Downloads and Support

Article Overview

1. New SculptShape button and NURBS support
2. Introducing the Maxproxy exporter: Copyright issues and program architecture
3. Using Maxproxy to export from Second Life
4. What's new in Maxport and 3ds Max
5. A proposal for determining texture export rights
6. ALL (printer friendly)

The Prim Composer 1.1 release adds the ability to export prims from Second Life/OpenSim and import them into 3ds Max. You can also re-import a project into 3ds Max that was previously exported from 3ds Max using Prim Composer.

In addition, for the first time, you can create NURBS-based sculpties directly within Prim Composer.

Prim Composer 1.1 will be released around Midnight EST tonight (Nov 14th).

NURBS Integration

In 1.1, NURBS sculpties are created using a new button called SculptShape. The previous creation button Sculpt has been renamed SculptMap. The SculptMap button, like the Sculpt button before, is used to create sculpted prims from a pre-existing sculptmap.

The new SculptShape button allows you to create sculpts in one of four basic shapes: sphere, cylinder, torus, and plane. Essentially, this is just an automation of the process of creating a sculptie from scratch. Both of the new sculpt creation buttons allow you to choose whether you want the sculptie created as an Editable Poly or Editable Mesh. SculptShapes can also be created as NURBS.

SculptShape is especially nice when creating NURBS because it overcomes 3ds Max’s default behavior of modifying the UV map as the NURBS is manipulated. This was a big problem in the past because the modified UV map was no longer square and couldn’t be used for baking. In some cases, 3ds Max would distort the UV map so much that sculptmap generation would fail. In 1.1, a NURBS sculpt created with SculptShape will not experience this problem. Its UV map will remain square and regular throughout the modeling process.

Known issues with SculptShape creation

SculptShape creates NURBS sculpts by importing basic NURBS shapes from a new file in the installation: “stdscripts/primcomposer/mesh/nurbs.max”. Most people will not have to worry about this. Just install Prim Composer as usual and nurbs.max will be included automatically. However, there is a possibility that people using 3ds Max 7 and 8 might experience problems. nurbs.max was created with 3ds Max 9, so I’m not sure if it will load in Max 7/8. If you have problems creating NURBS objects in 1.1, please post in the support forums and I will provide instructions to create a version of nurbs.max that will work with your particular version of 3ds Max.

Another potential problem occurs when using SculptShape to create a sculpted prim in the cylinder shape as an Editable Mesh. The resulting UV map is sometimes shifted left or right slightly. This is only an issue for baking and it doesn’t seem to happen with NURBS, Editable Poly, or with other shapes. If you experience baking problems, please check the UV map by applying a UVW Unwrap modifier and use it to fix the UV map. You can collapse the modifier stack after your done. If you don’t have problems, then don’t worry about it.

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