Variations on Gaia's cube
Here's a blend file with a couple of variations on the technique Gaia demonstrated for making cubes.
The only thing different is the UV layout, where I used the initial LOD sculpt map to align the UV map differently. This gives a couple of different versions, where most modelling detail is on one face, or on a band around the cube rather than the more even distribution of the original.
Roughing out the detail levels by editing the UV map like this is a useful skill all Primstar users should learn 
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| cube_variations.blend | 39.52 KB |
Now i understand what "Bake
Now i understand what "Bake Sculpty LOD" is realy good for
Looks like i opened up a new box full of possibilities...
You are right, the field is endless
thanks for that pointer!!!!
Cheers,
Gaia
Sculptie LOD map
He he.. It's there because I got tired of counting pixels when editing the UV layout of a sculptie.
Hope you didn't think it was just there for making hedgehogs
Even after watching Gaia's
Even after watching Gaia's video, uploading and inspecting the .blend file 'cube variations I don't really understand what Domino did and what the advatages are. Did you, Domino just move the lines in the actual UV window/map and, if so, what are the possibilities that Gaia mentions and what is the advantage of doing this? Everyday I realize more how little I understand about making good sculpties. Thank You.
Ezra
Face distribution
Yes, I just moved the lines in the UV editor window to adjust the face distribution. It's just another technique in the toolbox, the advantage would depend on the particular sculpt mesh and what you wanted to achieve. A cube with most of it's detail on one face would have different uses than one with the detail spread mostly on a band of four faces. The original had the same amount of detail on each face. A sculptie cube wouldn't be left as a cube (use a normal prim for that!), it's just a starting shape. Editing the UV layout lets you change the face distribution to better suit the model you are going to make.
One other thing I forgot to
One other thing I forgot to ask. I had been under the impression that sculpties had to be 1024 faces. It appears that this is no longer the case. Is this due to one of the features incorporated in Primstar allow other than the 1024? In addittion I've always stacked edge loops in an effort to maintain good LOD in-world, of course this made texturing a nightmare. This seems to be a method of getting strong LOD and yet to not adversly affect texturing caused by stacking. I'd love to understand this better is my understanding of this is accurate. Is there somewhere one can get more information to understand all of this clearly?
Ezra
Strong LODs
Edge stacking is only good for altering the inworld shading to give sharp edges. I've always prefered to get nice even face distribution instead. 1024 faces is the maximum, SL should support smaller sizes, but the lossless bugs are holding their widespread use up. Getting the basic shape right using just a subsurf modifier and a low LOD model will give strong LODs, but expect sharp edges to look a little rounded due to the shading. This is what edge stacking can change.
There's no one place you can go to and discover everything there is to know about sculptie making in Blender. Not even sat next to me, though that's the place you'd probably learn the most
One of my design principles with Primstar was to get out of the way and let Blender do it's thing. So the more you learn about Blender, the more ways you'll find to work on your sculpties. The only sculptie specific stuff is the technical information about the sculpt map, and that's all displayed between the Add Mesh GUI and the LOD map.
Because the sculpt mesh baker uses the UV layout, both editing the UV layout and editing the mesh will have an effect on the final sculpt map. The UV layout affects the face distribution and the mesh affects the shape.
If I'm understanding
If I'm understanding correctly you can achieve the strong LOD at the edges, and otherwise, at the expense of having the additional vertices (and ability to create more detail) by using a less than 1024 faces in the multiples of 2 (8X8 instead of 32X32 for instances). So that, for all intent and purpose, resuts in the the same lower vertices to work with but better LOD, as the stacking but does not adversly affect the texturing like stacking. BUT in-world you still have not resolved the lighting bleed over by this method. So if you want strong LOD and appearent hard sharp edges in-world your still left with stacking and the poor texturing. I think I'm correct here. If my understanding IS correct and that's the situation, would you mind resolving that in your spare time Domino. LOL. Kidding of course. Thanks for your explanations Domino. Very helpful, I think.
. I'll go play with this new information and see if I can figure out any of those 'possibilities' Gaia had mentioned.
LOD and subsurf
You still end up with the same amount of faces, it's just that subsurf does the higher levels rather than needing to manually model them. Think of one face at LOD1 on a standard sculptie. At LOD2 it is a grid of 2 x 2 faces, at LOD3, 4 x 4 faces. So modeling at LOD1 with 2 levels of subsurf gives the baker a 4 x 4 face grid for each face. Then you just use edge crease and vertex manipulation to model, and you'll get nice even texturing and controlled LOD reduction.
If you need more modelling detail, you can either remove a level of subsurf and add a level of multires, or use loop cuts just to add detail in parts of the model. Or subdivide. Or careful use of the knife tool.
If you understand UV unwrapping in Blender, then you can do pretty much anything as long as you fix the UV layout before baking
Oh, that's great information
Oh, that's great information Domino. Now that really does open up the possibilities. It had never occured to me that I could use an LOD 1 mesh but then add edge loops or do loop cuts, etc, to add back more geometry in the detail critical areas (once you know how to fix it in the UV map). Looks like I better figure out how those things work along with getting a handle on the UV unwrapping. BTW is the LOD map you mentioned above the same thing as the sculpt map that you use for the sculpties? There's a lot to learn. Another thing that I've been unclear on is the difference between subsurf and mutires and when it's advantages to use one instead of the other. And from your response, it appears they aren't mutually exclusive.
LOD map
The LOD map is the default sculpt map that is added when you create a sculpt mesh. The brighter the blue dot, the more LODs use that pixel. You can get it back at any time by doing "Image - Bake Sculptie LOD" from the UV image editor. This uses the current image, so it'll work even if you added the image manually.
Multires and subsurf approach LOD management from opposite sides. With multires, you'd normally work at the highest LOD and decrease the level to preview at lower LODs. Subsurf you model at the lowest and let the modifier create the higher LODs.
Multires is the harder of the two to use as you need to manage the LOD manually. So a workflow that gets the basic shape using subsurf, then adds final details is generally the quickest way to go.
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