One of the latest buzzwords among the Second Life media, or in any case around Linden Labs, is “sculpted primes“. A well done Sculptured prime has some clear advantages:

• Things can look more realistic.
• Due to the nature, sculpted primes may help you save primes.

However that is the positive side of it , and of course mostly published and pushed by Linden labs. But as usual, there are also some downsides:

• These new shapes can only be created in some external program. Maya is the only available one at the moment, although Linden Labs says they are preparing plug ins for use with 3ds Max, Blender, and ZBrush.
• According to the blog of Tao Takashi, This way of making primes is (slightly) harder, and therefor not suited for everyone. Personally, I think that the change is quite big, and quite a lot of people might want to reconsider building like that.
• These sculpted primes will have to be imported into Second Life again. Without doubt, this is not free. Although Linden Labs says it will come up with a internal editor sometime in the future.

Now.. if we take a look of the 3d programs that are targeted by linden labs as production platforms, i would like to not the following:

• ZBrush is a commercial program, where a personal licence will sets you back “only” €452,87.
• Autodesk 3dStudio Max sets you back US$ 3495,00
• Maya, also from Autodesk costs less less, and had a free Personal edition. However you may not use it for commercial purposes. And yes, that does mean selling your primes on Second Life. Of course, no one will listen to this, but you will see, at one point, this will become an issue
• Blender. Blender is free. Yay! Therefore it will be the product of choice for many. Yet, if i look at the interface, I am wondering if i would even be able to produce any of the simple  shapes you can make with the build in builder of second life.

Basically, I see this as a step to give power into the hands of  companies, and out of  ‘the people’ it will cost once more money to make primes, at least for now.  It also makes me wonder at what point, residents of Second life will walk away, and tell Linden Labs to stuff their so called  world for People.