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How to make UV's for retopo mesh


agentc0re
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Hello!  I have been working in the 30 day evaluation trial of 3d coat.  Yesterday I took one of my asteroid models and used 3d coat to retopologize it.  My first question problem i ran into was after i used the strokes tool to create geometry it had some errors which left a number of blank spots or a partial missing row.  What can I do to prevent that or is that just par for the course?

 

Secondly, after i finished the retopology i wanted to create UV's on it but clicking on the UV room didn't show my mesh.  I had to export it as a OBJ and then import it in.  Is there away to just take your retopo mesh directly into the UV room?

 

side note, i was only allowed 3 posts today since i'm a new user and this is my last post.  Wont be able to reply until tomorrow.

 

Thanks!

-Jon

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So after some more research and then playing around in 3D-Coat i realized that within the retopo area there are UV tools there!  Cool.  So i guess the UV section is only for meshes that were imported for painting?  IIRC when i imported my mesh for voxelizing , then clicked the UV tab, my mesh wasn't there.

 

What is the proper way to import a mesh so you can edit the UV's?  There are so many ways to import meshs.

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Hey,

 

Yeah it's a bit weird at first, I think I had the same issues when I first started out.

 

Bear in mind, that voxels have no UV's, so if you import a low poly unwrapped model for voxelising, you're wiping those UV's. (it's also not going to be low poly anymore)

 

To import a mesh into the UV room, go with "File > Import > Model for per pixel painting" this will bring the mesh into the Paint, Tweak and UV rooms.

 

The only way to get your retopo mesh into the UV room is to bake it (ie, Merge with NM - Per Pixel)... but as you might have guessed, you'd already have it unwrapped in order to do the bake, which makes the UV room a little redundant for this task.

 

It's probably worth mentioning that I've never had to use the UV room for a model I've created in 3d coat, the UV tools in the retopo room are the same I believe.

 

Oh, remember that after you've marked your seams in the retopo room, you'll need to hit "Unwrap" to actually perform the unwrap. I remember in the UV room you need to apply any changes you make.

Edited by Gary Dave
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Hey,

 

Yeah it's a bit weird at first, I think I had the same issues when I first started out.

 

Bear in mind, that voxels have no UV's, so if you import a low poly unwrapped model for voxelising, you're wiping those UV's. (it's also not going to be low poly anymore)

 

To import a mesh into the UV room, go with "File > Import > Model for per pixel painting" this will bring the mesh into the Paint, Tweak and UV rooms.

 

The only way to get your retopo mesh into the UV room is to bake it (ie, Merge with NM - Per Pixel)... but as you might have guessed, you'd already have it unwrapped in order to do the bake, which makes the UV room a little redundant for this task.

 

It's probably worth mentioning that I've never had to use the UV room for a model I've created in 3d coat, the UV tools in the retopo room are the same I believe.

 

Oh, remember that after you've marked your seams in the retopo room, you'll need to hit "Unwrap" to actually perform the unwrap. I remember in the UV room you need to apply any changes you make.

 

Thanks Gary, this explanation was SUPER helpful!  ESP. the part about importing as a voxel which would wipe my UV's.  Also, why else would you use the "Merge with NM - Per Pixel"?

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There's probably a thousand things I don't know about 3d coat yet, but to my knowledge the Merge with NM (Per Pixel) is used solely to bake the details of a sculpt onto a retopo mesh, thus placing it in the relevant "rooms" after the fact. I've never touched any of the other bake/merge options as I don't find them relevant to my pipeline (Games artist).

 

I recommend subscribing to 3d coats youtube channel, they have tutorials on there and do new ones on quite a regular basis. I personally find them quite slow going, but they should help you with the general workflow.

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Hello! I have been working in the 30 day evaluation trial of 3d coat. Yesterday I took one of my asteroid models and used 3d coat to retopologize it. My first question problem i ran into was after i used the strokes tool to create geometry it had some errors which left a number of blank spots or a partial missing row. What can I do to prevent that or is that just par for the course?

This I'm unsure of, because every now and then I come accross this problem too. I suspect it may have something to do with spline points density and how you place your strokes. You might want to wait for AbnRanger's reply though, as I think he uses strokes a lot in his retopo work.

