simmsimaging

Texture baking is giving me some issues that I can't figure out how to resolve: see attached images for a screen cap in 3DC of the texture, and the texture-bake result on the hi-res mesh in Max (it's a super rough rest, so don't worry about the crap model and texture). No displacement/normals, it's just a colour map test. The texture is lining up well enough, but I'm getting this weird artifacting at the corners of all the polys and some odd areas of texture stretching etc. I exported the baked map at 8K and painted it at 8K using Per-Pixel Painting. I played with the in/out depth parameter on the Texture Baking tool but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. How do I get rid of those weird artifacts? Thanks in advance b

Thanks Andrew. The first method you suggest is probably the best way as long as you have UV's prior to decimation - in this case I just lost my UV's along the way and ended up with a finished sculpt on an object that was hard to UV and too high poly to paint. The second method I do not think will work because the pre-decimation mesh and post decimation mesh do not have precisely matching UV's so you end up with weird texture artifacts when you apply one painted on the low-res mesh. For now I have two lines to try as well though: the first will be to ensure the object has some kind of uv's (even AUV out of Zbrush) prior to decimation - there is an option to keep uv's in that process. Then from there I will try and decimate it a second time, again with keep UV's, to create a lower res from the *already decimated mesh*. That might work - but right now I can't seem to get Zbrush to decimate the second time when UV's are applied Always something... The other way is to use the Texture Baking tool as Artman suggested last night. I made a totally new lo-res mesh with completely different UV's, painted that, and used the TB tool to export for the higher res decimated mesh. Seems to have worked fine - but I need to test it further to see how accurately the maps match the geometry for a variety of shapes etc. I have to agree with Polyxo about workflow needing better documentation. I know that many of the parameters are listed in the docs, but many are not, or are barely covered, and there is very little about which tool/option to use when, and in which order. 3DC is actually very complicated in that you can do many things several different ways (I think you can import a model about 12 different ways, and I am not aware of any documentation that really makes it clear which way to use at any given time ). I'm all for simplifying the process (removing extraneous options entirely) or a good workflow doc/ thread. Once I figure this one out I will post it - it may not be the best but if it works it may be useful to somebody. b

Ah - this may be the answer I was looking for - much simpler! It seems to be working okay at the moment, but I'll need to test it a bit more. Thanks again for the help! b

Sorry, should have been more clear. My goal is to paint texture maps I can use on my hi-res mesh (the decimated file, but still 1-3 million poly). I didn't realize your method was for replacing the object entirely - I will try the higher res method and see how it goes. Thanks for the help. b

So I think I did this right, but what I now have is a 3rd mesh, that is an approximate of the Zbrush hi-res, although rougher, but that I can paint on in 3DC. That part is all good, but this is a new object with new UV's, so the textures painted for it won't fit the hi-res original. Did I miss something? Thanks for the help. b

Thanks - will that pick up all the surface details, or do I also need a normal map? b

Cool - will try that later today! Thanks! b

Yep, that's what I am doing, but there is another concern I've run into (and posted about in another thread) and that is: how to texture paint that hi-res mesh? The output mesh (either from Zbrush and decimation master, or exported as .obj from Voxel room with decimation) is too high poly to bring back in for texture painting. Obviously I don't need to sculpt it (no relief textures required) but painting diffuse/spec maps etc. becomes a problem. Still trying to figure out a way around that. /b

I'm still waiting for a good answer on how to do this too - and the answer isn't on that other thread unfortunately. I would also like to know what the right export method would be - each one seems different and the results are mixed at best.

Thanks Andrew, but I don't think this would be an an option - I just have the one hi-res mesh after decimation. It's pretty much the same thing as exporing an .obj from Voxels - you get one triangulated mesh, not multiple sub-d levels. Is there any other way to get a high res model in? I know I could import it to voxels, but then I lose all the fine detail and I'm back to square one. b

Trying to figure out a good workflow for my studio and while voxel sculpting looks promising, I find it too difficult to get really good hi-res details. For now I'm doing that in Zbrush still, but I want to use 3DC for texture painting. The issue is that I am also tired of problematic displacement/normal map export workflows (using lo-res mesh with maps from hi-res mesh) so what I have been doing is using Decimation Master to output as small a hi-res mesh as I can from Zbrush. That I use via Vray proxy for rendering. These are fairly high res, but well within rendering limits for me. The problem is getting a low enough res mesh that I can bring into 3DC for additional texture painting. The decimated meshes are still 1 million polys and more. How can I get these into 3DC for texture painting? Tried a straight import for per-pixel etc but it just hangs and hangs and eventually I gave up. Thanks in advance b

Ptex looks pretty awesome, in potential anyway. It's a bit buggy for me at the moment, and the documentation is a bit thin on the ground so not really sure how the resolution really works, but cool so far! At this point it looks like some of the best fine detail I've seen out of 3DC - just need top find out how to get it out of 3DC and into Vray to try some render tests. Great work so far Andrew - thanks! b

Thanks - figured it was just me. In the end, and after a lot of experimenting and wasted time I have kinda given up on this workflow. I'm just using hi-res mesh output for now. This works fine with Vray at least (using Vray mesh and Vray proxy objects). Thanks for the help in any case. b

What counts as low poly? I exported it and reduced it to about 50K - which is low for this mesh. Still too high? b

Thanks for the help. I'm trying to figure out the steps involved in your process, but for now I'm stuck with 3DC hanging or crashing when trying to re-import my low poly mesh, or if that works then it hangs/crashes when trying the "merge to per-pixel with norma map" option. Frustrating. b

