Working with Sculpties in Second Life - Getting Started for Beginners

For many creators the addition of sculpted prims within Second Life has been a huge benefit. However, there are several drawbacks that need to be considered as well. In order to really get the best usage from these unique prims you need some patience, practice and quite a bit of experience but many times this is not easy to do unless you have the software to create your own sculpt maps, which is where many users find huge problems.

To begin with, you need a knowledge of how to create standard prims. This is something that can be done quickly and simply by clicking on the Build tab across the bottom of your viewer screen. In order to build or even create a simple prim though, you must be in an area that allows you to rezz items. You can check for this easily by trying to build a prim. Once you have dropped the prim onto the ground, you need to click on it and select Edit from the menu that appears.

From the Edit menu, you are going to have the ability to change the shape, size, and texture of the prim that you dropped. Typically, the standard prim that drops is a perfect square that is .50m square. To change this to a sculpted prim simply requires you to click on the Object tab within the Edit box and then choose Sculpted from the Building Block Type drop down box. This will then change your square prim into a ball that looks a bit mushy. From here, a small rainbow box will appear underneath the drop down box.

You will need to click on the rainbow picture and it will open up your texture inventory. At this point, you can search your inventory to find a sculpt map. This is the texture that is applied to a sculpted prim to make it change into the shape that you want. Because sculpted prims can be quite complicated they can take a few seconds to change shape initially while all of the data in the sculpt map is reviewed by the server system and your computer. Once the sculpt map has been read, it will change into the shape that the map has determined.

From this state, you will then be able to add a pretty texture, such as marble, or colors to the sculpted prim to further alter the design of it. You are also able to quickly and easily change the size using the Object tab within the Edit menu as well which will allow you to make your sculpted prim any size that you choose. The most important thing to always remember however is that you absolutely must ensure that you have a sculpt map ready and available to use before attempting to create a sculpted prim.