Also, as an off-topic information, you need to keep in mind that the strokes tool does not fare well with poles that have a valency other than two or four. This means, that whenever you try to draw an N-pole or E-pole, you'll need to afterwards merge vertices that constitute it.

 

I've never touched any of the other bake/merge options as I don't find them relevant to my pipeline (Games artist).

The "Merge patch (per-pixel)" simply imports your retopo meshes to the paint room without baking anything. "Merge for PPP with displacement" is self explanatory. It will not bake normal map though, so if you need both: the normal map and the displacement, you'll need to do two separate bakes just to export those maps to files (with the "File->Export Model"command).

Baking to microverts I do not recommend. I've read it's still being kept in 3D Coat only because it's a legacy feature and PPP is superior to it. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Ptex. I've never ever used it in my pipeline, so I can't say anything about it.

 

It's probably worth mentioning that I've never had to use the UV room for a model I've created in 3d coat, the UV tools in the retopo room are the same I believe.

Yeah, neither had I.

I find UV room very useful as a shortcut when I have a mesh that all it needs is some nice UV unwrapping. I import the mesh to UV room (with "locked normals" flag enabled, if it has hard edges predefined, get the job done, apply UV-set and export the model back to file. It feels faster than having to go through the baking process, if I were to import it as a retopo group, unwrap, and then "Merge patch (pp)".

 

Oh, remember that after you've marked your seams in the retopo room, you'll need to hit "Unwrap" to actually perform the unwrap. I remember in the UV room you need to apply any changes you make.

Yet another thing worth mentioning, and again, a little bit off-topic, is that if you're not satisfied with the unwrapping of a certain shell, and you think your seams are in the right places, you can select the offending shell and choose the "To ABF"/"To GU"/"To LSCM" whichever brings best results. Don't press "unwrap" after this operation, as this will tell 3D Coat to use the default "GU" algorithm for the currently selected UV-set, including the offending shell that you have just changed too. "Autoscale" and then "PackUVs" is what I recommend afterwards. Works pretty well for me.
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There's probably a thousand things I don't know about 3d coat yet, but to my knowledge the Merge with NM (Per Pixel) is used solely to bake the details of a sculpt onto a retopo mesh, thus placing it in the relevant "rooms" after the fact. I've never touched any of the other bake/merge options as I don't find them relevant to my pipeline (Games artist).

 

I recommend subscribing to 3d coats youtube channel, they have tutorials on there and do new ones on quite a regular basis. I personally find them quite slow going, but they should help you with the general workflow.

Could you take a video you consider "slow-going" and then re-create the tutorial, yourself, as you would like to see it done? For those that want them sped up, I'm curious to see what would need to be left out, to do so.

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Oh I doubt I could do a better job, I didn't mean it as an insult, I think the videos are great for new users.

 

My "problem" (and it is a minor one) is just that all the videos appear to be aimed at complete beginners. So, even though there are specific videos covering things like the e-panel, UI, brush options, spline methods, layer behaviour etc etc... a lot of the later (arguably "more advanced") videos still incorporate the super basic stuff, so a 10 minute video on retopo might only have 3 minutes on the stuff you want, and 7 minutes going over the basics all over again. (possibly a slight exaggeration)

 

As I say, it's perfect for beginners as each video is definitely full of good information, but I personally find myself skipping chunks more and more these days. It's probably quite hard to do the videos, and I certainly appreciate them, but I guess I'm used to a format of "these are for beginners" and "these are for people who understand the basics" and "this stuff is advanced".

 

Tutorials are not easy to make though, I understand that. And this is just my opinion so I'm certainly not making any demands here.

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Oh I doubt I could do a better job, I didn't mean it as an insult, I think the videos are great for new users.

 

My "problem" (and it is a minor one) is just that all the videos appear to be aimed at complete beginners. So, even though there are specific videos covering things like the e-panel, UI, brush options, spline methods, layer behaviour etc etc... a lot of the later (arguably "more advanced") videos still incorporate the super basic stuff, so a 10 minute video on retopo might only have 3 minutes on the stuff you want, and 7 minutes going over the basics all over again. (possibly a slight exaggeration)

 

As I say, it's perfect for beginners as each video is definitely full of good information, but I personally find myself skipping chunks more and more these days. It's probably quite hard to do the videos, and I certainly appreciate them, but I guess I'm used to a format of "these are for beginners" and "these are for people who understand the basics" and "this stuff is advanced".

