lowedennis

I remember it when it was 3D Studio.

Thanks for that tip Roger - I never even thought about that way of doing things, I've dumped my animation (of vertices) and gone for the Displace warp and it works brilliant. A case of not seeing the wood for the trees. The low res was hidden and not renderable so the search goes on, it's one of those niggling things that keep me awake at night. Anyway the rendering is on it's way and tomorrow I'm hoping for a nice little present from my renderings.

Well the SpaceJockey model is pretty much there and as this was my first attempt at Ptex I finally worked out the 5 layers of maps (each for normals, bump, colour and specular)- Phew....my disk is filling up. The rest of the structure I did with Microverts as they were more simple in the texture realm. On to the animation and I made a low poly version (I use Poly Cruncher) to animate the vertices at the sub object level. I went through the pain of the SKIN modifier in 3D MAX and found it too crude to get the vertex weights correct - not subtle enough. I went for animating the vertices on the low poly model and all went well as I only needed a breathing movement, I applied the skin wrap to the high res model and pointed it to my low res model. All went well and I did a test render to find that the mapping was destroyed. I know that this does not relate solely to the Ptex techniques as I had a similar problem when I was animating other models after using Microverts and really never got down to how the problem could be fully solved, I managed to fudge it but I easn't reaslly happy with the result. I am now on the search for any ideas of how to correct this problem. My normal maps are tangent space (I've tried all the other alternative normal maps space configs) and I believe this is right for animated models, but admit I am no expert on the normal map scene. Any ideas?

I'm working on the lower section at the moment and I think I'll finish sculpting in 3D Max for the more precise engineering parts. My computer is starting to slow down now that there are two voxel objects in the frame

It's John Hurt - I needed some reference for the 'Kane' sculpt from Alien.

You should make a tutorial digman as I think there will be a lot more of detailed scuplture work in the future and I think people will be more confident to undertake the projects if there is a definite guarenteed workflow, especially now I see the benefits of Ptex. I haven't begun to scrape the surface of what's ultimately possible yet but I can definitely see it's advantages from my small efforts. BTW here is the latest paint work as it stands now.

Well SUCCESS........ Here is the workflow I tried. I remember in a previous problem I had with the 'Derelict' model (older post) that Andrew suggested that I 'clone and degrade' my original sculpt, then 'clone and degrade' the copy - hide the Original voxel sculpt and hide the first 'clone and degrade' process. So here is a workflow that did it for me. Below is the voxtree: the red dots are from the original (at the top) and the green dot is another object in the scene that I hid as it is not required yet until I sort out my workflow. The top red dot is the original, second red dot down is the first 'clone and degrade, third red dot at the bottom is the 'clone and degrade from the one above. After that I hide everything except the last 'clone and degrade' and applied 'smooth all' twice to get this then with this layer selected I did 'Quadrangulate Object' and accepted the defaults. After that had finished I end up in the retopo room here digman suggested that I hit 'clear' to get rid of the UV that was produced as the mesh is only needed for Ptex (I think). I had to click 'Mark Seams' to get the clear button to appear I hit'Clear' and also 'Clear Seams' just to make sure. Then *VERY IMPORTANT* - I don't want to use the clone and degrade and smoothed copy there before I 'merge for Ptex' so I go back to the Voxel room and hide the last cloned and smoothed copy and unhide my original voxel sculpt at the top of my previous list. Go back to the Retopo room and select the 'RetopoGroup1' layer and then click 'Merge model into scene with Ptex' and accept the defaults. The conversion took about 3 mins and finally ended up in the paint room -Yipeeee.... There some small artifacts but that's to be expected I suppose given the undercuts and general organic nature of the sculpt. I'm off in the garden as I can now see the Sun coming out (or has it been out there all the time and I hadn't noticed)

That is so important, thank you Ghostdog, thinking that once I had deleted the objects and materials in the paint room (layer0 seems to want to stay there also)and then seeing that Quadmesh1 in retopo would NEVER delete I thought it was obviously meant to be there otherwise the Universe would collapse!

His name is Sean Kennedy and you can download his model here: http://www.planit3d.com/source/poser/sparky/sparky1.html If used for commercial you have to ask him, if not please give him credit if you use for non profit.

I'm having another try with the mesh closed, the link has been PM'd.

Well so far no luck as the program is not responding again, the trouble is probably in the mesh then, we should get someone to write a script that fills in any holes inside the mesh like 'cap holes in 3d Max. I'll try pulling it in max to check it out - looks like another day ahead of fun......

