Zbrush to Second Life (yes I have lost my mind) tutorial

[cannedmushrooms]

lesson1_secondlife.jpg

Probally the most bizzare pipeline ever.
Second life is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Anywho I was contacted by a user that wanted me to figure out a pipeline into the program. Anyway here it is in a nutshell. Thought I would share it.
PS nudity warning

[Erklaerbar]

omg, how weird! Strange fishes:lol: So they will soon be overhelmed by Zbrush citiziens .... I imagine lemo as a knot avatar giving lessons about zeebling in a virtual classroom to a bunch of heads, schneckies and monsters.;)

[Blaine91555]

Just looked at Second Life's site. First I'd heard of it. Still don't quite understand it, I'll have to try it later.
Checked out your site, I'm downloading a couple of video's now.

[JamDynamite]

I tried out SL about a year ago and spent time walking/hovering around. Rrecently though, I attempted to 'model' a prim in it's own editor but I'm kinda bummed that you're not able to upload obj files at least not that I know of. Maybe there are some other ways of doing it, dunno.

[AngelJ]

Cannedmushrooms,

This forum rocks due to the help from all the wealth of information folks like yourself are willing to pass on! All your tutorials really do help a ton. I'm new to 3D modeling, Zbrush is the first program I decided I'd learn. Its becoming so much easier with all the nice tutorials such as yours.

As for SecondLife, well I'm a gamer by nature so I've been playing it for several months now. Using the in game building editor its been fun to see how far you can actually push things and create interesting items/avatars. However, after I got zbrush that is one of the things I wondered. Could you use Zbrush textures/maps or in any other way to work in second life. Been working in Zbrush and haven't even thought about second life until I ran into your tutorial page. Haven't seen it yet but i'm sure its great! At any rate just want to again say thanks and give yah two big :tu: up for your tutorials.

[Rykka]

Hi, I am one of the many Secondlife builders exploring new ways to use programs like Zbrush to create content for the game. I am pretty excited to hear about your videos and I am eagerly looking forward to getting home so I can watch them. (At work right now.) Thank you very much for posting these here, they are sure to be very useful learning aids!

Rykka~

[Lundon]

I cannot find that tutorial. Is there a better link, or am I just overlooking it?

[cannedmushrooms]

http://www.houseoftutorials.net/

in the zbrush section

you will need a subscription however;)

read the home page for details

[judee]

I have a friend who lives in Second Life - literally! She has been trying to drag mein there for two years now - I took a look once and it's interesting, just not my thing. However, I keep seeing magazine articles, and even a couple of tv specials on it - apparently a good content maker can make some real life money there. So this tutorial could be a real boon for some creative entrepeneurs. ;)

Hmm.. maybe I should make stuff for SL and send it to ma friend to open up a shop there, lol! As long as I don't actually have to live inn there too...

:lol:

[cannedmushrooms]

The guy I made those videos for was making 600ish a month.
There is not much to do inside the actual game but walk around and dress up your character.
You can make things inside the game but the interface sucks;)
But still 600 a month isnt bad to just sit back and collect.

[judee]

Wow, not bad... What exactly was he making?

I really don't understand how it works, and the last thing I want is to waste time walking around in a virtual world, lol, but money is money! Maybe I should contact my friend and ask her what kind of things sell best.

:D

[cannedmushrooms]

He made hair Heres a link to his stuff to give you an idea
http://twiddler.typepad.com/photos/hairdos/index.html

[judee]

That's pretty cool, thanks for the link.

[ByteDreams]

This is going to be very helpful indeed. Was wondering how to do this. I'm new to Zbrush, and to Secondlife more or less so this should really help me get control over the look of avatar(s) through texturing.

I'm having a great time at SL. It's not just walking around and talking.
There are games and fun/funny people - and it really is a good retreat from stressful day to day stuff.

[Jesse.Aitui]

Actually, there`s quite alot to do inside of SL, if it captivates you and you are willing to get into it.

