The urgent need to generate some sculpted prims has finally driven me to invest in a high-end inworld editor, namely Sculpt Studio (I bought it inworld on the Tech Expo sim). This, together with Sculptris for mesh, is putting off the evil day when I have to learn a "grown-up" 3D modelling package. I shall resist the temptation to ask for guesses as to what I'm attempting to model. Suffice it to say that, yes, I could have done this with SculptyPaint but I do think that having an inworld interface provides an opportunity to augment the interface with, for example, 2D images of the intended product.
As you will probably have gathered, Sculpt Studio works in terms of slices. Ordinarily you edit the shapes represented by the slices using point prims connected by particles. However, in this case it sufficed to simply move a few prims around to compress one end and elongate the other. After a little smoothing, I sent the data to a website offworld that generated the sculpt texture for uploading. It also provided a .obj file for UV texturing and text so I could regenerate the sculptie from a notecard.
Having applied the sculpt texture (to the dark prim above the slices), I had to stretch the sculpty a little and still it's not perfect. However, it's close to being adequate which is more than I've typically managed previously. Furthermore, I think I could explain to a student what I've done so, expense apart, it's not necessarily a technical deadend. Moreover, the experience was sufficiently painless that I can imagine using the tool regularly. We shall see.
It's desperately trivial and, of course, I should be clearing the sim...
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