Blender import / 3D Coat multiple Objects problem

[Gian-Reto]

I don't know if someone here can help me, but I am really banging my Head against the wall at the moment!

First I have the problem with getting multiple meshes in the same UV from the retopo Room into the paint room as separate objects, which seems to be simply impossible. I see no option to do this, and I get the impression that I need to separate the voxel objects after sculpting in separate 3b files.

Is there any other way to get the different meshes to the paint room as separate objects? Or any way to split them up in the paint room?

Now, trying to work around the problem, I wanted to import the merge object from the paint room into blender to separate the meshes and rename them. This works just fine and I can also re-import to 3D Coat.

But here is the problem with smooth shading and edge split. It seems 3D Coat handles that automgically for me, and as soon as the object is in Blender, all this is lost and I either have ugly smooth shading without edge splits, or I go and define hard edges, which is also not what 3D Coats seems to do (hard to describe, but I see no hard edges in my sculpt, yet the smooth shading seems to work with the bump map and not against it.

Is there any way to have Blender keep the shading from 3D Coat, instead of changing it to the "blender way"?

Thanks for any help, I'm completly lost.

Gian-Reto

[Daniel]

3D-Coat uses smooth shading until you tell it to use auto-smoothing groups with defined angle of edge splitting. So if you don't use Auto-smoothing groups in 3D-Coat, then all you need to do is to change shading in Blender from Flat to Smooth (without any manual edge splitting).

Anyway some screenshots will help a lot (as always!)

[Gian-Reto]

Hm, that doesn't seem to work..... here are some pics.

the first one is the model in an external engine after being exported as obj directly from 3D Coat. The second one has been imported to blender, shading set to smooth (seems this gets lost in the export) and then exported again as obj, and again viewed in the same external engine.

Have a look at the wing aileron on the back edge of the wing, you can see the wrong shading there in the second image.

[Daniel]

Did you check normals direction in Blender?

[Gian-Reto]

Jep, looks normal.... pun intended

Jokes aside, the normals seem all pointing in the right direction. It just seems that Blender messes up the way 3D Coat handles smooth shading as soon as something is imported.

[Daniel]

Try to select everything and change to Flat and then back to Smooth

[Gian-Reto]

I already did that, at least in Object Mode. Didn't help. I had to add an edge split to get the problem fixed, but then I had the problem that the shading of "almost hard edges" were wrong..... like the edges on the back end of the wing, that are 90° in Polies, but were the normalmap should "fake" a slightly rounded edge (which works brilliant in 3D Coat).

As soon as I have smooth with edge split in, its either a hard edge (ignoring the normal map) or roun shading over the whole poly ( again ignoring the normal map)...

I just had another thought. Could it be that the normal map gets ignored by Blender? I see it under the materials tab, and its hard to tell from my object (As the Texture contains the normal-map detials in the diffuse texture baked from the voxel sculpt), but I get the suspicion the Normal map is just ignored.

What options should be checked so an added normal map is used by the material?

[Carlosan]

Doy you tried Blender-UPlink ?

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6706

[Daniel]

Is export settings for normal map set to Maya/Blender? (I guess, yes)

[Gian-Reto]

Okay, the problem is 100% that the normal map is lost by blender, and discarded during the re-import to 3D Coat. The important part is, the first UV Map gets its materials, all the orther are lost (I use 4 different UV-Sets on one object)...

No matter if I import it manually or by the Applink (pretty cool other than that texture problem though)

Thing is, I can try to reassign all the lost images, and then I have to apply an edge split with an almost 90° Split, then it looks almost as in 3D Coat (with some minor shading errors still present.... I assume this is the edge split).

But if all this work is necessary, I will most probably not bother, throw away my retopo and work differently to avoid blender.

So, has anyone an idea how to tell blender to keep all the Textures for all the UV-Sets and not play around with the smooth shading set by 3D Coat (why is there even an edge split necessary)?

