From SketchUp to Second Life

writes "Roo Reynolds of Eightbar (an external blog written by some IBMers) has put together a tool to export Google SketchUp models and import them into Second Life. It only seems to work for fairly basic objects, and cylinders and non-rectangular surfaces 'are particularly badly hit.' Along with the Prim.Blender project, this sort of tool looks like it could make building in Second Life considerably easier, allowing people to choose their preferred tool rather than be constrained to the in-world editor."

The in-game editor isn't easy?

[QuantumG]

I've found it a LOT easier to use than Second Life. Hell, if you're going to use external editors, you want something more powerful not something easier to use.. that's why most people use Blender or 3ds Max. Of course, if you're going to use an external editor, what point is there importing the stuff into Second Life? Develop an Open platform.

Re:The in-game editor isn't easy?

[Telvin_3d]

Of course, if you're going to use an external editor, what point is there importing the stuff into Second Life? Develop an Open platform.

What point is there importing it into Second Life? My guess is that this is aimed at people that are creating assets specifically for use IN second life. These aren't people who are creating stuff and then go looking for a venue to publish it. They know their venue and they are looking for better tools to address it. Really it's like asking what's the point of using World of Warcraft's character generator to make a character specifically for WoW. Why not create a OPEN character generator instead?

Second Life -- needs to escape its roots

[martijnd]

I tried Second Life for a bit recently, they have a Linux version and I have a new graphics card. So I'd figure I'd give it a go. Its really quite nice, some of the graphics are amazing, and I had great fun playing with the various in world scripts. It is however constraint in its usefullness at the moment.

My nags at the moment:

• I want to run my own server, I don't feel like paying an increasing monthly fee to just build the world I would like to share with my friends, considering how many "islands" there are, quite a few people are keen to have their own place appart. But if I would like to build something massive, like an insane bookstore that would cost a fortune.
• I want to write my own scripts, that can take data from other sources and generate objects accordingly
• It is a social experiment in that its has its own currency and trading mechanisms etc, fun, but closed.
• Closed source -- so its not going anywhere fast

This feels a bit like the really popular early BBS services -- they are on to something here though. Instead of chatting in yellow text on a black background at 3am, you could be sitting on a virtual campfire with your chat friends next to a beach, instead of typing smilies, you set of fireworks. If this escapes into the real world, it could possibly be a similar step as from the BBS communities to the Internet

Standards in 3d modelling?

[syousef]

When oh when will we have truely open and interoperable standards in 3D modelling. Imagine if every web browser, rather than just redendering differently or supporting a small set of different features that good web designers avoid, worked with completely different markup languages. I know there are tools to convert (though not for all proprietary 3D file formats) but this is ridiculous. I want to get into 3D modelling, but given the time and effort it takes to create a 3D model I'll be damned if I learn how to do it using one tool only to have it fall into obsolescence or have it yanked away the way GMax was.