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Textures missing when importing mesh into sculpt room.


Bowcutt1
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Hi,

I am new to 3D coat and am currently trying to understand the workflow for importing a scanned mesh, cleaning it up, retopologising, cleaning up UV's and exporting.

I have a scanned mesh which I have exported as an OBJ from 3ds max.

If I import it into the paint room the texture is missing but I can re-import the texture and all appears fine (see screen grab '1 - Paint Room)

If I then try and import the same mesh into the sculpt room again the texture is missing but I dont see a way to re-import? (see screen grab '2 - Sculpt Room)

If I try to import a simple sphere with Unwrapped UV'S into the sculpt room it comes in straight away with the texture applied. (see screen grab '3 - Sphere test)

Could anyone suggest where I might be going wrong or suggest a better workflow?

At the moment I am a little lost.

You can download my model HERE in case you wanted to try it. 

Many thanks for any help and guidance received. 
 



 


 

1 - Paint Room.jpg

2 - Sculpt Room.jpg

3 - Sphere Test.jpg

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Hi Abnranger,

Thanks for this, I have already watched these videos, and I think I understand the basic concepts.

The issue that i'm having is that when I import my model into the Sculpt room it doesn't seem to show the maps, where as the sphere that I tested does.

I have ensured that maps and mtl files are in the same folder as the .obj file

My model just appears with a basic shader and no colour information, is there something I am missing in the import options?

Thanks for your help.

 

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8 hours ago, Bowcutt1 said:

P.S. I have seen your comment in another post about importing into the paint room and importing the maps and then re exporting I will try that again.

Importing into the Paint room = Paint Mesh (usually Low Poly, UV mapped). Importing into the Sculpt Room = Sculpt Mesh (triangles and no UV map, thus no image maps). Any texture you see on the model, is baked into the vertices of the dense mesh via Vertex Paint (similar to ZBrush's PolyPaint)

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Hi Abnranger,

Thanks for your comment.

I understand these points, I'm not expecting to see a UV mapped mesh in the sculpt room.

But...

  • I am expecting to see the map colours baked into the vertices as shown in the video.
  • It works when I import a simple UV mapped sphere with map applied.
  • Colour information is missing when I import my scan model.


What I am trying to understand is why is there no colour information on the scan model and how to resolve this?

Many thanks for your help so far.

 

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Looking at the problem and at the moment what should be working is not working... 

Even if I delete the mtl file. Import the obj into the paint room. import the scanned textures. 

Export the obj and scanned textures. A new mtl file is created. 

Re-import the obj model and nope, no texture file is loaded with it and it should be loading. I will look deeper later at it.

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Ok, figured it out...

Delete the mtl file.

Open the obj file using notepad. detete the line that references the mtl file ( mtllib whatever name is here.mtl" Delete the entire line. The line is near the top.

Save the file, obj files are just text files.

Import the model into 3DC,  import the scanned texture. Export the obj model and scanned texture. 3DC will rewrite the mtllib line in the obj file correctly.

Now you can re -import into the paint room for PPP painting , the texture will auto load or you can import into the scupt room surface mode which is where the pixel textures will be converted to vertex color. It will be low quality of course that low in vertex count.

 

Edited by digman
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Hi digman,

Thank you very much for taking the time to look into this and for finding a solution.

I will follow the steps you have described, I will also subdivide the mesh to achieve a higher quality. 

For future reference is there a reason why this isn't working correctly, could it be the type of material applied to the model before exporting?

Many thanks

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A heads up, you can not subdivide when you import for surface mode at the import panel. This is will remove all the vertex color data, I believe this is true not only in 3DC but other programs as well. 

In your scanning software export the model out at a higher polygon count if you need better quality vertex color information. 

I am not sure if the mtlib line was not being updated, really not sure but at least know enough about the obj file format that I looked and surmised that the problem was with the Mtlib line.

I would look at how Max is exporting the obj file and the parameter settings it gives for the user upon exporting.

Edited by digman
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FYI. If you need this workflow.

You can in the paint room. Bake the high res scan texture to a low-polygon retopo mesh model with a different uv set. Texture Baking tool under the Textures menu. This if if you need this workflow.