Having just been introduced to zbrush I can understand how many of you would turn your nose up at such a platform lol The graphics are terrible really, and only support a very very low poly count sculpt. So to make up for that, you`ve got to do some insane photoshop texturing and even then it just does not compare to what you are able to do in zbrush with a high polycount, atleast from my understanding of it all.

"Sculpties" is a pretty new thing in sl, it for sure will be the choice over our "prims" so I am trying to dig into zbrush and learn it. Though Im guessing by the date of this tutorial its going to be about textures and not sculpts.

$600/monh is nice pocket cash, but quite a few of us designers are making thousands/month, which is something one would be silly to turn their nose up at, so there is great potential, but its definitely is not for everyone, and supposedly only about 2% of the population is able to make a comfy living, and if youve got a family under you, I definitely would not put my trust in it.

If any of you sculptors enter in the territory, check out the sim "Black Swan" its full of wonderful sculpts but i don`t doubt that many of you would be able to do better or just as good, and I bet the owner behind Black Swan is making some nice dough. We could use some more quality statues as well :)

Tc.

[Benevolence]

Hi,

Where is the tutorial please? :)

Does anyone on here know of some good tuts for Second Life please?

Benevolence

[gymfranco]

I'd love to know where I can actually find this tutorial? I've searched absolutely everywhere for it but can't find the actual tutorial? :(
Does anyone have a current link they could please post for me?
Many thanks in advance! :)

[cannedmushrooms]

This is a very old series but i get some requests for it so I uploaded it to veoh just incase sombody wants it.
Project files
http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/second life project file.zip
and
http://www.houseoftutorials.com/veohfiles/cleanmodels.zip
v1824093GkqrBCKE
v1824095sYyA4a83
v1824094MYf5CFad


It has been a very long time since I did the second life videos so my help resources on the topic will only be the videos;)
I'd even have to watch the vids to remember some of it;)

[madproducer2k]

Cannedmushrooms i must say you are the man. I love all the vids you have madebut i cant seem to make a seamless skin useing you girlObjffixed7 ztl file.I get a black line in all my textures where the textures end which leaves a very bad seam. i tryed reloading and redownloading your ztl file for SL. Cna you plase sir remake it so there isnt any seams i have some cool textures i am useing but with the seams its looks very bad. thanks you for your time.If its is something i did wrong or missing with your Girlobjfixed7.ztl please help.

[amarismiles]

Did I do something wrong I am trying to see your tutorial i cant open it

[madproducer2k]

I am stillooking for help with the seams with the girllodjfixed7.ztl After i paint on my skin and i color to textures i get this black line inbetween the uper and lower ,arms and head ( there only broke into 3 parts but get them in the arms also) place need help . lol this is driving me nuts. Cannendmushrooms where are you lol.

[charizma]

hi , well i use Secondlife and it is good if you know what you want it for there is things you could do on there, and with your suggestion tutorial about getting zbrush into secondlife is a great idea, i mean i feel if folks and modle their avatar using zbrush and putting it into secondlife would be grat especially for me :-) becaus eif you can do that you can sell ya avatar and i know there are load of crazy people out there that would pay the money for it, u can make money from it, but thats like i said b4 its only good when u know what you want to do on there.

But i just wanna ask one question, where is the turoial maybe i am blind as a bat (most likly) but i cant see it anywhere can someone direct it to me thanks ion advance

please disregard the above question, i was able to see it once i did this post, i think cos i was on the first page maybe it didnt load up in time b4 i did this post, cool tuts by the way? oh one more question have u got any further on there

[acie]

CTRL-SHIFT doest divide the man/women into the 3 parts all i get is the lasso is there something im missing?

other then that this is a kick ass video :)

[acie]

are there any ztl files of the man/woman?

[Virrginia]

I'm new to Zbrush, but have been using it successfully in Second Life for two months now to make basic shapes. I found Vlad Bjornson's tutorials for how to create object files that will import to Second Life. He also includes some good instruction on how to sculpt and texture using the tools that will work for future Second Life "sculpts" (there is no adding vertices, for example)

http://www.shiny-life.com/category/sculpted-prims/

You will also want to download 2K Suisei's Sculpty Maker, which converts object files to a BMP displacement map for Second Life sculpts.

