How to make sculpted prim maps in Blender?

I am starting to get a hand of the 3d modeling in Blender, but none of the tutorials from the SL wiki are helping me with the creation of Sculpt map images.

I am totally new to all of this, everything I read is pretty simple up until the part where you have to open the UV/Image thing and make the sculpt map image.

Is there any very simple tutorials or ways to do this? thank you

There's a tutorial I wrote up at http://iramblesorry.blogspot.com it shows very detailed steps to generate the map required by Second Life.

When I first started learning Blender I ran into a roadblock at about that point as well.

Something you need to keep in mind is that whatever window your mouse is over is where
the controls for that window will be active.
Also many times I would try to do something not realizing that my object was not selected.

It is part of the somewhat counterintuitive interface that is Blender.

So make sure you know where your mouse is at and make sure your item is selected when
trying to perform an operation on it.

Ok, creating the things in Blender isn't such a huge problem for me..but turning it into a Sculpt Map using the tutorials I find just doesn't work!

Most shapes I make will turn into a half sculpted map..meaning some of the parts of the image will end up black and some will be rainbow. Then when uploaded into SL, it just looks nothing like what I created.

I followed all the steps in the tutorial over and over again on different shapes. The only shapes that seem to work are ones I don't make myself..like sticking to the basic shapes that you start with. Which can usually be made easily in SL already.

I really wish LL would just make it easier to create Sculpt Prims in SL! Especially for those who have no knowledge of external 3D programs.

Quick and easy checlist:

1.)Are your texture colors mapped to the correct axis? (in the 'map out' window)
2.) Is your Bake window in 'Textures' mode?
3.) Are your textures set to map as 'add'? (in the 'map to' window)
4.) Are your textures set to 'blend' (in the texture pane)?

Think of the sculpt map as a square of stretchy cloth. This is stuck over the entire surface of your sculptie. When you unwrap the model you are basically trying to get back to this square. It must be square, it must be the right way around with the poles at the top and bottom. This is why most tutorials start with a cylinder or a nurbs surface. These are the easiest shapes in blender to get uv unwrapped and back to a square. Get one of these unwrapped correctly and then move the vertices to do the modelling, it's a lot easier that way around.