Maya LT to dae file. Autodesk FBX Converter or Blender?

[Erwin Solo]

Greetings,

Background: I did a fair amount of Blender creation in 2013 and 2014 and just kind of quit.  I noticed the opportunity to get a one-year Maya LT license for not too much money, and so I am trying that.    

I see two ways to convert Maya LT files to dae files for upload to Second Life: (1) Autodesk FBX Converter, and (2) Export from Maya to obj files and the import to Blender and then export from Blender to dae files.   

Question: What is the best way for me to convert from Maya LT to dae files for import into SL?  My main interest is in architectural items.  I have no interest in making clothing or mesh avatars.  My priorities are more on time-savings rather than L$ savings.  I do use the Aditi grid if I'm doing a big project, to cut down on the upload fees.  When I upload to the main grid, it would be nice if the textures import into SL just like I see them in Maya.  If I end up paying for an extra L$10 texture upload or two every once in a while, that's not going to break the bank.  I do this for fun not to make L$.

Oh, and I'd like to make some mesh "ground" for my skybox applications, and I might want to make an organic shape now and then.  Is Mudbox a good tool for me, since I'm already invested in the Autodesk family with Maya?

Edited June 30, 2017 by Erwin Solo
typo correction, added a subtopic

[arton Rotaru]

Autodesk FBX Converter 2013.3 will be fine.

As for Mudbox. It's sculpting abillities aren't on par with ZBrush. But it's not bad in any way either. It's user interface is much less of an Alien as ZBrushs UI.
Mudbox is quite good at texture painting on the model in 3D. However, it got surpassed in that regard with tools like Substance Painter, or Quixels DDo. But neither of the latter can do any real sculpting.

Sculpting does only make sense if you are going to bake the result into a normal map on a lowpoly model later on. For a mesh ground Maya LT should be sufficient though. Because you want that to be very lowpoly anyway. And baking such large surfaces into a normal map is rather unusual, because of the texture resolution. You would most likely want to have tiling textures on those.
Indeed, with Mudbox tiling textures can be sculpted, and painted on their own as well.

In a nutshell, there are more specific, and advanced tools for sculpting, and texture painting out there, but Mudbox is still a viable and usefull tool as well IMO.