{"id":1262,"date":"2007-04-27T23:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-28T03:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1262"},"modified":"2007-10-22T15:36:15","modified_gmt":"2007-10-22T19:36:15","slug":"second-life-sculpts-its-prims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1262","title":{"rendered":"Second Life Sculpts Its Prims {*Update*}"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just as I was pointing out that Linden Lab had yet to introduce some long-promised additions to Second Life’s modeling toolset, word comes via C|Net (Link)<\/a> that so-called “Sculpted Prims” (aka “sculpties”) may be on the horizon. So what’s a “sculpted prim”? According to a FAQ on the Second Life Wiki (Link)<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A “sculpted prim” is a prim whose shape is determined by a texture – its “sculpt texture”. Sculpted prims can create organic shapes that are not currently possible with Second Life’s prim system.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nInteresting. And even more interesting is how they describe a “sculpt texture”:<\/p>\n

A sculpt texture is a standard RGB texture where the R, G, and B channels are mapped onto X, Y, and Z space. For those familiar with computer graphics – a sculpt texture is very similar to a normal map, but instead of encoding surface normals we encode surface positions. They are also similar to displacement maps, but instead of a single scalar distance we have three values (for each of X, Y, and Z.) They are also very similar to parametric (e.g. nurbs) surfaces.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was cleaning out some old Maya scenes this past week and came across some very early shader-based normal maps. Trying to make those things using some early tutorials by Olivier Renouard<\/a> taught me a lot about how nmaps worked.<\/p>\n

Apparently this feature isn’t yet available, but if Linden Lab delivers this in a Preview Grid next week, I’ll be impressed. And happy.<\/p>\n

For more, hop over to the Official Linden Blog (Link)<\/a> or check out a video showing the feature in action (Link)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

{Update:<\/strong> Had to ask the obvious on the SL Wiki:<\/p>\n

So the form is defined by the vectors from the origin and assumes a closed shape. What about a non-closed surface? We don’t have prims which are Planes, but there’s been arguably little need. Now such a primitive would allow more highly-detailed models which don’t require closed forms (e.g. sheetmetal shapes for vehicles). Any plans on adding such a Prim to the library? — Csven Concord 09:12, 28 April 2007 (PDT)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the answer is…<\/p>\n

yes, rev 2 will include “plane-like”, “cylinder-like” and “torus-like” shapes, to compliment the “sphere-like” shape. (basically, all permutations of open\/closed on the ends.) –Qarl Linden 09:39, 28 April 2007 (PDT) <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These permutations should work well together to create complex objects. There are some potential issues (e.g. alignment) but they’re probably not all that different from dealing with regular NURBs.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just as I was pointing out that Linden Lab had yet to introduce some long-promised additions to Second Life’s modeling toolset, word comes via C|Net (Link) that so-called “Sculpted Prims” (aka “sculpties”) may be on the horizon. So what’s a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}