boundry of complexity with sculpties(maya)

i've been playing around in maya for a while and i can make mushrooms and goblets all day long but when i try to make stuff more complex like letters and upload them they come out completely filled in teh middle. I'm assuming that i've passed a level of complexity cause i cannot make a letter G with the 2nd bevel option for Nurbs surfaces ( bevel enhanced ? ).

anyway is there a way to tell when yo upass some invisible line of complexity in maya that you'll only realize once its' uploaded into sl?

Iris, did you turn on the "invisible line of complexity" check in options?
Sorry that way too good to pass up. For what everyone else is posting, Not really. A 'G' should be fairly easy, but then I though the same about a sneaker. And its been two days and I have six blobs to show for it and no sneaker, (I do have a tie and a flask and several other things)

Here's a picture of My G in Maya, and then the reveresed BMP converted to a jpg ( is that uploadable and compatable as a sculptie ) ?

does anybody have a clue what' sgoing on ? do i have to much detail on the Maya model?

That sculpt texture looks a little off, usually there is some sort of gradient from top to bottom but that one looks pretty consistent. With the lack of gradient I would expect you to get some sort of shape which is completely flat in one dimension. Sorry that doesn't answer your question though, I've not used Maya so I wouldn't know where to begin looking for a solution.

Iris, your problem is related to how the Maya exporter creates the texture. Due to how it works it can't be used for the purpose you try to use it. It doesn't mean you can't create a G using a sculpture but you'll be only able to so fairly well by different means:
a) use an editor in which the export takes the vertices and puts them into a texture directly (e.g. wings3D). Note though that it's a tough challenge because your vertices need to be numbered in order and it needs 32x32 vertices.
b) do the math and make the sculpture by painting the values in GIMP, Photoshop, ... This is easier than you'd expect it to be. Just experiment a bit first.

So using Maya is pointless as their texture maps are only partially compatable with sl ?
What exactly do you mean by "do the math" ?

thanks

Iris, it's not that Maya's maps are only partially compatible with SL; it's that Maya can do hundreds of thousands of different things, and SL is looking only for one very specific thing. The onus is on you to do what it takes to make it work, whether you're using Maya or any other tool. Trying to say Maya's only partially compatible with sculpties is like trying to say steak knives are only partially compatible with steak. Steak knives can cut chicken, ham, fish, fingers, anything you want, but if you want them to cut steak, you have to put steak in front of them. By the same token, Maya can make anything you want it to make, but if you want it to make sculpties in particular, then you have to use the techniques that sculpties require.

The reason you G didn't work was because of the way you made it. You can't just take any old arbitrary model and expect it to work. It has to made the right way. In order for it to work as a sculptie, it has to be one surface, and only one surface. In other words, it should be a modified sphere. The problem with your existing G is that it's not one contiguous surface.

For best results, always start by creating a NURBS sphere in Maya, and then move the vertices around to form whatever shape you're trying to make. For your G, you'll want to do something like this:



You can, of course, make it more detailed if you wish (I made this in like 2 minutes), but the important thing is that it be all one surface. See how the isoparms converge into a distinct pole at each end? That's because the surface is really a sphere. The vertices have been moved around to mold the sphere into a G shape, but topologically it is still a sphere. Make all your sculptie models that way, and they'll always work.

Oh, and don't go above 16x16 isoparms in any one prim.


EDIT: Here's the sculptie in SL, so you can see that the method works:

Hmm i must say i'm even more confused now. That model i showed you was only 1 surface.
i tried uploading a few things that were multiple surfaces adn each time it produced additional bmp's for each selected surface.

When i go into the hypergraph and select my G it is only one entity. Am i confusing the definition of surface here? Is it perhaps possible to still use Maya ? and avoid all this 2d 3d modeling stuff in photoshop ?

When i made that G i used the CV curve tool initially. the thought of having to push and pull around a sphere does'nt comfort me to much but i suppose it's not that bad. i can always use the grid and surface modelilng tools for NURBS.

thanks so much for all your help adn reasurence. i've beeen plugging away at maya for a while and would hate to have to abandon the platorm as i am comfortable using it.

Yes, there's a diffeence in terminology here. By "one surface", I don't mean just that it's one object. I'm speaking in terms of topology. Topologically, a sphere is one surface, a closed cylinder is 3 surfaces (top, bottom, side), a cube is six surfaces, etc. Even if you stitch the sides of a cube together so it's all one object, it's still not really one surface.