 

Tutorials are not easy to make though, I understand that. And this is just my opinion so I'm certainly not making any demands here.

You cannot please everyone; that is for sure. Just as soon as you leave out the "basic" stuff along the way, many new users will ask you to slow down and explain what you are doing. "Getting to the point" would be a lot easier on the author of the tutorial, but one has to strike a balance. I remember when I was in the Army, and we would be doing night patrols....when you are going over thick terrain or creek beds, etc....the lead part of the patrol would take their time getting across it, but as soon as they would clear it, they'd speed back up to normal pace. We'll that's good for them, but it ALWAYS caused a break in contact. So, whether they liked it or not....they have to keep a slower pace once they cleared the obstacles or rough spots (until the trail element clears it) , to keep that from happening.

 

It's the same sort of concept with tutorials, believe it or not. You...being a little more experienced, have to make allowances for the newcomer....because if those who make tutorials speed up (and leave out important details) for you, they effective "break contact" with the new users, as it were.

 

I have to be patient with those I watch Digital Tutors or elsewhere, when I want to learn a new piece of software or keep up to date with something I already use/know. Most of their Tutorials are for the beginner to advanced users. If you are an advanced user, you just have to cherry pick what you need from it....and yes, it requires some skipping through parts of a tutorial. That's just the way it is.

 

So, again...please make and attempt to record one video that gets "straight to the point"...without losing new users in the process. It's easy to say "Get to the f-ing point, man!" from the chair of the viewer. But not so easy when you are the one who has to make it and try to appeal to both audiences. Make sure to edit out all the "uhhh's," "ummm's" and pauses (while you think), don't repeat any point you make, go back and re-do the whole thing all over if at any point 3D Coat has a hiccup of any kind, etc.

 

It's hard. Just trying to please all the critics increases the level of difficulty and amount of work, exponentially.

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AbnRanger, I get the feeling I've hit a bit of a nerve here? You're not the guy who does the video tutorials are you? As I said, I doubt I could do a better job and I understand how hard it is to do good tutorials.

 

As for me making one, well personally, if I were to do a series of tutorials I wouldn't make sure all the videos accounted for new users. I'd do basic tutorials, then I'd move onto more complicated stuff. If it any point I got bombarded with questions about things I'm not explaining, I would either point them to earlier tutorials, or if no such example existed, I'd create it based on demand.

 

I'm not trying to kick up a fuss here, as far as I'm aware I'm the only one who's voiced an opinion on this, so it's safe to assume that it only bothers me (not enough for me to stop watching them, though).

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AbnRanger, I get the feeling I've hit a bit of a nerve here? You're not the guy who does the video tutorials are you? As I said, I doubt I could do a better job and I understand how hard it is to do good tutorials.

 

As for me making one, well personally, if I were to do a series of tutorials I wouldn't make sure all the videos accounted for new users. I'd do basic tutorials, then I'd move onto more complicated stuff. If it any point I got bombarded with questions about things I'm not explaining, I would either point them to earlier tutorials, or if no such example existed, I'd create it based on demand.

 

I'm not trying to kick up a fuss here, as far as I'm aware I'm the only one who's voiced an opinion on this, so it's safe to assume that it only bothers me (not enough for me to stop watching them, though).

We all know any kind of "Intro to___________" is going to be for a mixture of new users to advanced. The experienced crowd will just have to exercise some patience in the process...or again, cherry pick what they want. For example, I started working with Mudbox again, a bit, and at Digital Tutors, if I want to get up to speed on some of the newer features that have been added the past few years, I have to either sit through some of the basic stuff to glean some of the new content, or I can tell that some of the titles are specifically for the new features.

 

However, you might see some of the tutorials on their site, that are "Project-based." Those are the ones more tailored to the experienced user. There are a few project-based ones on the Youtube channel, but most are demonstrating new features.

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