[Opensim-dev] The state of content tools

[diva at metaverseink.com]

Shack,

Thank you so much for your comprehensive reply. I could re-reply in 
private, but since I believe this topic is important to lots of people, 
I'll keep this conversation on the mailing list, even though I'm 
expressing my own requirements.

Shack Dougall wrote:
> It would be helpful to hear more details about the requirements of your 
> project.  For example:
> 
> 1) Which platforms do you need to support: OpenSim, Second Life, both?

OpenSim only, I don't use the Linden's grid anymore. So constraints on 
prim size are irrelevant. And all work out there related to the final 
step of importing things into the virtual world is irrelevant too. All I 
need is an external representation of 3D objects that OpenSim can import 
in one of N different ways; and, of course, data structures that the 
client can render.

All hacks of using libsl  to actually place things in world are 
irrelevant, I don't need that. All assets can go straight to the asset 
server; all prims can go straight to the region server; all via http. I 
just need files that I can read into the OpenSim servers. The tool I'm 
looking for should not do that import step; it should only do the 
conversion and produce, say, and OAR, or some other representation like 
that.


> 2) has the project already identified 3D assets that it wants to use or 
> is it planning to create those assets?

Yes and yes. For one of the projects we have right now, the 3D objects 
(buildings) are already identified, and their 3D representations are 
already out there -- in this case, some were made in Sketchup, some were 
made in AutoCAD. The company I'm involved with will have a lot more 
projects. In all of these projects, we expect to see a fair amount of 
content that already exists (created with AutoCAD and Sketchup, mostly). 
It is unreasonable to expect that such content will be redone to account 
for all constraints imposed by the SL viewer.

> 3) What environment were the assets created in and/or what format is the 
> data in?

Sketchup and AutoCAD, mostly.

> 4) Do the assets have UV maps and textures/materials already applied 
> that the project would like to transfer into Second Life? 

No Second Life. All OpenSim. I can take care of importing things into 
the necessary servers, that's a piece of cake.

5) What is the
> time frame in which the project needs to move these assets into Second 
> Life?

For the project I have in hand, I need it right now. The alternative we 
are considering is to remodel the buildings from scratch using, say, 
Blender, and honoring the constraints to produce sculpties. This can 
work for this project, but this will not scale for our future plans. We 
need to produce usable representations from unconstrained AutoCAD and 
Sketchup models, automatically.

> 6) Could you provide examples of the kinds of models that the project 
> would like to use?   6a) Are we talking about buildings or organic 
> structures?   6b) Do the models have many extruded surfaces like the 
> branches of a tree or are they more box-like such as a car or building?
>   6c) Do the models have many holes in them, like windows, doors, etc. 
> or are they composed mostly of unbroken surfaces?

Here's an example:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=5e356502c0699d87d29617bab9562551&hl=en&ctyp=3dbl
This particular building is fairly square, others aren't so square.
I'm talking mostly about buildings, but there are other kinds of objects 
-- professionally designed vehicles, for example. Basically, I would 
like to be able to use everything that can be modeled with AutoCAD / 
Sketchup.


> To my knowledge, there is no current tool that does a good job of 
> converting arbitrary 3D meshes to OpenSim/Second Life sculpties.  It is 
> a hard problem to solve in the general case, but probably not impossible.

Yesssss!
That's exactly what I was hoping to hear :-)
Unfortunately, I'm not a graphics expert, so it would take me a while to 
learn everything there is to learn in that area, and do this myself; but 
I was hoping that someone with enough experience and knowledge would be 
able to do this, given clear requirements.

It doesn't need to be perfect. In fact, there's some value to it not 
being a perfect conversion: you do your valuable professional models in 
the expressive meshes of professional tools, and then you export a 
poor-man's version of those models into a shared virtual world, where 
content is not protected. Essentially, that's what I'm looking for...

Your message gives me hope that you or someone like you might be able to 
do this!

Crista / Diva