To: Chosen Few

[Georgina Darkwatch]

I apologize for addressing your through here, but I couldn't find any other way. I wanted to ask you specifically because after reading other post, I found you to be the one that responds the quickest, has vast knowledge and is very thorough with his explanations. After my last post, I been trying to learn more about exporting and how to do it if using polygons and how to do it using nurbs. I understand that using nurbs for modeling is easier for exporting, and apparently, most of the creators in SL (at least the ones I asked) prefer them to polygons when working. Personally, I find that polygons are more versatile, or maybe its just the ones I learned to use first. But while using these, I ran into UV mapping to be able to export them.... and thus, the bane of my existence began. I don't know if its extremely difficult to do, or if I just picked the worst shape ever to start learning mapping. This is where my first favor to ask comes; 1.- I'm willing to send you the file that I've been working on, to see if you can make any light of it, and maybe tell me (like I'm a 5 year old who doesn't understand anything) in detail what I had to do, or where I went wrong. I have been looking everywhere for tutorials, and while I have found some very useful ones, again, I think my shape in particular makes it quite hard to apply and understand. My second problem that I had, was that I found and installed what I think is the correct version of Collada for Maya 2011. And while I installed it successfully, and loaded it, I still cant seem to find it when I want to export, so I cant find the .DAE extension. Is there maybe a step I'm not doing? As a final note, I will say that I'm learning to use nurbs in any case, it's always good to know both I figure, but truly getting both to work is what I hope for. But tell me, since you've been trained in Maya, and use it I suspect regularly, witch do you find works better for making sculpts? Not really mesh, though I suspect some object I will export as such, but as of right now, I'm more interested in making shapes that other people can texture themselves. I appreciate your time and attention.

[Chosen Few]

While it's nice that you value my input enough to ask for me by name,  just so you know, I'm hardly the only one who could have answered your questions.  There are lots of helpful folks here. 

 

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Georgina Darkwatch wrote:

I understand that using nurbs for modeling is easier for exporting, and apparently, most of the creators in SL (at least the ones I asked) prefer them to polygons when working.

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If you're talking about sculpties, then yes, the sculpty exporter for Maya was designed to work with NURBS.  For that reason, you'll have an easier time creating sculpties from NURBS in Maya than you will from polygons.

Also, sculpties themselves obey certain NURBS-like rules, in terms of their basic structure and their LOD tesselation.  So, using NURBS as a source for sculpties is a natural fit.

If you're talking about mesh, then generally speaking, I wouldn't recommend using NURBS.  While it's sometimes a good idea to start with a NURBS surface, and then convert it to polygons at some point during the creation process, those cases are relatively rare.  Most of the time, you'll want to stick with polygons from start to finish.

 

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Georgina Darkwatch wrote:

Personally, I find that polygons are more versatile, or maybe its just the ones I learned to use first.

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That depends on your definition of "versatile".  Each medium has its pluses and minuses. 

 

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Georgina Darkwatch wrote:

But while using these, I ran into UV mapping to be able to export them.... and thus, the bane of my existence began. I don't know if its extremely difficult to do, or if I just picked the worst shape ever to start learning mapping.

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I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here, exactly.  Are you trying to take an arbitrary mesh, and force its UV mapping into a sculpt-compatible layout? That won't usually be possible.  Most models don't fit within the extremely set of narrow restrictions that sculpties require.  If a model is to be a sculpty, it has to made in a very specific way, right from the start.

If your model is an arbitary mesh, let it stay that way.  Don't try to make it into a sculpty model.  Just export it to .dae, and upload it from there.

 

If you're asking more generally about how to learn UV mapping, that's a little beyond the scope of this forum.  Like modeling itself, UV'ing is a skill that one can only develop with time and lots of practice. UV'ing is an inherent part of the modeling process, and should not be thought of as secondary or peripheral in any way. 

You should always model with the UV's in mind while you work.  The more well planned and executed your model's topological structure, the more easily you'll be able to UV it sensibly. If your geometry is clean, and well put together, your UV's will be easy to organize.  If your geometry is chaotic and haphazard, your UV's could be a nightmare to untangle.

It's often wise to take a "UV as you go" approach, adjusting/creating the UV's as you adjust/create the various parts of the model.  Having dual monitors makes this much easier, since you can keep the UV Texture Editor open in one, and your viewport(s) open in the other.  It's certainly doable with a single monitor, though, if that's all you've got. You'll just have less room for each window, of course.

If you're brand new to UV'ing, I'd suggest you read the chapter on it in the Getting Started section of your Maya help file.  YouTube is also chock full of video tutorials you can watch, and follow along with.  If you have specific questions along the way, by all means feel free to ask here.  It's just not really possible to provide a full on "Everything You Need to Know About UV Mapping" type of thing here on this forum.  It's just too broad of a subject for that.

