Sclupted Prim in Maya problem

I am having a strange problem with making sculpted prims in Maya. I am trying to make letters but keep getting odd side vertices's on them.

Attached is the gif uploaded and a Maya project file used to export in the ZIP file.

If anyone that knows Maya please take a look and let me know what I am doing wrong.

Thanks
Jim

No..

You name that file "KILL" that tell me not to touch it cuz it may be dangerous.

Take a screenshot (or snapshot) instead. *grin*

Oh sorry, I name everything kill* to know its a useless file for deleting. That way I can do a search kill*.* to clean up after myself.

Is there a new export file ?? I think the script linked from the faq still produces inside-out sculpties ?

I was told that if you flip the 64x64 pic horizontally it fixes what the script produces. Tried that to no avail. Seems we need to wait for someone that knows about scripting in Maya to fix it.

Hey Jim. Can you show us a picture of one of your buggy letters? (Preferably in wireframe mode)

everything i export from maya so far has been a mess. nothing exports properly, and it all turns into an exploded jaggy mess, no matter what im trying to export. i think Maya is definatly the wrong tool for Scuplties here.

Attached is a screen shot from Maya in wire frame mode and one from SL to show what happens. Hope this helps.

You can see where the sides of the letter are extruded outward for some reason.

Sculptys are based on NURBS, I've had good luck designing in Maya using those, but designing in polys is going to cause problems.

That can be my problem. How can I make a letter using NURBS?

Create a NURBS sphere, right-click on it and select CV, move around control points to form the shape you want.

I understand that polygons can be used to create sculpty prims, but you have to have a UV map with no "leaks" - the entire area of the UV map has to be covered, welded solid and air-tight or the conversion tool won't work. In my opinion, this is the sign of a horribly broken tool, but it's what we have. It's viciously difficult to create a UV map that satisfies these requirements, and makes for a really horrible experience for whoever has to go back and texture the thing. You almost have to texture in in BodyPaint or DeepPaint to get the textures to line up right.

Personally, I like to model in subdivision surfaces in Maya. But when you convert this to NURBS, you get a bunch of patches, not a single object, so you'd have to export each patch separately, and again, texturing becomes a nightmare.

Johan: Maya will make a NURBS curve in the letter / font you want automatically for you. From that I can extrude it but what is extruded is hollow. I am not sure how to make the resulting object non-hollow.

At least I think that is what I am doing, still learning Maya.

Jim, ideally, you have to make everything from a simple sphere. Whether it be a poly sphere or a nurb sphere, it doesn't really matter.

So in your case, you'll have to actually rearrange the vertices of a sphere to form letter. It's gonna be very very very very very very very very very difficult to do.

I've fixed the Maya exporter script (for nurbs only), to take care of the 'inside-out' problem. (so it's no longer necessary to 'flip' the resulting bitmap horizontally.)

If you're making sculpties in maya (or any other 3d software), remember that if you don't 'close' the endpoints, you'll either get jaggies or extremely stretched polygons at the edge, as the sculpted prim 'loops back' on itself.

Also it's impossible to have hollow shapes atm. To fake a holow shape, use a cylinder and 'wrap' the endpoint back into the beginning.

Also the nurbs cylinder in maya is actually 3 nurbs. Delete the top and bottom ones, so you're left with a single (unclosed) nurb. If you're going to show the endpoints, scale them to zero. (If you want to keep a 'straight' shape, you'll probably have to increase the 'span' to 6 or 8 or so, so you have enough control vertices to shape the thing. (At least, that's how i do it

I've said this before in multiple threads but nobody seems to be paying attention. I think chip's method in 3ds max can be done in maya. He uses a tool in 3ds max called the projection modifier; I think (haven't tested yet, perhaps someone else should try) the equivalent tool in maya is Transfer Polygon Attributes. Long story short, the method is to use that tool to project an artibrary mesh onto a regular sphere, thus obtaining a sculpty-friendly deformed sphere in the form of your arbitrary mesh.

Seriously, this is getting so annoying to say over and over. Not just because people aren't paying attention to each other's threads (I teach, this is nothing new to me) but because invariably the person I'm responding to has concluded that scultpies suck ass and LL did something wrong. Could people maybe assume they aren't doing it right and ask for additional information? Y'know, like any rational learner of a new tool.

You forget that its easier to say "that scultpies suck ass and LL did something wrong" to actually learn something new.
Hell, I would love to have that tool. I don't have either 3dmax or maya. (Qarl Linden has Maya and is the sculptie lord so ask if used that Transfer Polygon Attributes.)
So I have been banging away with several smaller programs to squeeze my sphere into a sneaker shape (pill shape with a raised end).
At five hours, I have several deformed blobs, great love for one japanese gril on the forums and sincere joy and the wings3d peeps but no sneaker.
If I post the pic I am working off of you or Chip or some one help.
Thanks.

I definitly 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 get "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 wish there was another way. So far the sphere is the only way I have gotten it to work. I would love to be able to make things out of a curve, then close it completely to get a solid object.

I hope shapes other then sphere are supported sometime.

Ther HAS to be another way. Linden Labs would not open this door with such a limitation. This especially is true since for what I want to make (a long cylindar with a rounded bottom) would not come out well from editing a sphere's CVs

So far I have only got three base shapes to work completely. Sphere, Cylinder (thanks to the Rokuro tool), and cube. (made by the guy who made the Scultpy paint)
Anything else fails. So you are stuck with those shapes. And I made my shoes. I used a circle and compressed the hell out of it.

How did you get the cylindar to close on top and bottom? A cylindar would work to start out with, me just curving the bottom part of it into a rounded "tip"

I used the Rokuro tool to make the cylinder. Its makes tgas ready to upload. Then I use infranview to change the targa to bitmap and upload into wings3d.

Never heard of that tool in Maya. Can you explain a bit more?

Its not a maya tool. its a freestanding program created by a resident in the texture forum.
Alternately Choesn few can answer you question far better than I could. Read this post. It should help.
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