maya to SL?

okay, i had to teach myself to use maya, as i taught myself to build in sl and ive become pretty good with both now, but how do i convert my objects from maya into the BMP i need up upload into SL?
im afraid i havent found much info on it from where ive looked so far, but ive only checked here on the forums so far XD
anyone able to help me before im reduced to a drooling puddle from all this talk of xyz's and converting pixels XD

i tried that script, but when it exports my BMP, the bmp creates an exploded mess of a shape, nothing even remotly close to the sleek shapes ive been trying to export.
ive tried about 5 diffrent shapes now, and tried uploading them a few diffrent times at diffrent bitrates, but every single time i get a new mess of a prim that looks more like vomit then the sleep nosecone or wing flap i tried to export.

what am i doing wrong? o.O

Take the BMP file and Flip it Horizontally in an image editor.

Another thing- if you're using Maya PLE, it wont work as the PLE version watermarks the Bitmap, making it useless.

Are you creating the model by making a NURBS sphere and then pushing control points around? If not, then you'll need to make the model sculpty-friendly before export. I think that can be done using Transfer Polygon Attributes, but I haven't actually tested it yet. Regardless, it's gonna be a complicated process, not something you can figure out on your own if you are just starting out.

ive tried the flipping thing, but i just get reverse vomit.
and i have no clue if i have PLE, im not even sure what that is XD


most of my models so far have been cubes or cones, does it have to be a sphere only? that might explain part of it.. although that seems kind of limited.. any idea how i make it more "sculpt freindly"?

Maya PLE is the Free Version, all others cost pretty much.
Scuplty Friendly would be something with only a single Surface,
like something made from a NURBS Sphere by moving only the
control Points around.

well i dont have PLE, so that shoudeltn be the trouble...

so it sounds like ONLY a nurbs sphere is actually transferable then??
how are people getting such nice sculpties then? the nurbs spheres im making have so few verticies that you cant get any decent shapes out of them, other then deformed blobs of clay.. (i really need to go back and bone up on maya some more i guess -.-)

ive already torn out of few handfulls of hair, and nearly put my foot through the monitor in disgust. im going to try something easyer for now -.-
any suggestions? can i export wireframes from Bryce for instance? if i could upload of a few of my boolian groups, i'd be a hell of alot happier. lol

I've (more or less) succesfully made sculpties in Maya from:

1. Nurbs sphere. Usually best with the sculpt tools to 'bash' out your prim. I'm not much of a sculptor though.... To have more detail in your sphere, you need to increase sections and spans. You can find those in the channel box, under the 'makeNurbSphereX' (usually) tab.

1. Nurbs cylinder (remove top and bottom nurb). If you want a 'clean' shape in SL. Close the enpoints. (Scale to 0) I usually increase span to be able to model it.

2. Creating an (EP) curve and revolving it to a nurb, using the revolve tool. If you don't want strechted polygons, make sure the resulting nurb is 'closed' (start and end your curve at the revolve axis)

All these techniques produce a 'good' sculptmap texture.

Oh, btw. I've fixed the maya export MEL script to take care of the 'inside out' problem on the wiki. Only when 'fix orientation' is switched on, and when you're using nurbs though...
(In other cases your UV map will usually be a mess anyways )

And a last note: Maya PLE saves textures with watermarks, you can't use them for sculpties...