Possible starting NURBS in maya?

what are the possible NURBS in maya to start with to create sculpties? or is it just a sphere 16x16??

tnx.

NURBS (If I'm correct in this) have far less limitations that a poly model. However, because of this, it's going to be harder to get your desired look. I know for sure that any single-surface NURBS object in a .3dm from at least Moment of Inspiration will be successfully sculpted, using the 3dm to sculpt tool. (If it's more than one surface you get multiple sculpt maps out of it)

You just have to know what will actually change, and how to edit it properly. In general with a NURBS object being made into sculpted prims, it's going to lose detail in places you aren't expecting, and you're going to have to work at it and figure out where exactly that will be. You should be able to just use a base NURBS sphere and have it work fine but... I can't promise anything from Maya, I've yet to use it.

If you're doing NURBS modeling though, I would also recommend the free beta of Moment of Inspiration. It's a NURBS editor created by the person who created Rhino, one of the most powerful NURBS editing programs I've ever seen (Though its not as main stream as Maya, 3ds, etc since it's focused on NURBS)

MoI has a lot of that power in it, in a simple, streamlined UI. It's easy to work with, immensely powerful once you get used to it, and one of the most fun tools I've ever used, due to its ease of use.

For the default form of sculpties, the sphere form, you'll want to start with a NURBS sphere. Other forms include plane, torus, and cylinder. For each of those, you'd start with their respective NURBS counterparts in Maya (plane for plane, torus for torus, cylinder for cylinder), and then use a script in SL to change the sculpt type from sphere to the proper shape.

For all four types, 16 sections and 15 spans is the best resolution. You can, of course, use less without trouble, but if you have more, you'll lose detail when the surface is sampled for the sculpt map output. The sculpty will always come out to be 33x32 vertices in SL, no matter what (at least until the next revision of sculpties comes out, and there's no telling when that will be).

So you know, I suggest working at NURBS LOD level 2 in Maya. This will provide the most acccurate representation of what the sculpty will look like in SL.

Please ignore this post

so bassicly all shapes that can be set to 16 sections and 15 spans are good as long as they are closed. right?

Not exactly. Planes are not closed. Cylinders are only half closed. Spheres can be thought of as closed, and toruses are completely closed.

In other words, a NURBS plane is a surface that hasn't been stitched at all. A NURBS cylinder is a plane that has been stitched on one dimension. A NURBS sphere has been stitched on one dimension and also shrunk to form poles on the other dimension. A NURBS torus has been stitched on two dimensions. Make sense?

A better way to put it would be "good as long as they are contiguous" instead of "good as long as they are closed".

Another way to put it that I believe works is "As long as it is only one surface"

You will notice sculpts always have only one texturable surface, no matter the shape. So if you have a cube sculpty it will be one texture setting for the whole thing, not the possible 6 for a normal cube (or 7 for hollowed)

gotcha. 16*15 continues surface

now i can go and put efford in to it without wasting time on wrong shapes

tnx again