white background in test render, (default is black):

1. Create -> Cameras -> Camera and Aim

2. Select Camera and Open AE

3. Environment: Change Background Color to White

Render

Confirm materials and lighting result in even illumination.

Adjust light intensity as needed.

Clean Up

1. It’s a good idea to save the scene at this point, prior to deleting history.

2. Edit ->  Delete by Type -> History

3. Modify -> Freeze Transformations

4. Modify -> Reset Transformations

5. Edit ->  Delete by Type -> History

Select and Run Sculpt.mel

1. Select all sculpted objects in viewport and run sculpt.mel.

(Do not group objects.  Grouping will cause sculpt.mel to fail.)

2. Enter unique filename

3. Check  Maximize Scale (we can resize in Second Life)

4. Check Correct Orientation

5. Check Bake Surface Texture

6. Check Include Shadows

7. Check Generate Primscript (Filename.primscript is written)

Confirm That Images Look Right

Sculpt maps should look something like this:

Surfaces (textures)  should look something like this:

Surfaces will look similar to the original color map file, with highlights and

shadows baked on (and taking into account any rotations).

Getting it Up to the Grid

1. Upload all the files (select lossless, if that option is available).

2. Setup scripts.  Find details here (scroll down to section labeled “In-world Scripts”):

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Advanced_Sculptie_Exporter_From_Maya