Can't Sculpt on new Models sent from Maya 2012 to Mudbox 2012

[Anonymous]

When I export a mesh from Maya into Mudbox I can't sculpt on it at all. No tools work on it except the Grab tool. I'm using both a tablet and a mouse and neither one works. I generally use the send to Mudbox command in Maya, but I also tried exporting just as a .fbx file and that does not work either. Something else strange about it, when I got back from a week off is when this all of a sudden started happening. The models that I created before this started happening sculpt just fine whereas anything new is what will not sculpt. It will sculpt on the model if the brush is huge but before it didn't require a huge brush. Another hint was in the maya export logs showed an error on the constraints saying that the constraints needed to be activated or to bake the animation. I am currently not doing any sort of animation, just modeling. I am running maya and mudbox 2012 on a Mac Book Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with 8gb of RAM and an intel core 2 duo with a 500gb toshiba harddrive. I am using a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet with the most current drivers installed.

[Anonymous]

Hi lance kelly,

Could you please attach an example of the geometry that is not working for you? The problem you are describing sounds familiar but I would like to see the geo before commenting.

Also, can you tell me what happens if you try to paint? Are you able to subdivide the mesh?

When you send me the geo I will try and get you an answer as quick as possible.

Cheers!
Carlos

[Anonymous]

Hey Carlos,

I found that the mudbox model can be painted just fine. Just not receive any kind of sculpting unless the brush or model is scaled larger. I attached the mudbox and maya files.

thanks much for any assistance Carlos, sorry for the delay.

lkellynosculpt.zip

[Anonymous]

Hello lance kelly,

Thank you for sending your geo. It seems that you are running into a scale issue. Your model is only about a millimeter or two in size. But even at this tiny size, I was still able to sculpt, albeit not in the way you could sculpt any detail.

The test I did was to open either your Maya scene and send the model, or, just open the Mudbox scene you sent me. Then, I set the sculpt brush to what looks like a large size, and with what looks like a high strength. (the values I used were 3 for size and 3 for strength) You'll probably get a sense as to how small your object is when you see that a brush that is set to 3 for size looks really big on your model. With the sculpt brush at this size and strength, try and sculpt. You should see the model deform, this proves that Mudbox and the FBX plug-in are working correctly.

I suggest you scale your model to a more appropriate size. Maya by default is set to centimeters as it's units, and when it is sent to Mudbox as FBX, it stays in centimeters. So, if your whole model is only a couple of millimeters in size, you're asking Mudbox to sculpt things at to small a resolution.

On a last note, we always suggest you delete your construction history before you do any sculpting, that will make sure you have a properly validated mesh. I did not get any errors dealing with contraints (did you have a rig?), if you are still getting those errors after deleting history, let us know again and we can see if there is anything else to find.

Regards,
Carlos