Attn: Chosen Few

Sorry to call you out,

you seem to be the one with the answers.
How do you export obj files, for example to zbrush?
i set my prefs to load objexport, i export and it makes a file that is called obj
but when i load to zbrush i get an error
in blender i get a loaded blank screen that shows no object in the outliner
i am sure that the object is selected when i export (and i believe that it wouldnt let me export anyway)

do i need to set other preferences for import or export of obj files?

what am i missing?

oh yeah i guess this is important, im trying to save an obj, do i have to convert to polys?
how do i do that?

So, we're sure that you can export back and forth between the programs you are working from?

Make sure each app you're using can support all the different formats you're working from.

I appreciate the compliment, but really, there are lots of knowledgeable folks who frequent these forums. I might be a bit more vocal than most since I work in SL all day long, and the forums are only a click away. They make for a nice distraction a few times a day. If I'm sick of working on a particular project, I go a answer a couple of questions for a few minutes, and then it's easier to keep going. I guess in RL jobs, people head to the water cooler. Me, I go to the forums.

Anyway, to get to your questions, the first thing I have to ask you is what are exporting from? I'm going to assume Maya.


I've used Zbrush maybe once ever, so I'm afraid I can't help you with any of its particular quirks. (Been meaning to get into it since its so cool, just haven't had time.)

I can help you with the export from Maya though.


One thing you'll want to do is set your options for export. You can selectively choose which information from your scene gets included in the OBJ data. You'll want to include vertexes, faces, and materials at the very least. Whether to include things like groups, smoothing, and normals will depend on the needs and capabilities of the program you'll using for import.

What Zbrush's needs are, specifically, I don't know. It can probably handle everything, but that's just a guess. Maybe someone more familiar with it can chime in on this.

Anyway, to set the options, click the little box icon to the right of the words "Export all" or "Export selection". Options boxes on menu items are one of the nice features of the Maya interface (saves you from being buried in endless layers of preference settings), but they're somewhat unique. A lot of new users don't even notice they're there.



Sounds like you created a blank OBJ file with no actual data in it about your model. Open the OBJ in a text editor. If there's geometry data, you should see a bunch of letters and numbers, arranged in columns.

First you'll probably see all the vertex coordinates listed. Each entry will start with a V, followed by a series of three numbers. The numbers are the XYZ locations of each vertex. Somewhere below the V's, you'll see F's. These are the faces. Depending on what other options you had turned on, you might see other things in there too. If you don't see any of that stuff, then your geometry is not in the file.


If you're using Export All, then you don't have to select anything. If it's Export Selection, then you do.


Besides the ones I mentioned, no.


You guessed it. Yes, OBJ's are poly-only. NURBS and subD's cannot be described OBJ format.

Assuming you're starting with NURBS, to convert your model to polys, go Modify -> Convert -> Nurbs to Polygons -> Options Box. A dialog will pop up, entitled Convert NURBS to Polgons Options. To understand all the options, click on Help at the top of the dialog window. You'll find the help to be very informative. Maya's got the best help documentation I've ever seen.

I can't tell you which options to choose. That will depend on the needs of your specific project, and on those of your destination program (Zbrush). You may end up having to do some trial and error.

I can confirm that is possible to export from blender to Zbrush, anyway blender has two different options for exporting in .obj format ... the one that worked for me is lightwave obj

im sorry i made you write all that chosen,

i figured it out with the last line of the post

converting to nurbs

i could swear that ive exported a nurbs object from blender though.

so i assume that i would have all kinds of probs tweaking a mesh in maya?
once again i have had some success in some medium mesh tweaks in blender

is it a big no no, or is it hit or miss?

i cant log on to sl or i would just try, I trying to continue building while im away

by the way
i have a pretty good understanding of the zbrush workflow
it was the maya issue i was curious about..

so once again thanks

how do you change the uv selection of, say an avatar, in maya?

i can see the uvs in the uv editor but i cant switch the selection
so every texture that i apply goes to the same place


the way i did it last time was to select the appropriate uv in the ouliner.
but now i dont have that option
what gives?

Apparently, according to Prokofy Neva, Chosen is a fascist Sheep.
This means he is actually advocating change, helping newbs and being generally and good SL citizen.
I have nothing else to say, but I just had to mention his blogging. and seems to be the only appropiate place. As for maya:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-369373.html

thanks for the link, but its not what i need to know. the forums explain the principles, which i understand.

i just cant figure the controls to use the seperate uv controls.

for all practical purposes i have three uvs but only one appears to be active

how do i select the uv i want to use?

please this is driving me crazy

Thunderclap, I shudder to think what Prok must be saying about me now, after I took the time to dispel some myths on the RA forum about "the evil Sheep viewer". There's no faster way to upset a conspiracy theorist than to just speak the truth. Guess I should have seen that coming. Ah well, certainly not the first time. I feel sorry for her; I really do. So much hatred, it's so sad.