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=260272

Ztool versions of the avatar meshes can be found here:

http://www.secondskinlabs.com/Downloads/downloads2.html

I feel a bit embarassed to show a picture on these forums, given all the amazing work here, but here is a seahorse I made using three 32x33 Spheres (the tack and such was added after import, and are just SL "primitives" and textures). So, even someone as new as I am can make acceptable looking objects with a bit of fiddling :D

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x85/vtombola/seahorsesnapshot_001copy.jpg

[ByteDreams]

Virginia, great horse! :D
and thanks for the links, especially the object to bmp suggested one. I look forward to checking them out!

[gymfranco]

It's been a while since I first asked, but I've finaly got to grips with ZB and decided to go through these files but I can't find the ZB to SL tutorials or the Zip files anywhere?
Can anyone please help?
Cheers! :)

[ByteDreams]

http://www.shiny-life.com/

[gymfranco]

Ok, I thought I'd be more specific as to what I'm looking for. The Shinylife tutes are great, but what I'm really looking for is two things really;
1. How to import the SL AV textures and more importantly their UV's.
In Jason's tute's he mentions he's re configured the mesh and the UV's in a Zip file which would be really handy!
2. How the heck do you edit a texture in ZB???
I mean once you've maybe created a texture then you perhaps want to add a little more detail in areas but you need to work on the actual texture while it's on the model in ZB so it fits right?
Any help on these two problems would be deeply appreciated?
Cheers!

[suztv]

You can't modify the AVI, you can import texture files to place on your Avatar in SecondLife and you can attach prims/sculpties to your avatars (look at all the furries) but you cannot modify the avatar mesh beyond what is availabe in-world via the slider/body modification. Sorry - that's just the way it goes.

Most people just create prim attachements to create a monster or furry, with sculpties you can create a pretty awesome creature. So don't let the avatar mesh stand in your way - sculpt what you need in ZBrush and then attach it to your avatar.

[gymfranco]

I think you must have missunderstood my message?
I've been in SL for over two years now. I know exactly what's possible and not and I know most on here are a little unfamiliar with it. But thanks for the response. :)
All I need to know is how to get the UV's for the AV mesh into ZB. Also when I import the mesh it falls appart when I smooth it so I wanted to try and get hold of the meshes the Zip files on here.

[Virrginia]

Hi Gymfranco, you can't import the avatar meshes in the above link into SecondLife. They have far too many vertices, for one. To make a sculpted prim, you need to start with one of a few basic shapes (Vlad discusses which ones work on his Shiny Life Tutorials).

The ztools in the above link are for texture creation--simply download them and import the tool into Zbrush. You'll probably want to divide them a few times to get a good resolution for your texture (Div5 seems to work for me). Paint away on the model, and then when you're ready to export, isolate the various polygroups by cntrl-shift-click on the part you want (the torso, for example). Then go colour to texture, and export the texture. Do this for all the parts you need--the tools have lower torso, upper torso and head polygroups (no skirt, although there is an object file for that on the main SL download site).

When you're done, cntrl-shift-click off the tool to make all the polygroups visible again.

If you want to import a texture to Zbrush to work on it, isolate the polygroup, import the texture, then go texture to colour.

BTW, the texture flips when going from Photoshop to Zbrush, so you will want to flip the texture vertically when you import (iirc, look under the texture tab to do this, or just do it in Photoshop).


Hope that was what you were asking about. Happy Zbrushing!

[gymfranco]

Thanks for your reply. Yes, as I mentioned, I've actually been creating sculpties since they were first introduced by using Blender. All I want really are the meshes that cannedmushroom created that I can use for the AV so I can create the textures at high resolution. When I use the original AV meshes they fall apart when I divide them. I just can't find the actual files he mentions above???

