Virginia, great horse! 
and thanks for the links, especially the object to bmp suggested one. I look forward to checking them out!
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! 
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;
- 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! - 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!
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.
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.
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!
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???
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.
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!
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.
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.
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:)
can you give me a direct link to it?
thanks
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?
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.
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
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?
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.
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 [email protected]