Need help creating texture maps

[LightWizard]

I'm a newbie trying to create Sculpties for Second Life. I created a couple of objects and I'm having trouble with texture maps (at least I think this is where my issue lies).

I posted a question on this on the general discussion...it has more detail on the issues I had. But, seeing the threads here in this forum, this looks to be the better place to ask for help...I'll try to describe it more succinctly as well.

I made a goblet by rotating it's edge shape by 360 degrees. It's a fully closed surface, with the outside of the goblet wrapping around the rim and then down into the inside...and it has a closed bottom, so there should be no gaps in its surfaces.

I also took a sphere and manipulated it to be flattened with a concave bown in the inside (trying to make a rock pool).

Both look terrible when I bring them into 2nd life. For the cup, actually creating the texture map with the cylindrical stitching works pretty well, but the inside gets no texture and shows in Second Life as transparent. Spherical texture maps don't work well, stem gets cut off, no bottom, etc.

For the pool, the only one that even vaguely seemed to work was the original spherical mapping that came from the original sphere...any attempts to modifify it with creating a new map resulted in a mess. For the original spherical map, I got the dreaded gap which I found in another post is due to the odd choice of max numbers of surfaces/vertexes chosen for 2nd life...will try later to fix that if I learn how to use the TCE.

I have some questions and hope someone can steer me in the right direction for info on how to deal with shapes that may be irregular, hollow but need a map on the inside, etc. There are a lot of postings here in the tutorials forum, but so far haven't found what I need.

Also, a few other questions if someone can answer them...all are in the context of making a sculpty for Second Life:

1) Does it matter how many vertices you have in the AC3D model? I assume/hope that the export will adjust/interpolate to a coordinate system for SL and therefore, I would hope that it would be tolerant of the number of vertices/surfaces in the original AC3D model. My cup is likely OVER the max number of SL vertices but haven't truly verified that. The pool is very likely less as it has few surfaces.

2) Do I need to split my objects into 2 meshes so I can texture map each or can I make a one size fits all map. Topologically, this should be doable with a single texture map, but maybe not in the software? If so, how (the concave parts don't seem to get mapped). Is there a tutorial on making multiple wire frames, creating texture maps, and importing those into SL? If so, please direct me...thanks.

3) Are there shape/surface morphologies I should avoid to get good mapping?

4) In my failed attempts, it appears that the texture map is referencing a point or points outside my object, making weird spiky triangles that stick way out of the object...what makes these and how do I avoid them?

5) In TCE, what size texture map should I use for SL? 512 by 512 to get rid of the dreaded gap in my object? Another size? I've been using 256x256, also tried a smaller one just in case, 64x64. 256x256 worked better.

6) Is there a max recommended number of vertices and surfaces for a 3D object for Second Life in AC3D? Any limits I should stay under to make all this work? I saw some info on what SL will take, but no info on what I can use inside AC3D (assuming the export interpolates back down to the max's for SL). If the export doesn't do this, what are the hard limits I should use for my AC3D models?

If all this is covered in one or more tutorials, can someone help me by directing me there?

Any help much appreciated...thanks...I've seen some wonderful work here done for SL, so I know it can work, but I am stumped on how to make it look as good as the other examples I've seen here.

Thanks....LW