Paint Incandescence Channel

[David Schoneveld]

Why is there no channel for Painting Incandescence? Spec, Diffuse, bump/normal... no incandescence/emissive? Its a fairly common channel to have and paint. Seems like its missing.

[digman]

Change the color blending layer mode to emissive for that layer...

Now whatever you paint will be emissive.

There is also highlight emissive layer blending mode.

Check under the Textures menu / export for two types of emissive export...

Hope this helps...

[AbnRanger]

Why is there no channel for Painting Incandescence? Spec, Diffuse, bump/normal... no incandescence/emissive? Its a fairly common channel to have and paint. Seems like its missing.

Here's a video that touches on it a little:

[David Schoneveld]

I made a texture that has diffuse, bump, and emissive (no spec in this example) and you can't paint all that. you can only paint diffuse, spec, and normal/bump. So there was no way to line up the emissive and diffuse, b/c it was painted on. I put the emissive in the spec channel but then lost the colors.

[AbnRanger]

There is no dedicated glow channel in 3DC, but all you do is paint a layer that you want to be the glow map in your external app > change the blending mode to emmisive > TEXTURES > export > emmisive.

[David Schoneveld]

but if you're painting something like a spaceship minutia with tiny lights that match the position of the hull plating you can't work that way. it all has to line up. moving around a ship painting this kind of detail, can't currently be done. I know how to work with emissive in layers, and in photoshop and in Engine, etc, but you can't paint it as a channel. seems missing since the other 3 main game channels are there.

[AbnRanger]

but if you're painting something like a spaceship minutia with tiny lights that match the position of the hull plating you can't work that way. it all has to line up. moving around a ship painting this kind of detail, can't currently be done. I know how to work with emissive in layers, and in photoshop and in Engine, etc, but you can't paint it as a channel. seems missing since the other 3 main game channels are there.

Can you demonstrate what these shortcomings are in a video screen grab? I have no idea why you can't specifically and accurately paint the areas you want to glow, and get a separate glow map upon export. Did you even watch the video I embedded above? What is missing here?

I know in Mudbox, you have to paint the glow maps separately as well. Not sure why 3D Coat is "missing" it but other painting apps are not.

[David Schoneveld]

http://youtu.be/UsWCHzbLKj8

if your emissive and diffuse channels line up and you're painting at different angles all over an object there are not 2 channels for diffuse and emissive so they stay lined up.

[AbnRanger]

if your emissive and diffuse channels line up and you're painting at different angles all over an object there are not 2 channels for diffuse and emissive so they stay lined up.

Ok...I see. You already have the lights in the diffuse texture that you are trying to project. I would try to use the 2D texture editor to project paint with more accuracy, and you could handle this two different ways. One is to go ahead and paint that projected texture on one layer > duplicate the layer and change the blending mode on one as emmissive. You should see some glow effect in the viewport...more so in the render room. You can adjust the contrast of the layer (Textures > Adjust) or use the Adjustment brush (blur, saturate, lighten, darken, etc) to apply contrast in the map.

The other option...and this is how you would have to approach it in Mudbox as well...is to create a new layer and just brush/paint the lights you have already painted on the model, and change the blending mode. The problem with making a glow channel is that it would essentially be another diffuse channel. Your are painting color and telling 3D Coat ok...I'm going to paint some color, and I want you to separate what I paint into two maps. One glow and another color. How would 3DC know what to differentiate? If you are painting bright colors for both color maps and glow....how would 3D Coat know what was color and what was glow? It doesn't know.

You have to paint a separate map that makes that distinction.

[David Schoneveld]

yeah, well my emissive in this case is baked into that diffuse. I would normally not have that. I don't care about 3D Coat render room, or needing to use the emissive in 3DC, I need it in a game engine. I worked around it 2 ways, one put the emissive in the spec channel and lose the color, or duplicate the diffuse layer in photoshop before I make the final texture export to engine and adjust the levels of the bajed in emissive diffuse layer to make it only the emissive in the painted layers. I've already done a few things to work around it.

my point was since there is specular, and normal/bump as brush channels why not add emissive? its probably only slightly more complicated than duplicating the diffuse code. Not how can I do it, altho I did get a deeper understanding of the layering system from our talk!

[AbnRanger]

The only way I could see it working is if there is a brightness threshold and 3D Coat duplicates that color onto another channel. Maybe somewhere down the road, but I think Andrew...having a flood of feature requests, thinks in terms of how to get a feature in the users hand the quickest and easiest for him (so he can move on to other things). This is his way of providing a user a way to create glow maps in the app and have 3D Coat export it. Creating an entirely new channel may be a lot more coding than it would appear.

This works, as is...so I'm ok with it personally.

[Javis]

This is one of the big problems with 3DC IMHO. Instead of it being applied as a layer effect, it should have it's own channel, the same as color, spec, height, etc.. In fact other channels could be added, spec. color for example should be one of those with it's own channel and not just a layer effect.

[David Schoneveld]

Exactly Javis! Thats what I'm trying to say!

like this

[Carlosan]

+1

[AbnRanger]

This is one of the big problems with 3DC IMHO. Instead of it being applied as a layer effect, it should have it's own channel, the same as color, spec, height, etc.. In fact other channels could be added, spec. color for example should be one of those with it's own channel and not just a layer effect.

