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[Solved] Help! Baking "holes" appears


Exsulator
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Im sculpting in 3Dcoat, but my texturing needs to be done in Substance Painter.

Heres a retopo of my fish. The gills are the main problem.

The gills are three separate pieces of topology, that cause all sorts of trouble when baking

3DCoat_artifacts1.thumb.PNG.4d31e34a4bac2997b4ac68d121e1310f.PNG

 

When baking, Im left with this mess in the paint room. How Do I solve this? 

3DCoat_artifacts2.thumb.PNG.5e418d80e2140aa16c7c7bb4c145b9d5.PNG

Is it perhaps possible to bake the fish, gills excluded? Then maybe bake the gills by themselves, then combine this UV-maps?

Or any workflow tip to stop the holes? The gills themselves are not larger than the body, so I thought they wouldnt cut through and cause any issues

 

Edited by Exsulator
Lacked proper tagging and naming
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Question, you say you are sculpting in 3DC but I did not see any vox tree sculpt layers in your picture. How are you sculpting, Be specific...

Ah, you might be just showing the retopo mesh to explain the problem, though I am making a guess here.

 

Edited by digman
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17 hours ago, digman said:

Question, you say you are sculpting in 3DC but I did not see any vox tree sculpt layers in your picture. How are you sculpting, Be specific...

Ah, you might be just showing the retopo mesh to explain the problem, though I am making a guess here.

 

The vox tree is just hidden, but you're right, I'm sculpting and I just grabbed the images that explained my problem. (I was not aware there was other ways of sculpting than with voxel or surface mode in the sculpt room?)

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I renamed, removed any spaces, checked the "name correspondence" box (which coincidentally wasn't on).

I baked again, but as I singled out different parts, they still had areas of holes (albeit not the same areas as before).

3DCoat_artifacts3.thumb.PNG.7659bc7935ebcc4d480bb7f863f321ef.PNG

 

I then deleted everything in the paint room, and simply did the same process. This yielded better results.

Now I have the problem with lots of black spots inside the gill area, that are difficult to reach in the baking process, because the topology is so tight and I can`t accurately fix the scan depths. This would be easy if I could temporarily hide the body-mesh, to see only one gill at the time. But I\m unable to hide the mesh in 3D coat. Shouldnt this be an obvious feature during baking (adjusting scan depth-phase)?

3DCoat_artifacts4.thumb.PNG.b12502a705d0e0c81841da84a0180a96.PNG
 

How can I fix the black spots in post? If I could just "paint over them" in the paintroom, perhaps, but I am fairly new to 3D Coat. Any help appreciated!

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Sometimes you can erase the normal map in places to make them less noticeable.

Is this for a still image?

For a lot of my stills I have been using "retopo via decimation" ( I think its called) that way you get a really snug fitting retopo. And therefor cleaner bakes . But obviously no good if you are making game characters that have to bend. And the edge loops and unwrapping is really messy...but hey its super quick and you dont see any of that in the render.

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If you can share the 3DC file, I will be happy to look at it.. PM a link if it needs to stay private. Np if not as some models are under NDA agreements.

I have possible solutions but looking at the file would be better if possible.

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16 hours ago, stusutcliffe said:

Sometimes you can erase the normal map in places to make them less noticeable.

Is this for a still image?

For a lot of my stills I have been using "retopo via decimation" ( I think its called) that way you get a really snug fitting retopo. And therefor cleaner bakes . But obviously no good if you are making game characters that have to bend. And the edge loops and unwrapping is really messy...but hey its super quick and you dont see any of that in the render.

 

It`s going to be rendered to a still yes. (Will be posed in Maya first, though).

Could you post screens of your process?

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15 hours ago, digman said:

If you can share the 3DC file, I will be happy to look at it.. PM a link if it needs to stay private. Np if not as some models are under NDA agreements.

I have possible solutions but looking at the file would be better if possible.

I don`t mind, here. Please let me know if you find anything

I also noticed, the gills exports a ton of files. The six individual gills, on 3 retopo layers (left & right x 3), exports out 7 complete set of gills. Weather exporting the model or the textures, there`s a ton of duplicates of the gills, always full sets.

3DCoat_artifacts5.PNG.296a7a8ee3b8d57b8b9e7a88cc609f0d.PNG

I must admit, I`m very new to 3Dcoat.

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I am de-constructing your model. Found some errors in the gills where the mesh from one side is intersecting the other side. There appears to be some mesh corruption on the main body. Could have happened when you were sculpting. The cause is unknown,  I do not know if it is 3DC or user created. Really does not matter at this time.

I exported the body and ran it through Mesh Mixer, found a few errors. I then re-imported the model back into the sculpt room. To test I just baked the body for now.

Results shown in the picture which is the model baked to the paint room with the normal map.  a few small areas to fix still.

I will leave the fixing information till all is fixed.

I do not know how much I can work on it tormorrow, I believe all errors can fixed. 

fixing.PNG

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Ok, I must love problems, once I start hard to let go, like an old bulldog... oh, I am on the older side now..:blink:

Retopo Room. 

Used Baked Selected only... Names Correspondence was not working correclty or so it seem. I got an idea why. 

Baked Scan Settings. I hid all other sculpt room objects and retopo objects layers, except the one I was working on. I only used the baked scan settings brush on the selected retopo object layer to paint a better projection cage. The gills could have been retopoed somewhat better but I got the projected cage to mostly work. 

Using Baked Selected Only will bake each selected part to a different uv set and you do not have to worry the meshes occluding each others. I baked each mesh separately to the paint room. Later you will need to merge all the uv sets to one.

I know how to correct Normal map artifacts in the paint room using a few methods I learned. There was some normal map touch up. 

