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[Feature] Multi-tile workflow for megatexturing environments


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Hey all,

 

I've put this in the urgent forum as I am tight on time for evaluating 3D coat for our needs. have a few questions about working with multi-tile uvs within 3D Coat, I've had a watch of the hand full of videos on the topic but would like some assistance if you could be so kind.

 

I am working on a game at the moment and our engine supports multi-tile uvs for streaming textures - i want to megatexture our levels.

 

My ideal workflow is something along these lines:

 

1. voxel sculpt a landscape 
2. retopo and unwrap in a multi-tile fashion (preferably as automated as possible)

3. bake the high poly (well, voxel) down to the low poly as a normal map
4. projection paint it with PBR materials i supply (probably use the supplied ones too ofc)

5. export the low poly (its still quite high poly lol) + the texture tiles in PBR metal format - Albedo, normal, metal, rough, height if possible per tile to send to the game.

 

The engine will accept the major multi tile formats (mari udim, mudbox, zbrush) so any of those will do for export.

 
Ideally i want to stay in 3D coat as much as possible - ideally the whole process. I'd also like to work in a way that doesnt leave me with a billion source files - i'd like to keep the high poly around so i can make changes and run through the above again. IDEALLY i'd like the texturing to happen on the high poly so that really, thats all i work with and i can pass it through autopo or something when im ready to send to game. I think thats possible with the micro vertex painting but i'm not too familiar yet.
 
Can anyone help?
 
Thanks in advance,
 
Peppe
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Great, thanks --

 

I've got to the stage of effectively unwrapping my low poly, only problem is that its all within normal uv space - is there a way to automatically pack this to multiple tiles - i.e fill up one uv space and then fill up the next, and the next?

 

Then when I've done that, it's on to baking the high poly details -- is there anything special i'll need to take into account or will I be alright with the usual 3d coat baking tutorials?

Edited by peppe
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Hi!

Unfortunately no, there is no way top do that in 3DC right now. It's been requested been Andrew hasn't gotten enough requests for it from users (I'm one that has requested it). Multi tile UV mapping is crucial to a lot of users/companies, so I'm surprised it's not in yet. But haters going soon after 4.5 (Andrew hinted to me some months ago he might work on it depending on the amount of requests he gets).

So I would email him at support directly, and we can also get a mantis report and trello vote going.

His email is support AT 3d-coat DOT com

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Awesome, will e-mail him - let me know when the vote is up and I'll participate.

 

You imply that you know your way around multi-tile in general, would you mind if I PM you for some advice on alternative approaches involving other software?

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3D Coat uses UV sets by default. It is somewhat like stacking UV sets like a stack of papers, if you will. UV tiles spread the UV maps out across the desk, so to speak. But at the end of the day, if you want one UV map for the head of a character, another for the torso, another for the legs and so on, 3D Coat will let you create as many different UV maps as you want. You can put multiple retopo layers/meshes on one UV set or just the reverse. Split one layer/mesh across multiple UV maps. Or one UV per layer...it's very flexible.

 

When you go to export your assets out of 3D Coat, in the Export Dialog there is an option to "Export UV's as Tiles." When you open the file in your host, app, you can select all the elements in each tile and rearrange it the way your prefer, but it should be only a small work-around, IMHO. Would be nice if Andrew can make UV tiles an option to UV sets, directly in 3D Coat.

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3D Coat uses UV sets by default. It is somewhat like stacking UV sets like a stack of papers, if you will. UV tiles spread the UV maps out across the desk, so to speak. But at the end of the day, if you want one UV map for the head of a character, another for the torso, another for the legs and so on, 3D Coat will let you create as many different UV maps as you want. You can put multiple retopo layers/meshes on one UV set or just the reverse. Split one layer/mesh across multiple UV maps. Or one UV per layer...it's very flexible.

When you go to export your assets out of 3D Coat, in the Export Dialog there is an option to "Export UV's as Tiles." When you open the file in your host, app, you can select all the elements in each tile and rearrange it the way your prefer, but it should be only a small work-around, IMHO. Would be nice if Andrew can make UV tiles an option to UV sets, directly in 3D Coat.

Yeah it seems to me that UV Sets pretty much serve the same purpose as UV Tiles, but somehow UV tiling became the more popular method, people just got used to it, so now they expect it in all 3D software. UV tiling really is just a matter of spreading out the UV Sets in the x and y directions, so you can look at all of them in rows and columns at the same time. I guess seeing them spread out all at once really is better than searching through a pile of UV Sets stacked on top of each other, so in that respect UV Tiles are superior to UV Sets. Andrew really should just make the UV space bigger to allow for tiling, then all the people who are used to tiles would be happy...but I guess that somehow isn't an easy change to make in the software, so he is hoping people will just accept using UV Sets instead.

The biggest problem for people using tiling is that the location of each tile is actually important, since each tile is given a specific number, and each external 3D app uses that number to reference which texture map is applied to the 3D mesh. So if all the tiles are converted to UV Sets while working in 3D-Coat, then they need to be put back into their exact original location when they are exported back out of 3D-Coat (by both row and column). It would be best to keep them as tiles in their original locations for the entire process of moving them between apps. That's why Andrew really needs to support UV tiling in 3D-Coat.

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Yeah it seems to me that UV Sets pretty much serve the same purpose as UV Tiles, but somehow UV tiling became the more popular method, people just got used to it, so now they expect it in all 3D software. UV tiling really is just a matter of spreading out the UV Sets in the x and y directions, so you can look at all of them in rows and columns at the same time. I guess seeing them spread out all at once really is better than searching through a pile of UV Sets stacked on top of each other, so in that respect UV Tiles are superior to UV Sets. Andrew really should just make the UV space bigger to allow for tiling, then all the people who are used to tiles would be happy...but I guess that somehow isn't an easy change to make in the software, so he is hoping people will just accept using UV Sets instead.

The biggest problem for people using tiling is that the location of each tile is actually important, since each tile is given a specific number, and each external 3D app uses that number to reference which texture map is applied to the 3D mesh. So if all the tiles are converted to UV Sets while working in 3D-Coat, then they need to be put back into their exact original location when they are exported back out of 3D-Coat (by both row and column). It would be best to keep them as tiles in their original locations for the entire process of moving them between apps. That's why Andrew really needs to support UV tiling in 3D-Coat.

+1

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  • Carlosan changed the title to [Feature] Multi-tile workflow for megatexturing environments

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