Hi Lain, to make one single sculpt map instead of many you'll need to make one single big surface instead of many different surfaces.

That means for example merging segments of a curve together, (by using Edit/Show pts to turn on control points and deleting the point where 2 segments connect) so that you have longer single smooth segments instead of multi-segment curves when you do stuff like sweeps and other surfacing commands that use that curve.

If you could post an example file that you would like to have as one single sculpt map instead of many, it would help me to understand what you want to do.

- Michael

Aloha Michael,

Im new to Moi and it has abit of a easier learning curve then most of the proigrams ive used,
I was learning thru Example of what ive tried on your Sunburst Video, the end peice has
quite a few lines, being not in full knowledge of what moi has to offer i didnt know if those
could be removed. so i used an example from one of your video's to make this sunburst and
see if i could remove the seam lines as 3dm2sculpt will sculpt maps of every peice instead
of just one peice.

I'll upload the sunburst i made but it prolly isnt needed =)

So when you say to delete points i may have to reverse in my work and take out the points
as i go along?

Hi Lain, sorry but no that is not really possible to just turn any model constructed by normal means in MoI into a single sculpt map.

The problem is that sculpt maps are really rather limited objects, they can only represent an object that is a rectangular sheet.

The sheet can be stretched and deformed, but it still has to have a kind of rectangular grid layout to it.

The sunburst model is a good example of something that is very hard to represent as just one single 4-sided deformed sheet.

The normal process in MoI is not to build one single sheet to construct objects, but instead to build it out of many pieces, including using boolean operations to cut and combine pieces together.

The sculpt map just does not work in this same way - if you want to export a sculpt map from MoI you cannot use things like boolean operations, you have to work within the limits that the sculpt map mechanism imposes which mostly means working on commands that construct single surfaces such as revolve, loft, sweep, (and also control point deformation of those surfaces) and not using operations which will create multiple surface assemblies such as booleans, especially since these operations create trimmed surfaces and not just simple untrimmed surfaces. There is no way in a sculpt map to represent trimming information.

There is some discussion of this on the 3dm2sculpt page here:
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Talk:3dm2sculpt

It would be rather easier if you could use a more general purpose polygon mesh object inside of Second Life, instead of the more limited sculpt map object. But that is up to the programmers of Second Life to add that, currently you have to work within the limitations that are inherent within sculpt maps while you are modeling inside of MoI and stay away from operations such as booleans that do not stay within those limitations.


Sorry I didn't really follow your original question - but basically you cannot use many of the normal construction techniques that MoI provides if you want to export sculpt maps.

- Michael

Thank you for the reply,

As for not understanding my original question you answered my question
Perfectly as thats exactly what i wanted to know =) Thank you.

Yes i agree SL needs to add in General polygon meshing