3dsmax help - sculpt gen max

Okay ..got the sculptgenmax..had already a created bike seat ( lol) done and i uploaded this into sl with no problems whatsoever.
My question is can I just use max's premade objects or do I HAVE to use the sculpt imports that came with the sculpt gen max..
Little help would be nice

Thankss

3dsmax presets have usefull UV maps, sphere, cylinder and plane presets work with 32 or 33 vertexes per row.
The torus knot from 3dsmax can relatively easily be converted into a sl-scupture to test SCULPT_TYPE_TORUS.

The N-gon-star-shapes from 3dsmax can NOT so easily be converted into sculptmaps because they have a sharper contast.

Hey thanks for the reply.. I THINK I understood the last bit :/..So does this mean I CAN use the max shapes sometimes or is it totally better to use the sculptgen max uvmaps?

Oh and you said about the rows..in 3dsmax its called segments right? because when i create say a max sphere it shows only how many segments are in the sphere...

You don't HAVE to use the provided objects, but you HAVE to have correct UV mapping.

For planes, cylinder and torus shapes the Max parametric objects are fine as the UV maps are already set up correctly. The 3ds Max sphere will work, but it will be ugly near the poles. The UVs for the sphere have a sawtooth pattern which distorts how the sculptie will look near the poles of the sphere. Save yourself the headache and don't use it.

If you are just starting to make sculpties in Max I would recommend using the sphere provided with SculptGenMax

Once you get comfortable or if you are adventurous you can "roll your own" sphere. Start with a cylinder object and delete the caps. Then select the vertices on the open borders and snap them together or scale them to 0%. Do not weld them together as that will give you the sawtooth you are trying to avoid by using the cylinder.

Segments are the spaces between the rows. In more modern terminology they are called rings and loops respectively and are referred to as such when you go into editable polygon mode. Set your segments to 32 if you are going to use Max objects and you should be fine.

you can use any of max's shapes in sculptgen, but as pygora said, it must have the correct UV mapping. you can fix the mapping by hand if you want for some of the other shapes.... but you may well find you spend more time fixing the uv map than it would of taken to create that shape yourself from say a cube or a shpere.

having the right number of vertices isn't as important in sculptgen as it is in most others as it uses aproxamation at the relevant points rather than taking the data direct from the vertice itself. your shape will be more wysiwyg if you stay with teh right amount, but it isn't needed so long as the uv map is correct.

one trick I personally have done, is gone into sculptypaint and exported the various shapes as obj files so I can import them easily into a scene

Did you try the Box selection for UWV mapping?...try it set at length 2, width 2, and height 2 and see if that works for you...

You can also select the top few polygons and Unwrap the UVW mapping and get it perfect at the poles..then do the same for the bottom as well

Pyrrha Magic

welll thanks for thee replys ...Nice bedtime reading hehe , I understand now and I'll just start with the sculpt gen max sphere instead of max 3d's own.

Ummm also this might sound bit daft but Im so used to wings3d and the way I can push and pull vertices around by just using tweak mode but in max I have nooo idea how I could start modelling a crisp heel for a stiletto or so ...:/
Or as a matter of fact the rest of the shoe haha!