EDIT: and during the transfer back to 3D Coat, the UV-Sets are lost..... yeah, I think I'll pass on working with Blender. To much hassle for little gain.

[Carlosan]

Is there any other way to get the different meshes to the paint room as separate objects?

my workflow

-I have 5 voxels objects at voxel room

- At retopo room i retopoed all, so every voxel object have their own layer at groups menu.

Added some seams -> UV unwarp

All separated retopos have the same UVlayout, i can switch on/off pressing the left eye at layers in the groups menu

Now i switch off every layer but the first one, at Retopo Menu-> merge with NM

If the voxels objects are hidden... retopo export the topology.

If are unhidden... retopo export the topology and bake the normal map.

. at first step i used to have voxels object hidden without to bake any normal map

Do the same steps for every layers, off all but the next one...

-----------------

- At Paint room i use 2 popups windows: sub-objects and object materials (surfaces)

using the different popups you can

hide/lock every object

or hide/lock every material

add paint layers for every object if needed

texture uv editor let you paint 2D every object, just select its from the upper right list

***** if you export obj now.. the UVlayout exported is only from the selected object...

so

when i done all the work i back to retopo room

i add a new empty layer

select all faces from one layer... move all face to new empty layer

do the same for every layer

with all faces in the new empty layer i do again Retopo Menu-> merge with NM, but now with voxels objects unhidden just to bake normal map

Now at paint room i have a new object with the complete UVlayout, just hide the old objects

The textures are still there

Now I can export the obj

[Gian-Reto]

Thanks for the input, carlosa. Silly me, that makes actually a lot of sense now that I know it

Does work like a charm, no need for the Blender Import anymore. I'm still wondering why the import failed for me, but I'll figure that out later.

Thanks to anyone that contributed!

gian-Reto

[Carlosan]

I forgot:

at UV Room,

remember to choose every UVset in the top left menu drop up.

at Paint Room

Menu Texture -> UVmanager

Still confused to me :P... let to change Texture Size and add/delete materials for every uvset

------------------------

UV room and Paint room are synchronized.

Go to UV room if you need to tweak the UVset...

Remember to use restoreUV to refresh the model from Paint room

And to Apply UVset if you make any changes to the UVset.

Hope it help

[jcue]

Is there any other way to get the different meshes to the paint room as separate objects?

my workflow

-I have 5 voxels objects at voxel room

- At retopo room i retopoed all, so every voxel object have their own layer at groups menu.

Added some seams -> UV unwarp

All separated retopos have the same UVlayout, i can switch on/off pressing the left eye at layers in the groups menu

Now i switch off every layer but the first one, at Retopo Menu-> merge with NM

If the voxels objects are hidden... retopo export the topology.

If are unhidden... retopo export the topology and bake the normal map.

. at first step i used to have voxels object hidden without to bake any normal map

Do the same steps for every layers, off all but the next one...

-----------------

- At Paint room i use 2 popups windows: sub-objects and object materials (surfaces)

using the different popups you can

hide/lock every object

or hide/lock every material

add paint layers for every object if needed

texture uv editor let you paint 2D every object, just select its from the upper right list

***** if you export obj now.. the UVlayout exported is only from the selected object...

so

when i done all the work i back to retopo room

i add a new empty layer

select all faces from one layer... move all face to new empty layer

do the same for every layer

with all faces in the new empty layer i do again Retopo Menu-> merge with NM, but now with voxels objects unhidden just to bake normal map

Now at paint room i have a new object with the complete UVlayout, just hide the old objects

The textures are still there

Now I can export the obj

Thank you very much for this information.

I'm just curious is this the only method to accomplish this? If not is there a plan to automatically separate meshes as individual objects (separate UV's also). I've tried this method but it is very tedious.

[Carlosan]

Hi jcue

i duno lol

let me try

[jcue]

Hi jcue

i duno lol

let me try

Thanks Carlosa