Day 489: NOMI Sculpted Prim Relief Maker

Ever wanted to make those 3D Bas-relief sculptures in Second Life? Or add some 3D effects to a flat picture?

Now you can, using sculpted prims and a program called NOMI.

NOMI is a commercial program from the creator of ROKURO, designed specifically for creating relief sculptures.



For example, you can take a flat picture...

(BTW, this was me at summer camp ;P)



and add some 3D effects. So in this case, I can even add a local light source to create new shadow effects in the painting :)



You can also make mini 3D maps, or some cool sculptures. You can check out the samples here: Hewes (168,130,79).

In this tutorial, I will show you how I added the 3D effects to this painting :)




Getting NOMI

NOMI is a commercial program. You can download a trial of NOMI and get for information here.

The trial version lets you try and work with NOMI for 3 days, but it does not let you actually create the sculpted prims. The full version is L$2980. You can purchase the full version at the NOMI serial box. The SLURL is Hewes (168,130,79).


Preparing the Texture



First, you need a picture. This mermaid painting is by JW Waterhouse, found on Wikipedia.

You should look for a picture where the light areas of the picture should come out, and the dark areas of the picture should be set back.

In this case, the body of the mermaid will come out, while the darker background will be set back.






Open the picture in Photoshop (or you can use your favorite drawing program).

Select "Image" from the top menu bar, select "Adjustments", and "Desaturate". This will turn the picture to black-and-white.

This black-and-white picture will be used to create the sculpted prim. A completely white area will be out all the way. A completely black area will be down all the way. And different shades of gray represents things in between.

Depending on your picture, you may want to play with the contrast. Of course, you can also grab a brush and just paint over an area :)

In this case, I am going to add a little blur to remove the cracks in the painting...



Select "Filter" from the top menu bar, then "Blur", and "Gaussian Blur...". At the Gaussian Blur window, enter "1.0" for Radius and click "OK".













Thats it! Our picture is ready.

Just save the picture, and we are ready to create our sculptie :)














Creating the Sculpted Prim with NOMI



Start the NOMI program.



Select "File" from the top menu bar, and "Load Base Picture...". In the Load Picture window, select the black-and-white picture we created above.



Click on the picture in the left side of the NOMI window and hold it. Now move the mouse until you have a slightly side view of the picture.

Next, adjust the "Relief Height" as needed. You should exaggerate the height a bit here, so you have something to work with once you import it into SL.

When you are ready, just select "File" from the top menu bar, and "Save Sculpted Prim..." option to save the sculpted prim.

We are ready to upload the sculpt map to SL!

BTW, you can also save it as an "OBJ" file, so you can import it into Wings 3D for some Tweaking before you upload the sculpt map into SL :)


Creating the Sculpted Prim



Go ahead and upload the sculpt map you created from NOMI to SL.

Rez a prim on the ground. Edit the prim and go to the Object tab.

Change the "Building Block Type" to "Sculpted".

Click on the square above "Sculpt Texture". At the "Pick:Sculpt Texture" window, select the sculpt map you just uploaded.

You should now have a bumpy wooden board ;P



Next, upload the original picture to SL (the color one).

Edit the prim and go to the Texture tab.

Click on the square above "Texture" and select the original picture you just uploaded.



Rotate the picture as needed.

If you picture is not a square, you will need to stretch one side of the prim to make the picture look right.



Because part of the sculpt map is for the sides and back of the sculptie, we need to adjust the color texture slightly to get a perfect fit.





At the Texture tab, enter the following settings:

   Repeats Per Face Horizontal (U): 1.200
   Repeats Per Face Vertical (V): 1.130

   Offset Horizontal (U): -0.100



Congratulations! You have just created a 3D version of your picture :)

You can adjust how bumpy the picture is by stretching the depth of the prim. So you can decide just how "3D" you like the picture ;P






Detailed Pictures

Sculpted prims are not very detailed. So if you have a very detailed picture, you may need to break down the picture into multiple sculpties.



For example, you can use a sculptie for the mermaid's face, another for her body, etc.

You can break up a picture using the grid in Photoshop. Try to make each section a square, since they are much easier to work with.


Good luck and have fun creating those 3D pictures!

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