This is a little tuto about how to export shapes to sculpted prims textures using blender, with a minimum efforts,even if you have no clue how to manage uv maps and all the odd stiff behind ^_^

I made the template and tuto quick and dirty, but this works, even if it has the limitation that you can only MOVE the existing vertices of the default sphere, so its more a sculpting method than real modelling.  Perfect candidate for blender's sculpt tool btw.



First of all you need minimum a blender 2.43 version, available here.
If you are unfamiliar with blender, I suggest you first take a tour on http://www.blender.org/tutorials-help/

Once you have it running, download and open the template blender file which you can find:  here



The screen layout should turn into this : a default sphere to start your sculpting work from :



For those who want to get deeper into it and see how to make the sphere and its UV projection, follow this link.
If you just want to play with shapes and have fun, just read further ^_^



Now right click on the sphere to select it , enter EDIT MODE with TAB key, and play with the vertices to create a nice shape.
Again, don't add or remove vertices, only MOVE these, don't change edges or faces. Think modeling clay :)






Beware ! The poles of the sphere are in fact a ring , sized to very very small, keep these grouped in a small point, or I think you would get odd results when rezzing the prim. Don't try to size them too small or to unify these too a single vertice either, this gets the exported texture weird. In fact, try to move these  always together, without modifying their shape. Heh, this is a crappy hacky exporter, remember ? ^_^

             





Ok, you have created a nice shape, now time to export it. Return to OBJECT MODE with TAB KEY.

First generate a render with F12 key:







Make sure you are in OBJECT MODE , and you have your object selected and active.

In the bottom subwindow ( Buttons window, Scene Panel ), click the  'BAKE' button:





This will actually replace the default texture by a newly generated displacement map, as you can see in the image editor subwindow:




Last, save your image, still in the image editor :





Thats it :)

Ok, it needs improvements, but, waiting for someone to write something more friendly, you have everything needed to start creating sculpted prims without spending thousand $ in expensive 3D software.


Hope this helps ! A big Thanks to all of you that gave the info on the discussion page ^_^


Camilla






Now I have had a chat with TomHa Zymurgy , who had an excellent idea to create a much better mesh than a sphere !
I'll update this page tomorrow with a link here to a tutorial to what is the best method I saw so far for blender to sculpted export.