why doesnt my maya sculpt import into Sl properly

why doesnt my maya sculpt import into Sl properly. i worked on a nerb for 20+ hours and now that i wanted to test what i had so far but it was nothing like i sculpted. i also tryed sculpting a simple spike and when i import it it has waves in it.

Didn't we already have this conversation about a week ago?

/327/c1/299456/1.html#post2266844

As I said in the other thread, I can't answer the question without knowing more about what you're making, and how you're doing it. How about posing a screenshot of your model in Maya, and another one of the resulting sculpty in SL?

Also, as we discussed, it's NURBS, not "nurb", and certainly not "nerb". There's no such thing as "a nerb". It's a NURBS surface, an NURBS model, a NURBS primitive, etc.

yes we did i tryed sending you more info but you dont have pm enabled. well anyways this is what iv been working on




100 sections
and 100 span

i also did a vary simple one like this and it still dosnt import properly its all wavey

Sorry about the PM's thing. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it. I haven't been able to access PM's in years with this account. The account permissions are corrupted or broken somehow, and the Lindens have been utterly without a clue as to how to fix it. It's actually good, though, that the PM's didn't work in this case, because it's more useful to hold these kinds of discussions out in the open, where more people can participate, or at least benefit from reading.

Before I go any further, let me take a second to say nice modeling job. That torso looks really good. Nice illustrative styling.

It's unfortunately not a good candidate for a sculpty, though. It's way too complex for a single sculpt. Remember, sculpties in-world are limited to 32x32 quads. The most detail you can expect to preserve from a NURBS source model is whatever you can squeeze out of 16x16 sections & spans. 100x100 is way too many.

What I would suggest is that you take that nice high-res model, and use it to create a normal map for baking textures onto a scultpy-friendly simplified version. That way, you could preserve the illusion of detail via the texturing, while the actual geometry of the sculpty is clean and light, as it's supposed to be.

As for why the cone shape came out wavy, I'm guessing either you forgot to kill history and transformations on the object before you exported the sculpt map, or you forgot to upload the sculpt map losslessly, or both. Construction history and transformation nodes will interfere with the sculpty exporter's ability to get an accurate sample of the surface(s), so you have to kill those before you export your sculpt maps. And lossy image upload will result in inaccurate vertex placement in-world, so you have to be sure to go lossless. Failure to do either of those will end in lumpy, wavy, or otherwise screwed up looking sculpties.

Here's the procedure you should always follow:

1. Select the object(s) you want to export.

2. Edit -> Delete by type -> History

3. Modify -> Freeze Transformations

4. Modify -> Reset Transformations

5. Edit -> Delete by type -> History (again)

6. Run the sculpty exporter script, and export your sculpt map(s) at a size of 64x64 px.

7. In SL, make sure Use Lossless Upload is checked in the upload previewer. Upload your map(s), and apply to your prim(s).

As an alternative to steps 6 and 7, you can use the importprimscript program, in conjunction with Qarl Linden's advanced sculpty exporter script. Importprimscript uploads maps losslessly, and auto assembles the sculpties in-world, saving you the task of sizing and rotating your objects by hand. It's really convenient.


That should solve your problem, but if not, come on back. There's more we can talk about. Good luck.

when i do all this the upload is blank.

this is what i get after doing every thing

looks like poop

Hmm. If you removed history and transformations, and you uploaded your sculpt map losslessly, then my next guess is perhaps the sculpt map hasn't fully rezzed yet. When you upload an image, SL creates 4 progressive levels of detail for it. Usually all four are available instantly, but sometimes it can take as much as 24 hours or so before you get to see them all.

What viewer version are you using, by the way? Lossless upload doesn't work properly in all but the most recent handful. I forget which version finally got it right, but for several months, each new version would say it was fixed in the release notes, and then we'd all discover it wasn't. That was annoying.

Is your object detail slider turned all the way up?

Also, can you post a Maya screenshot with the object selected, so the isoparms are showing?

i hate to say this but you lost me on viewer, detail slider,
i have every thing on defualt. all i did was create nurb and started sculpting.



how do i find out my version?

He's referring to your SL viewer version and the Objects in SL slider under Edit -- Preferences -- Graphics. Turning up your objects slider under Mesh Detail will make a big difference in how you see sculpties.

Thanks, Betty. Yes, that is certainly what I meant.

how do i find out my version?

To find out the version number of any program, including the Second Life viewer, click Help -> About [program name], from within the program. In SL, when you click Help -> About Second Life, a window will pop up with a bunch of information on it. The very first line says the viewer version number, along with the date the version was released.

Additionally, many programs, again including the Second Life viewer, tell you the version number in the startup screen. The next time you start SL, take a look at the lower right hand corner of the window. You'll see it see it says "Second Life Release" and then a bunch of numbers. The numbers are the version number.

Second Life 1.21.6 (99587) Oct 14 2008 17:42:25 (Second Life Release)

That's the latest viewer, so lossless upload should work. You might want to give importprimscript a try, though. That's what I usually use. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Importprimscript

If you've removed history and transformations from your source model, you're not using groups or parentings, your model is sufficiently simple, you're uploading losslessly, and your object detail slider is all the way up in your SL preferences, and it's still coming out screwed up in-world, then I'm afraid I don't know what else to tell you.

How do other people's sculpties look to you? If every sculpty you see is distorted just like your own, then you can safely conclude the problem is not with your work flow. Something's wrong with the way the viewer is rendering sculpties on your computer. If it's just your own, though, and everyone else's look fine, then you must be doing something wrong.

One more thing to check is the scale of the sculptie compared to the original model. On some sculpties, what look like massive imperfections are due to relative positions of the vertices, when you get the scale right they look a lot better. You'd only normally see this problem with this shape if the original model is at an angle though.