Anyway, enough about that. Mr, if you could perhaps explain what it is you're trying to do, it might make it easier to answer your question. I'm not sure why you'd want to change the UV mapping of an avatar model, so before I answer, I'd like to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

In any case, I should warn you; UV mapping is not one of my areas of in-depth expertise. It's just not something I have much call to do all that often in my own work, so I might not be able to offer more than just basic information.

i dont want to change it to something else...

my problem is that if i load a texture for say the bottom of the avatar it loads on the torso

and if i load another..its replaces the one that i previously loaded

i cant make them go where they are supposed to be

i have three templates in my uv editor and only one is getting used......

all over the avatar..over the face, torso and legs

it would be wonderful if i could ..for example

load a face, and some legs

or better yet

a face, a torso, and some legs

and basicly every single tutorial on earth wants to teach me how to make a planar, spherical, cubical, uv.....ok i got it

now how do i select individual uvs from a set to load what i want into them

i know its must be simple but it is just completly escaping me

i cant even seem to select the vertices from the individual sets in the outliner, to load the textures correctly

i hope im being more clear

Ok, sounds like any or all of three things is going on:

1. You've got the same material assigned to all 3 body sections. You should have a separate material for each one. Open up your Hypershade (Window -> Rendering Editors -> Hypershade). What do you see? Are there individual materials present for each body section? If so, then it's simply a case of assigning them each to the appropriate body part. If not, then something went wrong either with way you imported the OBJ or the way you unzipped the mannequin files after you downloaded them.


-AND/OR-


2. You've got all your materials and your polygon groupings correct, but you inadvertently assigned the same texture to each material. If that's the case, the fix is easy. Just apply a separate texture to each one.


-AND/OR-


3. It could just be an illusion from the way you're selecting things. If you select the whole model at once, it will cause the 3 UV maps to show up simultaneously in the UV Texture Editor. To avoid that, select only one body section at a time.

If you combined the mesh parts all into one, you might want to undo that, as keeping them separated will make selection simpler. You can certainly work with it all as a single mesh if you really want to, but you'll need to be a bit more careful when selecting faces than you otherwise would.

When you first import the SL_avatar_OBJ.obj file, it will be broken up into many different body parts. I recommend combining those parts into the three major body sections (head, upper, and lower), but don't combine the 3 sections into one full body. Make sense?



If any of the above terminology doesn't make sense to you, I'd suggest you take a step back and spend a bit of time learning Maya itself before trying to use it to dive into any particular task. Go through all the Using Maya tutorials (in order), even the ones that seem like they're not quite relevant to what you're trying to do. When you're done with those, you'll have a decent command Maya's basic principles. From there, you should find specific tasks like this to be much more intuitive. Otherwise, you're likely to find your problem here to be just the first of many highly frustrating exercises in putting the cart before the horse.

You may also want to invest in a good book on Maya. The Introducing Maya ___ (the blank being your Maya version number) series from Maya Press is pretty good, or there are lots and lots of others.

i subscribed to a course for maya, ive spent about 16hrs a day for two weeks working my way through the tutorials. this isnt just a case of homeboys wants to use maya to make sculpties. ive already made a couple of rigs and animations, a few pairs of shoes, blah, blah, blah.....
this particular thing is just not touched on

i did use the same material for all three body parts

if i were to make a skin, i wouldnt want to use three different materials??
isnt there another way?

i think its also possible that i combined all the mesh parts

ill undo that

but i imported a mesh that hadnt been combined
and still had problems

ill check it out

thanks for the pointers

alright, here's what i did


i knew it was simple
i right clicked on my outliner and checked show sets
and the vertices showed up in my uvs
allowing me to select them and choose materials and textures
for the corresponding parts.

what a hair pulling experience!

by the way this is the same way that i did it before.
i think the avatar im using isnt the stock sl avi
i believe that it has some verts moved and corrected so as not to deform
so strangely ...so says jason welsh
he must have combined it as well into one mesh

i cant seem to seperate it......and i dont care for now

diff day diff struggle!!
thanks to all

Forgive me if I assumed too much, Mr. I'm glad to hear both that you're learning Maya well, and that you got your problem figured out.

For what it's worth, I didn't even know about the Show Sets command in the Outliner, so thanks for that. Everybody uses Maya a little differently, and there are always 10,000 different paths to any one goal. One person's simple every day usage is the next person's completely uncharted territory. Most people stick with the relative handful of methods taught to them by whomever happened to have been their instructor. Even books are only go as far as their author's preferred methodologies.

I'm loving that Maya is now useful for SL on an every day basis because it means we get to talk about stuff like this and learn from each other.

to find info

i wish i knew more people who use it
we should arrange a club
to all become maya super geniuses

i did figure out my problem

now ill be figuring out how to make sculpties that arent lumpy
wth!!

i dont know if it was an optical illusion
but i upload what i thought was i really good shoe the other day
but i baked it too hard

so i switched to the reg texture only to find a bunch of lumps hiding in there
keep in mind i cant log on right now

so im looking at pics
but with the baked texture it didnt appear to be lumpy

eh

so i guess for i need to investigate this other importer
i dont recall the name
anyone using that?