I posted two threads asking questions regarding sculpts:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=302457
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/23646-what-do-you-think-about.html
The responses are very valuable. We see a few common complaints about sculpts:
1) Sculpts take a long time to load
Part of this is due to a good number of sculpts being unoptimized. I already have an in-depth tutorial on this mostly written, and will publish soon to help out with this. The other cause is in SL's code and the way it deals with images, and can only be fixed by giving LL some :argh:
2) LOD unpredictable and poor
This is a matter of sculpt design. However, I feel that I should give customers detailed information on my sculpts in the info viewable before purchase. Specific distances that it retain shape to a reasonable degree under both medium and high mesh detail settings. I also plan on making more stuff that retains shape on LOD2 and 3, and not use LOD0 and 1.
3) Texturing options in full perms sculpts iffy
This is something that I can do a lot about in my products. I had wondered if there was significant call for this. In the future, my sculpt packs will contain a new texturing system that includes baked ambient, shadows, bump/normal, and specular all as separate textures so they can be layered in photoshop and modified individually.
Showing posts with label sculpted prims. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sculpted prims. Show all posts
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
What I'm up to
Here are my current plans and projects. This is a six-month plan, and would mark a completion of everything I want to get done in SL at present. After this I will review if whether or not I want to stop all additional development in SL and leave, depending on whether Linden Lab massively changes the way it works, as at the present with the handling of the openspace policy and the policy itself, it has shown that it could care less about its customers want.
Interzone: this is a full sim build with nearly everything sculpted, using holistic sculpting (more on what that in a future post.) Interzone is to be a sim-size steampunk seafaring city, analogous to a pre-modern arcology. Theme-wise, it is a mobile sea and air ship port, center of commerce, and gathering point for all sorts of free-wheeling types, from pirates, treasure hunters, diplomats, and traders. Interzone is short for International Zone, which you can read about at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_zone. Tangier is one example, and the idea is similar to free ports such as Morocco (a staple setting of international intrigue in modern cinema and literature). It will not be victorian but feature a range of architectural styles (tudor, san-fran style victorian, industrio-steampunk, and perhaps some Chinese), and some anachronistic elements. The idea is that even though the general theme is "fantasy steampunk," due to its transient nature a great number of avatar themes could fit in. There's also some general social commentary it will try to make in its construction, which will be more optimist than dystopian.
While I progress in this long-term project, I plan to set for sale the components and builds I make for it. Most likely very reasonably priced to encourage the spread of steampunk culture (the project is not primarily commercial in motive.)
Aside from that, there's also some actual _work_ I need to do. Now that Oblong sculpts are released, sculpts are at their prime. I have unreleased work in many of these fields that would make them roll out faster:
Near Completion:
1) Sculpted Chains Rehash using Oblongs (boxing them up at the moment)
2) Sculpted Letters (mostly finished; only fine polishing needed.)
3) Sculpted Pathways (again, mostly finished)
Future plans, in order:
Scene components (going from exterior, to architectural, to more individual elements)
4) sculpted plants and trees, for perhaps a month.
5) rope bridges.
6) Architectural components, including new stairs, railings, windows, doors, columns, and visual details
7) Furniture, such as chairs, couches, bookcases (with books), benches, and tables.
8) Interior details such as furnaces, fireplaces, lights, chandeliers, and appliances.
Building components:
9) Specific jewelry elements, such as jewelry chains and jewel settings
10) Mechanical elements, such as new gears, animated pistons, nuts, bolts, beams, etc
11) Generalized "primtype" elements which are multiple objects per prim.
12) Animal and Character/Avatar bits.
Sometime:
Vehicles, including cars, airships, and steampunk vehicles.
Sculpture ("pure" sculpt art, something I want to get into at some point).
Landscaping effects, such as water, rocks, and caves.
Along the way, I plan to create mini-tutorials on sculpt design, and eventually compile them into a full website.
Interzone: this is a full sim build with nearly everything sculpted, using holistic sculpting (more on what that in a future post.) Interzone is to be a sim-size steampunk seafaring city, analogous to a pre-modern arcology. Theme-wise, it is a mobile sea and air ship port, center of commerce, and gathering point for all sorts of free-wheeling types, from pirates, treasure hunters, diplomats, and traders. Interzone is short for International Zone, which you can read about at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_zone. Tangier is one example, and the idea is similar to free ports such as Morocco (a staple setting of international intrigue in modern cinema and literature). It will not be victorian but feature a range of architectural styles (tudor, san-fran style victorian, industrio-steampunk, and perhaps some Chinese), and some anachronistic elements. The idea is that even though the general theme is "fantasy steampunk," due to its transient nature a great number of avatar themes could fit in. There's also some general social commentary it will try to make in its construction, which will be more optimist than dystopian.
While I progress in this long-term project, I plan to set for sale the components and builds I make for it. Most likely very reasonably priced to encourage the spread of steampunk culture (the project is not primarily commercial in motive.)
Aside from that, there's also some actual _work_ I need to do. Now that Oblong sculpts are released, sculpts are at their prime. I have unreleased work in many of these fields that would make them roll out faster:
Near Completion:
1) Sculpted Chains Rehash using Oblongs (boxing them up at the moment)
2) Sculpted Letters (mostly finished; only fine polishing needed.)
3) Sculpted Pathways (again, mostly finished)
Future plans, in order:
Scene components (going from exterior, to architectural, to more individual elements)
4) sculpted plants and trees, for perhaps a month.
5) rope bridges.
6) Architectural components, including new stairs, railings, windows, doors, columns, and visual details
7) Furniture, such as chairs, couches, bookcases (with books), benches, and tables.
8) Interior details such as furnaces, fireplaces, lights, chandeliers, and appliances.
Building components:
9) Specific jewelry elements, such as jewelry chains and jewel settings
10) Mechanical elements, such as new gears, animated pistons, nuts, bolts, beams, etc
11) Generalized "primtype" elements which are multiple objects per prim.
12) Animal and Character/Avatar bits.
Sometime:
Vehicles, including cars, airships, and steampunk vehicles.
Sculpture ("pure" sculpt art, something I want to get into at some point).
Landscaping effects, such as water, rocks, and caves.
Along the way, I plan to create mini-tutorials on sculpt design, and eventually compile them into a full website.
Hello Avatar
Welcome to the Integral SL Blog. I'm Aminom Marvin, one of Second Life's major sculpted prim designers. The purpose of this blog is to 1) provide tutorials, tips, and information about sculpted prims that I can easily reference before creating a planned full sculpt website 2) provide my input on SL issues 3) highlight creativity and innovation in SL, and 4) Obligatory Sculptomancy product updates and announcements.
To start, this blog will doubtlessly have little audiance. Posts will primarily be other forum and blog posts reprinted here.
To start, this blog will doubtlessly have little audiance. Posts will primarily be other forum and blog posts reprinted here.
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