 

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Georgina Darkwatch wrote:

I'm willing to send you the file that I've been working on, to see if you can make any light of it, and maybe tell me (like I'm a 5 year old who doesn't understand anything) in detail what I had to do, or where I went wrong..

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I'll be happy to take a look when I have time.  Go ahead and put it online somewhere, and then post the link, so I can download the file.  Please use .ma.  I won't be able to open a .mb from Maya 2011, as I'm still using Maya 2009.  It might also be helpful if you export it to a polygon-only format, like OBJ, just in case I have any trouble with the actual Maya scene file.  Crossing versions isn't always a clean process.

I'm pretty swamped with work at the moment, so it might be a few days before I can do more than just take a quick glance at it.

 

 

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Georgina Darkwatch wrote:

My second problem that I had, was that I found and installed what I think is the correct version of Collada for Maya 2011. And while I installed it successfully, and loaded it, I still cant seem to find it when I want to export, so I cant find the .DAE extension. Is there maybe a step I'm not doing?

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You can use either the stock FBX/DAE plugin that comes with Maya, or OpenCOLLADA.  Here's the step by step:

1.  If you haven't done so already, open up the Plug-in Manager (Window -> Settings -> Pug-in Manager), and check the box to load the plug-in you want to use.  The stock one will be listed as fbxmaya.mll.  OpenCOLLADA will appear as COLLADAMaya.mll.  After you've checked the one(s) you want, hit Apply, and close the Plug-in Manager.

2.  In your scene, select whatever you want to export, and then hit File -> Export Selection.  The Export dialog will open.

3.  Down at the bottom of the dialog, you'll see a dropdown menu called "Files of type:".  Click to pull the menu down, and then select whichever exporter plugin you want to use.  The file extension will be listed in parentheses next to the plug-in's name.  For example, OpenCOLLADA will appear as "OpenCOLLADA exporter (.dae; .xml)".  If you don't see either OpenCOLLADA or FBX/DAE listed, then you did something wrong in step two.  Go back, and make sure either or both of those plug-ins are actually running.

4.  Give your file a name, and select a location for it to save to.  I suggest using the "data" folder inside your current project directory, but you can of course put it anywhere you want. 

5.  Once you've got everything set, hit Export.

 

 

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Georgina Darkwatch wrote:

But tell me, since you've been trained in Maya, and use it I suspect regularly, witch do you find works better for making sculpts?

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For sculpties, I almost always use NURBS, since that's what the sculpt map exporter responds to best.  But it's pretty rare you'll catch me making sculpties anymore these days.  Sculpties are almost entirely obsolete at this point.  Mesh is the way to go for almost everything.

 

 

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Georgina Darkwatch wrote:

Not really mesh, though I suspect some object I will export as such, but as of right now, I'm more interested in making shapes that other people can texture themselves.

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Anybody can texture your mesh models, if you simply provide the UV maps for them. Texturing a mesh model, with the UV map right there at your disposal, is a hell of a lot easier than trying to figure out what goes where on a sculpty.

You can export your UV maps as images by clicking File -> UV Snapshot in the UV Texture Editor in Maya.  Simply upload the images to SL, and include them in the contents of your mesh models.

 

[Drongle McMahon]

Just to add, if you make your UV maps with that objective in mind, it is possible to makes many types of meshes that can be effectively textured with simple flat textures, without any reference to the UV map. For example, making sure the parts to receive a woodgrain texture are all oriented the same way with respect to the grain, and at the same scale. I think this is well worth doing if you want to make things that are as easy as possible for users to texture. There is a sacrifice in the final quality achievable with the plain textures (at least until we get proper materials), but that might be a worthwhile tradeoff in the right circumstances. Doing the UV mapping that way should not compromise the quality achievable with baked textures it you want to provide both options.

[Georgina Darkwatch]

Thanks! that is very good to know. I appreciate the additional tips. Getting started in any kind of program really suck, specially when you have many people doing the same way 50 different ways. But your advice makes perfect sense and it's really applicable. I'll be sure to keep an eye on the grain!

[Georgina Darkwatch]

Thank you! ultimately it does seem that NURBS will be the way to go. Previously, I used the word versatile to describe polygons, I think what I really meant was: comfortable, at least for me. But again, I think that's only because they where the first ones I started working with. I'll be sure to take everything you said into consideration, specially the part about mesh objects being as easily to texture as sculpties would. If mesh is the way the future is going, that is where I should concentrate. I will also send you a message with the link to the file. Don't worry if you can't get to it right away, since I'll be changing the shape to NURBS, it's not that pressing anymore, although, I would still like to know where I went wrong, what I could have done differently, or even if I was in the right path. Again, I thank you, and anyone else that took time to read and/or respond to this post, I understand how busy life is sometimes, and I do realize that without you or any other poster, things would be that much more difficult to understand and figure out. Thank you to all the ones that take time to share your knowledge. I'm off to try and master NURBS, and run into my next big wall.