Designing Mesh for Second Life.

   In second life and Building in second life there is always so much to learn whether it is learning to design mesh or clothing and textures or using prims or primitives in the SL world. First off the mesh is one building block that for the most part is edited in the real world and then transferred or imported in to the grid. After mesh is imported then it can only be altered a few ways using the build tool, you can stretch it or well re-size is a better way to put it , you can move it and you can as well edit and change the textures and or colors, glow and shiny shader .... Other then then this you cannot torture mesh like a prim, twisting, pulling, pushing and otherwise manipulating that a prim can take retain that shape.  What you get when you import a mesh is basically what you get, and as well be sure if you stretch a mesh object that has a texture be sure to also check stretch texture or it will not look right after modifying the mesh. 

Just and example of designs quirks and what appears to be sl fails ... First off for stores and business photos every one of these photos can use some major Photoshopping. Well maybe the one of my female avatar does not ... see in order to run a store with items that shall we say meta sexual in nature or well everything that may be worn or bought and used by both a male and female avatar .... you must test likewise and so rather then constantly dress the male or female as the opposite for testing its just more simple to create and alt for the opposite sex or well eerrm species as well in some cases !


   There are many programs that can be used for design and building of mesh and pretty much to many to list. Each has its advantages and as well costs vary widely also. So to start you will need a program that you can edit and create mesh in, that being said I will start off that I use 4 programs the most for my mesh editing creation, modeling and sculpting. The programs are Zbrush from Pixologic, Topogun for changing the topology of the mesh, and as well also Photoshop for the editing of the Texture Maps, then also Blender ....   Blender is and open source 3d program so it is free, while the others do have a price tag.  I also will state I often use Autodesk products as well though the price tag on Maya, 3ds Max, and Softimage is quite hefty, you may be able to find a student version of these, and as well Zbrush cost me about $700 USD a few years ago.  Creating a mesh model just a basic square is quite simple, but to sculpt and model one such as the pipe in the previous post is a different story. Don't get me wrong the pipe was not that hard for me to model in a few hours from start to the textures and export,  but again I have been using these programs for years. So now you have and idea about me and my work as well  how mesh are made. I will post both items from my store some will be full perms for resale and others will be mod, copy as in retail sales. I also again want to point you to our facebook page as well for Bigbear Design.  There you can also request custom mesh designs, see what I am working on and as well fee free to ask questions either on this blog or there on the Bigbear Design page.