Think of it kind of like this. The simplest one-surfaced object you can have is a 2D plane. Take that 2D plane, roll it in 3D space so that its right edge meets its left edge, and you now have an open cylinder. The 2D topology of the object is still a plane, still just one single surface, even though the 3D form is now a cylinder. Now, take the top and bottom edges of the cylinder, and shrink them as small as you possibly can, all the way down to a single point. Now you've got a sphere. Again, the 2D topology has not changed, but the 3D form has. You could unwrap the 3D form, and you'd end up with the same 2D plane you started with.

That basic 3D form, the sphere, is the basis of all sculpties. You can squish the sphere into an egg, or stretch it out into something long and tubular like a sausage, and it's still nothing more than that same original single surface, as far as the 2D topology goes. Keep stretching it, bend it around, and you can mold it into your G shape. You can do anything you want to it, as long as you don't break that basic single-planar 2D topology.



Not sure what Photoshop stuff you mean, but yes, absolutely, you can use Maya solo for sculpties.


I figured it was either that or you had used the bevel tool on some text curves. Either would produce the same results in more or less the same way. Think about the process, and about how the resulting geometry differs from what I described above. You essentially started with two or more curves that outlined the shape of your G, and then you lofted one or more surfaces from those curves. The end result is your topology is not spherical like it needs to be. Were you to unwrap the surface, you wouldn't get the same kind of 2D rectangle you'd get by unwrapping a sphere.


Well, to be thorough, that's not the only procedure you can use, but it is the only truly fool-proof one. Once you develop a better understanding of the topology you need, you can go back to lofting surfaces from curves if that's you're preferred methodology. You'll just need to be careful to construct your curves so that you end up with spherical topology in your lofts. That's probably not something that will come naturally to you yet. Use the sphere method I described for a while, and experience some success. Then, when you're more comfortable, you may want to start thinking about how to use other techniques.


No problem. Good luck with it. I hope this has been helpful.

I definitely see that you have to make sure your item is closed on bottom and top in Maya or you get a jagged mess. Problem is that I find if I modify from a sphere than I am fine but if I say, try and use a EP Curve tool to make a shape and then revolve it or even try lofting circles together to form something.....I still am left with the challenge of closing the top and bottom completely to avoid getting a jagged mesh when SL tries to read the sculpture BMP file. I did manage to revole a surface from EP curves and then close it but then I got "Error: Object list must contain a surface and a texture "

There must be another way to do this that doesnt involve the sphere having to be used as the starter. I mean, Linden used Maya for projects before the days of SL so I have no way to believe that Maya is this limiting when it comes to making sculpy prims.

Using the Open/Close surface tool may help. But first, you should make sure the endpoints of the EP curve can more or less be joined without intersecting other parts of the curve (as shown in the first pic). Then execute the close surface tool and select the direction to close off the surface (U or V)

Its slightly messy on the inside of the revolve, but other than that, I think its quite straightforward.

Yeah. I am going to try that by making 3 seperate curves....one for the straight cap atop, one for the curve on bottom and one for the main section that is straight (the long section). Think that would work?

No. The nurbs surface has to be composed out of one piece. Using 3 curves would create 3 surfaces. Just do it using one curve, revolve it, then use the close surface tool.

The problem with using one curve is that I cannot get the complete straightness of the main part of it (which is essentially a cylindar). In addition, the attempt to make a straight line atop the object was always met with a curve since EP curves as essentially like the pen tool in Photoshop (they consider every point to be the midpoint of a curve with the exception of the start and end points)

I did get the shape achieved by using 3 curves as stated in the previous thread, attaching them together and then revolving it around the axis. It did appear to do a bit of jaggedness when it came down to the bottom section but I have not had time to test how that will look once a texture is laid over it.

Krystal

I must say looking at your G you make it look so easy, but tweaking each CV is monotonous, can you go into detail how you go each cv into the right position? did you just eyeball it or use some sort of technique for measuring them?

Also it appears with My G i had hidden surfaces.. is there a way to reveal them in the same sense you can with a cylinder prim from the hypergraph ?

