ModelingSkills

THIS INFORMATION IS OUT OF DATE AND NO LONGER BEING MAINTAINED. Please use the link to the right for SL Certification skill sets.
This is a summary, with minor edits, of the topics listed on the Modeling Certification page.
Please use the discussion page if you disagree with this list.
The next step is to define the activity or activities to test each of these topics/skills. There are two ways to approach this: one is to create an object that demonstrates the requisite knowledge (or to assemble it from existing components); the other is to take something that is broken (i.e., something with alpha flicker) and ask them to fix it.
==Modeling Certification Topics==
===Prim Basics===
Edit Control and basic prim creation and manipulation. Proof that a person can use the edit controls in basic ways. Create, select, move, rotate, copy, delete. Hollow, cut, resize, dimple. Convert one prim type into another. Resize using the edit window, resize by grabbing the 'handles'. Grid modes. Physical, Phantom, Temporary, and Locked.
===Texture Basics===
Choosing colors and textures, aligning textures, transparent/opaque, fullbright. Understanding shiny, bumpmapped, and how alpha affects them. 
===Linking and Unlinking===
Manipulating linked groups of prims (individually and as a group) - moving, texturing, coloring, resizing. Deleting a prim in a linkset. Knows that a stable linkset can't be a mix of phantom and real, etc. Understanding relationship of the parent (root) to child prims and the effect on rotation, position, the maximum number of prims in a set for physics-enabled sets and sets not physics-enabled, and distance limits from parent prim. Be familiar with script tools that let you work around link limitations.
===Prim Flicker===
Alpha flicker and techniques to prevent it. Positioning, "blacksiding", Z-fighting, etc. Rendering priority issues. Should 3rd party build tools be discussed or simply SL client?
===Attachments===
How to make a prim into an attachment. Setting it to an attachment point. Using the edit window's grid mode for attachments. Making a basic one-prim HUD.
===Lighting===
How to make them, what you can edit, limitations (6 sources, no shadows ).
===Flexi prims===
Knowledge of flexi. How to make them, what you can edit, limitations (only some shapes can be flexi, always phantom.) For flexi prims to sync, they need to have the same flexi parameters and the same Z size.
===Mini Prims===
Making "mini" prims with different techniques - cutting, dimpling, hollowing with a transparent texture on the outside.
===Oversized prims===
How to do the ones that are technique (like flattening a 10M box to create a 15M plane) and best practices with the huge or mega prims that were introduced thru the Havoc hack (phantom is best, don't make them physical, bounding box and hollowing issues, beware of parcel boundaries).
===Prim torture shapes===
Making a Double Loop Single Prim is probably the ultimate test for prim torture. This kind of test shows skill and knowledge of Path Cut, Hollow, Skew, Twist, Hole Size, Top Sheer, Profile Cuts, Taper and Radius.
Edited By: Emily Darrow
===Sculpted Prims===
Because there are so many outside (of Second Life) applications that are able to export sculpted prim any testing for them would have to be limited to texture creation for sculpted prims. 
*Will try to create a list of applications that can export sculpted prims although due to rapid changes for 3D applications and scripting development I can't promise I will have a complete list.*
Some 3D Applications I know have sculpted prim plug ins and scripts for exporting sculpted prim that can be uploaded into Second Life.
AC3D - http://www.inivis.com/
This one is what I use. It's a low cost and fairly easy to learn 3D modeling application that works on; PC, Mac and Linux.
Wings - https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Wings_3D_Exporter
Blender - http://www.blender.org
Also seeL https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Sculpted_Prims:_3d_Software_Guide
* Apps that I've heard have sculpty export plugins and scripts but haven't actually looked into it.
Maya
zBrush
Daz Studio
Poser
Hexagon
Edited by: Emily Darrow
===Working with curves and organic shapes===
Cutting, twisting, hole size effect, shear, taper, profile cuts, taper, radius delta effects and revolutions and how they shape and effect shapes like torus and ring. Show a working knowledge of combining these tools to get organic and curve shapes.
===Texturing techniques===
Techniques that influence building. Shadowing, lighting, details, alpha games... texture maps. Textures and lag. Size, tiling, alpha channel issues, formats for upload. Common uses of alpha textures. Varying texture(s) by prim face for best effect.
===Minimizing Prim Count===
Techniques to minimize your prim count
===Balancing and minimizing lag===
Textures, shapes, levels of detail, etc... Understands relationship between rotating objects and high resolution textures on system resources, megaprims effect on drawdistance, etc...
===Basic script usage===
More of a "drop it in and let it run" sort of thing. Animating textures, basic sound use, setting sit targets and assembling pose balls, removing hoverscript and particles, basic doors...
===Permissions===
Implications of different combinations. Behavior of mixed permission objects & contents. Groups and permissions.
Category:Certification