Having to solve and export problem now... gee whiz... LOL

EDIT: Had a UTS moment. Forgot to merge the uv sets. Uploading to Dropbox, send a link when done through a PM. I had to hurry through this so you might find an error are two. 

Texture set at 2k but you can change it under The Textures menu. Look down the list and you will see where. 

fixed.PNG

Edited by digman
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Goes with the above post.

When working over the model, I found small floating pieces of Geometry. In surface mode you have to be more careful than voxel mode. Easier to get those small disconnected pieces. I did not remove them. Most no had no retopo mesh so they did not get baked to the paint room. I think a couple had some retopo mesh.  It is best to remove these floating pieces.  Use the Object-ify (separate ) tool under the Geometry tab. It will create a layer for each piece then you, can delete the layer. Sometimes pieces are so small, you will not notice them when working on a model.

Thin areas require greater care when creating the retopo mesh. I found the polygons intersecting each other on parts of the gills. Used the retopo move tool with vertices selected and auto-snap turned off to fix these. 

Use the Scan settings brush  to paint a better projection cage. You can hide both the sculpt mesh layers and retopo group layers so you can work on one at a time. Hide all but the one you are working on. You do not have to push the cage so far out this way and you get a better projection and normal map. Takes a little practice to using the brush.

Download the newest beta so you have all available scan brush tools. 

The eyes were in Proxy mode, Return to regular mode before creating the retopo mesh and baking.

I think you simply forgot to delete those extra paint objects in the paint room. In the fixed file, there is the right amount of paint objects and the textures export correctly.

Each artist is different, so I will give you my way. For the amount of detail on the model, I would have started in voxel mode up to medium detail and then switched to surface mode for the finer details.

I am talking here about building major form. Voxel mode is more forgiving than surface mode polygons. You can not get intersecting polygons though it is possible to create interior voids though that is not as easy as self- intersection polygons in surface mode. Fill voids in voxel mode takes cares of any interior voids. I run it every so often to be sure I have none. Generally voids are few and far between. 

Sculpting our forms before creating a retopo polygon mesh gives us topology freedom but not freedom from being careful as the underlying structure is either voxels or polygons still. I am not saying you were careless, It is just a FYI.

I have an idea why the Bake by Names Correspondence was not working but will not post here as I am unsure, requires further testing.

 

 

pieces.PNG

fixing.png

Proxy.PNG

Edited by digman
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On 2/24/2018 at 4:49 PM, digman said:

Goes with the above post.

[...]

You, sir, is the real MVP! Thank you so much for all the the help and advice! Your zealous attention to detail and exuberance in deliverance have saved me quite a lot head ache.
If you don`t mind, I`d like to ask you or anyone with an answer some follow-up questions. Perhaps I`m not the only one who will find the answers usefull. Links to existing solved posts would suffice, but I have googled this with mixed results. I thought it better to ask right away:

 

1. Normal Map Touch Up: How? I`d love your knowledge regarding this technique?

2. Mesh Mixer - Error search:  How can you import a fixed mesh back into the original project from e.g. Mesh Mixer,  and replace the corrupted retopo-mesh?

3. "Names Correspondence issue": I am almost 100 % certain they had the same names. If you find a way to avoid the issue early on, please elaborate. 
(I went over them twice, even removing spaces and capital letters - they should correspond)


4. Retopo layers missing: I noticed that your fix-file had an issue where the retopology layers were gone and the retopo-mesh itself was invisible or none-existing: yet still visible in the UV-room? (perhaps it`s due to your exporting/importing process between other programs?)
(as to continue working in the project, if needed? E.g. surface mode polishing?)

4.5: The question above spawns another one: If the original file containing a retopology mesh is lost, is it possible to recover by transferring the Paint-object`s mesh in to the retopo room?)
(Preferably retaining individual retopo layers.)


5. Mesh Error Discovery Pipeline: Is there a pipeline for discovering project errors like the once I have encountered? Like mesh errors? Preferably, albeit unnecessarily, inside of 3D Coat? (I imagine I`ll run into quite a few problems over the next years. If someone had an efficient routine for locating common issues, it would be a great time saver and learning opportunity. I believe you use Mesh Mixer for this? Want to elaborate on the subject?)
 

Edited by Exsulator
Minor fix
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1. Requires a skype session or a video tutorial.. Too much to type.

2. In surface mode the model should import back at the same size. Keep the 3DC file open, export the model. Do the repairs. Re-import back into surface mode in a new layer, delete the old layer.

3. You just missed one name convention, shown in picture. The surface mode layer name had no space. I set up the naming convention as well, still got errors. That is what I meant by I have an idea why it fails but will not comment till I am sure. I need to test more when I have time.  This does need to be understood, the reason so it can fixed if a bug or a feature upgraded to avoid this issue.

4. That was my error as I was working quickly at the end, My hurry as I mentioned. You can get the retopo mesh back into the retopo room... Retopo Room---Retopo Menu---- Use Visible Paint Objects as Retopo. You will not recover your retopo object layers though.  There is a way to get them back but re-baking will put the few normal map errors back in. I will recover the retopo objects layers and send the obj file though a pm when I get it done. 

 You still have the Paint room objects to paint on indiviually as you can hide the ones you do not want visible. I mainly was working to solve the normal map issue here and at least give you a model that could be painted.

4.5  If you do any rebaking, say after polishing in the sculpt room and bake to the paint room again you also will rebake the few normal map errors back in that I fixed. 

5. I have requested a error checking feature for meshes. Mainly it was for Autopo but I could see it work here as well. In surface mode there are some corrective error tools but they sometimes can crash 3DC. I prefer doing it externally as you have a more extensive set of tools to work with. Of course if or when we get one is up to the 3DC development team and their development schedule.

 

error.PNG

Edited by digman
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