I had to scale my 7 million obj at x2 to get near to my original and I'm now in the retopo after quadrangulation process, so far so good. It's looking good as there is only one Quadmesh1 in the retopo group box. So now I'll just merge for Ptex using the defaults.

I'll give that a try, I've sent you a PM as I'm uploading to a server I use for video, as soon as it's done (2 hours says my ftp client) I'll PM you with a link. I have 12 GB ram on my system so I'm not thinking it's my memory yet, a mail from Andrew suggests it may be objects inside my mesh, I've had that before by importing obj files that are not completely clean and looking inside the voxels reveals all sorts of rats nests that when I delete them, they then affect the outside. That's another discussion I feel.

So what you're saying digman is that I should kill Quadmesh02? and just leave Quadmesh01? and kill using this button? which I have to hit 'Mark Seams' to make it visible? I select Quadmesh02 and hit 'clear' and the quadmesh02 is still there staring at me! - I have to delete it from the retopo group window. and I am left with the Quadmesh01 again and I get the dialog that 'model is empty' Sorry but I'm totally confused here

Thanks John, I've been using a model from the net as a start point and adding the extras and re-jigging in the voxel room. I started the painting via Microvertex (it went well) until I found some rogue areas that were too big on the texture size (no detail could be painted on those sections) so I thought I would dive into the Ptex side as it didn't need the dreaded UV map and all the troubles that come with it. here is where the undercuts and real detail is on the model so I thought going the Ptex way would be appropriate, plus that I hadn't even tried that way before as I don't have much luck with the other alternatives without spilling blood.

I tried experimenting with a simple voxel sphere and just accepted the defaulte to get into the Ptex paint room - all went well. I then pulled in my model (7 million odd tris) and did the same, all went well and ended up in the retopo (like the sphere test) and I accepted the defaults. I noticed that now I have Quadmesh1 and Quadmesh2 in the retopo group window, anyhow I accept the defaults and the familiar 'not responding' pops up on top left - do I leave this overnight to complete or is this a normal situation? is it a quick process or a long one?

I second that, Although I'm a newcomer to this application I spend at least 90% of my time fighting to get from one room to the other and end up killing the app and trying a different approach (which usually doesn't work). Unless you're a top expert in retopo and UV bodging then you are out in the cold. There's simply not enough information for artist types that just want to sculpt and paint - it's still in Beta testing I feel.

That is absolutely fabulous Michele, I really love the quality you've captured on the bio-mechanical skin. Have you started to animate it yet? if so I like to see it move as it would be a shame just to leave it as a static object. Well done, I'm very jealous!!!!.....

I read that tangent maps were the ones to use as well (especially when the mesh is animated) and they were the first that I tried but for some reason they just didn't work and broke up. It seems that I have more success with world maps. I don't pretend to completely understand this whole normal map process and find myself just trying to get the result by eye. The normal map creation process in 3DC really confuses me as there are very different ways to create and lots of traps to fall down (especially a newcomer like me) Thanks for your comments moska.

After a bit of playing your suggestions were very welcomed digman, I changed the preferences in 3DC and baked texture with these prefs and found that the World Space normal map worked the best (so far) so now here is the latest render test but used as a world normal map seemed to loose the specularity so moving it to the 'Screen' mode seemed to retrieve the specular map again at least it's a 1000% better and I'm still fiddling

Thank you digman for those pointers, I'll experiment with them. my stomach told me something was wrong as the renders were not quite reacting to the light sources I was using.

I finally got to the stage whereby I'm jumping through the hoops of character animation in Max. As this is the first time I've dabbled with Skin and Skin Wrap modifier I'm beginning to run out of ideas of where my problem lies. Here is the model as I would like it to look I've been through the process of making a low res copy and attached the skin modifier and using biped to do the animation - done. I then attached the skin wrap modifier to the high res and is driven by the low res, then fiddled it to look acceptable but the texture now has lost it's specular quality and generally looks dull. I've used these settings for the normal map plus an added bump map My biggest worry is when I come out of 'figure mode' on the biped and see that all the mapping has gone to pot. I've fiddled with all the mapping modes from tangent, XYZ, screen and world but nothing hits the spot. Is there a modofier that I need in my workflow that I'm not aware of that corrects this? Maybe I've rendered out the wrong normal maps?

I finally realised that it would be easier to add an extra page to my website to preview the video. I've posted the topic in the 'Finished Works' room but here is a quick link to it: http://www.zen171398.zen.co.uk/Private_View02.html

Thanks Phil, I'll check it out

Is it possible to post mp4's on this forum - I'd like to show an orbit camera render of my model. I normally use the JW Player.