Mesh Imports in Second Life (for Maya Users)
Here is a short tutorial on mesh imports in Second Life for Maya users (based on the pipeline as it stands today) by Sand Castle Studios’ own, Reed Steamroller.
We have more tutorials coming, and we will be offering classes as well! The announcement detailing these classes will be up in the next few days, but we plan to feature classes on:
- Maya
- Basic Polygon Mesh Modeling (including Generation of Levels of Detail)
- Basic Texturing (including UV Layout)
- Advanced Polygon Modeling
- Advanced Polygon Mesh Texturing and Shading
- Second Life Avatar Modeling
- Second Life Avatar Rigging
What would you like to learn most? Sound off below!
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Advanced polygon modeling and UVMapping… but Blender.
I could use some help with learning how to model in Maya for SL (some of my meshes are coming through ok and some aren’t). Where can I find these classes?
This is fantastic. I hope you will be offering classes in blender as well.
PLEASE do Blender classes! please please please please please please please please
please do Blender classes also. *cries*
Man, I’m really sorry, but I’ve only ever used blender for UV unwrapping, thats it!
It does look like Student licenses of Maya are free though!
http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=register&tagent=BTS-SearchEngineMarketing-JG-9-16-2010&mktvar002=knc-div-amer-us-edu-msn-brdstdnt–lead&gclid=CKqewfDUqKQCFYs65QodMi6P2w
i am glad i have found one place which is creating maya tutorials and classes. i have had the hardest time finding any made for sl, and the easyest time finding tutorials for blender so this is what i was looking for . Second Life Avatar Rigging is the most intresting to me because it will help out alot of people who want to have fluent attatchments but do not know how to rigg in maya. and for people using blender :http://blog.machinimatrix.org/2010/09/15/meshes-i-a-preliminary-tutorial-about-meshes/
cool stuff! waiting!
I purchased Maya quite a while back just to do Sculpties after saving money for a few months. I have no issues with creating sculpties in Maya, but have no idea what it takes to create a mesh or do a UV map. Can the UV map be created using Maya or will I have to purchase another program? Is there a good tutorial anywhere that will help Maya users that only know how to do sculpties to learn how to create a mesh in Maya?
I’m super excited about meshes, but I don’t know the first thing about creating a mesh. I have books on Maya that I purchased that didn’t help at all with learning to create a sculpty, but now I’m wondering if I need to crack them open to learn to do a mesh? Thanks for any info!
UV’s are an inherent part of a polygon mesh. Maya does feature UV layout tools. Building polygon meshes (rather than sculpted prims) with Maya is easy, efficient and accommodates a higher quality end product.
Details about our class schedule/offerings will be released shortly.
I just saw where you will be offering classes on making meshes. That means I will be attending them lol. Any idea when these will be open? I had hoped to begin learning about meshes as soon as open beta starts.
im an avid blender user. i used to be maya only. i dont know why anyone would be a blender neigh sayer. its hot keys shave off loads of time. admitiedly its a pain to learn these keys. but either way the concepts for all 3D packages are the same. if you want to learn blender there are already heaps of tuts all over the web. and as for mesh import to SL im sure its the same as in maya. blender has a collada exporter built in. so make your cool man chair in blender. use the multi-res function instead of LOD instances. use the collada and bobs your uncle.
I wasn’t dissing Blender. Blender is great, and it’s free. I use Maya because IMHO its the industry standard for 3D content creation, animation and rendering (out side of the big production houses that use their own proprietary tools).
However, blender does have it’s limitations when it comes to really really high end features like Maya’s Fluid Effects and nDynamics. Don’t forget about mental ray either.
In other ways it can be better, like the default UV unwrap tools in blender are superior to Maya’s *default* UV layout tools.
I don’t like using the viewer’s built in LOD generation tools. I like having absolute control over the end product. But, the easy route is to use them. The point of the tutorial, though, wasn’t to explain the easy route. The easy route in the case of LOD generation within the viewer is pretty self explanatory.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kimberly Winnington, Kimberly Winnington, Scott R. MacIver, Daniel Voyager, Don Whitaker and others. Don Whitaker said: RT @GiannaBorgnine: Mesh Imports in Second Life (a tutorial for Maya Users) – http://bit.ly/9IO1SW #slmesh [...]
Bravo!!!!! Awesome way to help people deal with the complexities of Maya>>SL.
Now, throw up a Maya>Zbrush>Maya>SL link and we’re off to the races. (I love Zbrush and I’m a total amateur but it’s like playing with playdoh).
Wonderful contribution thanks for the video.
PLease wich version of SL viewer is se don this tuttorial …. there are no curent support on any that i tried for uploading models …. Thanks
Hi,
I am sorry to bother you with this question, but is there any update regarding the classes yet?
Greetings,
Menno
I am so confused. I am familiar with zbrush and blender. I have sculpted many things in SL, of course we all know, SL only took an extremely low polygon count so the items had to be made up of many sculpted prims, and even then there was much room for improvement.
For the life of me, I can not understand what mesh is. Are there polygon limitations on mesh or will we finally be able to have mega high detailed items in SL? Or perhaps polygons do not even exist in a “mesh” build? Is that what makes this so good? No limitations? Finally uber high detail sculpts in SL?
Can not find the answer on the SL website or youtube(Closest thing I found was this video), all i’ve been able to discover is that you can line these new sculpts up with “bones” so it moves with the avatar. Ok.. but WHAT is mesh? HOW do you make one? Polygon restrictions or no? Is mesh this huge unlimited playground where polygons dont even exist? Please someone clarify this for me. I plan to learn either maya or c4d once i figure this out.. in zbrush you had to start with a low poly sphere especially for SL or you could not even upload the sculpt into SL.. What do I need to begin with for mesh?
Any response greatly appreciated.