Sketchlife Converts Google Sketchup Models Into Second Life

Sketchlife is billed as an application that can convert 3D models made with Google Sketchup to Second Life -- a much-desired feature for many content creators, especially those who want more file interoperability for their SL works. It's a product of a student with University of Western Australia, known in SL as "Mrs Brandi".

"After winning Google's 'Build Your Campus in 3D Australia and New Zealand' competition (the models are on Google Earth) and also creating a VRML-based virtual campus with more detailed models," Brandi explained to me, "we had about two dozen high-quality SketchUp models of buildings, and there was no easy way to put them into Second Life. That's an island-full of buildings which are complete and textured, so it seemed worth the effort to write an importer."

Hence Sketchlife, which Brandi says is also useful for creating Second Life builds from scratch in Sketchup. "Quite complex models could be built. There is a limit of 512 prims per upload, to keep things sane (but if one needs more, they can be uploaded in multiple stages.)" Here's some screenshots of Sketchup models that have made the transition into SL. You can get the Sketchlife client for free here, though as with any executable, caveat clicker. Looks like a potentially powerful tool, but this isn't my expertise: content creators, if you give Sketchlife a try, please report your take here.

Comments

[Adric Antfarm]

It does work. It's not as annoying or slow as AC3D, impossible like Maya, or prim crazy like others. Very easy except for the texture import which was very mean to me. Kept telling me to put a texture into a box I could not write to.

As you can see here

http://www.adric.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/awenwn.jpg

I created the long since exiled half killer robot half battleship New World Nut in the program and it did come up and looked a little close.

Oh, it likes to ask for money. Maybe they are passing up upload charges from Linden? NWN was 9L.

It is going to create something cool or nice? Not with me as the user. Maybe with someone more skilled.

[radar]

It's very cool looking. I think it's important to note though that it's useful for creating non-sculpty based builds. Therefore comparing it to AC3D and Maya seems a little misleading, as typically people using those tools are generating sculpties. Not that there aren't tools for using those programs (well, maya, not sure about AC3D) for creating standard prim based builds, but does anyone use them?

[Adric Antfarm]

Yes radar, apparently someone does use them since I mentioned both, but I defer my misleading comments while you school me.

Oh and yes - AC3D can import sculpts, full builds (should you have endless prims), etc.

In the future, I was thinking it would be helpful if you provided me in advance a list of appropriate software comparisons so I could avoid this embarrassment.

We better wrap up on my blog, Hamlet has very good rules.

[Impalah Shenzhou]

As the creator of Henshin (a similar tool for Autocad) I have to congratulate the creator of Sketchlife. I know how damn difficult is to convert standard 3D entities to SL ones.

It could be interesting to know the status of the other importing tools (there are for 3dsMax and Maya too) but not related to sculpties. I hope they are still alive, the are useful for rapid prototyping (and beyond).

[Dedric Mauriac]

It doesn't appear to be able to convert existing sketchup models. It looks as if you need to build everything new using only the special prims they provide.

[Ayu]

Can not install it. I tried windows and mac. Does it require Sketchup Pro? If so, guess I'll make my builds by hand. $495.00 is a little more than I wish to spend.

[radar]

"Yes radar, apparently someone does use them since I mentioned both, but I defer my misleading comments while you school me."

Adric, I wasn't trying to school you or anyone else. I was just making the distinction for those who might have missed it.

No disrespect was intended or offered, although apparently you did choose to take it anyway.

[Mrs Brandi]

Ayu - It does not require SketchUp Pro, (it was developed on, and for, the free version of SketchUp). Make sure that you unzip the file sketchup.zip into the "Plugins" subdirectory of the folder into which SketchUp is installed (such as "Google SketchUp 7"). It's a bit different on a Mac - see this page:

http://vrshed.com/sketchlife/install_mac.html

[Mrs Brandi]

Adric - looking at your screenshot, I am assuming that you couldn't put the textures into the texture box at the end (my bad, sorry), and textured the Exiled Half Battleship yourself.

Saying that because the textures look poorly transferred. Sketchlife does a much better job: it should look EXACTLY the same on all the flat faces (including the flat ends and path-cut faces of Cylinders) and sort-of similar on the curved faces of Cylinders. (Still good for homogeneous material-type texturing, like making columns etc.)

The problem with TextureBox being no-mod has been fixed. I keep double-checking things every time I change something, but this one has slipped through (perms reset to no-mod automatically when I replace the TextureBox).

You should now be able to drag the textures into the TextureBox exactly as you can see in the "HelloWorld" video. (Note: you will need to get a copy of the updated Sketchlife Importer again.)

[Mrs Brandi]

(I am the author of Sketchlife, by the way, and keeping an eye on this comment thread. Couldn't post here yesterday for some reason.)

Dedric - yes, that's exactly what happens. But the concept is that it's much easier in SketchUp than the normal way in SL.

For example, I was able to convert St. Basil's Cathedral, in a reasonable amount of time (given the model complexity), using Sketchlife. Here is a teleport link:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/WASP%20Land/53/103/26

And here is a screenshot from inside SL:
http://vrshed.com/sketchlife/examples/vasiliy_019.jpg

Automatic conversion (that is efficient) is referred to as mesh import. There has been some talk about it a year ago, but then Qarl Linden said that it won't be ready until 2027.

[Mrs Brandi]

Hmm, just tried installing it on a computer with Windows which had an expired version of WinZip installed. Looks like WinZip hides the default unzip method and there is no easy way to tell people how to extract the files. I have updated the page
    http://vrshed.com/sketchlife/install_windows.html
with a method which is the easiest one I could think of, that would work for everyone.

This is deceptive tactics on WinZip's part. Once its trial period expired, it should uninstall itself.

[Mrs Brandi]

Impalah - thanks, it's still a bit of a mystery to me how Henshin works, but it looks like magic. With the prims :) I guess you know how it feels when they finally start to appear in SL correctly.

Sketchlife was designed for builders to have full control of prims inside SketchUp (excepting the texture mapping on the curved faces, which is approximate), with the flexibility of modelling tools that SketchUp provides. So it's not a fully-automatic tool, but it's a tool to help those who want to create prim-efficient models faster.

[Opensource Obscure]

Mrs Brandi: WinZip is not free and I warmly suggest using
http://www.7-zip.org instead - no trial period, no expiration.

[Mrs Brandi]

I'll see if I can add an image of St. Basil's Cathedral right here. It seemed to work before, but then it disappeared.

This is http://vrshed.com/sketchlife/examples/vasiliy_012.jpg

[Mrs Brandi]

Cool, it worked. (I think it matters which of the two "Post" buttons I press when I post a comment here, after the preview is shown.)

Here are some other screenshots. This is using the Second Life Viewer, when the cathedral was in the sky. (It's now on the ground, so you can fly around it, see the link posted above.)

At night:

To answer the previous comment, WinZip is very popular and my install instructions have to be written such that they work for everyone.

[Anthony Wirefly]

Ive tried it and it works like a charm...Well done Mrs Brandi. You have to be careful with rotation of your model on import, and pay a few Linden dollars, but its painless. Ps what did you render St Basil's with on the last image?? Are they rendered in sketchup...there's a nice light source and shadows.

[childpatron]

Hi All,

I downloaded Sketchlife and GoogleSketchup 7 on my Win XP. I plan to export Google Skethup Objects to Second Life. For testing purposes, I also tried to use the SketchLife export function to export St.Basil's Cathedral to SL. I selected the elements then I click on the export button but I keep on getting this message "None of the selected entries are exportable SketchLife primitives. Please assist. Thank you.