Since 3DC has PBR painting, the main function of the texturing baking tool is only for color and normal maps plus displacment maps. It has not been updated to PPR exporting for the other maps.

I use it for the above purpose. baking high res scanned textures to low polygon models. I have develop another method too inside of 3DC but that would take a video tutorial.

Old video but really not much has changed with the texture baking tool.

 

Edited by digman
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Hi Digiman,

Thanks for this i'm starting to better understand how this process could work, I intend on following the process outlined below to create high quality assets for product and architectural visualisations so ideally want a high & mid poly versions of assets with high res maps. The process I'm roughly trying to follow is taken from HERE but it is described using Z brush not 3D coat. 

The process is as follows:

1 -  PHOTOGRAPH OBJECT FROM MULTIPLE ANGLES
2 - CREATE MASKS FOR ALL SETS IN AGISOFT PHOTOSCAN
3 - CREATE HI POLY TRIANGULATED ASSET
4 - IMPORT UN-TEXTURED SCAN INTO 3D COAT
5 - CLEAN UP
6 - AUTOPO TO CREATE A MID POLY VERSION
7 - UV MAP
8 - BAKE NORMAL AND DISPLACEMENT MAPS TO THE LOW POLY MESH FROM THE ORIGINAL HIGH POLY MESH
9 - EXPORT HIGH AND LOW POLY VERSIONS OF THE MODEL.
10 - RE-IMPORT MODEL INTO AGISOFT PHOTO SCAN TO CREATE THE DIFFUSE/COLOUR TEXTURE WHILE PRESERVING THE CLEAN UV'S FROM 3D COAT.

RESULTS:
1 -
HIGH POLY TEXTURED MESH FOR CLOSE UP SHOTS
2 - LOW POLY QUAD MODEL WITH NORMAL/BUMP/DISPLACEMENT MAPS.

What do you think of the above method, would it be the same in 3D Coat? or is there a better more efficient way of achieving the same results?

Thanks for your help so far it has been invaluable.


 

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I was waiting for a solution to be posted  so i dont hop in and look like an advertiser !!!

I describe in details everything in this tutorial

https://gumroad.com/products/ALXXM

 

1_From_Photos_to_Final_Paint.jpg

 

And i am giving away just for our 3D Coat forum 3 licenses for $9 for this tutorial.

https://gumroad.com/l/ALXXM/3dcoat_support

Edited by Michaelgdrs
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Hi Bowcutt1 , 

 

yes you just need to 

 

1) Make a higher density retopo model at that stage and continue with the rest of the workflow. (high resolution assets)

2) Make a low poly retopo model again at that stage and continue with the rest of the workflow. (low poly for games / realtime)

 

Of course you need to change the texture resolution as well or just drop it down in unity or unreal for example.

 

You can also capture bigger and smaller objects by changing the studio box setup and camera distance.

I went with a small object to pass out as much info as possible to the user , bigger objects with a fair amount of info / parts on them are easier to capture and move on.

 

The better the capture the easier the rest of the workflow turns out , this is something to remember.

 

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Hi Digiman,

I have followed your steps as outlined, deleted the mat file and the line from the obj file the imported and re-exported but I still have no joy.

See the attached video as an example, is there anything obvious I am doing wrong?

Thanks for your help.

I suspect that this is not absolutely critical to the workflow I need, but it would be good to understand the mistakes I am making.

ERROR (2).mp4

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1 hour ago, Michaelgdrs said:

I was waiting for a solution to be posted  so i dont hop in and look like an advertiser !!!

I describe in details everything in this tutorial

https://gumroad.com/products/ALXXM

 

1_From_Photos_to_Final_Paint.jpg

 

And i am giving away just for our 3D Coat forum 3 licenses for $9 for this tutorial.

https://gumroad.com/l/ALXXM/3dcoat_support

Hi I bought this but it was $49.99 not $9.99 is there anyway of getting a refund and just paying $9.99?

 

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I apologise for the inconvenience , in general there are no refunds allowed for digital content from Gumroad and its hard to even refund at will especially at Friday that is payment days.

Refund will be shown to you shortly i hope.

 

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