Looked High & Low

Hiya All

So I am currently experimenting with sculpties using maya. but I have a few questions which I can't seem to find the answer too.

1) I've read many articles where people mention the use of spheres, Are spheres the only shape which will work? I don't want to spend a whole lot of time creating something out of a cube only to find its no good.

2) When uploading to secondlife do I also use a sphere to place the texture map on?

3) Texturing - I've read alot of comments from residents saying that normal in world textures affect sculpties badly, Which is the best way to texture them? photoshop? or can I colour them in maya (I know I can colour it in there) but can I then export that coloured texture for use in secondlife?

4) When exporting a sculpty is it bad to have black space on the bmp image? if so whats the best way to fix that?

I do apologise if these questions have already been asked, I did a search and couldn't find any relevant information.

Also any other tips & tricks of what works and what doesn't would be greatly appreciated.

P.S I can use maya, I'm just interested in the sculpty side of it.

Thanks in advance
Nat

1 the default mesh inside of SL is a sphere
2 see #1
3 use your 3d app to make a uv map then you can paint it however (within the 3d app is probally the best)

Thank you osgeld

Actually, any single nurbs patch would do. A sphere is actually a patch folded and joined at its ends. The only caveat is that when you upload an open ended patch to SL, it will join the open edge by tesselating between the ends.

As Cotton says, it doesn't have to be a sphere per say in Maya, it just has to be a single object. But in SL, all sculpties are a highly deformed sphere, so keep that in mind. I've used flat, sculpted planes to do things like textured rock walls and stuff, but you have to allow for a bit of a mess around the edges as SL forces a flat shape out of a sphere.

As for texturing, scultpies texture like a sphere. Which is good and bad. If your handy with one of the test pattern textures, you can texture a sculpty well enough in any traditional 2D package (Photoshop, Gimp, etc). The only major advantage to texturing within Maya in this case is it lets you bake in shading easily.

Black space is bad. I've only ever gotten the black blotchies a couple times when I forgot and lofted something into a polygon shape instead of a NURBS shape... Never had it happen when I was working straight from NURBS. Some people have had luck exporting polygon shapes from Maya, somehow, but I tend to get garbage.