I'm not sure how else to say this, but the reason it looks easy is just because it is. Try this. Create a NURBS sphere, right click and hold on it to bring up the marking menu, and select Hull. Now you should see sort of a jagged exoskeleton of lines surrounding your sphere. Click one. You'll see that each line corresponds with a row of CV's. This makes it really easy to move entire rows around. Just remember not to move any of the longitudinal hulls, only the latitudinal ones (the parallels) or you'll tear the surface.

Here's another option. Again, start with a NURBS sphere. Right click again, and this time select Control Vertex. Now you'll see little yellow points all over your sphere (I assume you know what these are since you already talked about moving them around). Go into an orthographic view (space bar), and you'll see that all the CV's fit into neat little parallel latitudinal rows. To select a row, simply drag a selection marquee around it, the same way you'd drag-select anything else on your computer. Now you can move the row around, scale it, rotate it, whatever you want, just like with the hulls. Hulls can sometimes be a little messy to work with, especially as you approach the polar regions of the sphere, so sometimes it's better to use this selection method.

You'll probably want to switch back and forth between the two methods as you work. You'll see that you can stretch and bend your sphere into a G shape, or into just about any other simple form you can think of, in a matter of seconds.

Oh, and one more tip. Since your G has flat sides to it with rounded corners, you'll want to mold your sphere into the shape of a rounded cube before you start. The easiest way to do that is the following:

1. Start out with a 8x6 isoparm sphere (8 sections, 6 spans), turn on Snap To Grid, right click and select Control Vertex, and then press space bar to go to 4-up view (by 4-up, I mean you can see top, side, front, and perspective all at the same time). For best results, keep an eye on what's happening in the perspective window, but work in the orthograpic windows.

2. In the top view, snap the outer-most CV's to to their nearest grid points. You'll want 3 CV's converging at each of the 8 grid points immediately surrounding the sphere. You've now got the 4 sides of your cube. (Note, by "converging", I mean only that they should appear to be converging when viewed from the top. In the perspective window, you'll see that they're not actually converging at all, but rather they're aligning to form a plane.)

3. In the side view, select the top row of points and snap it to the nearest grid line. Then snap both of the next two rows to that same line on the grid, so that all three of the top rows are now in the same plane. That's the top of your cube. Now do likewise for the bottom 3 rows to form the bottom of the cube. Lave only the center row where it is.

That's it. You should now be looking at a rounded cube.



To form this into your G, you'll need to add more isoparms, of course, but this is what you should be starting with. The reason for starting with 8x6 was just because that's the minimum number you need for a rounded cube (3 isoparms of points per side). Anything less, and you'd have trouble defining it as actually a cube. You could start with more, of course, but it will be more work to line up all the extra CV's. Generally, it's always best to start as simply as you can, and then add complexity as needed.

To add more isoparms, you can use the Rebuild Surfaces command, but I'd recommend adding them by hand. You won't need any more on the top and bottom. Add them just to the sides.


I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "hidden surfaces". That term could refer to a lot of different things.

If by "hidden" you mean that the surfaces are separate objects, and that their visibility has been turned off, you'll be able to find them in the hypergraph. They'll each appear as a node, and the invisible objects' nodes will appear fainter than the visible ones'.

If you mean that you've just got some surfaces, or some parts of surfaces, that are obscured by other surfaces, then the hypergraph won't help you there. You'll have to find them yourself. Try turning on X-ray mode, so you can see through your objects (in any viewer window, go Shading -> X-ray). If you discover your surfaces are tangled or intertwined, it can be a bit of a brain teaser to undo them without drastically altering the appearance of your object. Sometimes you'll find that the Sculpt Geometry tool, set to Smooth Normal, can be your friend in untangling a mess, but really, you shouldn't be in that situation in the first place. The best thing I can say on that topic is practice good construction habits right from the start. If you don't make a mess in the first place, you'll obviously never have any mess to figure out how to clean up.

Hi,
I am rather new to Maya. I have modeled a couple of things with polygons but I'm totally new to NURBS. For some reason I can't seem to figure out this one thing that should be totally obvious (I'm gonna find it and be like duh!).

Using the letter G example, I am fine with making the sphere into a rounded cube and with adding isoparms. I can make the segments taller or shorter but what I can't seem to figure out is how to bend them to make the G shape. Any suggestions would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: I figured it out, like I thought it was very much a blond moment.