So, Slapt.me needs a penguin!?

Then lets make one between us!

This is a tutorial I originally produced on the slapt.me forums. Click here to join the fun!

Part 1. Basics.

I had this idea for an Open Project where we can all contribute, learn and share our knowledge and skills on whatever have used and need to use for a Second Life project.

The goal of this project will be to produce a sculptured, textured, scripted, interactive animated slapt.me penguin that eventually will be donated to slapt.me to give away in their packs and promotions.

Although I have an idea what the finished penguin will be like and what it will do the project will remain open to ideas and suggestions from everyone.

As the project develops so will our ideas hopefully, hence the outcome could be quite different from the original concept.

Input in the way of constructive ideas, scripting, animation skills, sculpting skills and even wiki skills will be needed as I feel this will eventually make a useful tutorial for all those interested in creating in Second Life.

So, let's get started. We can go into more detail as we go along.

I've chosen the 'King Penguin' as the base model as it was obviously used for the slapt.me logo. ;)

Here you can see the original three models chosen for the slapt.me logo... (tongue in cheek)

They're beautiful creatures and would make a cool and cute pet for slapt.me users. lol

As with any project we'll start with the basics and gradually build and build with your help until we have our final creation.

Part 2: Creating the mesh for the penguin.

The sculpted penguin will consist of eight sculpted prims. Ten, if we have moving eyes.

Consisting of:

  • Body
  • Wings x2 left and right
  • Feet x2 left and right
  • Beak x2 top and bottom
  • Head

I've chosen the following profiles to use for creating the first part of the mesh which will be the body.

Fortunately it's a fairly simple shape and should be easy to create using ZBrush which really does lend itself to natural and organic shapes.

Part 2b. Creating the body of the penguin.

Having taken the front and side images of the penguin into ZBrush for reference I created a low resolution mesh of the shape (fig 1.).

Using the SweepProfile3D tool at a resolution of 32 x 33, which is the standard sculpty resolution for Second Life, I then changed the S Profile to get the general shape seen on the far left of the photo. (S Profile can be found in the Initialize palette.)

Having got the basic shape, I converted the SweepProfile into a PolyMesh3D.

Now we can start sculpting using the Move tool set to different sized brushes to get the basic low resolution mesh, as seen in the blue front and side profiles to the right of (fig 1).

(fig 1)

Having smoothed out the frame to make sure there are no bad or crooked angles I can now go to a higher resolution and put more detail in as seen in (fig 2.)


(fig 2)

Next step will be to test whether the mesh will upload correctly into SL.

Tip. Always test whether your mesh will upload correctly, as it's easy to destroy the poles and corrupt the mesh.

I use the Beta grid for this as it's free to upload images. When you know it works, you can save it as a final and load it into the normal grid. :)

I'll not bother showing it in SL as they always look a mess until they have the textures on them.

My next step will be to create the Head.

The head will rotate and hopefully nod or move up and down in some way. I'm still trying to work out how I can achieve this but as usual I'll just get on with it and see what happens.

Part 2c: Creating the head.

Below are the images I used with the main profile shots in the middle centre. (fig 1.)
The other smaller ones were for reference.

(fig1)

Originally I thought we'd need two prims for the beak, but having studied a couple of videos I realized the top of the beak doesn't actually move.
So I decided to model the head with the entire beak for now. Later I'll collapse the bottom part and create another bottom beak.

So, we've saved a prim! :)

As with the body I started with the Sweep3D Tool to make the basic mesh for the head. (fig 2. top left)
Using the Masking Tool with the Rotate and Move tools I gradually bent the mesh into a very rough head shape. (fig 2. bottom left)
Using the photo's in (fig 1.) for reference I sculpted the general shape of the head. (fig 2. bottom middle)
The tricky part was fitting it onto the body of the penguin. (fig 2. right)

It still needs some tweaking but I'll do that with the fine detail like the eyes and the bottom of the beak later.

(fig2)

Before putting too much detail in, I'll do the feet next to give the penguin proportion.
I always find it easier if I can see the whole object that I'm working on, before I go into detail.

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