[gymfranco]

I decided to go through all this thread again and came accross your link to the zip files. Finally I've got it into ZB! Phew! Looks good and it doesn't explode when I divide it. The only problem I have now is untangling the UV's? I'm getting there though! lol
Thanks again. :)

[Virrginia]

Here are Ztool versions of the avatar meshes:
http://www.secondskinlabs.com/Downloads/downloads2.html

I've used these a number of times, and you shouldn't have any trouble with dividing. Just import, divide as needed, texture, then isolate the desired polygroup, convert the colour to a texture and export.

I haven't played with the following yet, but these are OBJ files for basically every possible avatar deformation. The UV maps are included as PNG files.
http://www.ccccybernetics.com/avatar_databank/

Hope that helps!

[Virrginia]

Ha! We both posted at the same time. To untangle the UVs, you need to isolate the polygroups (remember that the UVs for different areas overlap in places).

To isolate the polygroup, cntrl-shift-click on it. Then you'll just see that part. You can import your texture, change the colour to a texture, paint, then reverse it: col>txr, export the texture.

To view the whole model at once, cntrl-shift-click off the model and all three polygroups will be visible. I paint in this mode to get rid of seams, isolating when I need to import or export a texture.

[gymfranco]

Yes! I've got it sussed now! :) Thanks for the valuable advice Virrginia. I've got all the polygroups, got my skin texture in place and started playing around with it. This is gonna really help. I found the mesh is a bit bumby in places but I'm sure I'll be able to smooth it out. At last I can see where everything needs to go.
This is just what I've been wanting to do for ages! lol.
Pitty you can't paint straight accross the seams. Or can you? lol. I find I have to have at least one of the subtools selected and can only paint on one at a time.

[Angela]

Hey there, if you go to the Second Life forums after signing in to secondlife.com, there is a lot of info now for zbrush sculpties and a few really good plugins and other tools to make it easier to sculpt and texture.
One is the subtool master, a plugin that let's you merge subtools into one so you can paint and texture as one object. You can then export the merged subtool and use the sculpty exporter (I forget exactly what it's called but you'll find a download for the program) or the zsculpty plugin. Zsculpty is supposed to export all your painting and texturing as well, without you having to click on color/to texture. It doesn't automatically do the baking so you'd have to do that first right onto the polypaint.

Anyway just type in Zbrush or sculptymaker or zsculpty and you'll find a few threads with lots of info and downloads:)

[emr_swagg]

can you give me a direct link to it?
thanks

[ByteDreams]

Someone posted a cleaned up, retopogized version of the secondlife avatar ztools. I cannot find the thread i originally saw them on. i dont think it was the secondskinlab site, but rather a member in zbrushcentral that cleaned them up. anyone have a link to that cleaned up version?

[ByteDreams]

Sculpties are not new anymore, and plans are in the works for increasing the limited poly-count, as well as improving the limitations of the SL avatar which is based on an early Poser model. Vlad Bjorenson, http://www.shiny-life.com has some zbrush tutorials using zbrush2 and 3.1., so, sculpties have been around for a bit.

[MDGeist]

Hello Mr. Welsh,
first thx for all the things i have learned from your videos. The reason why i write u this is not only to praise your effort :) Yout pm folder is full so i write it here... U probably want to fix the link for the maya 2011 training dvd. The links URL is at the moment http://kunaki.com/MSales.asp?PublisherId=124955&PP=1
and with that i dont see any of your products and when i enter the country it says quantities are zero.
I guess
http://kunaki.com/MSales.asp?PublisherId=124955
is the right URL. With that i can see your products.
Best Regards

[Soupa]

Are we restricted to just 32x33 or is there a set number higher than that for initializing the item that's to be made into a sculpted prim?

[Iridescence]

Soupa, you can make sculpties that are larger than 32 on either side, but they may not have more than 1024 faces. So you can make an oblong sculpty, with h 128 and v 8 faces, however good luck getting such a sculpty out of Zbrush. I make my oblong sculpts with blender. If you want more than 1024 faces on a square UV map, that's not possible with sculpties, you will have to wait until the mesh project goes live.

[gloryrider]

ok heres my issue I love zbrush for making sculpts but i cannot for my life figure out how to get my zbrush sculpts into second life can someone please help me before all my hair is gone :) carla_s_1999@yahoo.com