In principle I agree, but in both cases you are essentially painting duplicate color maps. If David is paint projecting those images, having a glow channel will essentially duplicate the very same information that is in the diffuse channel. There is absolutely no difference. So, what's the difference between that and simply duplicating the layer after you've painted it, and changing the blending mode? I honestly don't see a thing wrong with the way it works now. And David, that workflow you are suggesting is a very rare one. Most cases, the artist will use regular textures to project and then go back and paint the glow map. That is how it works in Mudbox, too.

Again, in what other painting applications do you have simultaneous glow, spec color, etc.? You have to paint those....separately. Please explain why 3D Coat is wrong for not having this, when other painting apps don't have it either? Since we have a working model for painting glow and spec color, there are much bigger fish to fry than this. Maybe down the road, Andrew can looking into this...perhaps the glow channel could apply only color over a certain lightness value or something. But with an existing means to do the very same thing, I think it will be hard for Andrew to justify doing so any time soon. Just my 2 pennies worth.

[David Schoneveld]

its true it is rare, but I'd say about as rare as painting spec that way. Again my point is it seems missing since there are only 4 common channels in game engines, and we can only paint 3 of them on a brush, so I said it seems missing. I didn't put this in feature request, I didn't demand it.

If David is paint projecting those images, having a glow channel will essentially duplicate the very same information that is in the diffuse channel.

The image you saw in the video was already combined b/c 3DC doesn't have that feature and I didn't re-bake out the texture for that example.

Your argument that other applications don't have it so why should 3DC is terrible. Why should one application have features others don't? Um, thats why you buy them. Also its funny how you are defending Andrews time like we're asking for this feature SOS. I said it casually, and your trolling hard to fight against it. Andrew is probably totally focused on V4 this has nothing to do with what he is or isn't going to do. Also its not a democracy where we all agree and he does it. Andrew does whatever he thinks is best for whatever reason he chooses.

[AbnRanger]

its true it is rare, but I'd say about as rare as painting spec that way. Again my point is it seems missing since there are only 4 common channels in game engines, and we can only paint 3 of them on a brush, so I said it seems missing. I didn't put this in feature request, I didn't demand it.

The image you saw in the video was already combined b/c 3DC doesn't have that feature and I didn't re-bake out the texture for that example.

Also its funny how you are defending Andrews time like we're asking for this feature SOS. I said it casually, and your trolling hard to fight against it. Andrew is probably totally focused on V4 this has nothing to do with what he is or isn't going to do. Also its not a democracy where we all agree and he does it. Andrew does whatever he thinks is best for whatever reason he chooses.

I just gave my opinion, and with there being so many requests for Andrew to consider, I'm simply pointing out the likelihood of it not being added anytime soon. Why? Because it was requested before and the feature shown in the video is Andrew's attempt to accommodate the request. No trolling...just saying it like it is. I'm sure he considered what you and Javis are asking. Andrew never said why, but perhaps he thinks adding 2 separate channels is either too difficult to do compared to the method he chose? Maybe he thought it was not very practical. I don't know...can only speculate. Nonetheless, what he gave us works.

Your argument that other applications don't have it so why should 3DC is terrible. Why should one application have features others don't? Um, thats why you buy them.

How is it a "terrible" point to make? You said this is a "missing" feature. That implies that it should be able to do this, since you can do it elsewhere. You can't...and that is all I'm saying in that regard. If other applications don't allow you to paint with Diffuse and Glow simultaneously, how is 3D Coat "missing" it? Maybe you didn't mean it that way. That's how I understood it, as the term is generally used in the context of comparing it to what other apps offer. For example, some state that 3D Coat is "missing" true sculpting layers. To some degree, that is correct. You don't have multiple layers per object in the Voxel Sculpting room...but you can step up and down in resolution via the Multi-Res tools. You can also stack layers of depth in the Paint Room...so, yeah...it's missing that same functionality, somewhat.

Also, until some months ago, 3D Coat was indeed "missing" the ability to paint glow and colored specular maps, like others could. But that is no longer the case.

[pixo]

Hello guys,

imho the very big problem is the 3DC paradigm.It would be much better to define our own channel,instead of asking Andrew every week a new channel.

It would save so much time to Andrew.

He would code it just once and everybody would be happy and be able to define custom channels with the way to mix it.

Take care,

Pixo

[pixo]

Even if 3DC is my favorite painter, for this very specific task Mari does it much better since you can specify your own channel.

[Carlosan]

About Mari Different ways to create channels:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/81077438/74/Blur-paint-on-a-channel#outer_page_181

[pixo]

Right click when open/create a new project>create new channel>name it and that's it.

I would like to be able to "create new channel" in 3DC too .

[pixo]

By the way :

http://3d-coat.com:8081/mantis/view.php?id=702

[David Schoneveld]

great, that's awesome!

[pixo]

David Schoneveld you should go to:

http://3d-coat.com:8...view.php?id=702

and add a +1,if i'm alone Andrew would probably not add it

[Carlosan]

Layers->Copy channels

It is relatively recent additions, it should be helpful.

[alvordr]

I just watched the video near the top, but it states that I can export my texture as emissive, yet I don't even see that under Texture in the menu at the top. Is this a Pro-only feature? It's not listed as one of the limitations of the educational/non-commercial version.

[Carlosan]

Are you using the last stable version ?

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8887

is not educational limitation

[alvordr]

Are you using the last stable version ?

http://3d-coat.com/f...?showtopic=8887

is not educational limitation

No, well...I tried to update, but like everyone else, it appears that when trying to install the 3.7.18H it still says 3.7.18F. Regardless, it's a pretty recent version and I still don't see the emissive option.