Thanks Phil. I was able to get a somewhat better mesh via 'quadrangulate and export' but I had to make a lot of tests and guesswork at the mesh values. In your example you have set the poly count to 6.85 million - how did you arrive at that number? I'm still not sure what that number really means, and your 'carcass res' is 20K, but the final model ends up 96 polys? I really have no idea how to translate any of these parameter values into something meaningful. Is it just trial and error? Anyway, I'll give it a try with manual retopology - but how did you actually get the fine detail into the map: does that just happen automatically when you merge the patch from from the retopo room? From there, if you want to take it to another 3D package do you export a normal map or use one of the depth map export options? Thanks again. b

I am still waiting for some further help sorting out getting displacement/normal maps out of 3DC, but in the interim decided to have another crack at doing the detailing via voxels. I'm hit a fairly good level of fine detail, but now I can't figure out how to keep that when converting to a mesh. Attached are two screens shots - one is the voxel sculpt (just a test for now, but has some very fine line detail on one part). The other is the mesh in paint room with a (more or less) default export via "quandragulate and paint" from the right-click voxel tree menu). Clearly it's a mess - all the really fine detail is totally lost, but even the basic geometry is torched. How do you actually go about doing this? All the numbers you can enter in the dialog boxes during the process seem to be basically meaningless in terms of the actual model generated, and I can't figure out what more to do with them. Testing is taking forever because the 'quad and paint' process takes about 10 minutes every time I try - and there is only so much time in a day.... Is there a clear, simple (or at least consistent) workflow for taking a model like this out of voxels and into a mesh with normal and/or displacement mapping? Is this something that needs to be done with the Texture Baking tool or something? Thanks in advance b

Sorry - I'm not making myself clear on this. I am not looking to decide *myself* whether or not to use a displacement map or normal map - what I am trying to figure out is how 3DC decides to allocate detail to one or the other, based on relief map painting I have already done. That painting does alter the outline of the object in the 3DC viewport, so I assume that it *must* create a displacement map to match that - but if I paint in really fine details does *all* of the detail get transferred to the displacement map, or do you also have to create a normal map to capture that? If so, how do you know or should you always create and use both? Hope that is more on point. Still hoping for some official clarity on the other questions too pls b

Thanks - I'll hope that Andrew or a 3DC guru can answer as well Regarding question 2: I do know the difference between a normal and displacement map, but what I don't know is how to tell which one the details get transferred to when 3DC converts the hi-res sculpt/painted details into the two maps. Does some go to displacement, some to normal, or only one or the other depending on how you export etc. I can't find the answers online yet, but maybe I just missed it? b

The map does have black/white values - I think the issue might be related to gamma. Not sure which way to set the gamma on the map yet, might be 2.2, might be 1.0, have to figure that out. In terms of exporting the maps, I can see that the process can be simple, but it's the choice of options that make it complex. Let's say that I imported a medium res mesh and just did per-pixel-painting to sculpt some fine/super-fine details in the shape: these things are still confusing for me, hopefully you can shed some light on it : 1) export "Displacement Map Current Layers" (or visible if I want to leave some painted bits out) or "Export Depth Layers"? It looked to me like each of these options produced a different result. 2) When I do that how do I determine if I need a normal map as well? I assume like Zbrush that 3DC puts the finer details in a normal map, so how do I know whether or not I need one, or do you always have to generate both? 3) Assuming I need a normal map, which would be a good choice - low poly, mid-poly, or layer-0 based? Not even sure what layer-0 based means? For now I think I will have to go back to Zbrush for this stuff, but I'd really like to consolidate the workflow to 3DC if possible. Thanks again for the help. b

I gave the water level thing a try - it didn't work. Just made the problem a bit different. I think that adjusting the displacement amount up more helped, but the negative displacement went really deep before the positive showed up properely. Something is not right with the greyscale values I think, but I guess further experimentation with a simpler shape is in order. You mention that there are options for making either disp and normal, or just one depending on workflow: what I'm trying to do is figure out what the workflow should be for best and simplest result. Can you, or someone, suggest a clear workflow that I can try? I don't really care which way I do it, I just want some way of getting the results back to Max/Vray Thanks again. b

That seems a bit odd: the water level should be zero unless you want non-displaced areas clipped out. I've never had to adjust it from zero in any other case. I'll try it though - you never know. b

I am struggling with figuring out a workflow to paint displacement and fine detail bump maps using 3DC. I imported my model for per-pixel painting, painted with relief active, and got a reasonable result in the viewport in 3DC (reasonable for this test anyway ). From there I'm getting a bit lost though: it is very confusing trying to figure out which of the many ways is the correct one for exporting the map. I have tried exporting displacement maps, and also exporting Depth layers. Each gives a slightly different result - which should it be? Also: do I also need to export a normal map for the finer/finest details, or will 3DC put all the detail into the displacement map? I'm trying to figure this out by testing in Max/Vray but for some reason the maps I export only seem to create negative (downward)displacement, even though the Vray settings should allow for both directions. Anyone have some direction for me? Thanks in advance, Brett Screen Grab in 3DC: http://www.screencast.com/users/simmsimaging/folders/Jing/media/536df5c4-8b70-459c-9220-9dc35a8b2c47 Screen grab from Max/Vray: http://www.screencast.com/users/simmsimaging/folders/Jing/media/18208c5c-80dd-477e-9c28-bc2fa49b3868

Just bumping this thread.

I haven't said it in a while - but thanks Andrew, 3DC is really coming along well and is an amazing program. Great job. I'm wondering how to get custom brushes to work as an eraser. So far only the default brushes seem to erase. Is it just me? I tried various options of the "erasemask" layer of the psd file for the brushes, but it seems to have some other purpose that I'm not really clear on (yes, read the manual on it, but still not sure what it means ) It would also be more useful (in my opinion) if the individual tools could have their own brush setting (like Photoshop) instead of always using the same one. It would make for a much faster/smoother workflow. I know this has been requested before, so just a bump for it. Thanks /b